by Sarah Title
“Go ahead.”
“You first.”
“Okay,” Maureen said, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry I was such a coward. I just got out of a long relationship and I thought I needed to figure out what I want, and that meant time alone.”
“That makes sense. It would have been nice to know that, but it makes sense.”
“But that’s not what I want, Gavin. I don’t want to be alone. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid that you’ll break my heart worse than Dave ever could.” She paused. “You didn’t fire him, did you?”
“No. I took someone’s advice and showed compassion.”
“Okay, good. Thank you.”
“I don’t want you to be afraid,” he said, reaching across the desk to brush her hair off her forehead. That gesture, already so familiar, brought tears to her eyes.
“I’m not. I mean, I am, but seeing you again . . . I’ve been such a fool.”
“Not a fool,” he said, wiping her tears. “We’ll take it slow, okay?”
“Slow?”
“How about dinner tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“Sure. I know this great little pub. They serve the best fries, and I know the owner. I can get you extra.”
“Yes. Okay, tonight.” Maureen smiled. “Actually, tonight will be perfect.”
“Why is that?” Gavin asked, running his fingers over her hand.
“They’re predicting snow.”
Read on for an excerpt from the next novel in Sarah Title’s Southern Comfort series, Two Family Home, coming this August.
Lindsey unlocked the door and pocketed the key. Her guilt at sneaking into Walker’s secret lair intensified as it mingled with fear and anticipation. But she had to know what he did all day. He could be doing something illegal. He could be cooking meth. Although she, unfortunately, had enough experience with people cooking meth to rule that out. Walker just didn’t have that desperate, starving look. And he had all of his teeth.
If those were his real teeth.
Shaking her head, she felt along the wall for a light switch. She flicked it up. And her heart stopped.
She’d assumed there was an empty apartment above the garage, but there was no second floor. The high, high ceiling and the concrete floor gave the space the look of a warehouse. There was a small space heater in the corner, but Lindsey thought there was no way it could do anything to heat the space in winter. She imagined Walker in here, blowing on his hands, determined to get back to work.
In the middle of the cold, concrete floor, there was a tree. Or rather, the sculpture of a tree.
It was tall. Lindsey thought it was twice as tall as she was, but that wasn’t saying much. She stepped closer to stand near the trunk, under some of the branches. Most of the tree looked like it was just a frame, metal pipes welded together to give them shape. But at the bottom, tiny squares of metal were covering the roots and moving up the trunk. Would the whole tree be covered? She looked up through the branches and squinted into the overhead light. It was amazing. Cold and hard and beautiful.
“What are you doing?”
Lindsey spun around, guilt immediately heating her face. Walker stood in the doorway, his hand on the light switch, or maybe he was reaching for one of the metal bars leaning against the wall. She must have woken him up. His hair was a disheveled mess and his boots were untied, but he’d managed to throw on his uniform of jeans and a ratty T-shirt.
“I didn’t touch anything,” she said, throwing up her hands.
He didn’t look mad, exactly. But he didn’t look pleased.
“I’m sorry, I—I wanted to make sure you weren’t cooking meth.”
He cocked his eyebrow at her.
“Meth is very dangerous,” she pointed out.
He shook his head. “I’m not cooking meth.”
“No, I see that,” she said, turning toward the tree. She had so many questions for him. How much of this did he plan before he started welding? How did he capture that look of bark with something so completely un-bark-y? How did he make something so . . . moving?
Her brain jumbled with questions, and she was a little intimidated by his skill, and maybe a little embarrassed that she’d underestimated him. The only question she could get out was, “How will you get this out of here?”
“It comes apart,” he said. “And then I’ll weld the pieces back together when I install it.”
“Walker, it’s . . . I had no idea.”
“No idea of what?”
Lindsey jumped and turned to find Walker right behind her, crowding her into the tree. “No idea what you were doing in here. That you were so talented. Walker, this is . . . incredible.” The last word came out in a whisper as his eyes darkened and his head tipped closer to hers. She didn’t think about the potential weirdness. She just stood up on her toes and leaned a hand against his chest. He leaned down to close the gap between their mouths. He was kissing her.
Photo by Emily Bacon
Sarah Title has worked as a barista, a secretary, a furniture painter, and once managed a team of giant walking beans. She currently leads a much more normal life as a librarian in West Virginia. Her first novel, Kentucky Home, was published by Kensington in 2013, and she’s been throwing couples together ever since, whether they like it or not. (In the end, they always do.) (Don’t worry, the author realizes these people are fictional.) (Well, she sort of realizes that.) You can visit her at www.sarahtitle.com.
Don’t miss the other books in The Southern Comfort Series!
LYRICAL PRESS BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
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New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2015 by Sarah Title
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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First Electronic Edition: February 2015
eISBN-13: 978-1-60183-453-9
ISBN: 978-1-6018-3453-9