by Sarah Hegger
Relief made her heave a sigh. “You’re right. I keep expecting things to go back to how they were, but so much time has passed.”
“And both of us have different lives.” He took her hand in his and glanced at her. “But I’d still like to explore this, Kelly. I’d like to see if there is anything left.”
“Me too.” She flipped her hand over and threaded her fingers with his. “But let’s try not to overthink this too.”
“Overthink?” He grinned. “You, Kelly? Nah.”
She couldn’t bullshit him. “Yeah. It’s my secret weapon.”
Vince pulled up in front of Romeo’s Pizzeria. He looked at her. “Remember?”
“Our first date.” Not a night she was likely to forget.
They’d come for pizza, Vince so nervous he’d spilled soda on the table. Afterwards, he’d walked her home and held her hand. Kelly had stressed about sweaty palms the entire way. At her doorstep, Vince had given her the fastest kiss in history and hurried away.
Months later, he had confessed it had been his first kiss.
She followed him into Romeo’s, and the noise clobbered them. A mix of chatter, music and shouted orders that made Kelly wince.
Threading through tables thrown together, teens spilling over chairs and into the aisles, they found a booth toward the back, away from the jukebox.
“Legit,” said a girl whose squeal could peel paint off the walls. She dived into a fevered conversation with two other girls.
The only other adults were an elderly couple who kept their heads down over their meals.
“Sorry.” Vince grimaced as he looked around. “I didn’t think the pitfalls through.”
“No, it’s nice.” Kelly smiled to reassure him. “Our first date happened here, and now our new first date will happen here.”
Wine, however, would have been nice, but Romeo’s didn’t have a license.
Vince leaned forward. “Were we ever this loud?”
“I’m not sure.” A couple took a selfie of her on his lap then launched into an energetic bout of tongue hockey. Kelly grinned at Vince. “I seem to remember us doing a lot of that.”
He chuckled. “Yeah.”
A teen girl wearing a lot of sparkly eyeshadow and some heavy contouring that looked more like war paint stood by their table with a notepad in her hand. “You know what you want?”
They placed their orders and she sauntered off, stopping to chat with a group of guys on her way.
“I bring my kids here for lunch. It’s never this busy during the day,” Vince said. “They like it.”
It was a great place for kids, and nobody cared if they didn’t sit down and quietly eat their meal.
“Kylie, you bitch!” A high-pitched shriek, which made Kelly jump, was followed by a roar of laughter.
“So.” Vince leaned his elbows on the table, raising his voice over the noise. “First things first.”
Kelly waited for his lead.
“I think we should clear the air,” he said. “About what happened when we broke up.”
As much as she agreed on principle, Kelly had mixed feelings about that. Part of her needed closure, and another part wanted to pretend it had never happened. But she was a grown up, so closure it was. “Would you like to go first?”
Vince nodded and cleared his throat. “I should have agreed to go to CU with you. By the next morning, I’d already changed my mind.”
“But I wouldn’t listen to you.” Kelly owned up to her part. “I managed to convince myself if you really loved me, I wouldn’t have to persuade you to go.”
“I did really love you.” Vince took her hand across the table. “I would have done anything for you.”
“But you didn’t want to leave Twin Elks,” Kelly said. “I can understand that now. I felt differently back then. I couldn’t wait to leave, and I had this great scholarship and a chance to live somewhere else.”
“I really didn’t want to, but I would have done it for you.” His expression grew serious. “I’m still not ready to leave, Kelly. My life is here now, and my kids’ lives are here.”
“I understand.” She put some lightness into her tone. “I’ve got my itch scratched by now. I came home, didn’t I?”
Vince sat back and cocked his head. “Yeah, we didn’t really finish that conversation.”
“Right.”
The waitress thunked their drinks on the table and tossed a couple straws at them.
“Teenage girls.” Vince raised his eyebrows. “I have one of those. Hannah is fourteen now.”
“Wow.” And living proof of why she and Vince had never gotten back together. Kelly would need to get over any resentment if she was going to give her and Vince a chance. None of it was Hannah’s fault.
Vince was looking at her expectantly.
“In hindsight, I think my dissatisfaction with my life had been growing for a while.” She took a sip of her soda. “I was getting increasingly restless. I hated my job, selling shit to people who didn’t need it. One more monkey grinding the consumerism wheel. And I wasn’t a fan of the corporate life.”
Vince kept his gaze on her.
It was hard because she hadn’t really put her thoughts together on this. For once in her life, she hadn’t been overthinking but had gone with her gut. “After my marriage collapsed, I found the same story as a lot of people. Our friends were couple friends and they picked sides.”
“Yeah.” Vince pulled a face. “That’s happened to me now.”
“It’ll pass.” Kelly gave in to the urge to comfort him and took his hand. “The true friends always stay or find their way back to you.”
Their pizza hit the table between them, and the waitress added a handful of napkins. “Do you need anything else?”
“We’re good.” Kelly didn’t want that sort of help in her store, but her ad hadn’t yielded any applicants yet.
“And opening the coffee shop?” Vince asked.
