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“Oh my God,” I whisper. “Cherry…”
I run across the yard to where the dog is slowly coming toward me, tail wagging in the tall grass. Her steps are tentative and stiff, her head slightly tilted. When I reach her, I fall to my knees and gently throw my arms around her. Happy whimpers escape her as she nuzzles into my neck and licks my face.
“I missed you so much!” I exclaim, stroking her gray muzzle. My heart clenches over her beautiful brown eyes clouded with age—a reminder that this furry ball of love is older than me. I plant a soft kiss on her forehead.
Beige work boots appear on the ground a few feet away from me—untied and covering low white socks. My pulse hammers in a totally unfamiliar way as I slowly lift my gaze to take him in. Camouflage cargo shorts. Tight black sleeveless shirt. Arms corded with muscles and thin blue veins. Dark, tousled hair hanging almost past his shoulders. Black leather eye patch faded and cracked from the sun.
And one very intense, cocoa-colored eye riveted directly on me.
Holy crap. I’m frozen, trembling, caught up in my very first experience of attraction to the male species, and it's to a guy twenty years older than me who looks like he just stepped out of a rock album cover.
But I’m also not the tiniest bit surprised or disappointed that this monumental, coming-of-age moment, which I’ll remember forever, would occur with him.
I slowly stand. “Fox…”
Just as his name leaves my lips, I make the connection—he still lives here, and Lily must be his…daughter?
But how?
“Penny Rose?” Surprise, and something else I can’t quite put my finger on, filters through his deep voice. My stomach lurches, fearing my idiotic, daydreaming self had it all wrong—maybe he truly never wanted to see me again and here I am trespassing, hugging his dog.
“I’m here again…” I say softly and very awkwardly. “I hope it’s okay…I met your—”
“You guys know each other?” Lily interrupts, coming to stand next to me.
“Uh…” Alex takes on the expression of a squirrel in the middle of a busy road.
“Alex used to teach art when I was little,” I say. “I used to come here sometimes to paint and see his sculptures. He’s an amazing artist.”
Lily glares at him, her lip slightly turned up with undeniable disdain.
“You’re filthy,” she says. I hadn’t noticed the dust and grease at all.
He looks down at himself sheepishly. “I’ve been working.”
“Whatever,” she mutters and heads back toward the house.
“Hey,” I say, following her. “Do you want to walk to school together tomorrow? I live right through your backyard.” I point to the woods. “I can meet you here.”
Gripping the handle of the front screen door, she side-eyes me like I’m a door-to-door salesman.
“Did he put you up to this?” she asks, nodding her head toward the barn.
“Up to what?”
“To try to be my friend.”
I’m taken aback. “No. I swear I had no idea he was your dad. I haven’t talked to him in years.”
Her deadpan stare tells me she’s not the least bit convinced.
“Lily, I’m sincerely just trying to be your friend. I had no idea you lived here. But now that I do, I think it’d be cool to have a friend who lives so close, don’t you?”
She stares down at her feet, her voice soft. “I’m not used to having any kind of friend.”
Her loneliness is heart-wrenching. “Maybe for now, just consider me a walking partner,” I offer brightly. “How’s that?”
Shaking her head, she says with a small smile, “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I don’t know why I’m inexplicably drawn to everything here—this house, Cherry, Alex, and now Lily. All I know is I’m just as powerless to fight the magnetism as I was when I was six.
The heart is a compass, and for some reason, mine keeps leading me here.
Chapter 12
PENNY
When Lily goes inside, instead of taking the sidewalk around to my street, I walk around Alex’s house to my old path through the woods. I’ve missed the old path with its canopy of branches and leaves, the mossy rocks, the birds and squirrels flitting about, and the scent of damp earth.
Twice now, after Alex abruptly ended our friendship, I crept through these woods at dusk and stood at the edge of the clearing, staring at the house and barn with an aching heart. I hoped to see a glimpse of him. I hoped Cherry would be waiting for me. But I only heard Alex’s favorite music drifting across the field. With tears on my cheeks, I mouthed the words to the songs, wondering what I did wrong.
I was six years old the first time I wandered into Alex’s yard, but I knew him way before I met him.
That sounds crazy. I know.
But even at such a young age, I somehow just knew him.
