by Jessie Evans
It had been so long since she’d taken a moment to watch the world go by. She couldn’t help being reminded of those evenings in Springfield, when she and Pike would take a quilt out to the hay field behind Aunt Willa’s house and lie staring up at the sky for hours. They did their share of making out, but there were times when they simply held hands and watched the clouds drift by. Times when they stared up at the stars while they whispered about the things they were hopeful for, the things they feared, and the dreams they were certain were about to come true.
Fast forward seven years and all of Pike Sherman’s dreams had come true, and then some. He was the star pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, making more money than God, and had a rich, fulfilling life far from Lonesome Point. He dated models and movie stars, vacationed in Bora Bora, and had bought his mother a BMW convertible for her fiftieth birthday. He rarely saw his father and avoided pressure to come home for Christmas by flying his family to his ranch in Montana for the holidays. Mia said he had a mansion, a stable full of horses he paid people to ride during baseball season, and a tree house with heat and running water, where their much younger cousins camped out on Christmas Eve.
And soon, in a fancy tent not far from here, that man who had everything would be schmoozing with people who had paid two hundred dollars a ticket for the pleasure of shaking his hand.
Pike was living big, but Tulsi wouldn’t exchange places with him for a million dollars. She might not have fame or wealth, but she had things that were more precious. She had an amazing little girl, wonderful friends, good work, and a hometown where she felt safe. Life…was perfect.
It didn’t matter that her two best friends were getting married and moving on with their lives while Tulsi was still alone. It didn’t matter that Bubba had left Lonesome Point and she would only see him on special occasions or that she was about to lose the job that had given her more satisfaction than anything she’d ever done, with the exception of raising Clem.
Everything was going to be fine. Better than fine.
The leaves blurred before her eyes, but Tulsi sucked her lips between her teeth and bit down. She wasn’t going to cry. She and Clem had their health and each other, and at least Mia and Sawyer were going to stay in Lonesome Point after they were married. Things were still good. Or at least they could be a whole lot worse.
The thought was barely through her head when she heard Mia’s voice calling from the road.
“Hey, Tulsi? What’s up? You okay?”
Tulsi sniffed away her tears and sat up, her lips parting to tell Mia she was fine, but then she saw the man in Mia’s passenger seat and all her words fell away.
There, not fifty feet from the truck, wearing a black cowboy hat and a denim button-down that made his hazel eyes look a dreamy greenish-blue, sat Pike Sherman. His sandy brown hair was shorter than the last time she’d seen him and the skin at the edges of his eyes was lightly wrinkled, but otherwise he looked exactly the same—except more impossibly handsome. The years had banished the last of the adolescent softness from his cheeks, transforming his strong jaw into a thing of angular beauty. The rest of his face was equally chiseled, gentled only by his full lips. Those soft, generous lips that had once kissed hers with enough passion to make the world stop turning.
Even before she met his eyes, Tulsi was having a hard time catching her breath. When her gaze connected with his, the wind rushed out of her like she’d taken a hoof to the gut.
Suddenly, she felt like she was naked in a polar ice storm, not fully clothed in the middle of a sweltering southwest Texas summer evening. The look in Pike’s eyes was that chilling and so ripe with contempt Tulsi had to fight the urge to flinch.
At that moment—as her heart lurched and her throat locked with panic—she was forced to rethink everything she’d assumed for the past seven years. Because, at that moment, she understood that Pike Sherman hated her. He hated her with a passion as hot and intense as the passion they’d shared when they were kids.
“Earth to Tulsi.” Mia reached past Pike to wave a hand out the passenger window. “Are you coming or not? We’ve got to jam, sister.”
Tulsi wrenched her gaze from Pike’s, but her heart was still beating so fast her voice trembled when she asked, “Coming where?”
“To the meet and greet.” Mia shook her head, sending her red curls bobbing gently. “Are you sure you’re okay? Did you drink enough water today? You know we had six people down with heat stroke in the medic tent by noon.”
