by Amy Woods
She didn’t have to wonder much longer, because it only took one glance at his face—that incredible face she’d hated so hard, and loved even harder—to know that it was Ryan.
My Ryan, she thought, before instantly correcting herself.
He’s never been yours.
He stared back at her, blinking as though trying to see her clearly through a veil of fog. He didn’t say anything for a moment that stretched out like eternity. Then he set down his fork and spoke her name, the sound of those two simple syllables rolling over his tongue making her knees go weak until they were about as useless to stand on as pillars of sand.
Katie grasped at the doorframe and steadied herself, and when she looked up again, he was crossing the room toward her.
He stopped about a foot away and seemed to second-guess his decision. She immediately cast her eyes down, unwilling to glance up again, but that didn’t stop what she’d already seen. Ryan Ford had always been a pleasure to look at; there wasn’t a woman in the world who would disagree. But the man who stood before Katie was...gorgeous.
He had Ryan’s deep hazel eyes—tiger eyes, her mother had always called them—and Ryan’s russet hair, wavy and unkempt and too long, as usual. And that was Ryan’s mouth she’d seen, the bottom lip fuller than the top—lips Katie had kissed only once and wished for since. And there was Ryan’s height, towering over her...making it darn near impossible to deny the truth.
A million different things rushed through her all at once. She wanted to punch him right in the face, and she wanted to wrap her arms around him. She wanted to scream at him and tell him to go back where he came from and she wanted him to hold her. She wanted to kick him in the shins, and she wanted to feel his mouth on hers. Katie couldn’t make sense of any of it, and she was afraid of what she might do if he stood there much longer.
She didn’t ask him why he’d done what he had done, why he’d never once contacted her after he’d driven out of town in that rusty old piece-of-junk truck—that stupid old thing Ryan had worked his ass off for just so he wouldn’t have to use his dad’s money—and never looked back. Why he’d refused to answer her that night when she’d asked him if he felt the same way she did. And...why he’d let her fall right out of his life, as though she’d never been important enough to hold on to.
The thoughts wouldn’t stop swirling around in her head, and Katie felt as if she was going to be sick. Ryan was still standing there staring at her, his face an unreadable mask, when she sucked in the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding and pulled herself together. Before she had a chance to do anything stupid—before she had a chance to make her day even worse than the epic disaster it already was—Katie did what Ryan had done all those years ago.
She slipped past him and walked away.
Chapter Two
Footsteps crunched over the gravel behind her as Katie raced through the parking lot toward her truck, and she couldn’t help but wonder if they belonged to Ryan.
Jeez. Is that what I wanted? For him to follow me?
Once, a long time ago, it would have been a resounding yes, but now...now her world was so completely backward that she wasn’t sure.
Could this day get any worse?
“Katie,” Ryan’s voice rang out behind her.
So that was him following her. Her head and heart were in such a jumble that she didn’t know how to react, so she just kept walking, digging through her purse for her keys so she would have them ready when she got to her truck. Maybe there was still a chance that the whole day had been just one big nightmare. There was still a chance—a slim one, she knew, but she would take it—that she could wake up from this and find herself back in her normal life, where each day was wonderfully similar to the one before it and where things made sense. She wanted to go back to that life, because having Ryan Ford show up in town after eight years...that did not make sense.
“Katie, stop!” Ryan called out, his voice somehow gentle and firm at the same time, the sound pouring over her like rain, tempting the dried-up place inside her heart—the place she’d given to Ryan when she’d been just a teenager.
And dammit if she didn’t obey.
Katie halted and turned around, her pulse thumping, still reeling from the surprise of seeing him in the pub, of having him so close to her body, and from the strange mix of anger and sorrow that always welled up at his memory...and now his presence.
She’d imagined this moment before...had always envisioned herself coming face-to-face with her past love in such a way, only to meet him with poise and apathy. A single person shouldn’t be allowed to turn another into mush just by his presence, yet that was exactly what he did to her. Years of time passing, of Katie maturing into a hardworking adult and now a parent-to-be, and still the sound of his voice made her want to fall into his arms.
She took a deep breath. Just because he made her feel that way didn’t mean he had to know it.
“What in the world are you doing here, Ryan?”
There, she’d said his name. It tasted bittersweet on her tongue and felt raw coming out of her throat, but there it was. And it hadn’t killed her.
He stopped walking a few feet away from her, the distance more comfortable to Katie than his nearness inside the bar. As long as he stayed over there, she would be fine. As long as she maintained their current proximity—as long as she couldn’t smell the lemon-and-mint soap he still apparently used, and if she couldn’t hear him breathing—she would be okay. She couldn’t allow him to come any closer, even as she cursed herself for wanting nothing more.
“Katie, it’s so good to—” He moved a foot in her direction, and she matched it with one step backward. “It’s good to see you,” Ryan said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “I know you don’t want to see me, but it’s good to see you.”
Katie met his eyes and immediately wished she hadn’t.
