“Yeah. Okay.” He grabbed on to the papers I was holding up and looked to his brother, who already had pulled a pen from his back pocket. Just like Hoyt. Always prepared, always one step ahead.  Even as a kid, he’d always been waiting in the pits for Reid with a bottle of water and some aspirin.

While Reid was opening the folder on the seat of his dirt bike, the other rider stepped forward.

“The illustrious Nora,” he said, reaching out to shake my hand. “We finally meet. Brett Sallinger.” Brett smiled, making his eyes crinkle. The swagger that followed Brett Sallinger was hard to miss. From his long, muscular build to his messy, blond hair and blue eyes—he looked like trouble. But not the same kind of trouble as Reid who was threatening to stare a hole through me as he flipped through the pages.

“Nice to meet you,” I responded politely, wondering how he knew who I was. I knew who Brett Sallinger was. I’d be lying if I hadn’t heard Beau mention his name. While these guys were off on the motocross circuit, my boyfriend Beau had opened a race shop in Halstead. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t seem to escape dirt bikes in one way or another. I hardly ever went into his shop and the mention of Reid Travers’ name seemed to evoke more negativity from Beau than me. We both just pretended that he never existed. But I couldn’t pretend anymore. Not when he was standing within arms’ reach.

“Anything fun going on in Halstead tonight?” Brett said, breaking my gaze from where Reid and his brother were reading the fine print.

Stop staring at him.

“There’s rarely anything fun going on in Halstead,” I said, a soft laugh escaping my lips. The town I lived in was not known for its booming nightlife. We all barely managed to stay entertained as it was.

“Hmm.” Brett looked disappointed, but before he could say anything else Reid was standing beside me with the signed documents.

“You giving her a hard time?”

“Settle down, RT,” Brett answered. “I was just asking your girl here if there was anything going on in town tonight.”

“I’m not—” I tried to counter his insinuation that I was anything belonging to Reid.

“She said no,” Brett quickly added. “Zero amounts of fun to be had.” He shook his head and offered up an exaggerated look of disappointment.

“Well, let’s see if we can’t change that,” Reid suggested, a devilish grin sat on his lips. “You up for a little fun, Shutterbug?”

Just hearing him refer to me as “Shutterbug” made my blood boil. The cutesy nickname he’d given me when we were young and I had a camera permanently tethered around my neck. We were not on a nickname, friendly basis and he shouldn’t have been pretending we were. Who was he to come back to my town and disrupt my life? Reid Travers could get back on that dirt bike and ride it off a cliff for all I cared.

“No thank you.” I bit back the sarcasm that was threatening to tear from my lips, but it wasn’t missed by any of them.

“Ease up, Reid,” Hoyt warned as his brother.

“Your loss,” Reid finally said as he handed me the signed deed, holding it tightly as I tried to pull it away. “I’m a lot more fun now than I used to be. I can promise you that.”

“Yeah, well, you can keep your fun. I’ve been entertaining myself for years,” I said, yanking the papers from his hand. I turned to walk away as his brother and friend gave a collective “oohhh” and a laugh to compliment my burn, but I couldn’t join in the fun.

It took everything I had not to look back over my shoulder and see if I’d wounded him. Even seeing the tiniest bit of pain on his face would have made me feel better, but I didn’t. He didn’t deserve a second look.

When I first saw her standing there, I thought I was hallucinating. Hell, maybe I’d fallen off my bike and hit my head just one too many times.

Pieces of her hair blowing in the breeze. Her hair was darker than I remembered—somewhere between blond and brown depending on how the sunlight hit it, but I’d recognize her anywhere. Her big blue eyes cutely squinting into the sunlight when she finally looked in my direction. That sweet little heart shaped face I loved to cradle in my hands before I took her mouth with mine. It was her, all right. The girl I’d just been thinking about had manifested in front of me as if my daydreams from only a few moments ago had summoned her. I knew it wasn’t a dream when I saw her lips purse and she huffed out a breath of frustration that showed she hadn’t been looking forward to seeing me. Guess I deserved it. But the past was the past, surely she could understand that what happened back then honestly had nothing to do with her.

I looked her up and down as she stated her purpose for actually being there. Looks like the wild child I knew had grown up and become a real estate agent. I’d never imagined her doing something so... business-y. The girl I knew loved to be outside and living in the moment. Looks like she’d decided to take the boring route after I left. She even drives a boring car with a boring color. Not the vibrant girl I remember who loved to drive her rusty old Jeep around with the top off.

Her very professional look was doing something to me that I hadn’t expected, though. I’d always pictured her in cut-offs and a tank top, like she wore in the summers when we were kids, but the polished look was good on her. The white sleeveless silk button down tucked into her fitted black skirt, coupled with the way she had her hair pulled back and the nude heels that wrapped around her feet evoked images of her starring in my very own hot teacher/librarian fantasy. But, no such luck. The second she opened her mouth I knew she was all business. There’d be no eighties’ music video reenactments this afternoon.

“I need a corporate signature,” she’d said, after leaving me with a “fine” when I asked how she was doing. I don’t know what I expected. Her to hug me and tell me that it was good to see me? Our last time together hadn’t ended on a high note. We’d stood in almost the exact same spot we were standing in just now and I told her that I was moving and I didn’t think we should see each other anymore. They were the hardest words I’d ever had to let roll off my tongue in my life. I’d caught her off guard, but she didn’t even give me a chance to explain that I was breaking up with her because it wasn’t fair to either of us not to.

“Have a great life, Reid,” she’d said. I still remember her words hitting me like they were dipped in acid, burning straight through my skin and leaving a permanent scar on my heart. She hopped in her car and left me standing in a cloud of dust. So, yeah, I deserved the resting bitch face she was slinging my way.

When Brett started talking to her, the pang of jealousy I felt when he managed to wrestle a small smile from her with this southern charm had me gritting my teeth. That little dimple she had on her left cheek when she smiled presented itself and I had to fight back the urge to rest my lips against it like I used to.

Why did she have to be so fucking gorgeous?

Nora Bennett was, and always would be, the prettiest girl I’d ever laid eyes on. I knew that at fifteen when I’d asked her to be my girlfriend. There was never a shortage of attractive women on the motocross circuit—from track chicks to super models, but none of them held a candle to her. Seeing her again was like casing a jump and having reality slam you into the ground.

But it was different now. I couldn’t very well throw her over my shoulder and beat my chest like a caveman. I’d lost my right to claim her a long time ago. Actually, I’d given it up. She wasn’t my girl anymore, despite what I was feeling.

“Real smooth,” my brother teased as we watched her drive away, I could just make out the taillights through the cloud of dust her dark gray Subaru was making. “She got out of here like her ass was on fire.”