Page 1 of Tell Me Something True

Chapter 1

“Hey there, handsome,” a woman said from behind him. “It’s been a long time.”

In the act of lifting his beer bottle to his mouth, Miles Jennings froze. He knew that voice. Would recognize it anywhere.

He just hadn’t thought he’d ever hear it again.

He sure as hell hadn’t thought he’d hear it in his hometown of Mount Laurel, let alone at The Cockeyed Chameleon on a random Thursday night.

Just when he started to think fate was done messing with him, it ripped the rug out from underneath him, knocking him off his feet.

It liked to prove it was in charge that way.

But while he’d learned he couldn’t control everything that happened to him, he could control his own actions. He had choices. In what he said and did. He had free will.

He had his pride.

And nothing was going to take that away from him.

She wasn’t going to take it from him. Not again.

He refused to show his shock. Wouldn’t let her know how unsettled he was.

How eager he was to see her again.

Instead, he finished raising his beer to his mouth. Took a long pull, the action slow.

Rude.

She deserved it for showing up here after walking out on him without a word ten years ago. For sneaking up on him when he’d been watching the Pirates’ game on the TV above the bar and minding his own goddamn business.

Setting the beer down, he took a deep, quiet inhale and braced himself for whatever hell was about to be wrought. Then he turned.

As soon as he met her blue eyes, everything inside of him went still. Calm. The incessant chatter in his head for once went silent.

He took refuge in that moment. The quiet. The peace.

He wished he could stay there, in that place where he had no worries. Where he wasn’t constantly on guard. Where the past didn’t exist and the present wasn’t slowly, inevitably about to unfold in a way guaranteed to take a chunk out of that pride he’d been trying so hard to hold onto.

But all too soon, sound returned in the form of low murmurs of conversation going on around him, the soft clinking of glasses, and Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” playing through the bar’s sound system.

“Tabitha. What are you doing here?”

“It’s good to see you,” she said, soft and sweet to his sharp and surly.

Evading his question.

Sipping his beer, he let his eyes drift over her, skimming up her legs, past the flare of her waist, the curve of her breasts. His fingers curled as he took in her face, his gaze touching briefly on the angle of her jaw, the arch of her brows.

She’d changed.

Her hair, once a bright, sunny blonde, had deepened to a rich golden hue. Her face was slimmer, her cheekbones more pronounced. Her hips were curvier, her breasts fuller.

Gone was the pretty eighteen-year-old girl who’d rarely used more than mascara and lip balm. Who’d lived in faded, ripped jeans, second-hand concert tees, and battered Converse sneakers. Whose hair was either clipped up in a messy bun or loose and curling wildly around her face.

In her place stood a fully grown woman with carefully applied makeup, her eyeliner subtly winged, her lips a muted red. Her hair was slicked back into a neat knot, and she wore a skinny black skirt that hugged her hips and ended just above her knees, a thin red belt, a silky white button up shirt, and four-inch-high red heels.

Yeah. She sure as hell had changed.

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