With a frown, I pause and look up at her in question.
The girl nods as she starts scanning. “I just assumed he was your boyfriend cause he kept following you around, giving you space while you were on the phone, but never went too far. Then I saw you looking for him and figured I’d let you know he was already outside.”
“Thanks…” I’m not sure why I say that instead ofI came here alone and wasn’t looking for anyone, but I did, and as she finishes bagging my order, I regret it.
With my luck, I’ll walk out to my car and some thug in a ski mask will jump me, knock me out, and stuff me into the trunk of his murder van. And no one will be the wiser because I just went along with this teenage girl’s assumptions without correcting her.
Clearly my self preservation skills are not on point right now.
Oh well.
If it’s my time to go, I can do it with the knowledge that it was no one’s fault but my own.
Which is why, after I pay for my groceries and linger by the front of the store for an awkward few minutes, I walk out to the sidewalk and look both ways before heading to my car.
There are tons of tracks in the light layer of snow on the ground, so it’s hard to say if any are new and made by someone who wants to kidnap me, but I still can’t shake the feeling like I’m being watched and the closer I get to my Dodge Journey, the stronger it gets. I try to blow it off, try like hell actually, and load my groceries into the backseat, but when I go to open the driver door, I freeze.
Traced in the fresh snow on my window is a single, carefully writtenS.
I just stand there staring at it for far too long before my head lifts slowly and I start searching the main street through town, only to find something—someone—that makes my breath hitch and my heart start to race.
Across the street, under an awning, leaning against the brick wall of the bookstore smoking a cigarette is none other than Sam North.
My Sammy.
The man who changed my life in more ways than he knows. The man I walked away from.
The man I still love more than I will ever love anyone.
And as I stare at him like I’m seeing a goddamn ghost, that man’s perfect lips curl into the most sinister smile I have ever seen, one that is so full of hurt and anger, full of malice and what is clearly a touch offuck you, it makes my stomach churn.
I watch as he hits his cigarette, the grin never leaving his lips, his gaze never straying from mine, and when Sam folds his arms against his wide chest and crosses his legs at the ankles, I get full body chills. Which is enough to finally get my ass in gear.
Quickly and as discreetly as possible, I look away, open my door and drop down into the seat, hitting the locks the second I do and only then releasing the breath I was holding.
Sam won’t hurt me, no matter what happened between us, I know that, but I had no idea he was out of prison and I sure as hell didn’t expect the first time I saw him after almost seven years to go down like this. Honestly, I didn’t want to see him at all.
That’s not entirely true, because the part of me that still belongs to him was desperate for even just a small glimpse of the man after going so long without, but I planned on avoiding Sam at all costs for as long as I could.
An unrealistic goal since my best friend is still dating his, not to mention my father is still running with the Wulven Kings and far more comfortable doing so, but I was hopeful. Naive, but hopeful.Stupid, but hopeful.
Seeing Sam means dealing with the past and that’s not something I’m prepared to do.
I practically live there already, replaying our year together over and over in my mind so I don’t ever forget what it was like to have all of my dreams come true. It’s unhealthy at best, and seeing my Sammy in the flesh will only make me long for him—crave him—more than I do now, but it will come with a price, one I’m not sure I can afford to pay. I can’t go down that road again, and I know it makes me a terrible person, the worst kind of person in the world since it means Sammy will never know what happened a lifetime ago, but I can’t go back.
Being anywhere near him would be my undoing because I have never gotten over Sam North and probably never will, so all it would take is one or two simple words from him to either crush me or cause me to make another series of very wrong decisions, both of which would most likely ruin me in the end.
Talking to Sam will be my undoing in one way or another, and I’ve come too far to risk that.
I start up my car and take a deep breath, put it in reverse and back out, catching Sam’s narrowed stare in my mirror, feeling it on me until I no longer see his reflection.
And when I lose sight of the man who will forever hold my heart, that is when I fall apart.
* * *
I frownthrough my tears as I pull into my driveway and see a silver Porsche parked next to the fence.
Well, the driveway of Berk Funeral Home, since Lewis and I are staying in the little pole barn converted to a cottage house I never lived in after my dad gifted it to me forever ago.
