by Lin, Amber
She flipped the switch, and lights blinked off unsteadily down the long tiled ceiling. Only at the end of each day did it dawn on her how large the place was. Large in both its physical size and the space it took up in her life. Though unassuming and maybe unconventional, it was a legacy. Hers to keep. Hers to maintain.
She headed into the back office and gathered the papers. She returned through the swinging doors leading to the dining area with a stuffed manila folder. And ran smack into the broad chest of Sawyer Nolan with an oof.
“What are you doing here?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Having dinner.”
“We’re closed.”
“Door was unlocked.”
He wore the shadows well. The darkness seemed to enhance his handsomeness, lengthening his planes and sharpening his angles. He seemed more at ease here in the quiet dark than the bustling brightness of morning.
“I hadn’t gotten to that yet. No one usually comes around this late.”
“Guess that means no dinner.”
His voice was neutral, but it had to be a disappointment. He was hungry, and everywhere else would be closed. Unless he wanted a cold sandwich from the gas station on the outskirts of town. She wasn’t heartless enough to send him there, not when carefully packaged leftovers sat in her fridge.
Anyone else she would have invited back to the kitchen table, but not him. Oh, no. He could eat in the dim, impersonal void and count himself lucky if she even chatted with him.
She gestured to the bar stools. “Have a seat. I’ll heat you up something.”
His face cracked into a smile. “Thanks, Natalie.”
Man, he looked so genuinely happy just for that. Just for her to feed him. Her heart squeezed. Maybe she’d give him double helpings. He was broad and tall enough to need them anyway.
She pushed through the kitchen door with such force it banged back at her. Damn. And this smile on her face? There was no other word for it but dumbstruck. She was sixteen again, suddenly stupid over a boy. Which she wouldn’t mind, really. Having a crush would be a great diversion from the monotony of filling orders and ringing them up. Except she had no business crushing on this particular man. A man who had already left her once, hurt and confused.
He was sitting behind the counter, studying a menu, when she bustled out with a plate of steaming food. She paused, caught by the image of his large body superimposed over his younger one. Like a visual illusion, she blinked and he changed from lanky teenager to hard-fleshed man.
He looked up with a bemused expression, the half smile somehow sad. “It’s the same.”
Yes, that was true. The menu, the diner. Her. All the same as he had left them.
She set the plate down in front of him. “Well, you know what they say. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. We have weekly specials to keep things interesting.”
“It smells amazing. What is it?”
“We’re wrapping up home cooking week. There’s meat loaf and green bean casserole.”
He took a bite. “Tastes great too. Though I can’t say I’ve had meat loaf before.”
“Probably for the best. Barry’s version puts all other meat loaves to shame.”
Sawyer’s mother had passed away early. Considering the residual frown on his father’s face, Natalie doubted there had ever been elaborate meals in the Nolan household.
“I remember serving you when I worked here after school,” she offered softly.
His smile finally reached his eyes. “Taking up space here was one of my favorite pastimes.”
“Strawberry milk shakes and a slice of pie. You must have ruined your dinner every night.”
“Worth it. Besides, I mostly came to see you.”
Her heartbeat quickened. “If you’re trying to flatter me into giving you pie, I should tell you I ran out an hour ago.”
Her spare pie reserves notwithstanding. But she wasn’t ready to give those up, even if he had admitted to coming around to see her. Even if he was adorable and sexy. Especially because he was adorable and sexy.
“Damn,” he said. “So I shared that deep, dark secret for nothing?”
“No, my sixteen-year-old self is thrilled right now. This is totally going in her diary.”
He grinned. “Do I already have a page in there?”
Please, the man had chapters. “You might have been mentioned. Check the index under arrogant, cocky—”
“How about first kiss?”
“Yes, there too.” Her goofy smile was back. No, stop that. The friendly neighborhood diner girl was her role here. Not a lost love. Not his love at all. She sobered. “And under skipped town.”
His smile slipped. “I should have said goodbye.”
“Yes, you should have. I didn’t even know you enlisted until your dad came into the diner.”
He blinked. “My dad never came here.”
“Only rarely.” Bearing morsels of information about Sawyer, and she’d accepted each one with thanks. Unlikely comrades, they’d traded tidbits about a man who didn’t call either of them.
The man currently wearing a dubious expression. “Well, sorry if he gave you crap about anything.”
She shrugged. Sure, Wilson Nolan had also complained about...well, everything. Plus he hadn’t particularly tipped well, but aside from the generous amount he’d left for his coffee yesterday, neither had Sawyer back then. In fact, she didn’t recall high school Sawyer ever tipping...or paying.
She’d never left him a check, either. It had been an unspoken rule with Gram. At the time, she’d chalked it up to a friendship, like when she’d had a sleepover at her friend’s house and they served her dinner. Only this hadn’t been Natalie’s house and Sawyer hadn’t been a girlfriend invited over.
Her heart sank. Under the glaring light of adulthood, she realized that her gram had never charged him because he probably hadn’t had the money. And because he’d needed a safe place with pastries more than they’d needed a few bucks.
