“Do you know who I am?” he asked as he stepped closer. Fine lines around his eyes and mouth hinted at his age. Cole Paisley. Now a man. A gorgeous man in his mid-forties. One who apparently still had the ability to make my limbs tingle.
“Cole?” I whispered. “Is it really you?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” He had the same slight whistle on his s’s, but his voice had deepened.
“You look amazing,” he said.
I murmured a thank-you as I glanced down at my feet. My polished red toes looked good in my sandals. I wore a sundress the same color as my blue eyes. I’d tied my dark blonde hair back into a ponytail. Did I look different to him? I had fine lines. My face had thinned. The last few years had taken a toll on my already-battered soul. Did it show in my face?
“Stunning might be the word,” he said.
My heart thumped. Look at his hand, I told myself. Rip the Band-Aid off. My gaze skipped to his fingers, currently wrapped around a red plastic carrier. Bare of a wedding ring. Had he come here alone? Did he have children? A wife? Maybe a girlfriend?
Of course he had a girlfriend or a wife. A lot of men didn’t wear rings. No one who looked like Cole could be single. I didn’t think it was possible, but he was even more beautiful than he’d been at sixteen. He’d kept all his fawn-colored hair and wore it short and tidy with a few curls at the nape of his neck. I glanced down at his flat stomach. The blue T-shirt he wore did nothing to hide the muscles underneath.
“You look good too.” All the moisture in my mouth had dried up. The years between now and then were written in the lines of his face. I’d missed so much of his life. I wished I could feel his skin under my fingertips. Right now. Forever.
“I didn’t know you lived here,” I said.
“Yeah, I built a house out on the old property.”
“Just you?”
His forehead wrinkled. “You mean, did I build the house myself?”
“No. Is there anyone living with you?” I wanted to die right then and there. Could I have been more obvious?
“Oh, no. Well, yes. My cat, Moonshine, and my dog, Duke. Two horses named Lila and West. There’s Willie Nelson and all the girls—that’s my rooster and chickens. They all have names but I won’t bore you with that.” He smiled as he swept his fingers through his hair. “Sorry. I’m nervous.”
“Me too.” I looked at the floor, afraid to believe he was single. “So, no humans live with you?” I peeked back up at him.
“Oh, no. No humans.” His eyes softened, making them appear more green than gray. “I’m divorced. Three years ago. That’s when I decided to come back here and start over.”
“I’m sorry.” I meant it, knowing what a toll a divorce took on a person’s soul.
“I’m not.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it’s you. I’ve thought about you a million times and wondered how you were. What you ended up doing. If you were married or not.”
“I’m divorced too.” I blurted this out, feeling a tremendous need to tell him right away. “I have a daughter. She’s nineteen, almost twenty. She’s at college.”
“What’s her name?” he asked.
“Brooke.”
“That’s pretty. Does she look like you?”
I nodded, smiling as an image of my beautiful daughter floated through my mind. “She’s taller than me, but she has my skin and eyes and hair. Much smarter, though. She’s studying chemistry. What about you? Do you have children?”
“Nah, wasn’t blessed that way.”
“Really?” My chest ached at the idea of Cole being childless. He’d have been a wonderful father.
He gave me a sad smile. “Dreams don’t always come true. But I got my little farm.”
Overhead, fluorescent lights blinked. I caught the scent of the fresh parsley in my shopping cart. I’d hoped to tempt my mother with a chicken piccata dish. As far as I could tell she lived on cheese and crackers.
“How come you never contacted my mother?” I asked. “To find out where I was. I mean, since you were curious.” From the way I stuttered, no one would believe I’d taught English literature at a private college in Seattle for twenty years. I’d been known for my animated, smooth-as-silk lectures. Cole Paisley always tripped up my tongue.
“She wouldn’t want to hear from me.” He said the sentence simply, as if it were fact. “Or want you to have anything to do with me.”
“She holds no grudge toward you or your brothers. Why would she?”
“Everyone seemed to believe the lies they told about Luke.”
“She knew I was with you guys the whole night,” I said. “Plus, she knew Luke. He was at our house every day for a year. She knew he’d never hurt her.”
He smiled in that way that made his eyes sparkle, and I was suddenly sixteen years old. “Carlie Webster, you always knew just what to say to make everything better.”
I smiled back at him, unable to resist being swept away by his effortless charm. “You did that for me, too.”
He dropped his basket next to his feet. For the first time, I noticed it was empty. What had he come for? Did he still like burgers and pizza? When he straightened, I thought for a second he would pull me into his arms. Instead he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “We had fun back then, didn’t we? Before everything.”
“So much fun.” The way he’d stretched out across the rock at the swimming hole, his bare torso tanning under the sun right before my eyes, was forever captured in my memory. “Remember how we spent whole afternoons at the river?”
“We could again. The river’s still there. I might be older, but the swimming hole’s the same.” His crow’s feet
