“Great,” Mike said, adding, “and you’re gonna be here, right?”
She sighed. “Yes, Mike. I’ll be here. I live here. Where else would I be?”
He clucked his tongue and patted her shoulder before heading off down the sidewalk.
Alone, Keira turned and took in all of Hunter’s Landing in a single glance. A sad smile curved her mouth as she realized what an idiot she had been to think that a man like Nathan would want to give up his travels to exotic cities and countries in favor of settling down in a tiny town like this one.
Kelly had been right. Nathan was so not the right man for Keira. He’d proven that himself only two days ago when he’d tried to hijack her life. “Unfortunately,” she whispered, her heart as heavy as it had been the last time she’d seen him, “he’s the only one I want.”
“Talking to yourself, Mayor?” Francine Hogan called from the doorway of the post office.
Jolted, Keira forced a smile. “Nobody understands me better than me,” she joked.
Just as Keira had hoped, Francine laughed and went about her business. Stuffing her hands into her pockets, Keira walked down the street, nodding and smiling at the people she’d known her whole life.
The sun was shining and the temperature was finally starting to climb. Maybe spring was actually going to arrive at last. Just in time for Nathan to shake off the dust of Hunter’s Landing and move on to Barbados. Without her. She felt a twinge around her heart and knew that it was something she was just going to have to get used to.
Then she stopped and blinked. Okay, she was worse off than she’d thought. If she didn’t know better, she would swear that Nathan Barrister was standing outside the grocery store, chatting with Sallye Carberry. Oh, Keira thought, she was really losing it.
Putting one hand up to shield her eyes, she took a better look and could hardly believe what she was seeing. It was Nathan. Smiling and talking as if he and the older woman were the best of friends. As she stood, rooted to the spot, she watched him say goodbye to Sallye, then move along the walk on the opposite side of the street, stopping now and then to greet someone else he’d met at the block party three weeks before. For a man so determined to be alone, he had already made connections with some of these people, whether he realized it or not.
“What is he doing?” she murmured, then followed that up with, “and why do I care?”
It was no business of hers what Nathan did. He had promised to stay in town through the end of the month and that was all that mattered now. And, since their last fight two days ago, she knew that any chance they might have had together was gone. Still, her heartbeat quickened and her mouth went dry just watching him walk. Oh, she really didn’t want him to see her.
So, to minimize the risk of that happening, Keira hurried her steps, heading to the diner. She needed coffee and some comfort food, and the diner was the best place to find both.
Several days later, Nathan sat, having a solitary drink on the Clearwater restaurant’s deck. He’d been in town every day now for nearly a week and he hadn’t seen Keira once. Everywhere he went, people told him he’d just missed her. How was that possible in a town this size? Was she deliberately avoiding him? All because he’d wanted her with him? What in the hell did the woman want, anyway?
He stared out over the lake and watched the first deep, rich colors of sunset stain the sky. Around him, families laughed and talked together; waiters moved through the crowd with expert agility and, directly across from Nathan, a young couple sat so lost in each other they might as well have been alone on a deserted island.
A ping of envy rattled Nathan enough that he took a long drink of his Scotch and shifted his gaze back to the lake. Rose and gold streaks lay across the surface of the water and the cool evening breeze was so different from the icy wind that had held the mountain in a tight grip just the week before, it amazed him.
“Your usual, Mr. Barrister?” The waiter was standing beside his table, smiling.
“Yes, Jake. Thanks.” As the young man moved off to get his dinner, Nathan surprised himself by smiling. He had, over the last few days, become a regular at the Clearwater. The waiters knew his name and his favorite meal—the chicken Alfredo, no surprise there—and always greeted him like family.
But then, he’d been experiencing the same feelings all over town. The shop owners smiled, people stopped to talk with him and he had begun to feel as if he actually belonged in Hunter’s Landing. A strange feeling for a man who had spent most of his life on the move. Even stranger…he liked it.
In a couple of days, his month would be over and he would be leaving. And the truth of it was, he’d never been less interested in moving on—alone. But Keira wouldn’t come with him and he didn’t know how to stay. Didn’t know how to become a part of something greater than himself.
Didn’t know how to love someone like Keira—and the thought of somehow screwing up what they had so briefly had together…making her sorry she’d ever said she loved him, was enough to make him see that leaving was really his only option.
He finished his drink and ordered another.
An hour later, Keira took her sandwich into the living room, dropped onto the couch and flipped on the television. She used to love sitting in the quiet, letting her mind rest after listening to people chatter all day long. But these days, she needed the noise. The distraction.
Because, in the quiet, her brain was too free to wander—and inevitably, it went straight to thoughts of Nathan. She took a bite of her grilled cheese sandwich, blindly stared at the game show playing out on the screen and thought about how Nathan had looked that afternoon.
She’d hidden inside the diner and watched him laughing with Bill Hambleton. The man who had fought so hard against staying in Hunter’s Landing now seemed perfectly at home here. She’d been ducking him for days, not wanting to get close enough to be hurt again, but somehow needing to see him while she could.
“Pitiful. A thirty-year-old sixth grader,” she muttered, setting her sandwich down on the coffee table. “That’s what you are now, Keira. Aren’t you proud?”
She flopped back into the couch cushions and pulled a pillow onto her chest. Wrapping her arms around it tightly, she hugged it to her, stared at the blasted TV and tried to concentrate on the inane game show host who was trying to be funny.
But how could she focus on anything but the fact that Nathan would be leaving in a few days? She thought about calling him now, telling him she’d changed her mind and would go with him, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t let him think that what she felt for him was temporary. Or that she was just another woman in a long line of impermanent lovers. But how could she let him go without talking to him again? And how could she face him without wanting to kiss him? Or kick him?