Page 2 of The Voices are Back

CHAPTER 1

Without a beard, he’s your boyfriend. With a beard, he’s your man.

-Text from Morrigan to Folsom

MORRIGAN

The first time I tried to come back to find Aodhan, I found him married with a kid on the way.

The second time I saw him, he was heading to jail.

The third time I saw him, he was divorced, had a kid, and was again with his ex-wife.

Though, this time, I wasn’t sure if he was with her because he was trying to get back together with her, or because he was just meeting up to talk about their son.

Whatever the reason, they were doing it in my coffee shop, so it was okay that I was spying.

At least, that was what I’d told myself.

At first, I’d tried to sit in my office chair—where I found myself a lot on bad days—and not pay attention to the live feed on the screen of my computer.

A couple of years ago, when I’d moved home and used my inheritance money from my grandmother to open my own business, I’d been told that having cameras was a necessity for business owners.

That person was right, and from that point on, I’d always found myself monitoring the comings and goings of the front room when I had nowhere to go and nothing else to do.

That’d been what I was doing today, when he’d walked in.

He’d never been in my shop before.

In fact, I was fairly sure he didn’t even know I was back in town.

Mostly because, whenever I saw him, I went the other way. I did my damnedest to keep him in the past, where he belonged.

At least, that was what I told myself.

I watched him walk in, take a look around, then go up to the counter and order his drink.

I knew without being told that the drink he’d ordered was a hot chocolate, because Aodhan McBanks didn’t drink caffeine. Aodhan had an irregular heartbeat, and anything that exacerbated that for him wasn’t a good thing. Such as coffee.

Then, his ex-wife walked in the door, and she walked straight up to the counter and ordered.

My heart hitched at just how beautiful his ex-wife was. She had the most gorgeous hair, tanned skin, and longest legs a woman could ever have. If you could fit a supermodel into a normal person, that would be Danyetta Westfield McBanks.

Aodhan paid for both, and then they went to sit down at a table that was across the room from my early-morning employee, Theresa.

Theresa wasn’t my favorite person in the world, but she did her job, showed up on time, and ultimately didn’t complain when I left her to deal with everything on her own. Which I had to do a lot because I was infinitely broken.

But, sensing the episode had passed that had brought me to my chair in the first place, I got up.

After making sure that my body did what it was supposed to do—as in it stayed upright—I tiptoed toward the door that separated my office from the main room. My office door was about ten inches from the table that Aodhan had chosen to sit in.

Subconsciously, I hoped that he’d chosen that particular table because it was closer to me. Logically, though, it was likely because it was far away from where Theresa liked to eavesdrop so she had every bit of juicy gossip that she could.

The other problem was, she looked a lot like me.

I was on the shorter side, had long, curly, auburn hair, and was on the too-curvy side of curvy. Well, minus the boobs. I’d had those hacked off last year to a more manageable handful rather than a “there’s no way you’re gonna button that shirt” lot.

I had a feeling that was also why Aodhan hadn’t recognized me yet.

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