Page 6

God, I hated seeing him. It hurt like hundreds of little pushpins being stabbed into my heart.

Watching him drive up in that big, show-off truck of his and climbing out…

it had been a special, torturous kind of déjà vu.

The truck was different. Patrick was different.

He had filled out. He wasn't fat, but he looked like a man now, not like the boy I remembered. Just like his brother Gabe—whom I enjoyed watching playing football on TV—Patrick McCloud had grown into the kind of man women daydreamed about—or like one of those men Carol liked to write about. Broad shoulders that stretched the limits of his flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up over forearms corded with muscle, jeans faded in the way that came from actual work, not fashion. His hair was longer than I remembered, brushing the back of his neck in soft, dark waves he clearly hadn’t bothered to style.

Still running his hand through it like it might hold answers, I noticed. It didn’t. It only made it worse.

And then there were his eyes. Whiskey brown, just like they’d always been. A little tired now, maybe. A little guarded. But still impossibly warm. Still the same eyes that once looked at me like I eclipsed every sunrise he’d ever seen.

My heart did that stupid thing again. The lurch.

The flutter. The traitorous ache. I told it to shut up.

Patrick opened the door, turned back to me, and God help me, flashed that damn smile at me.

The one that showed off the dimple on his left cheek, the one that still made my knees go weak.

And just like that, I felt myself unraveling all over again.

"What do you think?" Patrick's voice penetrated my mind enough to help me call up my game face again. Business. Right.

I stepped past him into the shell of the restaurant, brushing too close—not on purpose, not really—but my arm still grazed his, and it was like being shocked by memory.

My breath hitched, traitorously and loudly in my own ears, but I kept walking.

Pretending not to notice his small wince and refusing to wonder what that meant. Did he feel it too? Or did he recoil?

The inside was raw. Bare studs. Exposed beams. Concrete floor, still dusty and uneven. But the bones were good—really good. High ceilings. Great natural light. The kind of space a chef could mold into something extraordinary.

“You designed this?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.

He nodded. “Every inch.”

Of course he did.

Of course he built me a cathedral. It was ironic that he hadn't even known it was for me while he did it. Some might call this divine justice.

“It’s just a shell right now,” he said. “Waiting for the right person to bring it to life.”

My fingers curled slightly as I walked farther in, brushing the unfinished wall. I tried to picture it with my ovens, my line. I tried to imagine noise and heat and life in this space. And I could. I could see it all so easily, it made my throat tighten.

“This space has potential,” I said, trying to sound detached, as if my heart wasn’t beating too hard and my palms weren’t starting to sweat.

“I thought you might like it,” he said quietly.

I turned to face him. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” His voice was gentle.

“That tone.” My voice wavered. “That I remember the exact way you take your coffee tone.”

He didn’t answer right away. Then, softly, “Still more sugar and cream than actual coffee?”

I swallowed hard and looked away, pretending to study the support beams so I didn’t have to see the expression on his face.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to walk in here, critique the layout, nod politely, and walk away untouched.

But my chest ached. My hands trembled. My stupid heart kept catching in my throat.

“What made you think of me for this?” I asked, finally turning back to him.

He was watching me—really watching me, like he used to, like nothing about me had ever stopped mattering.

"It was your food. Carol took me to Salt my blood rushed through my veins so hard and furious I thought I would pass out.

His nearness forced me to tilt my chin to look up at him.

He was close enough to feel his warmth and the weight of every word we weren’t saying.

His scent invaded my nostrils. He was wearing a different eau de cologne, of course.

It had been ten years, after all, but his scent, the one that was his very own, was still there.

The scent I had been running away from. Pines, rain, and manly musk.

“I never stopped knowing you,” he said quietly.

I hated how much I wanted to believe him.

The space between us buzzed like it had its own pulse. Like the foundation we were standing on was made of something electric and old, but still too alive to bury.

I backed up a step.

“I need to think,” I said, not trusting my voice to say anything else.

Patrick didn’t argue.

He just nodded, once. “Take all the time you need, Ells.”

God. Ells. Why did he have to do that?

It broke something open in me, and I had to get out before it spilled all over the dusty concrete floor.

"Why the hell did you do that to me?" I demanded of Carol the moment she opened the door.

I had driven straight from the restaurant to her place, set on giving her a piece of my mind.

The drive took forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes of me alternatingly wiping my eyes because they were welling over and hitting the damn steering wheel so hard I might have broken it.

Forty-five minutes of enduring a pain lodged so deeply into my heart, it made it hard to breathe.

I never stopped knowing you . Not I never stopped missing you. Not I never stopped loving you. No! Damn him. Why did he have to say the words that hurt so much more than the others would have?

"Oh my God, Ella, what happened?" Carol opened the door fully and pulled me into her arms. She was so much taller that my head pressed right into her warm chest, and I began crying. Not like I had in the car, where a tear had escaped me here or there. No, this was ugly crying at its worst. This was sobbing and snotting and shoulders shaking so hard I thought I might come apart completely. And Carol—bless her meddling, over-involved, wonderful soul—just held me. She didn’t say I shouldn’t have pushed you , or I’m sorry , or I thought this would help , even though she probably should have said at least one of those.

She just held me, like she knew her meddling had opened a wound she couldn’t close—but she’d be damned if she let me bleed alone. She just stood there in her doorway, holding me like a big sister who wasn’t going to let the world swallow me whole, no matter how hard it tried.

After what felt like a century, she gently pulled me inside, sat me on the couch, and handed me a box of tissues and a throw blanket that smelled like lavender and dryer sheets. The weight of it grounded me a little, giving me a chance to ride out the next wave of emotion without floating away.

She waited until I blew my nose and wiped my eyes—twice—before speaking.

“So,” she said carefully. “I take it the site visit didn’t go great.”

“I hate you,” I croaked.

She grinned. “No, you don’t.”