Tulsi forced a smile. “I’m fine. I can’t make it to the meet and greet. I have to go take care of some stuff at home. But y’all have fun.”
Mia frowned. “All right, but text me when you get home, okay? I want to know you didn’t pass out on the side of the road somewhere.”
“Will do.” Tulsi braced herself to keep her smile in place as she turned her attention to Pike. “Nice to see you, Pike. Glad you could make it home for the week.”
His full lips thinned and stretched, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Nice to see you, too, Tulsi. Sorry you can’t join us tonight.”
I’ll bet you are, Tulsi thought to herself. The man looked like he’d rather take a cactus needle in the eye than spend another second in her company and she saw relief flicker across his features when Mia waved goodbye and accelerated toward the ghost town. As her best friend pulled away, Tulsi hopped off of the tailgate and stood barefoot in the dust, watching the truck fade into the distance, her head spinning and her belly filling with butterflies.
No, not butterflies. This was something bigger than butterflies. Her stomach was alive with the furiously beating wings of a hundred birds, a thousand paper cranes like the ones she and Mia used to fold out of wrapping paper in college to decorate their grungy apartment. Pike Sherman hadn’t forgotten her. Pike didn’t look fondly back on their days together as an experiment conducted by a younger, more foolish version of himself. Pike hated her, which meant…
He must have really loved her, after all. The opposite of love isn’t hate. The opposite of love is indifference. Hate is passion with a mean streak, wearing sadder, uglier clothes, but it’s still passion. Pike still felt passionately about her. Looking into her eyes made a man who was on top of his game in every sense of the word look like he wanted to tip over her truck with his bare hands, and that changed…everything.
Absolutely everything.
“Oh my God,” Tulsi whispered to herself, wrapping her arms tightly around her waist as she sagged against the side of her truck. “What have I done?”
You did what you had to do. It doesn’t matter if he loved you once, he doesn’t love you now. And there’s no guarantee he would have loved anyone or anything once his freedom was taken away.
Besides…it’s too late now.
It was true. It was too late for anything Pike once felt to matter. Choices had been made, paths had diverged, and there was no changing the past. It was time to get in her truck, pick up her daughter, and pretend she’d never laid eyes on Pike Sherman.
As she drove to her father’s house, Tulsi did her best to talk her heart out of her throat and all those winged creatures in her belly back to roost wherever they’d come from. But some things don’t respond well to reason. Some things—like hearts and dreams—dance to the tune of a different drummer, and once he begins to play, all bets are off.
CHAPTER TWO
Pike
Pike’s hands curled into fists, but he kept his shoulders relaxed and his gaze trained out the window. His little sister was exhausted from her long weekend and stressed out by the impending meet and greet, but she wasn’t stupid. If he didn’t watch himself, Mia would figure out that seeing Tulsi had upset him and from there it was only a hop, skip, and a jump to figuring out why.
And that wasn’t. Going. To happen.
He’d kept all the shit with Tulsi buried for seven long years. He wasn’t about to dig it up now. The only thing that had made their breakup bearable was knowing no one knew he’d been
dumped by the only girl he’d ever loved. No one had realized he and Tulsi were together so there had been no witnesses to the messy aftermath, and that’s the way he intended to keep it. He would make it through the week, avoid Tulsi as much as possible, and do his best not to come back to Lonesome Point in the near future.
Or ever, if he could help it. As far as he was concerned, if he never ran into Tulsi Hearst again, it would be too soon.
He hadn’t been looking forward to seeing her before tonight, but he’d never imagined looking into her eyes would send pain slicing through his ribs and stabbing straight into his heart. He was a twenty-nine-year-old man who had dated some of the most beautiful women on the planet, for God’s sake, not some lovesick kid. He didn’t know what the fuck was happening to him.
Tulsi was beautiful, but not that beautiful. The blond curls and big blue eyes were killer, but her bow-tie lips were thin and her chin came to a point too close to her square jaw. She was a good six inches shorter than the women Pike dated, and the proportions of her petite frame were far from ideal. Her torso was almost as long as her legs, her thighs bordered on stocky, and she had the strangest feet he’d ever seen—short, stubby, and nearly as wide as they were long.
