by Kait Nolan
“It worked out for him and Grandma Ruth,” she’d agreed.
“We should get married.”
As she’d decided on that months ago, when they’d watched Aladdin, she was amenable. But even at six, she’d been practical. “We can’t get married yet, silly. We’re too young.”
“When we’re older, then. How about when we turn twenty-one? That’s forever away.”
“It’s the official grown-up age.” Mama and Daddy said so.
“So, it’s settled. We’ll get married when we’re twenty-one.”
“Okay.”
He sat up, and so did she, each staring at the other with as much gravity as children could muster. Then they’d spat into the palms of their hands and shaken on it—the most serious of promises. Kyle had nodded at that and pulled something out of his pocket.
“I got this for you.”
It was a plastic ring, the kind that had come out of the candy machine down at Garden of Eden, the market in town. It might as well have been the crown jewels. The gesture spoke of forethought and intent, and she’d fallen in love with him then and there—insofar as a six-year-old was capable of such things. She’d kept that silly ring for years, a part of her foolishly believing that they’d both meant the promise they’d made that day.
He hadn’t. That had been the end of it. The end of them as... anything.
He was a grown man. A rising success. He had everything he always wanted. Of course, he’d have found someone by now. It was fine. Maybe him being taken would kill off the tiny, idiotic part of her that thought he’d someday come back to honor that spit shake, no matter how things had ended between them. The part that believed there was anything left of the man he used to be in the man he’d become.
“I’m looking for Abbey.”
The sound of her name had her shoving her reaction aside. She’d wasted enough time and energy on Kyle Keenan. There was work to be done. Scrubbing both hands over her face and slipping on a mask of professionalism, she stepped out of her treatment room.
Nadia was talking to a man she didn’t recognize. He didn’t look like their usual clients. His patchy beard seemed more like the result of not bothering to shave for weeks, rather than growing one on purpose, and she was pretty sure that streak of neon orange stuff down the front of his sweater was dust from a bag of Cheetos. Maybe a client had recommended her services? Or maybe he wanted to buy a gift card for someone else?
“Can I help you?”
The guy had a weird intensity about him that made her uncomfortable. His gaze seemed full of a manic glitter, his smile just a shade too bright.
“Oh, I’ve come a long way to find you.”
What the actual hell?
The door opened again, and she glanced toward it, hoping Pru’s husband, Flynn, was popping in as well-timed backup. Then she did a double take because a ghost walked in.
He was older, his shoulders a little broader than they’d been at twenty-one. His cheeks had long ago lost the last roundness of youth and now sported a close-cropped blond beard highlighting a very adult jaw. His vivid blue eyes met hers, and there was no stopping the electric current of hope and joy beneath the jolt of shock.
“Kyle?” She hated the breathless quality of her voice, but she couldn’t look away from the answering joy and blinding smile. He was a very vivid hallucination. The news of his engagement had broken something in her over-taxed brain.
He crossed the distance between them in a few long-legged strides, and then his hands were sliding into her hair. “Missed you,” he rasped and took her mouth with his.
Oh, yeah, she’d definitely passed out and had some kind of head injury. Because no way in hell was her ex-best friend kissing the bejeezus out of her like she’d always wanted him to. Like he was drowning, and she was oxygen. Like they hadn’t spent the past decade not speaking, and he hadn’t shattered her heart. He only ever did that in dreams because the privacy of her own mind was the only place she could still be honest.
And if she was dreaming, then it was safe to indulge in the fantasy.
Chapter 3
Kyle had no plan.
They’d driven hell for leather to get here, only to walk in and see her standing in the lobby with Howie Frick, one of the cretinous paparazzi who haunted the country music scene. He’d thought for sure he was already too late. But then Abbey had seen him, and her first reaction hadn’t been anger or hurt. She’d looked… happy to see him. After how things had ended between them, that was the last thing he’d expected. In that moment, kissing her had seemed like the smartest, most vital thing in the world.
He’d gone in prepared for her to push him away, maybe try to slap him. Her little purr of surrender wrecked all thoughts of giving Griff time to hustle Howie out the door. As she rose against him, pressing closer, Kyle forgot everything else but the woman in his arms—the one he’d dreamed about, sang of, and pined over for more than ten long years. The one who was undeniably kissing him back. Her mouth opened under his, and he swept deeper, desperate to fill the void in his chest with the taste of her. Why the hell hadn’t they been doing this every day for years? Nothing else mattered but that he never, ever let her go again.
The rapid-fire click of a camera shutter brought him back.
Camera. Paparazzi. Audience. Shit.
Lifting his head only far enough to speak, he growled one word. “Griff.”
“On it.”
“Hey! That’s my camera!”
“And this is private property.”
“It’s a public business!”
“Do we need to have another conversation about what is and is not appropriate behavior?”
Kyle didn’t need to look to know Griff was hauling the guy out. It wasn’t the first time.
He kept his eyes on Abbey’s face, his hands still woven into the silk of her hair. Her lips were pink and swollen from his, and the soft, stunned expression in her big, brown eyes was fading, replaced by… well, he didn’t know what, but they needed to get somewhere private fast before her brain kicked back online.
Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he hustled Abbey toward the nearest open room and shut the door behind them. The moment he did, she jerked away, whirling on him.
“What the actual hell?” This was the furious woman he’d been braced for.
“Keep your voice down.”
“Give me one good reason why.”
“You kissed me back.” Not exactly the kind of reason she was asking for, but it was the detail his brain was spotlighting.
She opened her mouth as if to refute him and then closed it again. Her cheeks suffused with color, and her hands curled into fists. “You’re engaged!” she hissed.
Christ, he hadn’t considered she could hear about part without hearing about the whole. He lifted his hands in peace. “To you!”
“To... What?” Profound shock replaced the fury.
Yeah, okay, she hadn’t expected that. Wishing he’d thought this through and that he had any blood flow to his brain, he struggled to find the words. “I can explain.”
“Talk. Fast.”
“I might have accidentally let it slip this morning during a live interview that we were engaged.”
Her brows climbed even further toward her hairline. “Might have?”
“Okay, I sort of did,” he conceded. Did the fact that it hadn’t been on purpose make it better or worse?
“Are you out of your mind?”
Someone knocked softly and opened the door. His foster sister, Pru, stepped inside. “I’m sorry to interrupt… whatever this is, but the elder care is on the phone, Abbey. They’ve been trying to reach you.”
She bolted from the room without a backward glance.
Pru crossed her arms and somehow managed to stare down her nose at him, despite being several inches shorter.
Kyle rubbed the back of his neck. “Hey, sis.”
“Don’t you ‘Hey, sis’ me. You stay away from home all these years and now you com
e into my place of business like this, doing—” She waved a finger toward the lobby. “—whatever the heck that was. You’ve got more than a little explaining to do.”
He’d seen all of them at their brother Caleb’s wedding last fall, but he understood that wasn’t enough. Not when he’d missed the family reunion and Joan’s funeral before that. “That’s completely fair. And I promise I will, but I need to talk to Abbey first.”
He started for the door, but Pru stepped into his path. “I hope you two sort things out. It’s way past overdue. But if you hurt her again, I’ll string you up myself.”
He wondered how much she knew. “Yes, ma’am.”
This time, she didn’t stop him when he moved past her. He stepped into the lobby just in time to see all the blood drain out of Abbey’s face.
“I’m on my way.” It took her two tries to get the phone hung up. She lifted huge, terrified eyes to him.
No, not to him. To Pru, who’d skirted around him.
“Honey, what’s wrong?”
“Granddaddy had a fall and got hurt. They called an ambulance. He’s on his way to the hospital in Johnson City.”
Kyle’s own hands clenched with the need to do something… anything. This was a man who’d once treated him as family. Who’d taught him how to whittle wood. How to peel an apple in one long strip. He had to be okay.
“Oh my God. Go. We’ll cover everything here,” Pru insisted.
Abbey yanked open a drawer in the front desk and grabbed her purse. “Where the hell are my keys?” She pawed through it for several long moments.
When she made as if to upend the entire bag, Kyle moved in to stop her, laying his hands over hers. He could feel the tremors running through her. “I’ll drive.”
He knew it was bad when she didn’t even try to argue.
Griff came back inside. “Frick’s gone. Not sure for how long, but I think I bought you at least a few days with my creative threats of where I’d shove his camera if I saw his ugly mug here again.”
“Need keys.”
Without hesitation, Griff tossed them over.
Glancing back at Pru, he said, “I’ll explain later. Just… if anybody shows up asking about me… or Abbey, put them off and tell them nothing.”
Pressing a hand to Abbey’s lower back, he led her out to his SUV. As they stepped out the door, he could hear Pru. “Apparently, it’s the day for homecomings. Welcome back, Griffin.”
Griff would be fine. The family would take care of him while he did this. It’s what all of them who’d spent time at The Misfit Inn before it had been turned into a literal inn had been raised to do. The family you made stuck.
Abbey said nothing as they climbed into the Land Cruiser. Her breaths were quick and shallow, her hands knotted in white-knuckled fists in her lap as he headed for Johnson City.
“Why is Griff with you?”
“He finished his stint in the Marines a few months ago. I hired him as security on my tour.”
“Oh.”
They lapsed back into silence for a while. It wasn’t one of the easy silences they’d shared in their youth. It was full of emotional landmines, past and present, and Kyle hardly knew where to step.
“Do you need to call your folks?”
She pressed the heels of both hands to her eyes. “My parents just left for a ten-day cruise this morning. I sent them for their anniversary. I told them I could handle him on my own. And now…”
He hated the self-recrimination in her voice. “What’s going on with Granddaddy other than this fall?”
“He has dementia. We think it started after Grandma Ruth passed a few years ago. He has long stretches of good days, and because he’s worked the orchards his whole life, we missed the signs for a while. But eventually, we couldn’t deny what was happening. A couple years ago, he ran the tractor into the side of the barn because he forgot to set the brake. It was a miracle he wasn’t hurt and that nobody else was either. I moved home after that to help take care of him.”