She watched as his attention moved down to the roundness of her midsection. His eyes grew wide and he swallowed before his lips formed a thin, straight line.
He lingered there for a moment before he looked back up at her. There was softness in his gaze, along with a...hopefulness...that she couldn’t have prepared herself for.
Eight years had done nothing to temper what she’d felt the night of Ryan’s graduation. If she closed her eyes, she could still see the way his features had shifted when, after several long moments of standing silently in front of her, he’d finally understood what she’d been trying to say.
It had taken over a year for Katie to work up the courage to confront him...to force herself to face what she’d been feeling for far longer than she’d been able to admit, and muster enough bravery to share it with Ryan.
She loved him. Not as the best friend he’d been since childhood, but far more. Even at sixteen, she’d known something then that hadn’t changed since: he was her true love...her person. No matter how hard she tried in the coming years, he would not be replaced.
At the time, she’d been naive enough to believe that loving him was enough to make him hers.
She found out soon enough that other things could come first...that other things could matter more. Things like the baby his girlfriend, Sarah, had been carrying—the baby Ryan had found out about only moments before Katie pulled him aside.
She would never forget the way he looked at her when he told her why he had to go and “do the right thing” by Sarah. Even as he’d told her that it was what he wanted, Katie could see the truth in his eyes.
For a second, a single second, she’d seen what she’d known all along. He loved her the same way—the way she wanted him to. He left that night without another word, the expression in his sad, determined eyes seared into her brain...but she knew. She wished she didn’t—perhaps his leaving would have hurt less—but she knew.
When Ryan drove away that night, Sarah by his side in the cab of his old truck, along with the couple’s few possessions and a jar full of cash Ryan had been saving for
college, a piece of Katie went along with him.
She had cried and holed up in her room for two days, wrapped in Ryan’s favorite old sweatshirt with Peach Leaf Panthers emblazoned across the front, but when the last tear had fallen, Katie let it drop, and she’d made a vow to let him go. Ryan was a wonderful childhood best friend and an amazing person, but she wasn’t going to let his memory take away the life ahead of her. He’d taken a piece of her heart with him, but he couldn’t have the rest of her, and she would make her own happiness in the world.
Even if the men she loved kept leaving her.
Katie pushed out the breath she’d been holding.
Yeah, she wanted more. She wanted a family. She wanted a husband to share her life with, and she wanted the baby inside of her. She wanted to re-create the joy that had filled her childhood home. But she was a patient woman, and she was willing to wait for those things as long as she needed to. In the meantime, she’d found a way to create a kind of makeshift happiness, and she’d found a way to embrace the parts of the past that she wanted to keep by working at the museum.
So how was it that, in one day, the world she’d built so carefully was falling down around her? And the last piece to hit the ground was Ryan Ford, who stood staring at her, waiting for her to say something.
“Ryan, I don’t... I mean, I never expected to see you again,” she choked out before clearing her throat. “I didn’t think you’d ever come back here.”
He nodded and his shoulders slumped, and Katie felt herself melt into the molten pools of gold and brown inside his eyes.
“I didn’t know you still lived here, Katie. I didn’t think I’d run into you like this. I’m sorry I freaked you out back there. That wasn’t my intention.”
Hearing him apologize tugged at Katie’s heart. Why had she bolted from him? It wasn’t like her to be so impolite, so unkind. And it wasn’t as though he didn’t have the right to visit his own hometown.
She didn’t have to like him, and she didn’t have to spend more than a few more seconds with him, but that didn’t mean she had a right to be rude.
“No, it’s okay. I’m the one who should apologize for brushing you off. Seeing you just...caught me by surprise, I suppose.” She reached up and tugged at a strand of hair that had come loose from her hairdo.
Oh, God.
She still had her hair up in the Gibson Girl. She must look like a complete idiot.
And why did she care, anyway?
It was Ryan. Ryan Ford, who used to spend every weekend and afternoon at her house because he preferred it to the tumultuous atmosphere his parents’ incessant fighting caused inside his own. Sweet Ryan, who used to call her Katydid like the bug, a nickname no one had used since, one which she secretly missed tremendously.
Ryan, whom she’d loved in a way she’d always known she could never find twice in a lifetime. Anger swelled inside her and Katie was grateful for its presence. It was much easier to handle than the myriad of other emotions she shoved aside.
Stupid Ryan Ford.
“Look, Katie, I—”
She held up a hand to stop him. “You don’t have to say anything else.” She dropped her arm to her side and before she had a chance to do anything to prevent it, his steps had eaten up all the distance between them and there he was...right there in front of her.
Her breath caught in her throat when he opened up his arms and wrapped them around her tightly. She couldn’t have moved if she wanted to, and the worst part was...she wasn’t sure she did.
When she could finally breathe again, his familiar smell washed over her and brought hundreds of memories with it...most of them happy, which startled her. His chest was firm and wide, and Katie resisted the urge to dissolve into him. She didn’t want to think about what would happen if she gave in, about how hard it would be to let go.