He ate his meal, completely unaware that her axis had shifted. This was Dearling, where everyone worked hard to make ends meet, but where the ends did meet. No train track divided them into the haves and have-nots.
Sawyer and his father had lived in a decent-looking house with a medium-sized plot of land. And yet she remembered thin, threadbare clothing. A don’t-mess-with-me swagger. As a clueless girl with a massive crush, it had seemed cool and even daring. Looking back, it struck her as tragic.
No wonder he left.
He looked up. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing.” Were those tears in her eyes? Oh, God, they were. “I was just...thinking of Gram.”
His expression turned cautious. “How is she?”
“She’s okay,” she assured him, though even to her ears it sounded thin. She hated how alive and well had dwindled down to just the first part. She rubbed her eyes. “Honestly, she’s not really okay. She’s at an assisted living facility in Austin, but she doesn’t...she can’t really...”
“I’m so sorry, Natalie.”
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault or anyone’s fault. I’m just not coping great.”
His hand covered hers, the warmth and strength a welcome reprieve. “You look great to me. I mean, running the diner, keeping everything going. It can’t be easy.”
Her hand fisted within his. “When I go see her...I don’t know if she even recognizes me.”
“Jesus.”
“I just wish there was more I could do for her.”
A shadow crossed his face. “You’re there with her. That’s all you can do. I really...I admire that.”
She turned their hands, placing hers over his, feeling the soft rasp of hair on her fingertips. Sawyer hadn’t been here when his father had passed away from a heart attack
in the middle of the afternoon. He hadn’t been here for years before that, either. He had built a whole life somewhere else, a life she knew almost nothing about.
This was the perfect opening to ask about it. The wheres and whys of his absence. Her curiosity sank deep into the earth, a fathomless well. On the surface, there was only her reflection. But if she leaned far enough, if she fell inside, she might never be able to climb back out.
“He understood,” she assured him, even though she certainly hadn’t. This was dry, solid ground. “You were saving the world, for goodness’ sake. No one would blame you for that.”
He snorted. “He would.”
“Maybe,” she conceded. “But I didn’t blame you.”
He looked skeptical. “Didn’t you?”
“Anyone could see how unhappy you were here at the end. I’d never have asked you to stay and be miserable.”
His smile was rueful. “That’s why I didn’t say goodbye. I was afraid...well, if you asked me to stay, I probably would have.”
Her heart did a little skip. She’d been crazy for him with the whole-hearted abandon of a teenager. It was good to hear she hadn’t been completely alone in that.
They’d meant something to each other once. Even if their relationship had been destined to end, a bond remained between them. Time had stretched it out, thin and translucent like the silken strands of a spider’s web. Seeing him again was like a spring rain, dotting the line with beads of water, reminding her it had always been there after all.
He stood up from the bar stool. “That was excellent, but I won’t keep you any longer than this. Thank you for staying, though. I really appreciate it.”
The formality was back, tucked in the slightly tilted set of his lips. The banked appreciation in his eyes. How much would it take to get past his defenses? More than she had to lose, she supposed.
He reached back for his wallet and handed her a twenty.
She started for the cash register. “Let me get your change.”
“No.” A slight flush colored his cheeks, a crack in his defenses. “Keep it.”
“It’s too much.”
“If I overpay every day I’m here, it still won’t cover all the food I ate when I used to come here.”
So he remembered. Well, of course he would. Something like that would seriously bruise a boy’s pride, and he’d had more pride than most. Forcing the change on him now would only make him feel worse.
“Heard you’ve had a busy day,” she said.
He gave her a blank look. “Sure.”
It was her turn to blush. “Word gets around. The lumberyard, the county offices. I’m guessing you didn’t get a chance to go to the grocery store yet.”
“Ah, no.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Guess they’re not open now either.”
“Let me put something together for you. So you don’t starve tomorrow morning, at least.” She held up the twenty. “We can call it even.”
“No, I—”
“If you don’t eat it, you can feed it to the raccoons. There’s no shortage of food around here.”
Without giving him a chance to object again, she retreated into the kitchen and busied herself preparing a couple of to-go containers filled with steak tips and mashed potatoes. Not exactly breakfast food, but she imagined they’d get eaten just the same. Her gaze drifted to the freezer. She could cut him a slice of pie and it would thaw in time for him to eat tomorrow morning.
She didn’t want to examine too closely why she felt compelled to look after him. Or maybe she was trying to keep him here a little longer. That was what she’d always tried to do, wasn’t it? And it hadn’t really worked out then.
No, she decided. No pie.
She pushed open the kitchen door and almost ran into him—again. Her breath whooshed out at the feel of his broad, warm chest and the firm grip on her arms that steadied her.
He took the bag with a low, rough word of thanks. There was that gratitude again, a cool shock of emotion in a desert of stoicism. As if he was surprised that someone did not, in fact, want him to starve to death. It made her ache.
