“Yep.” Ken evidently came here often because the waitress brought him coffee without asking. “I’m the sheriff now.”
“Good for you.”
“Thanks. You in town for long?”
“Not sure. Few weeks at least.”
Ken nodded. “That’s good. Your grandpa doesn’t have much time left. Be good for him to have family at the end.”
There was no obvious judgment in the other man’s tone, but the words cut Jacob like a knife anyway. His first instinct was to defend himself. After all, he wouldn’t have left—maybe ever—had his grandfather not forced him out. But it was entirely possible that the town didn’t know this particular detail. Maybe they all thought he’d taken off for no good reason.
Ria probably thought he was a world-class asshole. She’d been so hurt the morning he left when he stopped by to tell her he was leaving. She hadn’t understood why, and he’d been like a wounded animal, too pained and stunned to open up enough to tell her the whole truth.
He’d just told her he had to go. That his grandfather thought it was best.
She’d cried.
It was one of the worst memories of a life full of hard ones.
When he realized Ken was still waiting for a response, Jacob straightened up. “Oh. Yeah. Glad I could come.”
This was evidently a satisfactory response because Ken didn’t follow up on the topic further. Ken’s biscuits and gravy came at the same time as Jacob’s sandwich, so they ate in companionable silence until someone else came over to talk to Ken.
Jacob was on his way out of the diner when he almost ran smack into Skye Devereaux.
She was so short her face was at the level of his shirt. She gave a squeak of surprise and said, “Oh, sorry, sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“No problem,” he said, wondering if she’d recognize him. Like Ria, she’d gone to school with him from kindergarten.
Her gaze finally traveled up to his face, and she gaped speechlessly for a few seconds.
“Hi, Skye,” he said at last, when she seemed incapable of getting any words out.
She made another squeaking sound. Then said, “Hi.” She blinked a few times. “You look different.”
“Yeah. Been eight years.”
“I guess so.” She seemed momentarily torn, looking between his face and the table where her family was gathered and the phone in her hand. She was probably itching to call up Ria and tell her about this ridiculous encounter. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Jacob said, arching his eyebrows and stepping out of the way for a man who was trying to enter. “See you later.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.” With that stilted refrain, Skye made a quick getaway, hurrying over toward her family.
Jacob shook his head with a dry laugh as he walked toward his car. It was bound to be awkward, his coming back like this. But better to get all the initial interactions over with as quickly as possible.
He couldn’t help himself. He glanced over toward Ria’s flower shop across the street as he walked.
He wasn’t really expecting to see her, but he did.
As he looked, the door to the storefront opened, and she stepped out onto the sidewalk. She’d always been unjustly pretty with her long brown hair, big dark eyes, and wide, vibrant smile. But she no longer looked like a pretty little girl. She was all grown up. Her body was tall and slender, dressed in a pink top and gray capris. He couldn’t see the details of her face from this distance, but she’d pulled her hair up on top of her head with a clip.
She was holding her phone. She looked at the diner and then up and down the block.
Skye must have texted her about him leaving the diner, and she’d stepped outside to see if she could spot him.
Jacob couldn’t move. He stood on the sidewalk and gazed at her until her eyes must have landed on his figure across the street.
They stared at each other, too far apart to read the other’s expression.
Jacob’s heart hammered painfully in his chest. His skin had flushed strangely hot. His eyes blurred over slightly as he gazed at her.
Eight years. And he could still remember everything he’d felt for her back then. All of it. In all the same intensity. Like no time had passed at all.
He was just on the edge of walking over to say hello to her when her body gave a little jerk. Then she rotated on her heel. Turned her back on him. Walked into the store.
He’d left everything when he left town, including the girl he loved.
It was too late now.
He was never going to get her back.
RIA SPENT ALL MONDAY morning working on arrangements for delivery, so she was tired and slightly dazed from focusing so intensely when Skye came flouncing in to complain about her parents, who obviously loved her to pieces but who also refused to treat her like an adult. The latest offense was fairly minor—trying to take over her plans for two of her brothers’ (the twins’) birthday party—so Ria could tune into the venting with only half an ear.
The truth was she hadn’t had a good weekend. She was exhausted and kind of glum and also antsy about possibly running into Jacob at any moment.
She’d also lost both her parents only a few years ago. She would love to have them around to nag or baby or annoy her.
She wouldn’t dream of saying that to Skye, of course. It would make her friend feel horrible and guilty for the complaints. And everyone whined about their parents occasionally. Skye was allowed, whether or not Ria had lost hers.
“I’m sorry,” Skye said after a few minutes. She’d jumped up to sit on one of the worktables and she swung her legs as she spoke. “I shouldn’t be going on like this.”
“You can go on as much as you like. I know how much it bothers you that they won’t treat you like a grown-up.”
“Yeah. But still. There are more important things going on than that.”
“Like what?” With great effort, Ria managed to keep her features still, with just the slightest inquisitive smile on her face.
“You know like what. The return of Jacob Worth. You’re going to have to stop avoiding him eventually.”
“I’m not avoiding him.”
Skye rolled her big blue eyes.
“Don’t give me that look,” Ria said, squirting cleaner onto her work surface and wiping it down. “I haven’t been avoiding him. I’ve seen him three times. Once on Friday as he was leaving Anna’s. Once on Saturday when he passed by on his way to the drugstore. And once on Sunday after church when he was running.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t talk to him any of those times. In fact, you went out of your way to avoid talking to him all those times, even on Sunday when he looked like he was going to come over to say hello to us. You just turned around and went to your car.”
“So I didn’t want to talk to him. What’s your point?”
“My point is it would probably be easier if you just got the first talk over with.”
“It doesn’t need to be easier. It’s fine.” Ria wiped at the table vigorously.
“Is it really? Then why are you trying to scrub the surface off that table?”
Ria suddenly realized how forcefully she’d been wiping. She sighed and released her cloth. “Okay. It’s a little bit hard.”