This was all stuff Kyle should have known. These people had once been family. But, of course, no one had told him. Why would they? He’d screwed things up and hadn’t been a part of their lives. Not even enough for his sisters to keep him up to date. The guilt over that was a bitter taste in his mouth.
Before he could express his regrets—he had so damned many when it came to this woman—Abbey was speaking again.
“So… what is this whole engaged thing?”
He glanced over at her, glad to see a trace of color back in her cheeks. “We don’t have to talk about this right now.”
“You brought this to my doorstep, and it’s a distraction to keep me from freaking out right now. Why in the hell did you say we were engaged?”
“My manager and my label have been pressuring me to hook up with Mercy Lee Bradshaw for publicity purposes. There’s no amount of money or publicity on earth that would induce me to do that, so I figured I’d shut that shit down by announcing I was promised to someone else. I didn’t mean to mention your name, but I kinda got tricked into it. Combination of no sleep and a sneaky host.”
There went the eyebrow again, but she let that pass. “Why me?”
One corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. “I mean, technically, you’re the only woman I’ve ever been engaged to.”
“We were six.”
“I still meant it.”
On a disbelieving snort, she turned to look out the window. “Maybe you did back then.”
“Abbey, I—”
“No.” The single word stopped him more effectively than a slap.
Right. This was not about fixing things between them. This was about distraction from whatever was waiting for her at the hospital.
“I didn’t mean to dump this on you.”
“It’s your mess. You can clean it up. Issue a retraction or… whatever.”
The idea had a fresh spate of panic bursting through him. He didn’t want to announce it had been a lie. For better or worse, she was talking to him right now for the first time in forever. If he could keep it that way, maybe he could prove to her he wasn’t who she thought he’d become.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Sure it is. You open your mouth to say that you didn’t mean it or the host misinterpreted or whatever. Then you go back to your life, and I go back to mine.”
“That isn’t going to stop the paparazzi from harassing you.”
“I’m nobody. None of them are going to care about me.”
“Unfortunately, yeah they will, because of me.”
“Then I’ll set them straight.”
“The gossip rags likely already have their teeth in this. They’re going to run with whatever story they think plays best. You won’t get left alone if I just publicly announce ‘Oops, my bad.’”
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know yet. My top priority was getting here to tell you before someone else had the chance. I’ll get my publicist on it.” Deanna was probably going on the growing list of people who wanted to kosh him over the head with a blunt instrument. She and Abbey would get along great.
He pulled up to the doors of the Emergency Department with no little relief. “Right now, the only thing that matters is Granddaddy. Go on in. Find out what’s going on. I’ll park and come find you.”
Abbey slid out of the front seat, shooting him a confused glance. “Thanks for driving me.” She hesitated, one hand on the door. “This doesn’t mean you’re forgiven.”
“I didn’t think it would.”
But as she shut the door and strode into the hospital, he wondered if his big fat mouth might have just given him the perfect excuse to get close enough to her to earn that forgiveness.
“The good news: Nothing’s broken. You’re incredibly lucky, Mr. Whittaker.”
Abbey let go of the breath she’d been holding since the doctor, a studious-looking black man in wire-framed glasses, came back to their little curt
ained-off exam room. That was one prayer answered.
“The bad news: You’ve rolled your ankle badly. The inflammation is pretty nasty, and you’ll be unstable on your feet for a while. You’re going to need to keep off it. Elevation, ice, crutches. Do you have someone who can stay with you to help out?”
“I live with him. I’ll be there,” Abbey interjected.
“There’s no need for that. You’ve got work.”
“Mr. Whittaker, you might not be so lucky with another fall,” Dr. Johnson warned. “And at your age and condition, a broken hip or a head injury could be—well, let’s not go there, shall we?”
Abbey heard what he didn’t say. Another fall could lead to an injury that would be a death sentence. Granddaddy didn’t understand his own fragility as a dementia patient, but she did. The next ten days without her parents just gotten infinitely more complicated. “We’ll work everything out.” She didn’t know how, but right now she couldn’t think past getting home.
That was when she remembered she hadn’t driven herself. Kyle had brought her. It said a lot about how worried she’d been that she’d managed to block out that detail for the last few hours. Was he still here? Maybe he called back to the inn and traded off with… someone else. She could hope. She didn’t know how she was going to handle the ride all the way back to Eden’s Ridge. If she wasn’t driving, she’d have time to think, and that was a dangerous proposition.
It was, of course, Kyle himself who rose from a seat in the Emergency Department waiting room, when they emerged from the back. Much as she’d painted him with a villain’s brush over the past ten years, she’d known he wouldn’t just leave her with no way to get home. He’d seemed just as concerned about Granddaddy as she was on the drive over.
“Everything all right?” He’d donned a baseball cap and some Clark Kent glasses that almost made her smile at the cheesiness.
“Bunch of fuss for nothin’,” Granddaddy insisted from his wheelchair. “Just a sprain. I could’ve walked it off.”
Kyle eyed the crutches Abbey carried. “Doesn’t look like you’re gonna be walking for a little while, either way.”