He flashed her a quick smile before heading toward the door. Her gaze traced wistfully over the nice, neat curve of his ass—a consolation prize for the fact that he was leaving.
“Wait,” she said, then scrunched her nose in annoyance. A little eager, Natalie?
He turned back. Darkness still shrouded the diner’s seating area. The piercing light from the kitchen drew his face in severe lines. His eyes even looked colder, sharper, or maybe that was just the distance.
“I never asked. How are things with the house?”
Her words seemed to release something within him, and his unhappiness swelled in the dark air, crowding between them.
“It’s a mess,” he finally said. He looked to the inky windows, hesitating, maybe deciding whether to give her some watered-down answer or be honest with her. And part of her—the timid, rejected part—thought, Don’t be honest. Keep this shallow and impersonal so I won’t be crushed when you leave.
But then he met her gaze. “Me and this town. We’re like oil and water. Always apart.”
Déjà vu prickled her skin. “Yeah,” she breathed. “I know.”
He sent her a small, grateful smile before he left, disappearing into the thick night. She slumped onto the bar stool where he’d sat. It was still warm.
The past was too close to the surface. Old news, ancient history. She was long over it. But the memory assailed her, replete with the smells of a cool spring morning and the thick exhaust from yellow buses.
Natalie was having a good day. Her hair had fallen into a styled, tousled look right out of bed, she had aced her chemistry final, and there was an entire summer of making out with Sawyer Nolan to look forward to.
After weeks of furtive meetings, of talking about everything and nothing while their hands inched together, they were actually going steady. She felt very grown-up, very pretty, waiting on the concrete ledge where the buses pulled up. She was Audrey Hepburn, and this pencil was her cigarette stick-thing.
“Natalie,” came his voice from behind her, and she jumped up to greet him as he emerged from the throng of students, easy to spot because everyone shied away and stared.
His face! Both eyes were black and puffy, his lip was split, and he walked with a limp. Fights happened frequently enough around here, but this was a beating.
“What happened to you?” she demanded. Then when he didn’t answer, “Who did this?”
“I fell down the stairs,” he drawled. “Ran into a door. Crashed my jet ski into a tree. What do you want me to say, Nat?”
Her eyes pricked with tears unshed, but no, she refused to cry when he was slouching and mocking and acting like it wasn’t a big deal. “You could start with the truth.”
“Fine.” He nodded, more sober now, and she marveled that he could even be out of bed with his injuries. “I came to say goodbye. I probably won’t see you much now that school’s out.”
“But...” Not two days ago he had kissed her under the bleachers. Kissed her and told her she looked so good, felt so good. He was defiant to everyone, but he had been kind to her, and sweet. “You said we were going steady,” she finished, knowing it sounded lame.
“It’s not going to work out. You want to stay here. I don’t.”
The future, he was talking about the future. She hadn’t even thought that far ahead for them, but it made a kind of horrible sense. Except it was so logical, so cold, and he looked anything but logical, burning hot with rage. She had never felt such dark anger as she saw in his eyes. It was like looking into a black pool and falling, sinking, endless.
Her voice came out as a whisper. “Was it your dad?”
Mr. Nolan had a temper. Maybe it had gone too far.
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Sawyer’s whole body bristled, and she took a small step back. He didn’t want to answer, that was clear. And that was okay. He was upset. He had to be in pain. They would go someplace where she could look after him and they could talk, in private.
“If you’ll only let me in, Sawyer. I can be there for you.”
His lip curled, the raw gash making him look more sinister. His gaze ran down and up her body, full of contempt. “Maybe I’ve already had my fill.”
White-hot tendrils of pain pierced her limbs and chest. She wanted the concrete plates under her feet to open up and swallow her whole, leaving only a flowered weed between the cracks. Here lies Natalie, who died of humiliation.
“I thought...I thought you wanted to be with me. You said!”
It came out more accusatory than she’d intended, but it mirrored how she felt. He’d whispered promises with his words and his touches. And now he was breaking them, even if he pretended they never existed.
His eyes burned with more intensity, aflame with anger and frustration that she could hardly fathom. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t explain it but...you and me. I can’t be here anymore.”
“What are you talking about? Where are you going?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Anywhere but here.”
Chapter Three
Sawyer carefully wrapped the last dinner plate with brown paper and masking tape. He took pride in packing the delicate objects efficiently. It wasn’t all that different from taking apart his MK23 45 caliber with the suppressor and laser-aim module, then putting it back together again. And shit, nothing was more breakable than navy equipment.
Of course, he hadn’t shown any of said finesse at the diner three days ago, cracking apart a coffee mug like a Neanderthal. But he hadn’t been prepared for the sight of Natalie Bouchard. Nothing could have prepared him for that.
It wasn’t as though he’d pined for her over the years, but sometimes she would sneak into his thoughts. Not her precise image, more like fleeting impressions of blushing softness and sweet-smelling warmth. One look at her, pretty and vibrant behind the counter, had been literally like meeting the woman of his dreams. Disconcerting—and arousing as hell.