Page 4 of Love and Other Lost Things

Nik’s brown eyes softened. “I’m sorry about your dad.”

Jane looked away. “Yeah, well, that makes one of us.”

“Jane, listen?—”

She cut him off. “It was nice seeing you.” Her attention snagged on the ID tag with his photo hanging around his neck. Linden Falls Hospital, Nikolas Andino, MD. So, he did live here in town. Jane wasn’t sure what to think about that. She’d always imagined him somewhere new. Not spending his days in all the places they used to spend their days together. “Doctor Andino,” she couldn’t help but add.

Nik glanced down at his ID tag, and then back to her face. His gaze roamed over her, and then he flinched. The next thing Jane knew, he was reaching out, sliding his palm under her chin, taking it in his hand. She sucked in a breath at the heat of his touch. How was it possible he left her feeling so shaken, all these years later? Why wasn’t she stepping back, away from him? Instead, she found herself leaning in. Nik angled her face so he could get a better look at her left side, and then Jane remembered.

The cut under her eye, and the purple bruise radiating from it.

“Are you okay?” Nik’s thumb stroked her cheek. “That’s a pretty nasty bruise.” His voice was so caring, his touch so gentle, and inexplicably, she was tempted to open her mouth and spill her secrets.

What is the matter with me?

She jerked away, pressing a palm to her cheek. “Oh… this is nothing,” she said, forcing her voice to sound casual. “We have this—cabinet that hangs at a weird angle and I’m always running into it.” It was the same story she gave the trucker in Kansas, and the waitress in Indianapolis.

But Nik tilted his head and stared for a beat too long. Could he see right through her? He’d always been able to before. She held her breath. Finally, he nodded slowly, face skeptical, but at least he didn’t ask any more questions.

Jane exhaled.

“I’d heard a rumor you live somewhere out in California,” Nik said, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

“Yeah. Um. Los Angeles.” Though Jane had cut ties with everyone in Linden Falls, she’d kept in touch with Mom. They talked a few times a year, usually when Dad was on one of his fishing trips and there was no danger of him walking in and finding Mom FaceTiming with Scarlett. But this town was full of gossips, and there had to be speculation about Chief McCaffrey’s only daughter, and why she never came home. What had Mom told them? What had Nik heard about her?

The silence stretched between them, unbearable and awkward. There was so much unsaid but, somehow, they had nothing to say. They used to talk endlessly all afternoon and then go home and text each other all evening.

“Well… I should be going.” Jane took a couple of steps backward down the aisle. “Tell your mom I said hi.”

“Sure.” Nik nodded, and if he was sorry to see her leave, he hid it well. She had no right for that to bother her. “You too.”

With that, Jane turned and fled.

She’d made it to the end of the aisle when Nik called out to her. “Jane, wait.”

Jane pretended she didn’t hear him, hurrying to the register to drop some cash on the counter for Scarlett’s gifts and run for the door. She needed to get as far away from Nik as possible.

Because she might have been away for a decade, but all it took was five minutes in his presence and a gentle hand on her cheek for him to burrow through her defenses. If she kept this up, it would only be a matter of time before he figured out why she’d really left this town.

And why she could never stop running.

TWO

Jane McCaffrey was back.

Nik stared at Jane’s retreating form as she hurried down the aisle, around the shelving unit, and back out of his life. For a moment, he was tempted to follow her. To grab her arm, whirl her around, and demand to know where the hell she’d been for the last decade. But that would require touching her again, and just that brief brush of his hand on her cheek a moment ago had sent him far more off-balance than he wanted to think about.

He almost hadn’t believed it when he’d turned the corner and seen her standing there like a beautiful ghost. Talking to Mrs. Swanson like she hadn’t disappeared into thin air with no explanation. On first glance, Jane hadn’t changed at all. She still had the same long, wavy blond hair that tempted him to tangle his hands in it, the same arch in her eyebrow, the same ability to make him feel like someone had reached into his chest and yanked out his heart.

And she still had that same guarded look in her eyes. The difference was that he used to be someone she trusted. The last time he’d laid eyes on her—a decade ago—he’d never felt closer to another person in his life. It hadn’t only been physical, though there was that, too. Hands and mouths colliding, clothes peeling off sweat-soaked bodies, heavy sighs mingling in the back seat of that old sedan. But it had been so much more than that. It had been souls converging.

Nik raked a hand through his hair and slumped back against the shelf of tampons. What the hell? “Souls Converging” sounded like the title to one of the dozens of three-chord emo songs he’d listened to the summer she took off, holed up in his childhood bedroom feeling like he might die without her. It was not the sentiment of a successful twenty-eight-year-old man who’d moved on with his life.

Which he was. And he had.

At least, he had before she’d walked back into this damn town.

“Can you believe it?” hissed a voice from the end of the aisle.

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