“Why don’t you grab that table in the corner while I get us something?” she suggested to Lachlan.
He shook his head. “I invited you, remember?”
“I know the owner,” she said. “I can get around that monster line.”
He glanced at the line of customers waiting to be served by Katie, a local college student with short black hair and a cynical edge Elle probably wouldn’t even have by the time she was ninety. She was one of Zach’s two employees. Elle wondered how long Zach would be able to keep them both on the payroll.
“All right," he said.
She watched him amble across the store like he always had, like he was never in a hurry to be anywhere in particular. Like he had all the time in the world. Everyone else had been so high-strung in college. So frantic to take it all in. Lachlan had wanted to take it all in, too, but as with everything else, he wanted to savor it. To really experience it, not just say he’d done it.
She tore her gaze away and headed for the counter where Zach was filling containers with loose tea he bought from an artisanal farm that didn’t use pesticides. He stood a good six inches above her, although thinner than Lachlan and not quite as tall. A shock of his hair, so blonde it was nearly platinum, fell across one blue eye as he looked up to see her approach.
“Hey, girl!” he said. “You should have called. I would have run something over so you didn’t have to lock up the store.”
“You’re too sweet,” she said. “You’ve got your hands full here.”
He scanned the crowd, then rolled his eyes. “I should probably take a picture. I doubt Saturdays are going to look like this after that monster across the street devours all my business.”
“Speaking of which, I went over there today,” Elle said. “Spoke to the man himself.”
He stopped scooping tea. “Glover?”
She nodded.
“What did he say? What did you say?”
“I’ll tell you over lunch Monday.” They almost always had lunch on Mondays. Business was slow after the morning coffee rush at the Bean, and she looked forward to the long talks when Zach told her about his newest hot guy and she pretended she had a life outside of the store. She gestured at the crowd. “It’s too much to get into right now, but let’s just say I didn’t change any minds.”
“Not your fault,” he said, slamming the lid on top of the tea container. “He sounds like a real prick.”
Elle laughed. “Indeed.”
Zach wiped off his hands. “Lavender chamomile?”
She nodded, then hesitated before adding to the order. “And a coffee. Black.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “At this time of day? You’ll be up all night!”
“It’s not for me.” She tipped her head a little, not wanting to be obvious. “It’s for him. The guy at the corner table.”
Zach expertly wiped the counter while his eyes traveled the store. “The tall drink of water who looks like he just peeled off a wetsuit for a Boys Gone Wild calendar?”
“That's the one.”
“Holy shit,” he said. “When you break a dry spell you really go for it. Good for you.”
She laughed, shook her head. “It’s not like that. Trust me.”
He leaned forward on the counter, his eyes gleaming. “Why don’t you tell me instead? It sounds good.”
“Another time,” she said. “It’s a long story. And a complicated one.”
“Got it.” She was relieved that he let it go so easily. “Just give me a sec with those drinks.”
He moved down the long counter and went to work, careful not to get in Katie’s way while she worked. Elle tapped her fingers on the counter, trying to forget that right now, Lachlan Hunt was in the same room. Would soon be right across a table from her for the first time in eight years. She tried to breathe through the butterflies fluttering in her stomach, tried to remove all the expectation she hadn’t defined about seeing him again.
By the time Zach returned she was slightly calmer, although nowhere near as blasé as she would have liked.
“Good luck,” Zach said with a grin.
She shoved a five dollar bill across the counter and picked up the drinks, making her getaway before Zach could shove the money back at her. Neither of them could afford to give away product right now.
She wove her way around the crowded store, taking her time getting to the back table, in no hurry to force the conversation that was about to take place. When she reached the table, she set the down and slipped into the seat across from him.
“I hope you still like it black,” she said.
“I do. Thank you.”
She took a drink of her tea, trying to think of something to say.
“What have you been — ”
“I heard you opened a — ”
They both stopped talking, laughed a little, their eyes meeting across the table. And suddenly it was like no time at all had passed. This man wasn’t a stranger. It was him.
Lachlan.
The boy she’d loved before she knew how to love anyone.
The boy who’d taught her what it meant to love someone.
“Please,” he said. “You first.”
She nodded, took a deep breath. “What have you been up to all this time, Lachlan?”
“It’s Locke now,” he said.
“Locke…” She tried the name on, liking the way it sat on her tongue. The simplicity of it. The way it was free of her associations with the past. “It suits you.”
“Thank you.” He leaned forward, and she suddenly remembered his eagerness — when he spoke and when he listened too. How it had been one of the things she loved about him: the way he relished learning, about himself and everyone else, too. It wasn’t perfunctory for him. It was genuine. “I started a company. An app actually.”
“I read about it,” she said. “A corporate watchdog app, right?”
There was something melancholy in his smile. “It was the only thing I could do.”
