by A. P. Jensen
“Oh my God, bitch, he just saw you try to attack me. Trying to act innocent ain’t gonna work,” Regan said and tried to salvage some fries from her ruined dinner.
“You’re going to believe an outsider over me?” Steph said to Guy.
“She’s not an outsider,” one of the servers said. “She’s Regan Lee Delaney.”
Steph dropped the meek act and gaped at Regan. “You beat the crap out of my sister, April.”
“You’re a Carter?” Regan said in disgust. “Wade should’ve known better!”
Guy stepped in front of Regan when Steph tried to lunge at her.
“Maybe you should take off,” Guy suggested.
“Alright,” Regan said.
She threw some bills on the ruined booth and tried to find any food that wasn’t covered in lemonade. She glared irritably at Steph and noticed several people holding their phones aloft, recording the drama. She rolled her eyes and walked out of the diner amidst loud whispers and pointing fingers. Wade’s truck was gone so she called him as she walked down the sidewalk.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I’m dropping my son off at my mom’s. I’m coming back for you.”
“It’s okay. I’m going to walk home.”
“What happened with Steph?”
“Guy’s handling her.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s getting arrested.”
“What?!”
“Yeah. So maybe you should just stay with your son. I’ll see you later.”
“Regan, what-”
Regan closed her phone and walked back to her mom’s house under the light of a full moon. The streets were deserted and she enjoyed the walk in the cool air. She flexed her right fist and knew she would need to put an ice pack on it before it swelled. It had been worth it though. Poor kid with a mom like that. A Carter no less. Despite the drama and the fact that she hadn’t been able to eat every last scrap of her meal she felt like whistling. She hadn’t felt this alive in years.
The night she left White Mist so many bitter words had been said. Anger caused her to leave but it faded quickly when she found herself in women’s shelters, searching for a job and leaning on the well-being of strangers. She’d been lucky to find people willing to help her. She had friends in over fifteen states that she chatted with every now and then. Some of them were drifters like she’d been while others never ventured out of their hometown. People always asked what was pushing her. People had their theories about drifters- that they’d been hurt somewhere along the line and never recovered or they were trying to prove or find something. Regan fit all three criteria. She tried to find a place to settle but it never happened. She lived in small towns with no one around for miles and big cities where you never saw the same person twice. She never found the right balance.
Regan tilted her head up to look up at the moon and took a deep breath as she walked up the path to her mom’s house. The porch light was on so she settled on the porch swing. She wasn’t ready to go in and have her mom grill her so she pushed the swing into motion and let night settle around her. She was so used to the noise of New York that the silence was a balm on her senses. She was still tired though she wasn’t sure how that was possible. She had to resist the urge to look through the emails and voicemails on her phone. It was a compulsion she wanted to just shrug off but it wasn’t easy. She’d been in work mode for years and to have no schedule, no agenda or responsibilities felt foreign. Honestly, she felt as if she was in an alternate universe and this was a never ending dream. If she was in her right mind she never would have come back to White Mist.
Regan rocked slowly back and forth, back and forth and burrowed into her mom’s jacket. It smelled like her. Regan’s cheeks stung with cold but she didn’t care. It was so quiet Regan heard footsteps coming up the sidewalk. A tall, dark figure came into view. He had an easy, confident stride and he walked with his hands in the front pockets of his jacket. As if he sensed her watching him he turned towards the house and stared at her. Although the moonlight didn’t show his features she didn’t need light to know who he was.
Her heart skipped and she stayed very still as if that would camouflage her. He walked up her mom’s path as he had many times before. As he got closer light illuminated brilliant green eyes, wavy dark hair and a face as familiar to Regan as her own. His eyes were fixed on her as he walked up the steps as if he had every right to join her. Without a word he sat on the porch railing across from her. Regan hated the mix of emotions that rushed through her. Joy, bitterness, shame and pain. He was still handsome in that rugged way of his and that aura of barely civilized clung to him. Wasn’t that why she’d gone for him in the first place?
“Regan Lee.”
“Brooks Hawking.”
“You’re back.”
She resumed pushing the swing with her foot because she needed to do something. “For a while.”
“I saw you yesterday.”
She inwardly winced. He just had to bring that up. “I was looking for my mom.”
“You saw me.” His piercing green eyes dared her to deny it.
“I thought it might be you but I wasn’t sure.” She tried to sound nonchalant.
“If you waited a minute you would’ve known for sure.”
She didn’t know what to say to that so she didn’t say anything. She had always been the punch first, ask questions later type. Retreat had never been in her vocabulary until Brooks. He was the only man who ever made her feel vulnerable and she didn’t like that after all this time the same feelings rushed through her.
“Were you going to call me?”
It sounded like an accusation but his voice was so calm. Regan raised a brow.
“You still have the same number?” she asked sarcastically. Who did he think he was?
“No. Got my own number now. I figured you would call Kerry or my parents to get it.”
“Kerry and your mom are the last people I want to talk to,” Regan said scathingly.
