She stepped to one side when someone else left. At least a dozen people stood between her near the entrance and Adam at the counter. The din inside the crowded space was significant. Laurel couldn’t hear what the barista was saying, but she could clearly see that the girl was no longer scowling, but laughing up at Adam with a distinctly flirty air.
Why wouldn’t she? Adam was far and away the best looking man there. And the way he was smiling back at the girl...
Laurel crossed her arms and looked away.
She stepped aside again as another customer departed.
It was only a matter of minutes before Adam was carrying two covered cups to Laurel. He held one out to her.
Feeling disgruntled, she didn’t take it. “Sorry. I didn’t get to tell you that I don’t drink coffee.”
Rather than look annoyed, he quirked his lips in a smile. “It’s iced hibiscus tea with a shot of ginger syrup. Which you used to love as much as maple-glazed donuts.”
The smile was arresting. If Laurel had been the barista, she supposed she’d have been entranced, too. “Just not together.” She knew she sounded moody but couldn’t seem to help herself.
Had she been the jealous sort?
She didn’t want to think she had been.
She took the cold cup from him, careful to keep her fingers from touching his, and took a sip. It was, indeed, a perfect combination of sweet, spicy and tart.
Then she noticed the printing on the side of his cup. Even partially hidden by his long fingers, Laurel could see it was a phone number.
“It’s crowded in here,” he said. “Trinity said there are a couple of tables outside that nobody uses regularly.”
She pushed open the door herself a little harder than necessary. She didn’t look at him as they swished through the strip of overgrown grass between the building and the neighboring house. At the back, there was a patch of pavement where a beat-up delivery truck was parked next to several garbage bins. And next to that were two wooden picnic tables with benches.
They were just as beat-up as the truck. She could see why the customers preferred to crowd inside over sitting in this dreary setting.
It’s not Larkin Square, that’s for sure.
The thought flashed through her mind. It was the second time. “What is Larkin Square?”
He set his cup on one of the weathered tables. “A public space in Buffalo. Was a downturned industrial area until it was revitalized. Kind of like Ramb—” He broke off and cleared his throat. “Instead of empty factory buildings there are businesses and shops,” he went on, making her wonder what it was he’d stopped himself from saying. “It’s a popular place.” He sat down on the bench, straddling it. “Back in college I worked at a restaurant there called The Yard.”
When we weren’t serious. She set her cup several inches from his and pulled out the other bench, sitting properly on it. “Is that why I keep remembering it?”
His shoulders moved. He lifted his coffee cup. “Who knows? Maybe.”
She tapped her own cup with her index fingers. Then she shook her head. “You’re lying.”
Chapter Four
“You’re lying.”
Laurel’s words scraped over Adam’s conscience.
But what should he tell her?
That Larkin Square had been “their” place? That they’d had their first date there when they’d danced under the stars while a local band played “Just My Imagination”? That they’d eaten donuts at Howie’s Food Truck every weekend? That he’d gone down on one knee and proposed to her there the day after they’d graduated from college? A proposal she’d refused because she was headed to Europe, after all.
Or that, last year, after running into each other at Oozefest, they’d gone to dinner at the restaurant where he’d once worked? And after that, he’d taken her back to her hotel room. Only he hadn’t left until morning.
He took another gulp of coffee and was grateful for the way it singed its way down his throat.
“We ate a lot of donuts there,” he finally said.
She stared back at him with eyes that were bluer than the sky over their heads. Then her lips compressed slightly and she turned her focus to her hibiscus tea.
He wanted to swear a blue streak.
Instead, he pulled out his cell phone and made a few swipes on the screen until he had an internet connection. A few more swipes and he’d found a picture of Larkin Square. Crowds of people gathered on the green grass fronting the brick buildings. Some were spread out on picnic blankets. Some occupied colorful chairs. Even more were lined up at the food trucks and vendor carts. If there had been a Ferris wheel, it would have looked like a carnival.
Feeling like he was playing with fire, he turned the phone so she could see the screen. “That’s Larkin Square,” he said abruptly.
Her fingers brushed his as she slowly took the phone and held it closer. “It looks like a happy place,” she said eventually. Her voice was soft.
He felt as if someone had tied a knot around his throat and was twisting it tighter. “It was.” By some miracle, he managed not to croak the words. Aside from the dinky apartment they’d shared their senior year—managing to do so without her parents ever discovering that she wasn’t actually occupying the expensive one that she hated and they’d been paying for—and their entire college campus and basically the whole city, it was also the site of his worst pain.
Until he’d discovered that, against astronomical odds, she was the mother of a baby he’d simply tried to help.
His baby.
He rubbed the pain between his eyebrows and took another gulp of pistol-hot coffee. He didn’t really appreciate the fact that it was also delicious. Though it did explain the crowd lining up inside what otherwise looked like a hole in the wall.
“Are you going to call her?”
“Who?” he asked.
She set the phone down on the table between them and