He must have sensed her tension because he pulled back abruptly, balling his hands into fists at his sides as though he didn’t quite know what to do with them. They stood staring at each other, the air between them a silent pool of chaos, filled with all the things they weren’t able or willing to say.
And what was there to say, really? Yes, she’d had a crush on him growing up...more than a crush. But what he’d done that night—or rather hadn’t done—had erased any chance of whatever unspoken feelings had been between them. The bottom line was, she couldn’t trust Ryan. Couldn’t trust him to be there for her and couldn’t trust him with her heart.
“Look, Katie. You don’t have to talk to me, and you don’t have to stay. I understand if you want to get away from me. I just want you to know that I don’t feel the same way.”
She leaned back on her heels, just to get some feeling into her legs, which had gone numb along with the rest of her body when Ryan touched her. She looked at the ground and back up again, and he was still there.
“I really need to get home,” she said. As soon as the words were out, regret tumbled through her and she had to face the fact that she really didn’t want to go anywhere, least of all home, where she’d have nothing more to do than think about the job she’d lost and face her housemate’s endless supply of cheer.
And to tell the truth, she wanted to talk to Ryan. She wanted to know what he’d been up to for the past near-decade and find out what kind of life he lived, what had happened with him and Sarah and the family they’d started.
Just simple curiosity. That was all.
Ryan’s face fell, but he nodded. “That’s fine. I understand. I’ve got to...get back to my hotel and work on a few things. Make some calls.”
“You’re not staying with your parents?” she asked. She’d just assumed they were the reason for his visit. Why else would he be back in town?
Darkness fell over his eyes, but he blinked it away in an instant. Katie had caught it, though, and she wanted to know what it meant.
“No,” he said, his tone strange. “No, I’m not. I don’t...see much of them anymore...at least not my dad. Not since I left.”
They weren’t the only ones you left.
“Okay, well—”
“It was nice to see you, Katie. It really was. I hope it’s not the last time.”
She tried to keep her face neutral, but was pretty sure a funny look escaped. It was an odd thing for him to say, but then the past half hour had been odd; her whole day had been odd. This was just another slice of crazy to add to the pie.
She gave him a small grin and held up her palm in a wave before heading to her truck. Somehow she managed to unlock the door and get inside, but it wasn’t until she reached to put her seat belt on that she realized her hands were shaking. She leaned forward until her head rested against the steering wheel, where she stayed until her whole body ceased its trembling and she could breathe again.
She put her key in the ignition and turned it, but the result she got was definitely not the one she expected.
Katie tried again, but all that came out of the engine was a sputtering cough.
“All right, old man. Don’t do this to me. Not today.”
She gave it another go and heard the same thing; the engine turned over, but it wouldn’t start.
“Okay, please?” she begged, trying a different tactic. Maybe if she talked a little sweeter to it, the old hunk of metal would do as she asked, which really wasn’t a whole lot, considering its job description.
She gave a loud groan and slammed her fists against the dashboard, throwing a fit like the smaller children sometimes did at the museum. She was about to try one more time when a sound interrupted her—a soft knock on her windshield.
Ryan.
Great.
Now she could add being a damsel in distress to her list of experiences. October 15 was turning out to be a very bad day indeed. If this kept up, it wouldn’t hold the position of her favorite month much longer.
He motioned for her to roll down her window. That little maneuver hadn’t been possible for a year or so, so she opened the door instead.
�
�Need some help?” he asked.
“Maybe...possibly. I don’t know.” She threw her hands up in the air.
Why did he look...pleased?
He gave her an utterly charming smile and she wanted to hit him.
“Jump out. Let me have a look,” he instructed, and once again, she obeyed. She would really have to stop doing that... He didn’t deserve it.
Once she’d hopped down, Ryan reached inside the truck and found the lever that opened the hood. He walked over and propped it open, bending to peer inside. She really wished he hadn’t done that, because her eyes immediately latched on to his backside, which was even better than she remembered—a fact she would never, ever tell him.
After only a few minutes of poking around, Ryan pulled his head out from under the hood and faced her. A few streaks of grease tattooed his hands, which did nothing to make him look worse. “Your piston rings are worn,” he said, looking a little too smug for his own good. “We’ve got to get you some new ones.”
Katie ran a hand through her still-pinned-up hair, which had probably started to resemble a toilet brush by then. “How long will that take?” she asked, glancing down at her watch. Even though she wasn’t going to be working at the museum much longer, Katie still had a job to do. She was determined to make this Pumpkin Festival the best the town had ever seen—even if it was the last. Especially if it was the last. And she had some shopping to do the next day and...oh, jeez...what if something happened, what if there was more wrong with her truck than Ryan had already discovered? She needed it to pull the trailer for the hayride Friday night.
“Well, that depends, Katydid.”
She pretended to ignore the old nickname that made her pulse kick up its pace.
