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I’m not quite ready to go back to Libby. I’m pissed off, irritable, and wondering if I’m being overly paranoid about this shit with the oddball delivery.
Don’t wanna give her more to worry about.
I also don’t want to keep her uninformed if Declan’s still skulking around, planning to make a move, either. She can’t find Sierra soon enough.
On a whim, I stop by The Nest to grab a coffee. Felicity’s brew should ease my headache and give me time to think before I go back home.
Home.
Shit, I’d always wanted to build my home from my own blood and sweat.
Now there’s something appealing about putting my blood and sweat into helping Libby make her home stronger.
I’m still brooding as I order up, hardly even noticing Felicity’s pleasantries. Though I manage a smile for her and ask how she’s doing when she calls me up for my cup of thick black double-caff.
I’m so preoccupied by all this shit running through my mind that I don’t realize there’s someone standing behind me. Not until I turn and bump into her, nearly splashing coffee over both of us.
“Dammit, sorry,” I growl out, grappling at my cup.
It’s not really clicking who’s in front of me, my focus more on keeping scalding hot liquid off my skin and hers, until she speaks.
“So I finally run into you,” she says. “I’d almost think you were hiding from me, Holt. That’s so cruel.”
I blink. What in the…?
I look up from my coffee cup at the woman in front of me.
Sally Jenkins.
Oh.
Shit.
I haven’t seen Sally since high school. She was a pretty girl then, and she’s a pretty woman now. Tall, curvy, with wheat-blonde hair and soft, curious brown eyes and a delicate, almost pixie-like face with long lashes and a pert little strawberry of a mouth.
I know that mouth a little too well.
I know all of her.
She’s the girl my brother crushed on in high school.
With how fucked up things were between me and Blake back then, I just had to have her because he wanted her first.
I’d been having wet dreams over Jenna Ford, Warren’s sister.
But Jenna was older and never looked twice at me, so it wasn’t a big deal to keep dating Sally off and on during the feud with my brother—for attention, for status, for anything we could turn into a fight like the juvenile hotheads we were.
Back then, Sally was catching feelings like the kids say now.
I just hadn’t really thought anything about it because I was a callous little teenage bastard.
From the way she’s looking at me now, though, I think one of my oldest chickens is coming home to roost.
“Hey, Sal,” I say, offering a neutral smile. “Long time no see. I’ve been real busy since I’ve been back in town.”
“So I hear, rebuilding half of Heart’s Edge, aren’t you?”
She arches a pointed brow, folding her arms over her ample chest.
Deliberately, I realize.
Plumping up her tits and pushing them up against the low-cut neckline of her tight-fitting shirt.
I nod slowly, numb to her charms.
Funny how just a year ago, I’d have pounced on all that cleavage and the clear display meant to pique my interest—among a few other things.
Not anymore.
I feel like I’m doing something wrong just by noticing it.
And I keep my eyes fixed firmly on her face as she continues, teeth toying at her lower lip. “A man of few words, huh? Guess it comes with the territory when you’re trying to be a hero builder. And sleeping around with everyone, of course…”
I start to growl, to tell her I haven’t been sleeping around with anyone but one sweet girl, period, but she’s still talking.
“…everyone but me,” she finishes.
There it fucking is.
Right between the eyes.
Hell.
That spidey-sense that told me I was in trouble the second I saw her was too right.
I try to hold on to an awkward smile as I glance around the coffee shop helplessly. There aren’t too many people around. Most folks are out enjoying their sunny evening, but there are enough.
Gossip spreads like fast-moving poison ivy in this town.
Which is why I can’t believe she’s choosing to pull this crap right here, right now.
Okay.
Fuck.
I take a deep breath, then say neutrally, “I’m not really looking for a hookup, Sal. I’m not on the market right now.”
She rakes me up and down with a cat-like look, toying with her lower lip in a sulky pout.
Sally remembers the little things that get to me, my own personal kryptonite in a woman.
They’re just not working anymore.
All I can think about is Libby.
“Oh, stop. You’re always on the market, Holt Silverton,” she says, and although it’s whiny, there’s a bit of justified accusation, too. “So, what? Suddenly you start hooking up with Libby Potter and you’re a changed man?”
“If you really wanna put it so bluntly, yeah,” I admit.
It’s making my face burn something fierce to say that out loud, but it’s true.