The moment he’d seen those feet hanging off the tailgate, he’d known it was Tulsi lying in the truck on the side of the road.
How he’d once adored those weird little feet. He’d loved to get them in his lap after he and Tulsi went riding, to feel her cold toes warming between his fingers and to watch her size five’s disappear into his large hands. He could still remember the way she’d moan when he’d massage the curve of her arches, still see that smile that dimpled her cheeks as she’d lean in to whisper that he had magic hands. And then she would kiss a trail from his jaw to his lips and the foot massage would end with his tongue slipping into her mouth and her hands sliding up the front of his shirt, and in minutes, he would have Tulsi naked on the old mattress they’d smuggled out to her parents’ cabin, making love to her until she cried out his name in her sweet, sexy voice.
Pike’s eyes squeezed closed as a fresh wave of pain flashed through his chest. He didn’t want to remember anything about Tulsi, but he couldn’t forget a moment of that perfect spring, no matter how hard he’d tried.
“Fuck,” he cursed beneath his breath as the pain intensified, until if felt like an animal was sharpening its claws on his heart.
“I know you hate these things, but you have to relax,” Mia said, mercifully misunderstanding the reason for his foul mouth. “We’ll get through the schmoozing tonight, and then it will be all fun and games until the wedding. I promise.”
“Right.” He didn’t know how he was going to get through the next seven hours, let alone the next seven days. The urge to turn tail and run was almost all-consuming, and nothing but a once in a lifetime event, like his baby sister’s wedding, could have convinced him to stay in this town a second longer.
“How many people are going to be here again?” he asked, trying to concentrate on something other than memories of Tulsi’s fingers digging into his back and her body tight around him.
“Two hundred,” Mia said, hurrying on when he cussed again. “But a lot of them are people we went to school with. Just think of it as a high school reunion with more autographing involved.”
“Sounds fucking awful,” Pike grumbled as Mia parked the car.
“Watch your mouth, Cranky.” Mia punched him in the arm, but Pike didn’t flinch. He welcomed his sister’s abuse. Maybe physical pain would keep his mind off of the miserable situation in his chest.
“Seriously, Pike, some of Dad’s friends are here, too,” Mia continued. “Don’t embarrass him, okay? Just play nice, drink a reasonable amount of champagne, and enjoy the fancy snacks. It’ll all be over before you know it, and we can go have nachos at my place. Ugly Ross and Sawyer are going to the store to pick up beer and poker chips so we can play cards.”
“Ross and Sawyer, that it?” Pike slammed out of the door, waiting until Mia joined him before starting toward the striped tent set up beside the oldest part of Old Town.
Mia nodded. “Yeah, Bubba’s not flying in until the morning of the wedding. I asked Tulsi, but she has to get Clem ready to go to camp tomorrow.”
Pike’s jaw clenched at the mention of Tulsi’s daughter, but he managed to keep his voice neutral. “That’s all right. I’m not going to be up to a big crowd after this nightmare anyway.”
This time, Mia pinched him. “Be nice. Last warning. And put your smile on before we go inside.”
Pike grimaced down at his sister, earning himself an amused snort.
“Pretty,” she said wryly. “Now I see why you couldn’t find a date for the wedding.”
Pike grunted. “I didn’t want a date. I wanted to spend time with you, you abusive jerk.”
Mia’s eyes softened. “Aw, I love you, too, big brother. And I appreciate you doing this so much. I promise not to hit you any more tonight.”
“But no guarantees on tomorrow?” Pike asked, offering her his arm.
“You know I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” she said with a wink. “And I’ve only got a week to get in enough abuse to last me until Christmas.”
