Hometown Hope: A Small Town Romance Anthology

by Zoe York

  And it might make him an asshole, but if that was what he had to use to get her to come around to talking to him, so be it. He’d pull out every obnoxious play in the book if she’d just tell him about her life.

  She cleared her throat and thrust the paperwork in his direction. “I just need your signature on these. You missed a couple pages last week.”

  He stepped closer to her, trying hard not to smirk when she stiffened. Then he brushed his fingers over hers as he pulled the papers from her hand. “Happy to give you anything you need, Willowtree.”

  Her nostrils flared, the anger she was suppressing clearly written over every inch of her. But instead of chastising him for using her nickname from when they’d been teenagers, or for lacing his statement with an innuendo he was certain she’d picked up on, she just squared her shoulders. “You can go ahead and drop ’em by later today.”

  “Much as I’d love to visit you in your office again, I’m afraid I’m not fit for public viewing for the foreseeable future.” Finn gestured to himself, the sheen of sweat he’d wiped away already replaced thanks to the heat.

  Her eyes dropped to once again take in his appearance, a flush working its way up her neck and to her cheeks. Just as quickly as her eyes had dropped to observe him, they darted off to the side, staring instead out the grimy front windows. “I’m sure you can find another shirt.”

  That much was true, especially since Finn and Drew were staying upstairs in the apartment for the time being. “C’mon, it’ll just take a minute,” he said. “I can sign them now. I was gonna break for lunch anyway.” He strode toward the stairs at the back of the space, intent on heading up to slap together a sandwich. He looked back at her and tilted his head in the direction of the stairway. “If you come on up, I’ll share with you. I’ll even make it for you—peanut butter and banana sandwiches, your favorite.”

  It was only a brief moment where her expression changed, but he saw it—saw how her eyes softened the tiniest bit at the mention of her old favorite. The night before he’d left, they’d had a picnic in her tree house, one he’d prepared for her himself. Other girls might’ve wanted candlelight and fancy restaurants, but Willow had always been satisfied with anything, so long as they’d been together.

  The memory was bittersweet, tugging at his chest. He watched as the same emotions played out over her face. That softness in her eyes lasted for only a moment before she hardened her features once again.

  “I do not want to share your lunch, Griffin. As lovely as the offer is.” Sarcasm dripped from every word, her sweet Southern front dialed to ten. “What I’d like is for you to sign the papers so I can go back to work.”

  He nodded, knowing when not to push. Tossing the papers down, he glanced around under the guise of looking for a pen, hoping if he couldn’t get her upstairs to talk, she’d be up for sharing a bit right there. “How’re you liking it?”

  “You wastin’ my time?” she asked. “Not at all, actually.”

  Finn shot her a smile over his shoulder. “I meant workin’ for your daddy.”

  “I like it just fine,” she said, arms crossed and spine straight.

  “Better than painting?” He didn’t stare at her as he waited for the answer, hoping if he pretended his attention was snagged by the paperwork in front of him rather than her answer, she’d be more inclined to respond.

  She was silent for so long, he finally glanced over his shoulder at her in time to see her shake her head at him. “Look, I’m not sure what you think is happenin’ here, but you lost the right to ask me questions like that when you left town without a word. Ten freakin’ years ago. If you want insights on my life, you’re gonna have to ask around town, because you’re sure as hell not gonna get any from these lips.”

  He dropped his gaze to said lips, flushed and pink, the barest hint of moisture there, as if she’d just licked them. He remembered what it’d been like to have that mouth on him. Remembered in great detail, actually. While he’d always liked to call up those memories in previous years, it had gotten ridiculous over the past week. Thoughts of Willow had been his morning companion in the shower as he’d taken his cock in hand and worked himself to completion over the fantasy of her under him. Astride him. Bent over in front of him. Dozens upon dozens of different ways, only one of which he’d ever actually had the pleasure of experiencing. Because he’d bailed.

