No shit. He’d had to see that thatched-roof reminder every day for the past ten years. The place where he’d first tasted Jen’s mouth, that kiss in all its messy, frantic, hormonal glory, could do him a giant favor by leaving him alone for a day or two.

So she’d talk about their beginning but not remotely acknowledge their end?

He considered taking this further by finally breaking and being the one to bring it up, then realized it would be like slamming a bulldozer through the wall. Their interaction tonight had been so easy, so warm. So like two adults who still—maybe, hopefully—felt some sort of attraction or affection toward one another.

He put down the beer and grabbed the back of a chair with both hands, leaning into it. It let out a giant groan under his weight. He should be thankful for their distance, because the way she breathed now, with deep movements of her chest, her head tilted back slightly on her neck, brought to mind images of surrender.

She ran a hand up and down one bare arm, and even though it was warm in the small summer kitchen, her skin pebbled.

“I have to go. My food’s probably ice-cold and I have work to do before bed.” She mimed typing.

He let her turn and descend the step into the foyer, his body aching to follow. She picked up her purse and peeked at him over her shoulder, her shiny dark hair hiding a green eye. Those things were powerful, brilliant enough to stun with just one.

There. A flash of remembrance. A second of desire. She hadn’t forgotten, hadn’t pushed it away.

His own brand of desire came back from the past, shooting straight through the years, intensifying as it spun and grew. It slammed into him. Any other woman he’d dated over the past decade didn’t even register. He and Jen though, they had an anchor that was pretty impossible to dig out of the sand.

He couldn’t help himself. “I lied, Jen. I was thinking about kissing you right now. Still am.”

He watched the shiver pass through her, could see it even across the room. Good.

And then he was across the room, his legs eating up the kitchen floor in three strides. Hands on her hips, the feel of that dress in his palms, he lightly pressed her against the back door. She didn’t protest, didn’t stiffen, and if that wasn’t a sign, he didn’t know what was. Her body was warm and giving along his.

His head lowered, her mouth three inches away. Then two. Then . . .

It was short and gentle, the brush of his lips against hers. But the promise, the heat . . .

He pulled back with a restraint he’d never known himself capable of. Straightening, he looked down at her dazed face.

“What do you want, Leith?” she whispered.

He knew her question was bigger than this moment, that she was referring to the fact that her presence here—and his, too—was temporary, at best.

“Right now”—he gave her waist a squeeze—“I’m pretty sure I want you. Beyond that, I don’t know.” Then he pushed back fully, putting charged air between them. “Still want to have breakfast with me?”

Only he wasn’t talking about just eating. He meant everything that came before.

“Yes,” she breathed. A heated mingling of stares, and then she opened the door and was gone.

Chapter

7

Jen hauled open the glass door to Kathleen’s Kafe the next morning at precisely 7:59. It was one of the only buildings in town that had been renovated and updated, and that had been sometime in the seventies. Though hideous, the faux-wood veneer booths and tables, and the brown vinyl cushion covers felt like a warm blanket around her shoulders. The walls were covered with sagging shelves packed with tchotchkes: T-shirts and mugs from valley-area high school events, stuffed animals coated in a layer of dust, photos of people long dead but still smiling. She wondered if the hash browns were still as crispy as she remembered.

The place was nearly full, which gave Jen heart. It was the most number of people she’d seen in one spot while in Gleann, and if they still supported this place and its local flavor, it gave her hope for her version of the games.

As she entered, a bell over the door chimed. Eerily, as one, every patron in the diner looked up or craned their necks to see who’d come in. Every patron, that is, except for Leith, who sat sideways on one of those attached, swinging stools at the long, low breakfast bar, his back to her. He didn’t turn around, but he shifted on his seat—a slight squaring of his shoulders, an inch adjustment of his boot on the floor—which told her he was well aware she’d come in.

Last night she’d stumbled across Mildred Lindsay’s lawn, somehow found her way into her rented house, and stood in front of the air-conditioning window unit. It had taken her a good hour to get to work after that, those sixty minutes needed to thoroughly burn away the panty-melting sensory recollection of the tease of his mouth. Their connection had been combustible, undeniable, but she, like him, had no idea what to do with it. She didn’t know what she wanted either, though the buzz zooming through her body said she pretty much wanted him inside her.

With an inward groan and a squeeze of her eyelids, she willed the desire gone. Or at least toned down. Being this close to him wasn’t ever going to make it go away entirely.

She stood next to the stack of local, out-of-date valley newspapers by the door, and watched the rest of the patrons watch her with varying degrees of interest. She smiled back, to no one in particular, but it felt shaky and forced, and her own awkwardness shocked the hell out of her.

A woman with brilliant red hair sitting with two young teenagers absorbed in their phones studied Jen for a moment, but then returned to her magazine. Sue McCurdy and another woman, maybe in her fifties, sat in the booth farthest from the door. By their spread of newspapers and crumb-filled breakfast plates, it looked like they’d been sitting there awhile. Maybe for the past thirty years. Sue gave Jen a small lift of the hand, but the other woman peered at Jen suspiciously like Jen was here to bulldoze the entire town.

At the breakfast bar, the guy sitting next to Leith was younger, with long brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. The younger guy was shoveling French toast into his mouth while Leith talked. Leith clutched a coffee mug in one hand and drew something invisible on the counter between them.

Behind her, the Kafe door opened, the bell above making a strangled ping. Someone needed to get out the oil and screwdriver.

“Aunt Jen?”

Jen turned, the girl’s voice causing an instant smile. “Hey there. Having some breakfast?”

“Yeah.” Ainsley scooped a wad of bubble gum out of her cheek and slapped it into a wrapper. She shoved it into one shorts pocket while pulling a twenty out of another. “I told Mom I’m buying today.”

Jen swept a hand over Ainsley’s unbrushed hair. “Where’d you get that, Moneybags McGee?”

“She’s a little you,” Aimee said, and Jen finally looked up at her sister standing several feet away. Their argument from last night still pushed them apart; Jen could feel it as solidly as the hot summer air coming through the open door. Aimee’s green eyes shimmered with a coat of tears that she quickly blinked away. “She does odd jobs around town and sometimes helps me out at the Thistle. Yesterday Gary Ashdown had her pulling weeds and unpacking his groceries.”

“I used to pull weeds, too,” Jen told Ainsley.

“You did?” Ainsley gasped. “Maybe that means someday I’ll get to live in New York. Oh, look! T and Lacey are here!”

Ainsley shoved past Jen, dissolving any hope Jen had of quizzing her niece about her aspirations. The nine-year-old darted across the Kafe, running her fingers through her hair as she approached the table in the back with the red-haired woman and the two teenagers.