“Good to hear your sarcasm survived the fancy new city makeover.” Once they’d wandered far enough out of Gram’s earshot, Noah abruptly released her hand and stepped a full pace back, as if putting distance between them to fight the sudden urge to grab her or snap at her.
She knew exactly that urge all too well—they were both equally riled up.
He planted his hands firm on his hips and shook his head once, slow and disappointed.
So he was let down by her return. Tough luck, because she was equally disappointed in herself. She’d left this town at eighteen as a bumbling, unpolished country girl, forcing herself to learn how to dress, speak, and carry herself like a refined, self-assured woman who had her life figured out. The act had stuck, even if she’d sacrificed any real personal happiness along the way. If she was honest, loneliness had been her only consistent partner all these years. She crammed the last crumb of cookie into her mouth. Priorities came first, after all. “Alright, what did you drag me over here to discuss?”
His eyes narrowed sharply. “Are you genuinely asking that?”
“Hey, if you’d wanted a cookie, you could’ve helped yourself to the tray back there.”
He simply stared at her, unamused.
Fine, she knew he hadn’t tracked her down to argue over baked goods. But one question lingered unspoken: how had he somehow grown even more handsome with every passing year? Once, his eyes would soften with amusement when she teased him, darkening with heat when attraction sparked between them. Now his mirrored sunglasses sat perched over his eyes, hiding every flicker of thought or feeling beneath. “This whole mess was your fault, you know,” she argued.
He folded his arms across his broad chest and tilted his head, silently inviting her to explain her logic.
“You never checked both directions before stepping into the road!”
“You didn’t slow your rental car as you approached the crosswalk.”
She threw her hands up in that familiar frustrated gesture—she knew she carried partial blame, but she wasn’t ready to own up to it yet.
“What even brings you back to Sunrise Cove?” he pressed. “Here to drop off another breakup note?”
She’d never intended to leave him the first one all those years ago, let alone draft a second. She couldn’t bear to spell out the real reason she’d fled town, either; it would only reopen old wounds for him, and she’d already hurt him more than enough in one lifetime. Besides, he’d never once reached out to talk things through after she left, so how upset could he really have been? “This trip isn’t all about you, Noah. I’m only here to support your sister.”
“Thank God for that, because she desperately needs you right now.”
A sharp twist of guilt knotted her stomach. She’d barely visited over the years. She was lucky Katie still counted her as a best friend, lucky Noah even bothered speaking to her at all. “How are you holding up through everything that’s happened with Joe?”
He dragged one palm roughly down his face, looking utterly drained, like he was losing a battle against exhaustion. “My brother-in-law and closest friend is stuck in a coma, all because of a botched pursuit I led. What do you think my state of mind is?”
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