Page 23 of Second Chance Fate (Hope Falls: Brewed Awakenings #5)

Most notable was a story Owen relayed about his math class.

They were studying fractions and ratios using a Rubik’s Cube when a girl named Hadley, with purple on the end of her hair, went to the front of the class and asked for a volunteer.

Owen raised his hand, but so did a lot of kids, and she picked him.

She handed him the cube, closed her eyes, and told him to scramble it, which he did.

Then she opened her eyes, told him to set a timer for sixty seconds, and she solved it.

He said that he had homeroom, P.E., science, and math with her.

In social studies, she read an essay she’d written on Ralph Baer, who was credited as inventing the first home video game system.

When they were in science, she battled a kid and beat him by knowing all of the names, atomic numbers, and symbols of the periodic table of elements by heart.

He was halfway through telling his mom about her wiping the floor with everyone at H-O-R-S-E in P.E.

when they pulled into a parking space in front of the coffee shop.

When Owen talked about Hadley, Taylor could practically see the cartoon hearts floating around his head.

She had to admit, for his first crush, someone who could solve a Rubik’s Cube, knew the periodic table of elements, wrote a report on Ralph Baer, had purple tips, and could beat everyone at horse definitely had her stamp of approval.

Not that she needed it. It seemed Hadley was doing just fine on her own.

After a brief rock, paper, scissors, it was decided Owen would walk Casper around the grassy area on the side of the building, while Taylor ran in to grab the inhaler.

Despite being certain that she had last seen the inhaler on the windowsill, she still felt a wave of relief when she walked inside and found it exactly where she thought it would be, and she was even more relieved to have it in her hand.

Manny, who had given her the quarters, was behind the counter chatting with a customer. On her way out, when she caught his eye, she held the inhaler up so he knew why she’d come in. He smiled and waved, and she walked outside.

She made it two steps in the direction of the side of the building where Owen was and froze when she heard voices. Two voices. Owen’s and Caleb’s.

“I left my inhaler, so my mom’s going to get it.”

“I had asthma when I was younger, too.”

That was all she heard before she froze.

“You did?” Owen asked.

“Yep.”

“But you don’t now?”

“No, not really.”

“Did you grow out of it?”

Owen wanted so desperately to grow out of his asthma. If he knew he was speaking to his birth father, that would make Caleb’s response hold even more weight. That was the motivation she needed to break the invisible cinder blocks her feet were cemented in.

“Not completely, but it—" Caleb stopped speaking when Taylor came around the corner.

No more words came out of his mouth. It would be hard for them to, since his jaw dropped. Literally. She saw his expression morph into recognition. She was not a stranger to him.

“It’s…hi.”

Her heart was pounding so hard, she barely heard him when he spoke. Either that, or he was speaking very quietly.

“Mom, this is Caleb.” Owen, being the outgoing, confident kid he was, made introductions. “And this is my mom, Reb—er, um, Taylor.”

She hoped that Caleb hadn’t picked up on Owen’s slip-up, or if he had, he wouldn’t say anything in front of Owen about the fact that they’d met before.

“Hi, Caleb.” Taylor reached out to shake his hand. The moment their hands touched, she felt the warmth of his skin against hers; his fingers were strong and calloused, a shiver ran through her entire body, and she quickly pulled her hand back. “Nice to meet you.”

“Mom?” Caleb looked between Owen and Taylor.

“Are you?—”

“Owen, can you go take Casper to the car?” Taylor cut off whatever Caleb was about to ask and handed Owen his inhaler.

Owen didn’t move. He stayed exactly where he was as his eyes bounced between Caleb and his mom.

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “I’ll be right there.”

Reluctantly, he did as she asked. She watched her son’s retreating back, then him climbing into the car, and when the door was shut, she turned back to finally face the man she’d moved to Hope Falls for.

“Taylor?” he said her name like a question as he took a step closer to her.

She could feel the weight of his stare on her, heavy and warm like a blanket on a cold night.

Her body responded to him on a cellular level, completely bypassing any sort of barriers she had in place for protection or preservation.

It was the same thing that had happened all those years before on the boardwalk.

She tilted her chin up, her gaze drinking in his muscular chest that exuded strength, his square jaw covered in stubble, full lips, and finally reaching his golden-brown eyes.

The warm, earthy tones of his irises seemed to hold the secrets of whole universes within their depths, and Taylor found herself getting lost in them.

Being this close to Caleb was an overload on her senses. She inhaled and was transported back in time. He smelled masculine, a mix of cedarwood, citrus, and dryer sheets.

“Do I know you?” Confusion swam in his eyes. “You look so familiar…”

She exhaled a breath of relief. He didn’t remember her. She just looked familiar. That was it.

“Um, I need to go.” She motioned toward the car. “But, I was thinking maybe we could have coffee sometime.”

Crap. Did that sound like she was asking him out on a date? She had enough time to think about how to do this; why was she blowing it so badly?

Actually, she didn’t want to do this at the coffee shop where she worked. That could get very messy.

“When?” he asked as he took another step closer to her. The look in his eyes was like he was speaking to a trapped animal, and he was scared she was going to run away.

He wasn’t wrong.

“Um, I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Next week, maybe.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow morning at Sue Ann’s. Ten o’clock.”

“Tomorrow. Ten o’clock. Okay.” She could feel her skin heating up and was sure that her chest was breaking out in hives. Out of habit, she lifted her hand to her chest to check how hot her skin was as she rocked back on her heels. “See you then.”

Taylor turned, eager to escape before she embarrassed herself, when Caleb reached out and gently caught her wrist. His touch was sudden and unexpected, his hand firm and strong yet tender.

It felt like the way someone would instinctively catch a fragile object tumbling off a high shelf—protective, not possessive.

Her eyes closed as her heart stuttered in her chest, every synapse firing at once.

The world narrowed to the contact point where the roughened pads of his fingertips were pressed against the pulse of her wrist throbbing beneath his touch.

She felt a buzz of electricity zip up her arm.

Her brain, already in overdrive, sent her body into fight or flight, but she was rooted to the spot.

She began to feel dizzy, and the sidewalk beneath her sneakers slipped out of focus.

She lost her grip on her car keys, and they slid from her palm.

The next thing she knew, Caleb had one arm steadying her and had caught her keys before they fell to the ground.

He helped stabilize her and she watched as he placed the keys back in her hand.

When her eyes lifted back up to his, he was staring down at her with an expression in them that caused her breath to hitch.

“Rebecca?” he said her name with a soft rumble, like the crackling of a fireplace on a chilly night. It was soothing and comforting, but also held a hint of uncertainty. “Is that…are you Rebecca?”

She wanted so badly to explain everything to him right then and there, but with Owen in the car, she couldn’t. “I, um...I have to go. But I’ll see you tomorrow.”

This time when she turned around, he didn’t stop her. She made it one step when she heard a question that caused her stomach to turn inside out.

“How old is he?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she repeated.

This time she didn’t look back.