Ten years passed and he was acting like she’d been gone for a month. What was with the people in this town? A lot could happen in a decade but people in this town just picked up where they left off with her and it knocked her off balance. Brooks didn’t say anything, he just waited. He knew she hated that.
“Aren’t you married or something?” Regan said more aggressively than she intended.
He didn’t frown, smirk or smile. He just stared at her with those eyes that pierced her soul and roused the rebellious teenager in her she thought she’d gotten rid of. What was it about this place that made her feel like a loose cannon instead of a civilized adult?
“Want to go out for dinner?”
Regan blinked at the change of subject. “Don’t you think that will bother Allison?”
“No. Want to get dinner?”
She stopped swinging and leaned forward. “What are you doing, Brooks?”
“I haven’t seen you in ten years. I want to talk.”
She got to her feet because she was too agitated to sit and act like she didn’t feel anything. No man had ever been able to arouse even an ounce of want and desire Brooks did without trying. He made her feel too much. This guy was the reason she left and he refused to make her time here easier by ignoring her while she was in White Mist. He had to show up at her mom’s house and ask her out to dinner because he wanted to talk.
She threw up her hands. “Talk about what?”
“Anything. Everything.”
“That’s all in the past.”
“I don’t want to talk about our past. I want to talk about now. Have dinner with me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I already ate.”
“With Wade. Where is he?”
Regan paused. “How’d you know?”
“Heard from Sam when I got coffee this morning.”
“She’s still a damn gossip,” Regan muttered.
“So, where’s Wade?”
“At his mom’s house with his son.”
“Okay. Want to get dessert?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “No.”
“Okay, want to get breakfast tomorrow?”
She gaped at him. What. The. Hell. “I don’t want to catch up, Brooks.”
“Why?”
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. “Because all that shit you want to talk about was the worst thing I’ve ever gone through in my life, that’s why! I’m surprised you even want to talk to me much less see me after all that happened.”
Brooks watched her pace the length of the porch and turn to come back towards him. He pushed off the rail and stepped in front of her. She tilted her head back and their eyes clashed.
“I told too much people I was going to propose,” he said quietly. “I took you for granted. I didn’t expect you to say no.”
His words literally knocked her back a step. The memories that burst through her were so painful she closed her eyes, held up a hand and backed away.
“Brooks, I can’t do this with you.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I’ve been waiting ten years to have closure about this. I need to talk about it. I didn’t know what happened with Kerry, Missy and our moms until the next day. You were gone by then.”
“I didn’t come back for this. I just came to see my mom-”
He backed her into the corner of the porch. “You can’t come back to White Mist and expect to ignore everyone you know.”
“I’m not ignoring anyone.”
“Except me.”
She ground her back teeth. “I’m only going to be here a couple of days and then I’m gone.”
“Even more so you should come with me to breakfast tomorrow.”
“I don’t have time.”
“You made time for Wade.”
“He’s a friend.”
“And what am I?”
God, Brooks was the man she never got over. After ten years he was standing right in front of her, close enough to touch but she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. He was married with kids. The end.
“I need to go,” Regan said and walked inside.
She closed the door and waited. She heard his footsteps walk off the porch and back down the path. She walked into the kitchen and grabbed a frozen pack of mixed vegetables and a cold beer and sat at the table. Her heart was pounding like crazy and she drank half the bottle before Valerie walked in with raised brows.
“Not even here twenty four hours and you’re fighting already?”
“Actually, Guy tells me I made twenty eight hours before he had to arrest somebody.”
Valerie sat at the table. “Who?”
“Steph Carson. Wade’s baby mama made a scene in the diner. Called me a whore and a slut and I did what Wade can’t do.”
Valerie nodded, lifted the bag to take a look at Regan’s knuckles and then set it back in place. “Hope you got her good.”
Regan shrugged. “Good enough. I didn’t break anything.”
Valerie shot her a sharp look. “Was that Brooks I heard?”
Regan fiddled with her beer. She’d been so damn mad at Brooks for causing the mother of all fights with her family but she couldn’t really blame him. He knew what he wanted and he’d gone after it. It was his bad luck that he wanted her and she hadn’t wanted what he did- a family, stability. Seeing him with kids yesterday was a kick in the gut but she had no right to be angry. He got what he wanted with someone else and that was that. The end.
“I’m sorry,” Valerie said into the silence.
Regan got up, put the vegetable bag back in the freezer and downed her beer. “That’s not why I came back.”
“I need to say it. I’ve been waiting ten years. I promised myself that even if I only had a few minutes with you, I would say it. I chickened out yesterday.” Valerie took a deep breath and Regan pulled another beer out of the fridge. “I shouldn’t have jumped all over you when you said no to Brooks.”
“Mom-”
“No! I wanted you to settle down, to stay in White Mist where I could keep an eye on you. I wanted you to be like Missy and that wasn’t fair of me. I just didn’t want you to be like your father.”
Regan set her beer down very carefully. “I am not like him.”
“You look like him, you weren’t satisfied with White Mist just like him. He didn’t want to be tied down-”
“Don’t you think I did the right thing by turning Brooks down before we got married, before I had kids?” Regan burst out.
