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Just a glimpse of a broad frame, dark hair, a starkly defined brow that always made him a perma-grump, set in a brooding scowl.
No—I must be imagining things.
All these memories reaching up and making me see people I’d rather forget.
That couldn’t have been Grant.
My heart can’t take seeing him right now.
“That’s not your mother in that van,” I tell myself.
No way. It’s not logical.
I’d have gotten the call no one ever wants long before anyone loaded her up and took her away.
So as the cop cars pass, I try to refocus on practical things.
Like rummaging around in my suitcase until I come up with a long-sleeved Henley I normally use as a nightshirt and pull it on over my clothes. It’s not much, but at least it cuts the wind while my skin prickles with goose bumps.
As I zip the suitcase and slam the trunk shut, I notice the sound of an engine coming up behind me. Maybe it’ll be somebody I know and I can hitch a warm ride into town. I turn toward the growl of the approaching vehicle.
Just in time for one of the cop cars that just passed me to pull up to the curb behind me, easing to a halt and parking.
I blink.
...they turned back for me?
Well, I guess that’s their job, anyway. I’m just so used to big-city cops that I forgot about that small-town personal touch.
What I could never forget is the familiar body language of a man built like a human tank and carrying himself with the weight of a mountain.
I could never forget the way he makes my heart stop cold.
Grant flipping Faircross steps out from behind the wheel of his patrol car, unfolding himself with that slow-moving grace I never thought I’d see again.
The car bounces up by at least an inch as he stands with his weight no longer pressing down.
God.
When we were younger, Grant was an absolute wall of a boy, always taking up too much space and drawing the eye without trying.
Now he’s grown into a fortress of a man, so broad and muscled that his deep navy-blue uniform shirt looks like it had to be custom made to fit the breadth of his chest. Same goes for the black Redhaven Police Department jacket draped over his mile-wide shoulders.
There’s just one difference.
That iron-cut, arrogant jaw I remember is obscured by a wild scruff of dark-brown beard, framing the stern line of his mouth. His deep hazel eyes look like the last rays of a brassy sunset, watching me mysteriously, framed in heavy, weathered lines.
All the new edges to a familiar face that reminds me just how much time has passed.
Just how much distance stands between us now.
Somehow, my heart doesn’t care.
Just seeing him again makes me feel like the spindly, knob-kneed girl I used to be. I almost forget how easily he can be a sledgehammer to the heart.
There I was, trailing after my older brother and his best friend like a lost kitten.
Completely hypnotized by Grant’s stone-cold silence, his gruffness, his mystery.