  And as he stared at her, still stuck in her hometown, no apparent desire at all to have followed the dream she’d talked about for so long, he couldn’t help but wonder what the hell he’d left for. The whole point had been so she could achieve her best life without the stain of his name holding her back. But from where he stood now, it looked like she’d held herself back just fine without his help.

  He wanted to know why. Was desperate to find out what had snuffed out the bright, vibrant flame of the Willow he’d coerced out of her shell all those years ago. And she could shoot as many dirty looks his way as she wanted, but he wasn’t going to stop until he found out why his spirited Willowtree was back here again, under her daddy’s thumb. Living a life less than she deserved.

  First her office, then Ropers, then right across the street from town hall. And not just across the street, but across the street while half naked, ripped chest and corrugated abs glistening from him working so hard…

  Whew, was it hot in here?

  Finn was unavoidable, that much was clear. No matter what Willow did, he kept popping up again, leaving her on edge every minute of the day because she just couldn’t escape. And now she had those images from earlier burned into her brain, the sight of him on that ladder, his back muscles flexing, ass looking delectable in a pair of worn jeans, haunting her every waking moment.

  After her workday was done, she stormed into her and Mackenna’s place, slamming the door behind her. The walls of the guesthouse on their parents’ property rattled, but she couldn’t muster up an ounce of care. She tossed her purse behind her without concern for where it landed before chucking her heels to either side, grumbling under her breath the entire time.

  “Will?” Mac called from upstairs. “Is Ella with you?”

  “No,” she snapped.

  “No? What’s all that bangin’, then?”

  Yeah, okay, so she was acting like their seven-year-old niece. Point taken. Still, she couldn’t get her feet to let up as she stomped upstairs and into Mac’s room.

  “All that bangin’ is me losing my ever-lovin’ mind.” Willow threw herself facedown on Mackenna’s bed.

  “Umm…”

  “Umm?” She turned to glare at her sister where she sat with her back against the headboard, magazine forgotten against her chest. “My world is ending, and all you have to say is, ‘umm…’?”

  Mac rolled her eyes, then poked Willow in the side with her toe. “I hardly think your world is ending, Will. Dramatic much?”

  “Sure as hell feels like it. Especially when Finn won’t stay out of my life!”

  “Uh oh…you had another run-in?”

  Saturday night at the bar, Mac and Avery hadn’t questioned Willow’s urgent plea to bail immediately. They had, however, cornered her the following day and asked what the hell had happened. She’d spilled all the details, cringing as she’d relived every minute of having Finn’s body pressed against her own. Avery’s and Mac’s faces had been sympathetic, and they’d agreed they’d do what they could to minimize the time she’d need to see Finn while he was in town. So freaking much for that plan.

  “Yep. Bastard made me go over to his building so he could sign some papers. He’s just tryin’ to mess with my head.”

  “Oh, honey, c’mon now. I love you, but you’ve gotta get a grip. I highly doubt that’s what’s goin’ on. We didn’t tell anyone where we were goin’ on Saturday, so him bein’ there was just a coincidence. And today…well, I’m sure it was innocent enough.”

  More snippets of a bare-chested Finn flashed in her mind, and no. There was definitely nothing innocent about that
man. He’d been downright indecent. He’d managed to render her speechless, her jaw nearly unhinging as she’d stared at him dragging that old cotton shirt across his muscle-packed chest, down the washboard ridges of his abs…

  “Um, Will? I know we’re close and all, but I don’t wanna know what your sex face looks like, so I’m gonna have to ask you to stop thinkin’ ’bout whatever you are.” Only a second passed before Mac gasped, her eyes going wide as she flew up from her reclining position. “Did you sleep with him?” She hissed the question, like they were seventeen and eighteen again, back in their parents’ house while divulging all the sordid details of Willow’s whirlwind romance with the bad boy of Havenbrook.

  “Lord, no.” Willow squeezed her eyes shut against the remembered flush of awareness that’d flooded her body in Finn’s presence. Mac didn’t need to know the thought had crossed Willow’s mind too many times to count since he’d made his appearance back in town. Honestly, she didn’t even want to admit it to herself, let alone say it aloud to someone else.

