Page 19 of Unstoppable Love

I narrowed my eyes on her. “You’re planning something.”

“I’m eating my lunch and letting this conversation go. What’s wrong with that?”

Nothing. Everything. When Lydia got an idea in her head, she didn’t back down.

“If you say so,” I muttered, but I didn’t believe her. Not for a damn second.

“Wanna head to Tom’s tonight?”

Tom’s Saloon was the most popular bar in town. With old-school swinging saloon doors as a faux entrance, you entered the bar on the corner across the street from our town’s square, which had a clock tower and the county courthouse. Always felt strange to me to leave a bar after drinking and be right across from the courthouse, but that didn’t deter anyone who lived in New Haven.

Since my options for entertainment for the night were either watching television, probably baseball, with my dad, or quilting with my mom, there was only one answer to give. “Eight o’clock?”

“Sounds good.”

We ate our lunch. We dropped any and all conversation about the Kelley family, Cameron in particular, and when we parted ways, Lydia walked the block down to the market, and I climbed into Mom’s truck I’d parked right off Main Street on Center Drive.

Isaiah’s sheriff’s deputy Ford Explorer was sitting in my parents’ dirt driveway when I pulled back in. I resisted the urge to run straight into the back of it, knowing he’d get in big trouble for it. The fact that my mom loved her cherry-red 1982 Chevy Silverado was the only thing that stopped me.

It was possible I loved the old thing as much as her.

I hopped out of the truck and stomped up the stairs of their wooden front porch that wrapped around the far side of the house all the way to their massive deck in the back and slammed the front door when I was inside.

“Isaiah!”

He popped his head around the corner of the kitchen that was straight at the back of the house. Of course he had a piece of pizza in his hand. His mouth was full of the bite he’d just eaten.

“I can’t believe you still come home to eat dinner with Mom and Dad.”

“It’s the best food in three counties.”

“Awww. Thanks, kiddo.”

Isaiah was twenty-six. He was still called kiddo.

He shamelessly grinned at me and tore off another bite of his pizza. Pizza Mom would have made with her sourdough starter and homemade fresh mozzarella cheese, which meant I was now extra pissed I’d hauled off to Millie’s so quickly.

Good thing I would be there for lunch tomorrow.

“You over being mad at me yet?”

I punched his shoulder on my way to the fridge. “Never gonna happen.”

“What happened this time?” Mom asked. She was sitting at her spot at our small, round table. A table my dad and his dad had built back before Isaiah and I were born. It was worn. It needed a fresh coating of stain, but if anything ever happened to it, my heart would be crushed. The best meals I’d eaten and family memories I had were made sitting at that table.

Usually with Isaiah and I kicking each other’s shins beneath it.

“Your son is a moron,” I told my mom.

She shrugged. “Tends to happen with folks who hold the Y chromosome.”

“Connie,” my dad chided. “Are you calling us men fools?”

She smirked at him. “If you had two X chromosomes, you’d be smart enough to figure it out.”

My dad chuckled. I burst out a laugh and poured a glass of water from the door in the fridge before taking a seat next to Mom.

Once seated, it was Dad who asked, “What’d Isaiah do today, honey?”

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