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I dropped my arms from in front of my chest. “How’d you know that?”

He shrugged his shoulders and walked forward again. “Well, for one, you already told me. Plus, I know how to work Google, Cher.”

“Right. But if you call me that again, the next time I stab you, I’m not stitching you up,” I hissed as he stopped beside me. His body heat wrapped me up in a cocoon of warmth and strength. The anger cooled.

Only slightly.

“Are you threatening me?” He glanced down at me, his towering hulk of a frame swamping my own.

I narrowed my eyes and shoved my hands on my hips. “I’m making you a promise.”

He grinned a strange smirk that darkened his eyes. “I look forward to you keeping it.” His voice was low, almost like a growl deep within histhroat. My pulse jumped at the sound of it. Set ablaze by a few simple words, I watched as he sidled out of the house and disappeared behind a closed door.

And, for whatever reason, the room felt a few degrees colder than before and a thousand times emptier.

Chapter 5

COLETTE

Distracted.

It was like an echo everywhere I went, everyone telling me I seemed distracted. And I was. All day during my appointments—I was lucky they were mostly routine visits, because nothing seemed to drown out the thoughts that circled Ford.

He was different. New. Exciting. Frustrating.

Here.

And reopening wounds I’d thought I’d healed from.

“Colette?” a gentle voice echoed in the back of my head.

Lost in my thoughts, I was so distracted they pulled me faster toward the horizon where I was aimlessly drifting. I’d started a fire, ignited with matches I’d struck, in order to find out who turned to ash first—me or him.

“Colette? Darling?”the voice said again.

Darling? Since when had I ever called myself darling? Uh, never. No, that was something that my mom—

Shaking my head, my vision snapped into focus. My mom, as short and redheaded as I was, stood in front of me with her brows pulled tightly together. “Colette, darling, where is your head at?”

I scanned the decently busy dining room. Cracked leather booths lined the wall to my right, directly beneath large, long windows that flashed with the colors of the music festival raging outside.

Music pumped loudly through every penetrable orifice, filling the air with trumpets and horns, making our small town feel a little more like New Orleans. Most of the wobbly chairs and uneven tables were occupied, and I was… I was doing… what?

My fingers tightened beneath a serving tray.

“Oh my goodness, Mom. I’m so sorry, I—”

“Got distracted? Look, you’re only hindering business tonight. Azelie is outperforming you, and you know how badly she would rather be out with her friends,” my mom replied with a tilt of her head. The hair net strained against her curls, doing its best to keep the same mane as mine back from her face.

“I’m sorry. It’s been a weird day.”

“Go take a break and screw your head on right. It’s the busiest night of the summer, and I need your full attention.” She nodded toward the door and pulled the serving tray from my grasp.

Blowing out some air, I waded quietly to the front of the restaurant and pushed open the wooden door that could use some new paint or new staining. Everything in the restaurant could use an upgrade, but it didn’thurt as bad knowing that, just down the street, Ford’s family’s restaurant was in the same shape.

Fresh, humid air assaulted my face as I stepped outside. It was oppressive and didn’t provide the reprieve I was seeking. Nothing anchored my thoughts from drifting back to the man who had so abruptly left and, just as startlingly, waltzed back into this world.

So suddenly, in fact, I didn’t have time to set up walls and safeguards to protect my world and my secrets, even though he was someone I so desperately wanted to share them with. And one of those secrets could upend his life in a way that I wasn’t sure he’d forgive me for.