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A tall man anyhow, the shadow he cast stretched over half the cellar floor. With light brown hair and dark brown eyes, Nate normally had an infectious grin to go with his easygoing ways, but the smile was noticeably absent as his gaze landed on her now. His fitted gray tee hugged a lean physique of wiry muscle. Well-worn denim ended at leather loafers instead of the cowboy boots or running shoes that were his only footwear outside of baseball cleats in the years they’d dated. The expanse of surgical bandages on his left hand were the only indication of his injury.
She’d heard about the torn tendon even before the text from the cashier at the Rough Hollow Orchards Farm Stand. Because even if she hadn’t received texts about Nate getting hurt earlier in the week from her friends and her own sister, she still followed baseball enough to get updates on Texas sports happenings through social media.
She’d even watched the video of the play. Because ancient history be damned, she couldn’t help a pang of worry about him when she’d heard the news.
“Hello, Keely,” he greeted her as he hit the last step, leaving the wide door open behind him.
She couldn’t think of a single thing to say, let alone venture a guess why he was here in her workroom at noon on a Tuesday.
“Hello,” she said finally, realizing she’d let the moment drag on too long.
But seeing him here, up close and in person, reminded her of so many other times she’d been near him. Laughs they’d shared. Inside jokes. There had been an era of her life where she’d known him so well that she’d been able to read his every mood in his expression and his body language. Every other time she’d been with him—except for that last one that had ripped her heart out—had been happy. Nate had always had a way of making her smile even when everything else in her world had been a disaster.
And somehow, she hadn’t let her thoughts linger on that happiness in the years since they’d parted ways. Except for a lone day of weakness when she’d driven up to San Antonio to watch one of his games last spring—without him knowing—she’d done a good job of shutting the door on those memories. Until now when everything just sort of flew out at her at once.
“You’re not an easy woman to find,” he said finally, the heat of the day rushing in behind him now that the door was open. “I thought your father was joking when he told me to look for you in the basement.”
“You saw my dad?” She hadn’t thought he’d be awake yet, his days starting late and ending closer to sunrise.
But then, he slept less and less as his health problems worsened. Part of the driving force behind his recent sobriety was the need for a liver transplant. Getting his life in order was imperative if he wanted to be a candidate.
“He’s out on the porch with a cup of coffee,” Nate assured her, probably picking up on the worry in her voice or her eyes. “He saw me as soon as I pulled in the driveway.”
Some of the nervous tension eased at the realization that Nate hadn’t woken him up. She didn’t trust whatever words fell out of her dad’s mouth before he’d had coffee. Her father may have mellowed in the last two years, but his language and manners were coarse enough to peel paint if he was pulled out of a good rest prematurely.
“This is my workroom,” Keely explained, still puzzled about what Nate was doing here. Standing close enough to her that she could almost catch the scent of his aftershave if she breathed deeply enough. Turning away from him at the thought, she grabbed the boxes full of flowers. “I just finished the bouquets for Della Rae Mason’s wedding and I really need to get them delivered to the courthouse.”
She also needed to get some space between her and Nate.
“Della Rae is getting married on a Tuesday?” Nate’s dark eyes took in the stone walls and brick floor of the old storage barn basement that had been built as a root cellar for the kitchen of the main house.
Much of the Harper property was in disrepair, but Keely had spent a lot of time cleaning up the work area and outfitting it with a walk-in refrigerator for her flowers. Nate’s gaze scanned that next, where shelves of cut wildflowers in buckets sat next to rows of vases and urns filled with arrangements for the upcoming Daughters of Last Stand meeting.
“It was her parents’ wedding anniversary date and her father isn’t in good health after losing his wife last year.” Keely knew that Nate had maintained ties with a lot of the people they’d graduated with: Cartwrights and Delaneys, Campbells and Highwaters. The families with deep roots in Last Stand, like the Ramseys, tended to stay in touch. “She thought honoring the day with her own marriage would mean a lot to her dad.”
Reaching to take the boxes from her, his hand brushed her arm. “Let me help you.”
She shook her head, skin tingling where he’d touched her. “Those bandages say that you shouldn’t be carrying anything.”
“It’s fine.” He slid the stack away from her, balancing the weight on the forearm of his recovering hand. “I’m already getting the hang of working around the injury. Let me go with you to the courthouse.”
The suggestion stopped her in her tracks. She peered up at him, wondering why he would want to do that. But then, her gaze snagged on his profile, at once so familiar and so foreign. It had been a long time since she’d leaned into him and kissed along his jawline. A long time since he’d pulled her to him and kissed her back until she forgot everything else but being with him.
Those memories made it far too awkward to be around him.
“Why?” she asked, frustrated that he’d appeared out of nowhere and sought her out after all this time. It had taken forever to patch herself back together after the wreckage he’d left behind. “I don’t mean to be rude, Nate, but I can’t imagine why you’re here, let alone why you want to ride around on my deliveries with me. Shouldn’t you be at home, healing from—” tendon surgery to repair a sagittal band rupture; the sports page had printed a helpful graphic, not that she would admit to having read all about it online “—your injury?”
He frowned a scowl so deep she could see the resemblance to his younger brother, Wes, who’d always been far more intense. “I’m fine,” he told her curtly. “I need to talk to you, and I don’t want to disrupt your work.”
She wanted to argue, but he turned to retreat up the stairs, leaving her no choice but to follow him—and her flowers—outdoors. She couldn’t imagine what was on his mind, but the look on his face suggested it was nothing pleasant.
The sooner she could get to the bottom of it, the sooner she could get him off of her land and back out of her life.
For good.
*
Half an hourlater, Nate helped unload Keely’s battered delivery van outside the courthouse, handing off the boxes of bouquets to one of the bride’s attendants. They would have arrived at the site sooner except that he’d needed to jump-start her vehicle. He’d offered to take his truck instead, but she’d refused, and the discussion of her vehicle’s repair history had distracted them both on the ride over. As soon as they’d arrived at the courthouse, the Mason family had all but besieged them, clearly waiting for the floral delivery. Della Rae’s father had been Nate’s baseball coach back in peewee league, so he felt bad to hear the guy was in poor health after losing his wife at a relatively young age.
