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Hell, she was beautiful. That body was long and lean but curved in all the right places. He hadn’t felt his pulse pick up speed like this in a while. When you were surrounded by beautiful women all day, you became immune, or so he’d thought.
“How long have you been here?” she yelled through the door.
“Just got here.”
“Well, now you’ve had an eyeful, you can leave!”
His feet didn’t want to move because he’d seen her tears. “Faith, are you okay?”
“Go away!”
“Can I do anything for you?”
“No. Hope’s not here, so go away!”
“Where is she?” he called back, once again in control.
“Brook, with your mother!”
He’d left Brook a few hours ago, dammit.
“She’ll be back soon. G-Go meet her in town!”
She sounded like she was crying again.
“You sure you don’t want me to wait for you? You sound upset.”
“Go away, Ryan.” The words were flat and unemotional, and yet he knew she was anything but behind that door.
Shaking his head, he left because he needed coffee and food, both of which he’d find in Lake Howling. He also needed to leave before he gave in to the urge to walk back into that bathroom and hold the woman who he had history with before he’d left his hometown eleven years ago.
She’d been the first girl he’d fallen hard for. Tall for her age, she’d had long dark hair then, and soft tanned skin, partly from her Native American heritage, and partly because she loved being outside. But she’d not had those curves when he’d left.
He’d never be able to get the sight of her standing there wet, with the sun streaming through the window burnishing her body in a golden glow, out of his head. And what a body.
Why was she crying?
Getting into his SUV, he headed back into town. He’d resented this place as a child. Resented its size and how they’d lived their life looking at the world through TV and magazines. Isolated and cocooned.
He’d also resented being the son of a woman who cared for her children but had never made life easy on them. She wasn’t like some of the other mothers in Howling. Not overly demonstrative. She didn’t bake cakes for bake sales or encourage sleepovers. Both he and Hope knew how to recycle, eat on a budget, and wear clothes that were homemade or made to last. They’d been nothing like what their friends wore.
This place had lingering memories of his father too, even though he’d only been in their life briefly. The father who meant nothing to him because he was a stranger, and Ryan was happy to keep it that way.
Entering Main Street, he noted the banner strung across the main road that he’d missed earlier.
“Talent Show. Professional judges, entry fee to go to building the facility.”
He remembered that about this place too. They loved a cause, an occasion, anything that involved a gathering, a committee, and fairy lights.
Parking, he pulled on a jacket and lowered the peak of his hat. He then attempted once again to push aside visions of naked Faith Harris and got out. Wandering, Ryan looked in windows, reacquainting himself with the place he and his friends had spent their youth running wild in.
Why had Faith been crying in Hope and Newman’s bath?
It was midmorning, and there were more people about than he’d expected. The roadblock seemed to have finished, or perhaps they were just waiting for more cars to arrive?
Looking to the end of the street, he noticed they’d cleared the land next to the old church and guessed this was where the new facility Katie had spoken of would be built.
“Well now, this is a nice surprise,” the elderly man coming toward him said after he’d been wandering awhile. “Nice to see you back in town, son.”