She’d been touched when she’d read about it. About the app that allowed consumers to keep an eye on big businesses, their practices, their violations. It hadn’t changed what had happened between them, but it made her think some good might come of it.
She turned her paper cup in her hand. “I didn’t blame you. I told you that.”
“I didn't tell you about my parents,” he said. “The fact that I didn’t agree with their business practices, that it wasn’t my decision… neither of those things excuse the lie.”
She felt like she was drowning, sadness welling in her lungs like water. There was too much loss. The original store, her father, what she’d had with Lachlan… all of it seemed like a nearly-forgotten dream.
“You apologized,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t move past it.”
“I understood then, and I understand now.” She couldn’t look at him, and she stared at the table, watching it grow blurry as her eyes filled with tears. Then his hand closed around hers, his skin warm, the roughness of it against her own sensual enough to send a flicker of heat to her stomach. She looked up, met his eyes as he continued. “I don’t blame you, Elle. I never have.”
His gaze stole her breath, the alchemy of his brown eyes looking like liquid amber in the sunlight streaming through the big windows.
Then he removed his hand, sat back and looked at her, his smile both familiar and strange in a way that excited her more than it should have.
“Tell me about you,” he said. “I want to know everything.”
6
The sun had moved lower in the sky, the light hanging like honey in the slowly emptying coffee shop. They’d been sitting for well over an hour, but he still hadn’t had enough of looking at her.
Would never have enough of looking at her.
She was talking about the store, about the fear and excitement of starting it, about the first few months when she’d been so scared and excited she could hardly sleep, would often open the doors of the store hour
s early just to be there, knowing it was hers.
Her face glowed from within like he remembered, lighting up when she was excited about something, which was often. She hadn't been like the other kids at college that way — carefully bland when she was upset about something, her excitement tempered by the cynicism young people seemed to wear like a badge of honor.
He was happy she hadn’t changed. She was just as vibrant, just as alive as he remembered. It had been one of the things that made him want to take her to bed back when neither of them had much experience — not the carnal need for release but the desire to be inside all that light.
She paused suddenly. “Do I have something on my face?”
“No. Why?” he asked.
She leaned back in her chair, tipped her head at him the way she had a million times before, a hint of amusement on her face. “You’re staring.”
“Because I still like looking at you,” he said, holding her gaze.
The moment seemed to expand between them, filling the space between the table. He felt the silken rope of her hold on him tighten. Didn’t bother resisting it.
She sat up straighter all at once. “Oh, my god… what time is it?” She pulled her phone out of her bag. “Jesus… I’ve had the store closed for almost three hours. I have to go.”
“I’ll walk you.”
They stood and headed for the door. Elle raised a hand in greeting to the guy behind the counter, and Locke suppressed a wave of jealousy, telling himself the other man was probably just a friend.
Hoping it was true.
The sun was low in the sky, working its way toward the horizon. He didn’t like the longer days of fall and winter. Dreaded the additional hours of darkness when there was no sun or surf to block out his memories of her. The loss was so familiar, so much a part of him, he was almost surprised to find her walking beside him. Almost surprised to realize that for the moment, at least, he didn’t need to try and forget her.
They made their way down the block without speaking, and for the first time since she’d crashed into him, the silence between them was heavy. He would have been relieved when she finally stopped walking if it didn’t mean his time with her was almost up.
They stopped at a quaint storefront with children’s books in the window, the door painted a deep green, like the entrance to a secret garden. He looked up, took it in, his eyes coming to rest on the sign that read Matheson and Matheson in gold letters. He felt a surge of happiness at the sight of them — the exact color and font as the original store — then pushed it away. He didn’t have the right to be happy about the store. She had rebuilt it in spite of what his family did to her. Hathaway Holding, the company named after his father’s mother, had made it necessary.
He had made it necessary.
“Do you want to come in?” she asked.
He lowered his gaze to her, shook his head. “I should be going.”
It wasn’t true. He didn’t have anywhere to go, anywhere to be. But entering the store felt like hallowed ground. Like his being there would be a betrayal of all she’d been through.
“Alright,” she said.
He looked at her for a long moment, taking a mental snapshot, committing everything to memory: her hair shining like a freshly minted penny in the dying sunlight, her luminous skin lit from the inside out, green eyes like the ocean when he got out past the breakers.
“I can’t tell you how nice it was to see you,” he said.
She hesitated, drew in a breath, smiled. “It was nice to see you too, Lachlan.”
He reached out, dared to wrap a lock of her long hair around his finger like he had when they'd been young. When touching her had been a daily privilege. “Locke.”
He hadn’t told her about his new last name, chosen for its generic nature, but he couldn’t let her call him Lachlan. The old name made him feel too close to the boy who had lied to her, and he was no longer that boy.
No longer that person.
