Page 9 of You're the Reason

So, the pink had been right.

Seth settled in a plastic chair that wouldn’t win any award for comfort and leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees. The door to the station opened, and a woman walked in, wearing gray leggings and a long pink button-up shirt. Her blonde hair was pulled tight in a bun, minus a wisp of hair that had escaped and curved under her right cheek. His eyes landed on her face, and?—

“Grace Howell?” The name was out of his mouth before he considered the wisdom of it. He was probably the last person she wanted to see right now. Or ever again for that matter.

She blinked at him a moment, and her eyes narrowed before recognition seemed to sink in. “Seth?”

He didn’t really blame her. The last time they’d seen each other, he’d been a couple inches shorter and barely a hundred pounds soaking wet. Weightlifting had changed all that.

He stood but didn’t take a step toward her. “I didn’t know you were back.”

Her pale blue eyes traveled over him a moment, her cheeks slightly flushed. “What are you doing here? How’ve you been?”

He focused on the second question. “Good.”

Not really but he wasn’t about to tell her about his night in jail by answering the first question. He’d missed his one chance with Grace, so no need to feed the bad image she probably already had of him.

“It’s been a long time.” She brushed the wisp of hair back, but it refused to stay.

“Are you still dancing in Chicago?”

“How did you know I was . . .”

Her words faded as her eyes seemed to register the words on the envelope in his hand. Her eyes widened slightly as she took a step back, then another toward the counter. “I’m just here to give my statement on a break-in.”

Seth turned the envelope around. Inmate Property was stamped in large block letters with Seth Warner handwritten below that.

He opened his mouth to say something, but what could he say? The envelope said it all. Seth sat back down in the chair. Could this day get any worse?

She gave him one last look, then stepped over to the window where a guy who couldn’t have been out of high school for too many years sat typing away at a computer. “Yesterday I called in a break-in that I witnessed, and they asked me if I’d stop and give my statement.”

The guy behind the counter paused his typing and looked up. He blinked and then stood. His cheeks went instantly red, and he nodded and fingered though a pile of files in front of him. “Y-yes, of course.”

Poor kid. Seth knew what it was like to be the recipient of one of Grace’s smiles. He’d almost failed biology for the second time just because she’d been assigned his lab partner for the first few weeks of the semester.

“Here it is.” The guy leafed through the file, then looked back at Grace. “Looks like we don’t need your statement anymore, the owner of the property isn’t pressing charges.”

“How could that be? I saw?—”

“The property owner turned out to be related to the individual who...” His gaze jumped to Seth for the briefest glance. “... was trespassing.”

Seth blinked and stood again. “You called the cops on me?”

She spun back toward Seth. “You were sneaking around in an abandoned house.”

“I wasn’t sneaking, I was looking. And what was there to steal?” Nothing besides that stupid wood craft he’d taken. The envelope wrinkled in his hand, and he relaxed his grip. “But I guess that’s what I should expect from a Howell.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”

Was she kidding? To put it in Shakespearean terms, if the Howells were the Montagues, then Seth had become a Capulet.

Jon emerged from a door off to the side as he pulled his keys from his pocket. He must have picked up the Mustang from impound before he came here. “Ready?”

Seth nodded a quick farewell to Grace. She still looked ready to argue, and he wasn’t getting into it. Not here. Not now. “See you around, Grace.”

She didn’t respond. Not a big surprise. If their history wasn’t bad enough, that whole interaction would feed everything she probably thought she already knew about him.

He pushed out the precinct door, then slowed his steps to wait for Jon. “Congratulations on ...”

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