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His sister threw herself into his arms. Sabrina looked so much older than he remembered - when the hell did she grow up? Then his aunts and his uncles were hugging him, telling him how pleased they were to see him, asking him about London and New York and his flight.
And then he felt it. The weird sensation that he was being watched. An itch on his neck that didn’t go away from him rubbing it.
“You should come meet Grace. It’s been a long time since you last saw her,” Becca – his step-aunt, was telling him. “She came back from Paris last year. She can give you all the tips for getting used to a small town again.
He vaguely remembered that Grace was Becca’s daughter. Becca and Daniel owned the G. Scott Whiskey distillery on the edge of town. When Michael, his mom, and his younger brother arrived penniless in Hartson’s Creek so many years ago, it had been the distillery that had given his mom her job.
He always appreciated them for that. And he liked Becca a lot. He’d seen her last year in New York by coincidence and as always she’d been so happy to see him.
But he couldn’t remember Grace at all. She had to have been a little kid the last time he was here in town. Maybe Sabrina’s age?
“Come over here, Grace,” Becca shouted. He followed her line of sight and what the hell.
Her?
Here?
His blood turned cold. No, that couldn’t be Grace. Maybe she was a friend? He opened his mouth to ask, but then the woman he’d slept with in New York was walking over, not meeting his eye and swallowing hard.
“Honey, do you remember Michael, Mia’s son? Michael, this is Grace, my daughter.”
What. The. Fuck?
He’d spent weeks trying to track her down after that night they spent together, convinced he’d somehow saved the wrong number, even though it was the one she’d called him from. Tried to get her last name from the reception desk, tried to find her LinkedIn profile, not wanting her to think he was ghosting her.
“Hi.” Grace smiled at him, her eyes wary. And it pissed him off more because all he could think about were those lips. That long dinner. The way she’d softly sighed his name as he tasted every part of her.
“Hello.” His voice was sharper than he intended, making her wince.
“Michael’s here for a couple of months,” Becca said, her brows dipping a little as though she were trying to communicate something to her daughter. “Spending some quality time with Mia and Cam.”
“That’s nice.” Grace shifted her feet. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt, knotted at the waist, with a sweater slung over her shoulders. Still smiling like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
He wanted to grab her, pull her away, fire a million questions he needed answers to. Because she didn’t look like she was as shocked as he was. Did she know who he was all along?
Did she have sex with him knowing that it would be such a mess later?
“We should get you home,” Cam said to Michael’s mom. “It’s been a long day.”
“You’ll come over tomorrow, right?” Mia asked Becca and Grace. “Let’s get the whole family together. It’ll be my last chance to entertain for a while. We’ll have a cookout to celebrate Michael’s homecoming.”
“Bringing out the fatted calf for the prodigal brother,” Sabrina murmured. He barely registered it. He was still too busy looking at Grace.
“Stop it,” Mia said, shaking her head. There was a smile in her voice, though. It mingled with her tears. If she’d been a sky, there’d be a rainbow now. “I’m just so happy he’s home.”
“I have a rental car,” he told them. “I’ll follow you there. I just need to go to the drugstore to pick up some razors.”
“Cam has some you can borrow,” his mom said, looking upset at the thought of being parted from him for even a minute.
“It’s fine. I’ll get my own.” He lifted a brow. “I’ve just spent hours on a plane. I could do with burning off some energy.”
“Don’t be long,” his mom said. “I’ll be waiting up for you.”
“I won’t,” he promised. His gaze moved to Ella again. No,not Ella, she was Grace.
His cousin. The apple of her parents' eye, from the way they talked about her.
She was such a pretty little liar, and he hated that he couldn’t get that night out of his mind.
