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The pale pink on the edge of the horizon was one part of rural living she’d missed. The sunrises and sunsets were the stuff of country songs for good reason and the mountains were a deep blue and green, untouched by anyone outside Deer Creek. God, this land was beautiful.
But who had knocked?
As if she’d conjured him, Bennett came around the corner with two stainless steel cups and a paper bag in his hand, the smile she’d gone to bed dreaming about on his face. He wore a thin flannel chambray and jeans snug enough to show off what hard work looked like on a man.
C’mon. Did he wake up that handsome? Of course, she’d open the door to that kind of perfection while looking like she was haunting the place with her oversized robe and knotted hair. His gaze took in her disheveled appearance from under a dirt-stained Stetson.
She could see her breath and tucked the robe tighter around her body. Wasn’t Bennett freezing?
“Sleeping in, huh?”
“Good morning to you, too.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s only six.”
“On a ranch. You remember that’s nearing ten city time, right?”
“You know hard work can get done at reasonable hours of the day, right?”
“Not here it can’t.”
“Fine, then consider me schooled. I won’t make the same mistake tomorrow. Anyway, you didn’t need to storm in here at dawn to remind me of how things used to be.” Like the way you make me feel every time I look at you. One part frustration, two parts longing. And wholly confused. “A call would have been sufficient.”
He tipped his hat toward her, but she wasn’t the same girl who used to swoon from such simple gestures.
“Fine. I’ll call next time.”
“And what are you doing still wearing that hat? Is it the same…” She let the sentence trail off. As the one you placed on my head the first time you kissed me? Okay, maybe she was still a little bit that girl. She hadn’t expected the feelings that would come with the man since both had been absent for so long.
“Yup. No use replacing what works. I still have the same coffee cup you tried stealing, too, in case you’re wondering.”
“I liked the horse on it,” she shot back. That he still owned the hat and mug made her stomach flutter. Surely it was his frugality, not any emotional tie to the things reminding him of her. They’d dated for what, one summer? Over a decade ago?
Yeah, you know it wasn’t the time you spent together that mattered. You two loved each other for a good decade before that.
Her unruly subconscious was right; Bennett had been her first and best friend long before her first love. Three months might as well have been three years the way they felt. Still, it hadn’t been so easy saying yes to his proposal when she still had her senior year in front of her.
“Yeah, well, you don’t have much use for it down in San Antonio, do you? I’ll bet you drink fancy coffee out of paper cups each day.”
Maggie frowned. Darn this man for knowing her so well, even after all this time. Especially after all this time.
“You seem to have a pretty clear dislike for where I call home, Bennett Marshall.”
“Nah. Just don’t see what everyone else does. I’ll take my coffee black and my starry nights clear, thank you very much.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and counted to ten like her therapist suggested. Her therapist who’d never met Bennett-freaking-Marshall. There weren’t enough numbers that would calm Maggie’s thoughts or breath with him sharing the same air.
“Is insulting my life part of the welcome home committee now? Instead of casseroles you bring by a bushel of insults?”
He sighed. “Okay. Listen. That’s not why I came.”
She shivered under the power of his gaze. “Then why did you?”
“Can we talk, Maggie? Like sit down and actually catch up? I’ll be nice.”
The frozen air hung over Maggie like a weight, slowing her thoughts. Letting Bennett in after all this time—it couldn’t hurt, right? Because it was clear they’d both changed far too much for the old feelings to surface. She stared back at him, what she knew of the young man from the past swirling with her curiosity about him now.
“Fine. Come on in.” Maggie told herself it was to shut out the cold, but the reality was more complicated. She was curious about him, like it or not.
Until he made his way into her foyer.