  “Okay, then everything’s fine.” Mac waved a hand in the air. “There’s no need to panic. I know Havenbrook’s small, but that doesn’t mean you’re gonna be running into him every day or anything.”

  Except, if the past week was anything to go by, she would be. She took a deep breath and sat up, tucking her ankle under her leg as she faced her sister. “He seems hell-bent on making that happen. And since Gloria’s on maternity leave until August, I’m the one and only person he’ll be in contact with as they renovate. I don’t know how long they’re plannin’ on staying, but according to Rory’s latest voice mail, the Thomas boys have taken up residence in the apartment above the storefront.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “Yeah, oh shit.” Willow pushed up from the bed and walked across the hall to her own room as her sister continued with platitudes that were doing exactly nothing to reassure her. She whipped off her sleeveless blouse, then unzipped and tugged off her skirt. As she went to her dresser to grab a pair of yoga pants and a tank top—screw doing anything tonight but bingeing on Ben & Jerry’s—she caught a glimpse of herself in the floor-length mirror that stood in the corner of her room. A tiny fleck of black peeked out of the waistband of her low-cut bikini panties, and she tugged them up her hip—a force of habit as she hid the last bit of Finn Thomas she still had in her life.

  The tiny bit of Finn Thomas she’d carried on her skin every day for the past decade.

  And maybe that was the problem. Maybe that was why he still affected her so much—because no matter what she told herself, no matter how many different men she’d tried to have a relationship with, she’d always had this what-if in the back of her mind, courtesy of the brand she wore of his.

  You still have my bird on you, Willowtree?

  She closed her eyes against the whispered words he’d said to her in Ropers, wanting desperately to blink and have this thing off her body. She walked over to stand in front of the mirror, then tugged down the front of her panties until the entire tattoo was visible.

  It might’ve happened ten years ago, but she remembered it as clear as if it’d been last week. The weeks leading up to it, all the planning that’d gone into them—both hers and his. Sketch after sketch after sketch until she’d gotten them just right. This act—getting tattoos together—was symbolic of so much more than the actual symbols on their bodies. It was the physical representation of them starting their life together, taking the leap with nothing but their love and a few prayers setting the foundation.

  What a fool she’d been.

  She’d willingly marked her body forever for a boy it turned out she’d never really known at all. Because when he’d walked away, he’d negated every word he’d ever said to her, every whispered confession of love, every promise of a future.

  So now, when she looked at her tattoo—a bird in flight on her hip—instead of reminding her of everything she should soar for as intended, it only served to remind her of all the flying Finn had done to get away from her.

  Well, no more of that. She’d lived with this for far too long, and it was time to do something about it. She snatched her phone from the pocket of her discarded skirt, then queued up Ty’s name—Finn’s friend who’d done the tattoo in the first place—and shot him a quick text. She hadn’t talked to him other than a hello around town for so long, she hoped it was still his correct number. But she hadn’t needed to worry. His reply came almost instantly, letting her know she could swing by his place tonight and they’d talk about her options.

  Whether she covered it up with something else or removed it completely, she didn’t care. As long as it got the image of Finn’s bird off her body once and for all.

  Lord, why was she so nervous? This was her choice—a decision long overdue, to be honest. She’d lived with that black mark on her skin for too long, and now that she’d finally decided to do something about it, butterflies battered her insides. Placing one hand over her stomach hoping to quell her nerves, she clutched Mac’s hand with the other as they walked up the front path to Ty’s house.

  “I feel like we’re doing some kind of shady drug deal, going to his house after hours instead of the tattoo shop,” Mac said.

  “Yeah, well, you know as much as I do if I even stepped foot in that shop, the entire town’d be talkin’ about what Willow Haven was doing in a seedy place like that. It’d get back to Daddy in a heartbeat.”

  It was a miracle she’d managed to keep her little act of teenage rebellion a secret as long as she had. The handful of souls who knew about the tattoo she’d gotten with Finn were Mackenna and the men Willow had been intimate with—which, admittedly, hadn’t been many.