Her smile faded, and for a few seconds she was so still he thought she’d stopped breathing. “Locke.”
He let the hair spring free from his finger, turned around to go before he made an ass of himself.
“Hey,” he said, remembering something.
“Yeah?” She was still there. Still watching him.
“You never told me why you were upset outside Bolton’s.”
“Their new bookstore…” She stopped without finishing her sentence, then shrugged.
He nodded. “I’m sorry.”
She gave him a sad smile. “Not your fault.”
Not this time.
The words were unspoken but there between them just the same.
He lifted a hand and continued to the crosswalk, forcing himself not to turn back.
There was no going back. Deep down he knew it, even if everything inside him rebelled at the knowledge that there was no universe in which Elle Matheson would ever give him another chance.
7
“Enough, Mom!” Elle laughed, covering her wine glass with her hand as her mother tried to pour. “I’ll be spending the night in my old bedroom if you don’t stop.”
“Would that be so bad?” Her mom poured herself more wine, then tucked her feet under her as she settled into the chair across from Elle.
They were outside, the patio heaters turned on, the white lights her mother had strung in the trees glowing around them while candles flickered on the wood table. Sunday dinners had been a tradition ever since her father died, a way for Elle to connect with her mom at least once a week, though often they saw each other more than that. It had become especially important since her brother, Patrick, had been traveling.
“Are you going to tell me what’s on your mind?” her mother asked.
Elle looked up, cursing herself for being silent too long. Her mother was like a wolfhound on the scent of Elle’s silence; she knew when Elle was hiding something.
Elle looked around the patio, trying to articulate the conflicting emotions that had been stirred up by seeing Lachlan.
Locke.
Her father had loved the sprawling backyard in the San Diego suburbs. While her mother could never get enough of books, preferring to spend her downtime reading, Elle’s father had spent every possible moment puttering in the flower beds, repotting the plants that spilled from containers on the patio, refinishing the patio table for the hundredth time.
There were traces of him everywhere she looked, and she was still half-surprised when he didn’t appear, carrying a plate of undercooked meat, his big laugh echoing across the lawn.
“I just miss him,” Elle finally said. “So much.”
Her mother smiled sadly. “I miss him, too.” She paused. “But that’s not all of it, is it?”
Elle laughed, shook her head. “You never give up, do you?"
“What good has ever come of giving up?" her mother asked.
Elle studied her with admiration. She’d been dealt some bad blows over the past few years: the loss of the store, of Elle’s father, Patrick's decision to hit the road in the wake of his grief. But she only seemed stronger, even more serene for all that she’d been through. Her long hair was almost entirely silver, but her eyes still crinkled when she laughed, and there was still something youthful and elegant about her long neck, the straight set of her spine.
“Sometimes it’s better to give up,” Elle said. “Not because you’re weak, but because some things just aren’t meant to be.”
“What are we talking about here, Elle?”
“I saw Lachlan Hunt yesterday,” she said. “Actually, he goes by Locke now.”
“I see,” her mother said. “And how was that?”
Elle turned her wine glass in her hand as images of him flashed in her mind. The big shoulders, hardly recognizable as belonging to the boy she’d loved. The eyes that switched from brown to amber in the light, that still seemed to see right through her. The way his hand had felt on hers, the current of electricity that zinged along the su
rface of her skin when he’d touched her.
“It was… weird.”
"You can do better than that.”
Her mother sounded disappointed by her choice of words, and Elle looked up, smiled. “Geez, Mom, should we get the thesaurus?”
“You know what I mean,” her mother said, taking a drink of her wine. “Weird doesn’t say anything, and I think that’s the way you like it.”
“It’s just hard to talk about him,” Elle said.
Still?” her mother asked.
“Still.”
“How is he?”
“He seems good,” Elle said. “He’s… grown up.”
Her mom smiled. “So have you.”
“I guess so.”
“What is he doing for work now?” her mother asked. “I haven’t heard a peep about him since he sold that company of his, although his parents seem as busy as ever at Hathaway Holding.”
There was no bitterness in her voice, something that didn’t surprise Elle at all. Her mother had a way of letting go of things that haunted other people. A way of being at peace with whatever the universe brought her. It was a quality Elle lacked, and she often wondered if her dad would have been more angry had he lived, if Elle got her brand of grief from him or if she was uniquely unforgiving.
“We didn’t talk about his work actually.” Elle felt stupid saying it. Why hadn’t she asked him? “But he seems to be doing well.”
“Is he seeing anyone?” her mother asked.
Elle laughed, shook her head. “Are you serious?”
Her mother shrugged, feigned innocence. “What? I’m just asking.”
“We didn’t talk about that either, Mom. And it doesn’t matter. We had our chance. It didn’t work out.”
Rebel Love (Kings of Corruption Book 2) Page 3
