Page 81 of The Wilder Widows

Covering my face with my hand, I tugged my scarf up tighter. The white powder coating my sunglasses blurred my vision, but even with the obstructed view, one glance up to Tom’s face pressing against the window, and I forgot how to breathe.

“Are you okay in there?” he asked, rapping on the window. “Is anyone hurt?”

With my pulse ripping through my veins at light speed, I nodded my head. “Yep. We’re fine. Thank you and goodbye.”

“Are you sure no one is hurt?” The window muffled his voice, but those low, velvety tones I’d remembered him whispering in my ear sent a surge straight through me. God, the man still looked exactly the same.

His hypnotic golden eyes.

That chiseled jawline.

Memories crashed into me, refusing to fade.

“We’re fine, Tom. Just go.”

Tom. Shit! I said his name. Peering out from behind my sunglasses, I peeked up to see his furrowed brow while he searched my face. Praying my dark sunglasses and old age would conceal my identity, I stared straight into those eyes I knew so well. And they stared straight through me.

“Sylvie?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Hi, Tom,” I whispered, pulling down my sunglasses. The moment I got a clear look at him without my sunglasses between us, I felt the butterflies lift off in my stomach. Just like they had the first time I saw him forty years ago.

The widows sat in silence while Tom and I remained trapped in our stare. Emotions swirled inside his amber eyes while he stepped back, disbelief keeping his masculine jaw propped open.

“Is that you?” he asked, regaining his lost footing.

“It’s me.” I pulled the scarf off my head and brushed off the airbag dust.

“Sylvie?” he asked again, disbelief shaking his voice.

“Hi, Tom,” I repeated, still unable to form any more complex words.

“Get out there,” Doris whispered, giving me a little shove.

With a quick glance around the car, I caught all their encouraging nods. I let their confidence push me on, and I grabbed the door handle and pressed it open. Rising up, I stood in front of Tom. He towered over me, and I remembered how small I had felt beside him. How strong and powerful he was and how protected I felt wrapped inside his arms. How badly I wanted to step into them, wrap my arms around his waist, and bury my head in the chest I wish it had rested on every night for the past forty years.

Age had transformed the color of his hair, but it still flowed in the same thick waves I’d run my fingers through while we’d laid in bed and talked all night. So much of him had changed, but I still saw the same man I’d given my heart to all those years ago and never gotten it back.

“What... what are you doing here?” he asked.

“I, uh, was here visiting with some friends.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. I just left out the part I was here visiting him.

A siren echoed through the warm, summer air, and soon blue and red lights appeared as a police car pulled around the corner.

“Are you sure you aren’t hurt?” he asked, looking me over.

Tom. Always looking out for me. Always protecting me. I could see the concern weigh down his brow.

“I’m okay. Just some bruises from the seatbelt, I think.”

“Good. I, uh, good. Glad you aren’t hurt.”

The weight of our last interaction hung between us. The tears. The heartbreak. It dangled between us like an invisible barrier I didn’t know how to pass through.

“Anyone hurt?” the police officer asked as he walked up behind me, shaking me from the locked stare Tom and I shared.

“No. We’re fine, officer.”