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Oh joy.
I made it back to Whisper Ridge a little after four, parking on Main to head into JJ’s for coffee and catching the sign for what used to be Lily’s Diner, jonesing for coffee and one of Lily’s cakes. The diner had been one of my safe places before and after the accident. Lily would sit and listen to me, or give me space to sit and think, plying me with home-baked goods and coffee. I'd visited every day, until the day she passed, and the diner closed. As usual, grief curled inside me that she was gone because I missed her no-nonsense attitude to life, her morning smile, and the way she somehow got me. So many hours I’d spent in the small stock room as she fed me and kept me in drinks, all the time letting me talk out my fears. There was something about Lily that had made the accident, the scars, the amputation, and the depression manageable, and I wished she was still in my life.
The inside of the diner was dark, had been for a year now, ever since she’d passed, and no one knew what was happening to the heart of the town. I’d grown up there, from kids’ parties, to teenage angst, to the post-accident depression I buried in cake, to coffee that kept me going, to the regular Friday meet-up I’d once had with my siblings. Rumor said there was a new owner, some relative out in Ohio, probably looking to sell it off for profit. I knew that much, given my younger brother Scott, part-owner of our family firm Sheridan Realty, already had plans in place for conversion to two separate storefronts should the new owner want to sell.
I hated that, but I’d been outvoted, some nonsense about moving on, blah, blah.
This abandoned place with its boarded-up windows served as a painful reminder of how Whisper Ridge had changed when Lily McGuire died before her eighty-fifth birthday. Lily’s Diner was a relic of the past left untouched since Lily’s sudden passing. TheCLOSEDsign hanging crookedly in the window made me sad. The diner had never been closed when I needed it.
I was lost in memories of times spent at the diner with friends and family flooding back, when a flicker of movement caught my eye, and I realized one of the windows was lacking the boarding that had blocked everything from view. Freaking vandals must have gotten inside again. I should call Neil, get the sheriff out here to pull them in, but then, what if it was one of the kids in my classes who just needed Teacher-Chris to go nuclear on their ass, and therefore, avoid law enforcement being involved?
I saw a shadow. A silhouette of a person moving past one of the booths. Nope. No way. If there was someone in there vandalizing the place, trying to rip out parts of it to sell, then I was stopping it right now, kids or not. Without thinking, I twisted out of the car—my leg wobbly until I got my prosthetic steady under me—and approached the door, trying the handle only for it to open easily.
“This is private property!” I shouted as soon as I opened the door. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
The interior was dim, and I blinked as my eyes adjusted, taking in everything that was familiar—the old benches, the worn tables, the counter, the signs with menus that hadn’t changed in a year.
And right in the middle, a man in a defensive stance, who was as startled as me. He wasn’t tall, a head shorter than my six-two, but there was an undeniable presence about him. His frame was slim, hinting at an active lifestyle or perhaps just fortunate genetics, and he was bundled up like a snowman in deference to the frigid day. However, what caught my attention the most, was the fact that when he pulled down the scarf from his mouth, he was gorgeous. Very pretty, and beautifully put together. A little closer, and I could see his wide eyes were pale, maybe blue, or gray?
An attractive stranger who didn’t fit in a familiar place. He didn’t look like a vandal, but he was brandishing his phone like a weapon.
“Who are you?” I demanded and yanked down my scarf. “This is private property.”
“Who are you?” he snapped back, casting a glance to his left as if he were searching for something, then staring back at me, and I knew the moment he clocked the scars on my face because his eyes widened again. I was used to the stares, but this time, there was also genuine fear in his expression at me storming in. Good. If he was breaking in, then you bet I was going to scare his ass.
“I asked first,” I snapped. “If you think you’re going to steal a single thing from here, you’re wrong.”
He blinked at me, staring at my face again, and I was drawn into his steady gaze, a little lost, until I yanked my attention back.
“I can’t steal what I own,” he said, phone still in front of him.
“What you own?” I pulled out my cell, and he stiffened. What did he think I was going to do? Have some kind of battle of the cell phones. “I’m calling 911.”
“Me too!” the stranger exclaimed.
And that made no sense at all. Were we both calling the cops? Something about that didn’t sit right, and apparently, we realized that at the same time because he pocketed his phone and sighed.
“I’m supposed to be here,” he said, tired and confused. “I’m Noah Lew—Bennett, Lily is my great aunt.” His voice hitched. “Shewasmy great aunt.” He dangled keys in front of him. “She left the diner to me.”
I’d never seen the piss and vinegar drain from someone so fast, nor seen a man so lost and out of place, but my suspicions didn’t subside. Keys meant nothing—I had keys to a lot of places in town, didn’t mean I owned them. What grabbed me was the way all the fire vanished from his intriguingly colored eyes. I couldn’t work out if they were blue or gray, the light too low, but they were bright and focused, until suddenly they weren’t.
“Dad?” A voice echoed from the direction he’d glanced in, and the man stiffened as I half turned to check out the voice and saw a kid standing there—nobody I recognized from school. Noah made a subtle move to stand between me and the lanky teenager, who was maybe fourteen, and was so unlike this Noah guy there was no evidence they were related at all apart from the kid using the dad word.
“Fox, stay back there,” Noah snapped.
“Whatever,” the kid—Fox—muttered. Shit. The kid was pissed, the man was tense, stress bracketing his eyes, and his gaze darted between us, as if I was an ax murderer and I was going to kill them both.
I took a deep breath.
“Chris Sheridan,” I introduced myself, and even extended my hand. Someone who got between another man and his child had to be one of the good guys. Right? “I knew Lily well enough to hear stories of her family, yet she never mentioned a Noah. So, how about we start again?”
ChapterThree
Noah
I pocketed my cell,then stood with my back to the counter, Fox behind me where I could know he was safe. Then, arms crossed over my chest, I stared down the man with the scarred face who had come barreling into my aunt’s old diner like a storm ready to break. I’d faced a man more intimidating than this guy, and I wasn’t backing down and letting him scare Fox.
My initial reaction to the stranger—fear, anger, and my defensiveness—subsided in an instant. As to his face, the man had been in a fire or something, corded scars ran from his temple to his chin, edging his hair line, and half hidden by his scarf. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the pain he’d had to have suffered to have those marks on his skin, and compassion edged my anger.
