Tater, always ready to pour fuel on a fire now that he’d sorted things out with his used to be ex-wife, Pepper, leaned back against a locker, arms crossed. “Like she was carrying a hose and a marriage license.”
The laughter echoed hard enough to make the walls vibrate.
I tugged my second boot off and lined it up slowly, taking my time, letting them wear themselves out. Then I looked up, completely deadpan. “You’re imagining things. I was watching the grill.”
Twitch snorted. “Yeah, because the grill has long legs and red hair now.”
Meatball was still grinning like he’d just struck gold. “So who is she?”
“Nobody.” Too fast. Too sharp.
And just like that, they scented blood in the water.
Donkey slapped his locker shut with a grin. “Ohhh, boys, did you hear that? Nobody. That’s code for somebody.”
Tater tipped his chin toward me, smug. “Somebody who clearly still has Paladin’s head messed up four hours later.”
I ignored them, grabbed a rag, and started wiping down a counter that was already clean, hoping the motion would hide the fact that my hands weren’t as steady as I wanted them to be.
It had been four years since I’d even said her name out loud. Four years of pretending that summer hadn’t carved something out of me I’d never quite filled back in.
And still, one look this afternoon and I was right back there—twenty-four, raw and stupid, hoping for more than I’d everhad any right to want. Back to those stolen summer nights when she’d sneak out to meet me by the creek, her hair smelling like jasmine and her laugh soft against my neck. Back to mornings when I’d wake up with her curled against my chest, and for just a few minutes, I’d let myself believe we could make it work somehow.
Gillian Holliday had never been for me. Not really. Her family made sure I knew it without ever saying a word—the way her father’s jaw would tighten when he spotted me at family gatherings, the polite but distant smiles from her mother, the careful way conversations would shift whenever I walked into a room. They didn’t need to spell it out. I could read the writing on the wall just fine. And when she packed up for law school that August, that sealed it. She had a life mapped out from birth, a future carved in stone that didn’t have room for a former foster kid who’d barely scraped by in high school and had gone to the fire academy instead of some high-brow university with ivy-covered walls and seven-figure price tags.
I’d known it even then, deep down. Known that what we had was borrowed time, a beautiful mistake that would end the second real life came calling.
I’d made my peace with that. Or thought I had.
And then she showed up in a sky-blue summer dress that hugged her curves in all the right places, and every single scar I’d built over that old wound split right back open like tissue paper.
Damn, but she’d looked fucking incredible. More than incredible—she’d looked like every sleepless night I’d tried to forget rolled into one devastating package. The dress was simple, nothing fancy, but it skimmed her body in a way that made my mouth go dry. The color brought out her eyes, made her skin glow in the late afternoon sunlight filtering through the trees in the park. Her hair was longer now, falling in soft waves past her shoulders, and when she’d turned to scan the crowd, I’dcaught a glimpse of that smile—the one that used to make me forget my own name.
Sexy. Confident. Untouchable as ever. And a younger, dumber part of me half wondered if she’d worn that dress for me, having remembered how much I loved those little summer dresses and all the easy access they afforded back when we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. How many times had I peeled similar dresses off her shoulders in the back of my truck, or on a blanket by the creek, or pressed up against my bedroom door in that crappy first apartment I’d had back then?
But that was ridiculous. Gillian had left Huckleberry Creek in her rearview mirror and never looked back. Whatever reason brought her back to our little slice of Alabama had nothing to do with me, and she’d probably be gone in a few days anyway, back to whatever high-powered life she’d built for herself in the city.
“Drop it.” The words came out sharper than I meant them to.
That got their attention.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t angry. Just a little too hard-edged for someone who was supposed to be unshakable.
Every single one of them stilled for a beat, trading looks over my head. Because if there was one thing about me they all knew? Paladin didn’t get rattled. Not by a call. Not by a fight. And sure as hell not by a woman.
Until now.
Meatball leaned back against his locker, grinning like a cat who’d cornered a mouse.
“This is going to be fun,” he said. “We’ve got ourselves a mystery woman?—”
The alarm bell split the air like a gunshot.
Instantly, everything else fell away. Laughter cut off. Conversations died.
Boots slammed back on. Jackets came off hooks. We were moving before the second tone sounded, muscle memory taking over.
I pulled my coat on, checked my gear without thinking about it, and jogged for the truck. The night outside was a wall of heat, fireworks still cracking somewhere far off, the promise of chaos waiting.
