I’d get Sweet Suzy back in the morning.
“Okay then,” Gaetan said. “You come by for dinner or Maude will have your head.”
“Will do,” I agreed with a grin that split my lip. “Hey, Gates?” The old man stopped, his bowed legs turning him around. “You really mayor?” Once upon a time he was the best trumpet player I’d ever known. Maybe everyone gave up on a dream.
Gaetan nodded. “Sure am, boy, so you best watch yourself.”
He winked and walked back into the church, through the lit doorway that led down to the basement. With one last damning look over his shoulder, Gaetan jerked the door shut.
There was a slam and lights out.
Two janitors. The high school wrestling coach. Gaetan and Father Michaels. Suddenly, all too good to play with me.
The reigning World Series of Poker champion.
Which only continued to prove what I’d known down in my gut all along—the world changed but Bonne Terre stayed the same.
I sighed, pushed my A’s cap down farther on my head and made my way back home.
The September night was thick and dark, the suffocating blanket I remembered and hated. Two steps and I had that dirty, clammy sweat that made me ache for the white tile shower in my suite, the cool hum of forced air.
Christ, my eye was beginning to pound.
Coming back here had been a dumb idea. I’d been fine, years had gone by without me caring, the memories fading bit by bit, but one word that my mother might be back in town and here I was, choking on the dirt outside St. Pat’s.
No doubt the kitchen in The Manor would be empty. None of Margot’s sugar pies to welcome me home.
I crossed Jackson and headed for the square, thinking I’d cut through the magnolias in the park and save myself some time, when a dark car slid around the corner, crawling along the curb.
My alley-cat instincts, honed on this very street, woke up and I stepped into the shadows of the trees.
Stupid of me to cross Jackson under the streetlights—anyone looking knew my path home.
The wrought-iron fence was cold against my back. It would be just like Lou to follow me, or call one of his softball buddies to come out here for a little middle-of-the-night batting practice.
The car eased past me, got to the corner and stopped under the streetlamp.
Exhaust filling the golden pool of light with gray smoke.
Well, shit. I did not like that. At all.
I circled around the other side of the fence, hugging the shadows, between the leaves and the light. If it was Lou’s buddies, they wouldn’t be expecting me to approach from the side. My foot caught on a branch and I grabbed it from the ground and tested its heft.
Pretty weak, but with some surprise on my side I might do some damage before they took care of what was left of my face.
As I cleared the side of the blue car, blood pumping, smile easing nice and slow across my face, I saw that there weren’t a bunch of men in it. In fact, sitting in the driver’s side, staring me right in the eye with ten hard years of hate, was the most beautiful woman I’d ever known.
“Juliette,” I breathed. For a second my life stopped and all I saw were those hazel eyes and lips so pink and perfect. And sweet. The sweetest.
“What the hell are you doing here, Tyler?”
JULIETTE
I was not, repeat, not going to touch Tyler O’Neill. Not with my fingers. Not with a ten-foot pole. Perhaps later, when given a chance, I’d touch him good with my fists, but at the moment, there was going to be no touching. Too bad, since it was the only way I was ever going to convince myself the man standing in front of me, as rumpled and bloody and heart-stoppingly handsome as he’d been at twenty—was real.
And not a figment of all of my furious revenge fantasies.
“Just out for a stroll,” he said, tossing the branch he’d been holding onto the dirt.
“Sure you are. What are you doing back in Bonne Terre?” I asked.
“Savannah said The Manor is sitting empty,” Tyler said and shrugged, as if his arrival out of the blue after ten years was perfectly natural. “Seems like someone should be watching over it.”
“You?” I asked, laughing at the very notion of Tyler being down here for any unselfish reason. “Please.”
He stared at me for a second and then smiled. That heartbreaker smile.
My heart fluttered against my chest, a small mechanical bird powered by that smile.
He glanced out at the buildings lining the square, the hardware store and Jillian’s Jewelry Shop. The café and the bank. He watched those buildings as if they were watching him back. A threat to be monitored.
“You’re right,” he said, but that was all he said.