“Charlee, wait!”
I kept walking.
A calloused hand gripped my arm. I froze.
“Charlee, please,” he begged, sounding hurt.
I turned and faced the man who’d broken my heart. “Kenny.”
His hand fell from my arm. “Hi, Charlee.”
I stared back at him, my mind refusing to conjure up any words for the man who used to be my best friend.
“How are you?” he asked, his brown eyes silently pleading with me.
Pleading for what? To forgive him? I thought I’d already done that, but now with him in front of me, I wasn’t so sure.
“I’m…” This reaction to him was quite pathetic. I couldn’t seem to manage a polite response. Albeit a fake one, but still. I was a King. And Kings were polite and proper.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Ashley suddenly appeared at Kenny’s side.
I instinctively retreated a few steps.
“Kenny, the sitter called and said Nicky isn’t feeling well. I know you were going to pick her up in the morning, but I—”
I wasn’t going to wait around to hear the rest. Spinning on my flats, I speed-walked as gracefully as I could to the exit. As I rounded the corner to the foyer, I bumped into the back of a man talking on the phone.
“Excuse me,” I muttered. “I’m sorry.” Before I could move around him, he turned and slid the phone into his pocket. It was Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome. Ashley’s date, or boyfriend, or whatever. My nauseous stomach soured further.
“Hi,” he greeted as he looked down at me, extending his hand. “I’m Cole Walker. I saw you earlier, but we weren’t introduced.”
I shook his hand, noting the feel of his firm, warm grip, momentarily forgetting he was with Ashley. “Hi, I’m Charlee King,” I smiled, and it was almost genuine. Not quite, but close.
“It’s nice to meet you, Charlee,” he grinned, revealing dimples. Oh my. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Oh,” I laughed nervously. “Well, I hope it was good.”
“Yes, of course.” Now he seemed a little nervous. “I’ve done some work with your dad. I’m the new sheriff.”
Recognition dawned. My parents had mentioned the town had gotten a new sheriff sometime in the last year, after he’d helped take down a drug smuggling operation. But they had failed to mention he was younger than forty and smoldering.
In Rockfish Bay, that was a rarity. Despite his hotness, I was only in town for a few days, and he was with Ashley. Therefore, I didn’t see the point of us having much to do with each other.
“That’s great. My parents have said wonderful things about the work you’ve done.” I smiled again, a fake one this time. “Well, it was very nice to meet you, Sheriff Walker. If you’ll excuse me, something has come up that I need to attend to.”
With a parting grin, I stepped around him and raced to the door. I’m sure he thought I was a bit nutty or maybe even rude, rushing out of my dad’s party, but I didn’t care. Because right now, I couldn’t handle any other painful reminders from my past.
Chapter Two
W hen I woke up the next morning, I found myself surrounded by owls. That’s right, I was at Fern’s house. My aunt liked birds and she liked to collect them (the fake variety), so this had been dubbed the Hoot Room.
It was a little quirky, kind of like my aunt, but that was just another one of the things I loved about her. I’d come here last night after I’d left the party, and gone to bed soon after. All that social interaction, however brief, had worn me out, and I wanted to forget it.
Okay, maybe not the part with the hot sheriff, but that was a dead end, so there was no point in dwelling on it.
On my way downstairs to the kitchen, I was greeted with a loud meow. Moose, my aunt’s black-gray tabby Maine Coon, must be hungry. I reached down to pick up the enormous cat, and let out a humph. “Geez, Moose, and I thought I had gained weight.”
The fluffy feline had to be at least twenty-five pounds. Depositing Moose by his dish, I went to the fridge and pulled out a can of tuna and gravy. No wonder Moose was on the hefty side. I’d gain weight too if I ate this three times a day.
Once Moose was happily chowing down, I rummaged through the cupboards for a coffee pot. Fern was a tea person, but usually kept some coffee around for her guests. It wasn’t the best stuff, but with the long hours I worked, I’d learned I couldn’t afford to be picky.
With the coffee percolating, I switched my focus to the crepes. My aunt made an appearance right around the time the crepes were ready to cook. Funny how she did that.
“Good morning, Charlee,” my aunt said cheerily. She shuffled around the island to grab a mug from a shelf by the stove. Today she wore a bright purple robe over her sunflower flannel pajamas and fuzzy slippers. “Smells delicious.” She moved to the sink to fill up the tea kettle.
I waited for her to say something else. “So,” she started in again, “I missed you at the party last night.”
I noticed she said she missed me, not the rest of my family. Hopefully they’d been too busy to notice my absence. It was certainly what they were used to. “Yeah,” I exhaled a deep breath. “About that…”
“You saw Ashley and Kenny, didn’t you?” Concern covered her face. “That was the first time, right?”
“Yep,” I swallowed, hating that my voice cracked. It shouldn’t be this hard. Not after all this time. But seeing them felt like my heart was being ripped open all over again. Admitting that, even to myself, made me feel pathetic. I was a grown woman at twenty-nine years old. I needed to get it together and move on.
“Fern, why does this still bother me so much?” I blinked away the impending tears, and turned to the stove to pour batter in the