Valerie sobered. “Yes. We all knew Brooks was going to propose and you were so perfect for each other-”
Regan counted on her fingers. “He had a good job, he wanted to marry me, he wanted children and his mom is your best friend… On and on and on, mom! You wanted me to marry him, to stay in this town and never leave it. I was only nineteen!”
Valerie held up both hands. “I know. At the time I wasn’t thinking about that. All I knew was that Brooks would take care of you. Is that so bad?”
Regan sighed and sat. “It’s not bad but it wouldn’t have made me happy. I would have suffocated and hurt him more in the end.”
Valerie grabbed a beer for herself and sat. “What I saw between you and Brooks… I’ve never had that with anyone, even your father. I thought you were ruining your life when you turned him down. Here was this great guy proposing to you and you wanted to go backpacking across Europe and move to New York!”
Regan cracked a smile and took a slow pull on her beer. If her mom only knew what she’d been up to since she left White Mist she would have a heart attack. Valerie drummed her hands nervously on her bottle.
“You ever marry?”
Regan shot her a scornful look. “No.”
“Did something happen? Is that why you came home?”
“I got out of a sticky relationship,” Regan said without inflection and drained her beer.
“How serious?”
“Really.”
A pause. “Why are you so exhausted? You slept the whole day away.”
“Drove from New York.”
Valerie slapped the table and started laughing. “Well, I’ll be damned. So you actually did it.”
Regan’s mouth twitched. “Yeah. Did the backpacking thing too.”
Valerie’s grin faded. “You did what?!”
“You’re lectures coming about six years too late,” Regan informed her and finished off her beer.
Valerie fumed. “Do you know you could have been raped, killed and left as road kill and I never would’ve known?”
“Yup.”
Regan flexed her hand as her mom went over outrageous scenarios on what could have happened to her in Europe. Regan yawned in her face and Valerie glared at her.
“Well,” Valerie said grudgingly. “How was it?”
“Amazing. Europeans are the best.”
Valerie sneered. “Sure.”
“I don’t know how this is possible but I’m still tired.”
“I have to open the shop tomorrow so I won’t be around when you wake up. Will you be here when I get back?”
Regan stared at her mom. Valerie had been forced to raise three kids on her own and it had turned her into a rigid control freak. Asking wasn’t normal for her. Like Missy, Valerie commanded people into doing what she wanted. Regan could tell from her face that this was killing her.
Regan decided on the spot. “Yeah. I’ll wait until you come home.”
The worst was over right? She got through a conversation with Brooks and she was okay. Beyond him, if everything was okay with her mom she could manage another day in White Mist.
Valerie blew out a breath. “Okay.”
Regan went upstairs, took another shower and went to sleep in the oversized man shirt she used to go to sleep in ten years ago because it smelled like Brooks.
Chapter Three
“Regan?”
Regan cracked open one eye and screamed. She s
wung her fist and it was caught in a big calloused hand. Her left flew wildly and connected with a shoulder that nearly broke her hand. She howled and glared up at Brooks.
“What the hell are you doing in my room?” she screamed.
How many times had she dreamed of him? Waking up and seeing him standing in her old bedroom as if no time passed was bizarre and so wrong. She thought she’d never have to see him again and now here he was, waking her up? What. The. Fudge.
“Calm down,” he said.
She heard the amusement in his voice and shucked off her covers so she could use her legs to kick him in the head. Seeing what she was up to he jumped on the bed and straddled her, pinning her hands above her head.
“You’re wearing my shirt.”
His voice sounded weird, like he was choking. That was when she remembered she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath his old shirt. They stared at each other in the dim light trying to pierce through her bedroom curtains.
“My shirts from high school are too tight. This is the only thing that fits,” Regan whispered.
“Looks good on you.”
She narrowed her eyes as his eyes slid down her body. He had on jeans and a long sleeved shirt beneath a navy blue vest. He hadn’t shaved and it only made him look more rugged and dangerous. The look fit, considering he was straddling her and pinning her to the bed as if she were some Victorian virgin and he an uncivilized pirate.
“You’re married,” she said, voice breathless. When was the last time she’d been breathless? Mortification nearly choked her. Damned if she wasn’t turning into that helpless Victorian maiden.
He leaned down so their faces were less than two inches apart. “I was married.”
She head butted him. He reared up, cursing and released her hands. She sat up too and shoved at his chest but he didn’t move. He was braced on his knees over her in a very interesting position… She shook herself so she could verbally kick his ass.
“You’re not married?” she shouted.
He rubbed his forehead. “Damn. Your head is still hard as a rock.”
She grasped his vest and shook him. “You’re not married?”
“No.”
Even as something in her loosened in relief she desperately searched her mind for something that would put him off limits. She would not get involved with Brooks Hawking again. He’d been so focused on what he wanted that he ignored her dreams. She never forgot what it felt like to love someone so much and yet be selfish enough to hold back because you weren’t willing to give him what he wanted. It had killed them both and she refused to be put in that kind of situation again- especially with the same person.