“I got an email from Dot, telling me the old cafe had closed down, and I remembered people complaining about not being able to get decent coffee.” She picked up a slice. “All the pieces clicked into place. I sold my condo, quit my job and came back home.”
“And you like being back?”
That one was easy. “I love it. I love the sense of community and that I know all my customers. And since Poppy arrived, and now Claire, I have a good group of women my own age. What about you? What are your plans now?”
“Obviously I can’t keep driving the long-distance rigs.” Vince shrugged. “I have custody of the kids, and Chelsea is making up for her lost youth, spending most of her time with her new man.”
“You’re okay with the new man?” She knew what she wanted him to answer, but that didn’t mean she’d get that.
Vince smiled. “Sure. I mean, I would never have broken up the family, but Chelsea and I both exited our marriage years ago.”
Despite what the marriage had meant for her, that she and Vince could never discover if they had a future, she found that sad. It reminded her too much of the cold cohabitation arrangement between her parents. Of course, Vince was a committed father, and would never regard his children as a hindrance, but growing up in a love-lite house was sad. No child deserved that.
The conversation lightened up as they finished their meal and sodas. With the noise around them growing, they didn’t linger.
Tension crept into the SUV on the way back to her place. Like knowing what to wear, there really wasn’t any precedence. Normal first dates were bad enough. That excruciating moment of whether he was going to go in for the kiss or not, and whether you wanted him to.
Vince parked outside her condo, came around the vehicle and opened her door. “I’ll…um…walk you up.”
At least she wasn’t the only one feeling awkward.
They sto
pped outside her door and faced each other.
“Thank you for tonight.” Kelly smiled at him. “I had a great time.”
“Me too.” Vince pulled a face. “Although next time we’ll go somewhere adult.”
He was saying next time. “Will there be a next time?”
“Definitely.” Vince shifted closer to her. “And you won’t have to do the asking.”
“Good.” Her heart stuttered as he tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear. Maybe she should ask him in. Or was that too forward? She didn’t think they were ready for that stage.
Although she and Gabe had pretty much charged for the bedroom. Thinking about one man while deciding to kiss another made her the worst kind of trollop.
“Good night, Kelly.” Vince leaned down and brushed her lips with his.
Kelly rose to her tiptoes and kissed him back. The sweetness of that time when they were so young and so in love whispered in the air around them. Bunny and Stretch together, forever and ever. Only forever had turned out to be a lot shorter than either of them thought.
Vince lingered for a moment, and then pulled back. “I’ll call you soon.”
Chapter Twelve
Gabe chalked the end of his cue. The lay of the table did not auger well for him. Cara Addison was a goddamn hustler. All she had left was the eight ball, and there was no way he could sink his next shot and run the table.
Kelly would be out with Vince. The date he’d set in motion. And he was having his ass kicked at pool by a curvy brunette who looked more like a starlet than a veterinarian.
Cara leaned over the table, her full cleavage straining to wriggle out of her low-cut red shirt. “What you gonna do, Gabe?”
“I tell you what I’m not going to do.” He sipped his beer. “I’m not going to stare at your…” He made a motion at the general area of her chest. “Even though they are your secret weapon.”
“Secret?” Cara raised a brow and looked at her cleavage. “I think they’re more out there.”
“Nice strategy, Addison. Dirty, but effective.” Gabe grinned at her. Fun, flirty, feisty and with a mouth on her like a longshoreman, Cara was good fun.
He shot, missed and stood back to watch the humiliation.
In passing Cara winked at him and bent to take her shot. They might not have chemistry, but Gabe enjoyed the view.
Several bystanders joined him in doing so. Bob Levine nearly swallowed his glass whole when Cara leaned over the table in those painted on jeans. Sky-high, fire-engine-red heels finished the picture. Bob was a dead man. “Watch and learn, big boy,” Cara said.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he checked the number. Not Kelly, but an international number. It wasn’t Belinda or her dad. Those numbers were programmed into his phone.
“Gabe Crowe,” he answered.
“Gabe Crowe.” Cara strutted around the table, lowering her voice in what she imagined was a good imitation of him. “Gabe Crowe, manly man, stud for hire, and probably the worst male pool player in Colorado.”
“Seriously?” He mouthed at her.
She winked back.
“Gabe?” His caller said his name hesitantly, like they weren’t sure he’d heard them.
He hadn’t because Cara had made him miss the first part. “Sorry. Could you repeat that?” He raised a brow at Cara. “There’s a lot of static on the line.”
Cara chuckled and racked the balls.
“Gabe! Is that you, man?” A heavy South African accent came down the line. “It’s me, Darren Visagie.”
Only, the way Darren said his last name sounded like fizz-a-ghee. The last part a growl like a cat clearing a fur ball. “Darren.” Gabe’s smile came automatically. The huge, blond South African with rugby player shoulders, a booming laugh, and a bottomless capacity for beer had spent time with him in Australia. “Still such an asshole?”
“You know me, man.” Darren’s guffaw made Gabe take the phone from his ear. “But the ladies love me like that.”
“How have you been?”
“No good, man,” Darren said. “But I’m not calling to shoot the shit with you. I heard you left the Moffat project down in Oz.”
