She turned her head a little, scanning him. “Shit,” she muttered, working to catch her breath. “You scared me.”
“Are you okay?”
“Oh, sure. Perfect. It’s been the goddamned day from hell.” She sighed, dropped her head, then started laughing. A tired laugh edged with hysteria. “And this is just the perfect ending.” She turned her head and glanced at him again. A smile tilted her lips even as deep-auburn strands fell from the twist at the back of her head and hung in front of her eyes. “Where did you come from?”
“Uh . . .” He almost didn’t hear the question. God she was breathtaking. “I’m in the warehouse next door. I saw the lights . . .” He set the beers down on the porch. “Let me help you out of this before you break an ankle.”
He stepped closer and held his hands out, testing her acceptance of the idea.
“You’ll miss my Weeble impression,” she said, her demeanor easy, self-deprecating. “And I have to admit—it’s pretty good.”
He grinned and grasped her elbows for support. Her scent drifted to him on her warmth—light, spicy, sensual. Her long, ring-free fingers closed around his forearms, and she turned a little more until she fully faced him. “There you go. Disaster averted.”
She pulled her foot from her heel, then stepped out of the other and sighed. Her body relaxed, and she sat on the top step, laying her skirt-bound knees to the side. Ethan took that as an invitation and sat next to her.
She tilted her head to smile at him, and even though Delaney Hart had never smiled at him before, never talked to him before, hell, as far as he knew, she’d never even looked at him before, he could swear he recognized Delaney’s smile.
But it couldn’t be. It was just the shadows and this property playing tricks on his mind. Then a few long, dark wisps from the mass pinned to the back of her head fell into her eyes again, and she flipped them out of her face. The move shot a sting of familiarity through his gut, and he focused on her face again . . .
“Delaney Hart.” He’d meant to think the words, but now that they were out, he knew they fit, and a trickle of pure joy flowed through his veins and made him laugh. “Damn, I never thought I’d see you in town again.”
A hint of surprise gleamed in her eyes, immediately followed by suspicion. She angled her body toward him a little more, and those dark-blue eyes drilled into his, guarded now. “I never thought I’d be back.”
The same butterflies he’d gotten every time he’d looked at her back then fluttered around his gut now, and he reached for the beers on the top step to fill the nervous space.
Popping the tops, he handed her one. “To nice surprises then.”
She hesitated, scanned the beer, then his face again, and smiled. “You’re the first thing that’s gone right for me all day. So, yes, this is a very nice surprise.”
She took the bottle and squinted at the label. “An IPA?”
“Made it myself.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, un-freaking-able to believe he was sitting here talking to his unrelenting high school crush. A crush who’d turned from a hot young thing into a gorgeous full-fledged woman. “That’s what I do over there at the warehouse. I just came over to check out the lights on the property.”
She glanced in the direction he’d pointed, then returned her gaze to his face, searching again. If his gauge wasn’t too far off, he was pretty sure she liked what she saw. And wasn’t this a thrill? Delaney Hart looking at him instead of through him for the very first time.
But the fact that she was here, nosing around the bar, smashed his little fantasy, making him realize she still had the power to kill his dreams, the way she’d killed them eight years ago.
TWO
The stress must have warped her brain, because Delaney was seriously crushing on this sexy little welcoming committee of one. And after years of exposure to every kind of man in existence through her many years working in bars and construction, it took something special to interest her.
But the fact that he knew her meant he also knew all her ugly secrets. Secrets that had sent her running from Wildwood to begin with. And her very troubling recent past still weighed heavily on her conscience.
Her gaze automatically darted to the ring finger of his left hand, even though she knew no matter what she found there, it didn’t mean anything. Though the absence of a band or a tan line was a step in the right direction.
“You’re a brewmaster, huh?” she asked.
“Among other things. I may be a little partial,” he said, tapping her freshly opened bottle with his own, “but it’s pretty good.”
He took a drink, and Delaney studied his profile, searching her mind for his identity. She scrolled through a mental list of families with boys her age when she’d lived here, but she couldn’t place him.
She returned her gaze to the simple label. “You need to hire a marketing firm to create a brand.”
Another one of those dynamic grins broke out across his face. The man had a killer smile. “Eventually. Never enough money, you know?”
“Oh, yes. I know.” He was good-looking enough to have rung a few bells in her memory, yet . . . “I’m sorry, I don’t—”
“Recognize me? I’m not surprised.”