  “Yeah, yeah. Gotta keep up the image,” Mac said. “I get it.”

  As one of the middle Haven girls, Mac did get it. It was what made the two of them so close. Rory soared far above her sisters, the picture-perfect woman in their daddy’s eyes, married to her college sweetheart and raising two flawless children. And Nat, their youngest sister, hadn’t given a damn about this town or what their daddy thought, soaring in a different way and getting the hell out as soon as she’d graduated high school.

  Willow and Mac stopped on the front stoop, both of them staring at the door. The blare of a television, interrupted sporadically by murmured voices, seeped out from inside.

  Finally, after standing for long moments, Mac squeezed Willow’s hand. “Ready?”

  Not even a little bit.

  “Yeah,” Willow managed to get out through the invisible fingers wrapped tightly around her throat. She didn’t have to actually do anything tonight, but at least when she left there, she’d have a plan one way or another.

  Mac raised her fist to knock but paused and glanced over, giving Willow one last chance to back out. When Willow didn’t speak up, Mac brought her knuckles down on the door in a quick rap.

  “It’s open,” someone called from inside.

  “No going back now.” Mac turned the doorknob and stepped over the threshold.

  While Willow was friendly with everyone in town, she wouldn’t exactly say she and Ty were friends. As such, the last time she’d been to his house had been ten long years ago, and he’d done some upgrading since then, moving on from the trailer he used to have to a small ranch home. It was cleaner than she’d expected it to be, nicer too. A TV mounted on the far wall blared a video game, and as large as it was, it looked nearly minuscule compared to the massive couch that took up the majority of the room.

  Ty sat sprawled out on one side, and Willow lifted her hand in a wave before glancing to the other occupant. Her hand froze in midair along with the smile on her face, her feet refusing to move.

  Lord, couldn’t she catch a freaking break?

  The person sitting all the way on the other end, smiling up at her, was none other than the man who’d dominated nearly all of her thoughts. Finn freaking Thomas. He looked so relaxed there reclined against the back cushions, his legs spread, fingers loosely wr
apped around the neck of the beer bottle resting on his knee, like he hadn’t teased her with his body and his words earlier in the day. Like he hadn’t rocked his erection against her ass on the dance floor mere days prior.

  Willow’s stomach bottomed out, seeing him there as if he didn’t have a care in the world when the tornado of butterflies in her stomach just got kicked up to a Category five hurricane. She tightened her grip on Mac’s hand until her sister let out a squeak of protest and dug her fingernails into Willow’s skin in retribution.

  “Looks like I picked the right night to stop by,” Finn said, his eyes stuck to Willow.

  Willow blinked and shook her head. “Stop by…” She narrowed her eyes at Finn, who only returned her glare with a smile. Of course, she’d known Ty and Finn were friends—they had been their whole lives. Really, it was her own damn fault she hadn’t anticipated this, especially considering the past few days. Ropers may have been a coincidence, but there was no way this was. No freaking way. She had half a mind to stomp her foot right there and cuss Ty out.

  Instead of doing that, she settled on shooting daggers his way, a finger jabbed in his direction. “Tyler Owen Kenning Junior, you traitor. Your momma know what you get up to with boys like him?”

  Ty laughed, resting an arm against the back of the couch as he tipped his beer bottle toward her. “My momma thinks I’m an angel and doesn’t listen to nothin’ anyone might say otherwise.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Willow said, dropping Mac’s hand to cross her arms over her chest. “So this is the kind of professional you are, huh? When someone asks for an appointment, you invite all your friends to the show?”

  “Appointment for what?” Finn asked, watching her like a hawk. Did she imagine how his eyes flicked down to the vicinity of her hip and the black bird hidden under layers of clothes?

  Ty held up his hands in surrender and spoke as if Finn hadn’t said a word. “Hey, you said you just wanted to talk about your options. Didn’t think it’d be a problem when Finn said he was gonna stop by, too.”