Page 41 of Here With Me

Or with his own feelings. Because after tonight, he couldn’t deny that his feelings were not locked securely in the past. They were back and…

Oh no.

He couldn’t do this.

Costa Rica. He needed to stick to the plan.

Except…for the first time since he’d returned to Heritage, the drive to return to Costa Rica didn’t leave him excited. Instead, he rather hoped he’d be able to stick around Heritage a little bit longer.

What had he done?

eight

Two days. That’s how long it had been since David dropped Sadie off on her doorstep and almost kissed her under an umbrella in the rain. There was a reason people wrote songs about that. His warm body, his hand pulling her close, the look in his eyes—she would have kissed him, and enjoyed it, if not for the interruption.

For the first time ever, Sadie had been thankful for the stomach bug, because kissing David? That would have been a disaster. Even if they could move beyond all the hurt in their past, there was no way their futures could mix. She’d been honest with him when she told him she’d have followed him to the ends of the earth. But that was ten years ago. Now she had a daughter, a job, a life—and it was in Heritage.

But she was human, and he made her feel…things…she hadn’t in years. How could she ignore the way his every touch made her skin burn? How every time he leaned close, she longed to curl into him? How she dreamed about their lips meeting again after ten years of separation?

Her phone vibrated on her desk. Romee. She’d been ignoring her sister since the messages started coming in late Saturday night.

Romee: *gif of a skeleton tapping its fingers. Still waiting for you to tell me about your date.

Romee: You can’t ignore me forever.

Romee: Do I need to show up in your store? Because I can.

Sadie sighed and rolled her head around, stretching her neck. Too bad her sister would make good on those threats.

Sadie: There’s nothing to tell.

Except for the way her waist still tingled where his hand had settled, pulling her closer, shielding her from the rain. Nope. Not sharing that.

Romee: Mom says his car idled outside your unit for ten minutes. That’s a long time for nothing to happen.

Of course her mom had been spying. Nothing ever got by her when they were children. Nothing would escape her notice now.

Sadie: He walked me to the door in the rain. We were there only a minute or two before Doris dropped Lottie off because she had a stomach bug.

Romee: Poor Lottie.

Romee: But a minute is a long time. Nothing happened?

Sadie: Well, he didn’t kiss me, if that’s what you’re asking.

Romee: That’s like saying he’s only mostly dead. Did he almost kiss you?

Sadie: I never almost kiss and tell.

Romee: *gif of little girl squealing and shaking her fists.

Sadie tucked her phone into her pocket, shaking her head. Romee would report back to Mom faster than—well, she probably already had.

Hopefully, the kiss that didn’t happen wouldn’t be enough to scare David from coming back in to work today.

But maybe it would be better if he didn’t come in.

Food. She needed a snack. Sadie opened the bottom drawer of the desk and tried to pull out her new lunch tote—it matched Lottie’s tie-dyed lunch box—but her finger caught on an old ledger, snagging her cuticle.

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