Nikki sighed dramatically. “Ollie. Hottest man in all the land. Friend-zoner extraordinaire. But one day, I will make him see what he’s missing.”
“Ah, things are beginning to make sense now,” I said.
Nikki feigned sadness with the grim shake of her head. “No, Rynna, men make absolutely no sense whatsoever. There is no sense to be found.”
I laughed. God, I really liked them.
“Isn’t that the truth?” I said.
Lillith pushed open the glass door. It was smudged with its own layer of greasy dust, and the white logo on the front claiming Pepper’s Pies was barely visible. Still, I could read it as if I’d drawn it myself. It was a shaker tipped on its side, flecks of pepper pouring over a tumble of pot pies and sweet pies and pizzas.
Gramma’s offerings had always been unique and perfectly peculiar.
Just like the woman behind it.
I was washed with another wave of warmth, and I couldn’t help but think I was supposed to return. That no matter what the past held, this was where I had always belonged.
We stepped out into the hot Alabama summer day, and I blinked against the sudden glare of sunlight and the rush of sticky humidity.
Clouds threatened in the distance, building in the sultry heat.
Lillith hummed with a near imperceptible bounce on her toes. Her attention locked on the small group of men across the street, who’d gathered in a circle just inside the chain-link fence.
Most of them were in work clothes: jeans and long-sleeved shirts and boots. Though a single man with his back to us wore a black suit and a yellow hard hat.
Nikki leaned in and mock-whispered in my ear, “Suit-guy would be the fiancé, Broderick Wolfe. You know, the one who constantly has this one’s panties on fire. Look at her . . . she can hardly contain herself.”
I bit back laughter, my whisper just as faked. “How long until she goes running over there?”
“Oh, I’d say about two point five seconds.”
Lillith swatted at my arm, and God, for the first time since I’d returned, I felt truly, completely as if I were home.
“Stop it, you two. Like I don’t hear you over there.”
We both laughed. Nikki dropped her arm and moved to face me, pulling her cell phone from where it was tucked in her back pocket. “What’s your number in case you get lost?” she said with a grin hugging her mouth as she dipped her head to look down. Her fingers were poised to input my number.
I almost got the entire thing out before my mouth went dry and the numbers came to a sluggish, sticky halt, my tongue unable to form a sound.
The man standing next to Broderick had turned around and was looking in our direction.
The smile slid right off his gorgeous face when he saw me staring at him. But somehow, the transformation into the hard scowl was just as mesmerizing.
Just as hypnotic.
Maybe more so.
Because I felt weightless beneath his glare.
Fluttery and uneasy.
Mesmerized.
Those sage eyes were so hard and intense. Capturing me. Holding me hostage. So dark they should have held the power to conceal the fire that raged in the depths, scored like markers in his spirit.
But I saw it. Felt it where it stuck in the heated, stagnant air.
The pain buried underneath.
Nikki lifted her head in question, her fingers ready for the last two numbers. “Hello?”
Snapping out of it, I cleared my throat. “Oh . . . um, sorry, six-two.”
“Got it,” she said before she gave me a salute and backed away. “Eight o’clock, my friend. Don’t make me hunt you down. You know I will.”
I tore my attention from the man pinning me to the spot from the other side of the street. His hold was just as heavy as if he were right in front of me, physically restraining me with those massive hands.
“I’ll be there,” I told her.
“You’d better be.” She winked.
Lillith squeezed my hand gently before she backed away to cross the street. “It was great to finally meet you, Rynna. This is going to be good. I can just feel it. I’m so glad we took the chance and stopped in.”
She said it without realizing the impact her words had on me. The way they flooded me with warmth and hope. The way they nudged the aspirations at the root of who I was, freeing them from where they’d been trapped deep inside.
My gaze roamed, drawn back to the man who hadn’t moved an inch. Hostility rippled off him like heat waves.
I had no idea why I felt it. Compelled. Driven toward a man that seemed so rigid, so dangerous to my sanity.
But I felt it. He needed someone to revive his faith just as desperately as I did.
Because looking at him?
I suddenly knew he had none of it. That something had gone dim inside him.