Ford curses under his breath with his chin still resting on top of my head, while I let the sound of his steady heart beating in my ear take away the last of my panic after being in that room for so long. It only takes a minute for my breathing to get back under control, feeling calmer and safer than I have in eleven months, while the smell of his spicy, woodsy cologne relaxes me in the same way lavender oil in a diffuser does.
“Hey, babe. Did you miss me?”
I smile to myself when he says the same words in greeting he always says to me when he first gets back into town, but I quickly wipe the smile from my face when I tip my head back to look up at him. The sides of his black hair have been closely trimmed with an electric razor from a recent haircut, leaving the top a little longer and pushed back from his face. He’s so damn handsome I don’t know how I’m not always tongue-tied around him.
“You’re late, big guy,” I remind him.
“I brought you an entire suitcase of severed heads.”
“You’re forgiven,” I immediately reply, my earlier panic attack long forgotten now that I’m in Ford’s arms, and he’s back, and I don’t have to feel so alone all the time—at least for a little while. “Missing eyeballs, ratty hair, with tarnished and beat-up faces?”
“Even got a few with no eyeballs. Creepy as fuck.”
“Perfect. That’s just the way I like my severed heads.”
“You two are so weird,” Kenny mutters with a shake of his head, turning his back on us to answer the phone on his desk when it rings.
Ford lets out a quiet chuckle that makes my insides feel warm and gooey. Since I have no business feeling warm and gooey over anything Ford does, I quickly move out of his arms and away from the heat and comfort of his body.
Not happy with the distance I’ve put between us, Ford immediately grabs one of my hands and laces his fingers through mine, tugging me closer again. I don’t read anything into it, just like I never read anything into it when Ford holds my hand or hugs me like he never wants to let me go, or always finds an excuse to touch me in some way. That’s just how he operates, and this is just how our friendship goes, year after year. My heart stopped trying to beat its way out of my chest a long time ago when he does things like this. He’s just a protective guy, and having me close is his way of making sure nothing bad happens to me.
Such a good friend, that Ford.
“Where’s your headband?”
Ford jerks his chin upward, and my hand quickly moves to the top of my head, cursing when I realize it must have fallen off during my alleged fleeing from the scene of a crime. I have about a hundred Halloween headbands, but that one with the purple skulls that lights up was one of my favorites.
“I must have lost it earlier.”
I curse Penny and Ginger in my head, but Ford obviously knows they’re the reason I’m not wearing a signature piece of my Harvest Grove October wardrobe right now.
With a grunt and a glare at the top of my head, he smartly decides to let it go instead of giving me shit about my family. I’ve had about enough shit for one night.
“Come on. Let’s go check out the severed heads in my trunk.” Tightening his hold on my hand, he starts pulling me toward the door, and I give a wave goodbye to Kenny over my shoulder while he’s still busy with his phone call.
“It’s a good thing we’re the bestest of friends, or that sentence would have totally made me wet.”
Ford trips over something with a muttered curse, quickly recovering and then dropping my hand to wrap his arm around my shoulders, shoving open the door to the building so we can walk through it together.
Chapter 2
Sidney
“I forgot how funny you are, Ford Prescott.”
“Thanks for airing out the place.” Ford grabs another helping of General Tso’s Chicken from the buffet of Chinese food on his coffee table. “The Halloween decorations were unnecessary.”
I realize I’m just staring at him when he nudges me with his elbow, and I quickly look away to take a bite of fried rice.
God, I missed him.
Why does it feel like I missed him more this year than last year? Or the year before that, or the year before that?
“You tell me they’re unnecessary every year.”
“And you never listen.” The corner of Ford’s mouth tips up, and there I go again, staring at him for so long he has to snap me out of it.
“You okay? How long were you in that fucking jail?” he mutters, rubbing his hand up and down my spine.
Get it together, Sidney. This is your friend. Stop gawking.
“I’m fine. Just tired. And annoyed I didn’t get any pumpkin funnel cakes tonight.” I shrug, going back to my food. “You know it’s sacrilegious to say something like that in Harvest Grove. Halloween decorations are always a necessity. You could be burned at the stake for that.”
When Ford comes to town, he stays in the cottage behind the Wicked Pub and Grub, the bar he inherited from his grandfather when he died. And the place where I’m employed as a waitress and bartender. I always make sure to open the windows of the cottage a few days before he arrives, dust, vacuum, and wash the linens. And of course add leaf garlands around all the doorways, a few tiny pumpkins along with a handful of other gourds in a glass bowl in the middle of the kitchen table, Halloween towels hanging over the oven door handle, some fall-scented candles throughout the place, a bowl of Halloween candy on an end table, a Halloween wreath on the front door, and orange lights strung in the shrubs outside. You know, nothing fancy.
“But you’re welcome, for making sure the place didn’t still smell like the tuna salad Penny and Ginger rotted in your spare bedroom last year, before they put it in that guy’s trunk over in Springfield.” I smile at him.
Ford curses under his breath and shakes his head as his hand drops from my back to pick up his fork and start eating again.
“Every year, I come back here hoping they’ve finally stopped with their bullshit.”
I throw my head back and laugh. “I forgot how funny you are, Ford Prescott.” I’m in the middle of chewing a piece of sweet-and-sour chicken when I see Ford staring at me out of the corner of my eye. “What?”
I have a hard time swallowing the food in my mouth with the way he’s looking at me. Ford always looks serious, but this is something else. It’s a little intense, and I don’t know what to make of it.
“I forgot how much I missed your laugh.”
What the hell?
I immediately start choking on the bite of chicken I was trying to swallow, and it comes flying out of my mouth to smack Ford right in the chest. I’ve never spit food at this man before—although there was that one unfortunate year I turned twenty-one when I threw up in his lap—but he just swipes the glob of food off his shirt and goes back to eating, like this kind of thing happens all the time.
What is wrong with you tonight, Sidney?
Okay, so he missed my laugh. It’s a nice, friendly thing to say, and it’s oddly sweet of him. Spitting food on the man is no way to thank him. I busy my hands by grabbing a fortune cookie to give me something to do other than stare at him, when he picks up his remote and aims it at the TV hanging on the wall to power it on.