Word got around apparently, and Gabe’s shoulders tightened. “Yeah.”
“What happened?” Darren was never one to back off when he wanted to know something. It made him an excellent researcher and a liability in a bar. “You were shacking up with that Belinda chick, making nice with her old man. Life was sweet.”
“Yeah, well.” He avoided making eye contact with Cara, who wasn’t even pretending not to listen to his conversation. “Belinda decided it was time for a wedding ring, and I disagreed.”
Pulling a mocking face, Cara gave him huge eyes. As she ordered more beer at the same time, he forgave her.
“Ag.” And it sounded like another fur ball expulsion. “That’s too bad, man, for you. But it’s good news for me.”
“How?” His nape prickled. It could be an excellent call.
“I got a project I’m setting up down here in Plett.”
Plettenberg Bay, the main town on the Western Cape in South Africa, and one of the most beautiful parts of the world Gabe had been privileged enough to see. They also had a huge population of great whites.
“Looking for a man with your skills to take part. Then I heard you’d left Oz and I thought I’d see if I could get myself the real McCoy.”
“How much are you paying?”
Darren’s laughter almost broke the phone again. It was an old joke. You didn’t get into research for the money. “Well, your salary and a buck twenty will get you a cup of coffee.”
“You studying my favorite girls?”
“You know it,” Darren said, his voice filled with the same enthusiasm Gabe had for one of nature’s most efficient and beautiful predators. “You interested?”
“Of course I’m interested.” He nodded his thanks to Cara as she put another beer in front of him. “Can you email me some details?”
“Consider it done. Same email?”
This was what Gabe had been waiting for. Only better than he could have hoped. He repeated his email address for Darren.
Then he said goodbye the way he and Darren always had. “And Darren? Save some pussy for the rest of us.”
He hung up on Darren’s thunderous laugh.
“Tell me.” Cara pointed her bottle at his phone. It was impossible not to like a girl who didn’t blink an eye at the last thing he’d said to Darren.
He pulled a face at the pool table. “Are you really going to cut my balls off again?”
“It’s what I do.” Cara snipped her fore and middle fingers together. “Neuter males.”
Gabe restrained the urge to cup his junk protectively. “That was a guy I met in Australia. He’s starting a research study on great whites in South Africa. I don’t have the details yet, but he’s going to email them to me.”
“Pfft!” Cara waved a hand at him. “Great whites! When I have puppies and kitties and Bob over there’s schizo parrot.”
“You can keep the doggies and kitties.” He mimed thinking. “But the schizo parrot, now…”
Cara cocked her head and sipped her beer. “You know, you talk all the time about how a small-town practice is not your thing, but have you ever tried it?”
“No.” Gabe shrugged. “Other than school, that is. I knew then it wasn’t for me, and it still isn’t.”
“Hmm.” Cara stared at him.
“What?”
“I challenge you to come and spend a day working with me,” she said.
Gabe tried not to look at her like she’d lost her mind. “Why would I do that?”
“To appease my curiosity.”
“Now there’s a good reason.” He made sure she caught his eye roll. “And anyway, I don’t think I can even remember
small animal anatomy.”
“It’s like riding a bike.” Cara smirked. “The ass is under the tail and the other end has teeth.”
Then again, he had nothing better to do in Twin Elks. “But I’ll take that challenge.”
“Call me and we’ll set it up.” Cara gave him a smug grin.
They played another game of pool, with the inevitable results. Cara got into her car with Gabe’s man card tucked in her purse.
The night was cold and clear, and he’d walked to the bar. The opportunity in South Africa was exactly what he wanted. As if to affirm his decision, a few lonely snowflakes danced in the air in front of him. In Plett, he could be out on a boat, under the glorious sun, traveling miles of deep-water ocean in search of great whites.
The sea there was so clear near the headland that you could see into it. In the waters surrounding a promontory called Robberg, literally translated into seal mountain, the great whites came hunting their favorite food source, seals. The locals called the hunting sharks the Robberg Express.
He shoved his cold hands into his pockets. His right hand curled around his phone and he pulled it out. He wanted to share his excitement with someone, and he didn’t question his choice.
It was getting late, and she might be in bed. Alone, because his head refused to go to the alternative. He tapped out a text to Kelly. How did your date go?
Where are you?
Walking home from the Elk.
Alone?
A lone wolf.
Wanna lope over to my place for a beer, wolf boy?
Why yes, he most certainly would. On my way.
It didn’t take him long to reach Kelly’s condo, not when he put an extra spring in his step.
When she opened the door, face scrubbed clear of makeup, hair in a ponytail, and dressed in pink unicorn pj’s—which he found weirdly sexy considering they were flannel—he knew that was exactly where he wanted to be.
“Brrr! It’s cold. Come on in.” Kelly wrapped her arms over her chest. Not soon enough for him to miss the sharp jut of her nipples.
Gabe shrugged out of his coat and hung it on a hook by the door.
“What can I get you?” Kelly walked into her kitchen. Her pants bagged around her ass, but he had already seen what they hid. A poetic man could write sonnets to the full ripeness of Kelly’s ass.