“Animal.” He smiled as he led her inside and began pressing hands and pretending to enjoy himself. He loved that his sister was back to the feisty woman he remembered, not the shattered person she’d been after her last relationship. Pike had only met Sawyer briefly, but he could already tell the man was a solid guy, devoted to Mia’s happiness, and so in love he couldn’t keep a smile off of his face for more than a minute at a time.
Pike remembered what that felt like. There had been a time when smelling Tulsi’s shampoo on another woman in the grocery store had been enough to put a goofy grin on his face and have him reaching for his phone to text something sickening about how much he missed her. That first summer, he’d spent every moment they were apart plotting ways to make sure they never had to be apart again, pining for the girl he was sure he was going to marry, while Tulsi had been busy sleeping with another man. Not even a man, a nineteen-year-old boy at the camp where she was working, a fucking asshole who’d bailed after getting her pregnant and hadn’t been seen or heard from since.
Pike didn’t talk to Mia that often, and even more rarely about Tulsi, but the subject of Tulsi’s single-motherhood had come up throughout the years. He knew Mia had been the one helping with the baby’s feedings when she and Tulsi were rooming together at Baylor, and that Tulsi had done without things she needed for years so she could pay for diapers, food, and toys for Clementine. Mia had loathed men on Tulsi’s behalf for years, but Tulsi refused to go after the deadbeat who’d knocked her up for child support, insisting she didn’t want help from a person who didn’t care about her or the baby. The way Mia described it, it sounded like Tulsi had loved the guy and been hurt that he didn’t love her back.
That was what had torn Pike up the most, realizing that while he’d been aching for Tulsi, she’d been falling for someone else. It had made him feel like the world’s saddest fool, and ensured he’d kept his heart locked away ever since. Something that pathetic couldn’t be allowed out of its cage. His heart was too stupid to fall for one of the beautiful, famous, accomplished women he’d dated the past few years. No, if set free, it would go running back to Tulsi, like a dog eager for another whipping from the only master it had ever known.
“Don’t you think so, Pike?” The fifty-something brunette leaning across the autograph table giggled, drawing his attention back to the present, and the cleavage hovering inches from his face.
“I try not to think.” Pike winked, deciding even flirting with a woman old enough to be his mother was better than letting his thoughts dwell in the past. “At least whenever I can get away with it.”
“Oh honey, I totally understand,” the woman said, brown eyes crinkling at the edges as she laughed. “And if you’d like help not thinking while you’re here, I’m at the
country club pool almost every day in the summer. My name’s Gina and I’d love to buy you a drink, hear all about your big adventures.”
“Tempting offer.” He passed the picture he’d autographed across the table, noticing with a flash of disgust the wedding ring on the woman’s left hand as she picked it up. “But I’m busy with my sister’s wedding. She’s got me booked solid. No time for anything else.”
Pike shifted his gaze to a bearded man wearing a faded Cardinal’s jersey standing behind Gina, dismissing her without another word. It wasn’t the first time he’d been hit on by a married woman, but it still got to him. Didn’t anyone take their promises seriously anymore? And a marriage was more than a promise, it was a vow. That ought to mean something, and people should think long and hard before they violated something sacred for a roll in the hay with a stranger.
“You look the way I feel,” a familiar voice said as Pike passed the bearded man his signed picture and turned to the next person in line.
Pike smiled his first genuine smile of the night. “Chad, what’s up?”
“Not much, not much.” Chad, who looked the same as he had in high school, minus a few inches of brown fuzz around the hairline, clasped the hand Pike offered. “I think I’ve watched every game you’ve played since you left town, man. It’s good to see you back home again.”
“Good to see you, too. What are you doing these days?”
“Still working for my old man.” Chad shrugged. “Been helping run the oil business for years and took over the charity stuff last week. Dad had his third heart attack so he’s on forced R&R.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Pike said, signing the ball Chad rolled across the table. Mia had told him only to sign pictures, so as not to devalue the signed ball she was auctioning off, but he and Chad had been on the same team in high school. He wasn’t about to tell him no, even if they hadn’t been close. “I hope he gets to feeling better soon.”