Distraction (Club Destiny #8)(8)

Jake passed her a glass of wine and handed Bill, her date, a bottle of beer. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Well, that was because she had. She’d seen a ghost from her past, a man she thought she would be able to handle seeing again. For nearly two weeks, ever since Jake had asked her to accompany him to this party, Sarah had attempted to mentally prepare herself for an unavoidable reunion. Hence the reason she’d invited Bill at the last minute. Though he wasn’t her boyfriend, they’d gone on a few dates and she’d thought he would be a good distraction.

Yeah.

That hadn’t worked out too well.

In fact, she hardly noticed that Bill was there now that Dylan was standing ten or so feet away from her. So much for mentally preparing for this. Apparently, thinking about seeing Dylan again and actually seeing him were two very different things.

Being that Dylan was part owner of the company her nephew worked for, running into him tonight had been inevitable. As much as she’d wanted to avoid this event for that reason alone, telling Jake no wasn’t in her nature.

As it was, Jake was the closest thing she had to a son. A child of her own wasn’t in the cards, but Sarah was okay with that. She’d spent most of her adult life as a teacher, getting the opportunity to frame the minds of other people’s children, and she’d never been left wanting more.

Granted, in recent years, Sarah had shed her old life, making some major changes in an effort to make herself whole again. Not only had she sold her house and bought a new one, reclaimed her maiden name, decided to get healthy, changed the way she dressed, and invested in some self-expressive body art, she’d also changed everything else about herself that she could. She’d cleaned out the metaphorical clutter and transformed her … whole life. Some might call it a mid-life crisis, but Sarah liked to think of it as self-preservation.

Yet, as she stared back at Dylan, she felt like her old self—sad, broken, uncertain, miserable—and that wasn’t a good thing. Sarah had decided she despised the woman she’d once been, hating how vulnerable she’d allowed herself to be, and had purposely reinvented herself. It had worked.

Or so she’d thought.

Her gaze strayed to Dylan once more. He looked almost exactly as she remembered. Tall, broad, and obscenely handsome wearing a pair of dark blue Wranglers that hugged every glorious inch of his impressive lower body. The scruff on his face was sprinkled with gray; his once short, dark hair had been shaved almost completely bald. She wondered if that was because it had been receding or if he merely preferred it that way. Whatever the reason, he looked good. Rugged yet distinguished. Better than before, for sure.

What surprised her the most was that the hard years he’d had didn’t show in the beautiful lines of his face. And she’d heard all about his struggle back from the dark side—his battle with depression and alcohol—thanks to the fact that her nephew worked for him and because, at one point, Dylan’s sister had asked her to help.

Remembering Bill and Jake were standing there, watching her intently, Sarah forced another smile and looked up at her nephew. It still surprised her that he was so tall, registering somewhere close to six one. He definitely got that gene from his father and not his mother, being that she and Sarah hadn’t even broken five feet.

“Aunt Sarah?”

“Sorry. Just a little cold, I guess.”

It wasn’t true. With the heaters planted randomly around the outside area, it was rather warm, almost cozy.

“Do you want my jacket?” Bill offered, referring to his ill-fitting suit jacket.

Touching his arm, she smiled at him. “I’m good. I’ll just go back inside in a minute.”

“You sure?”

Since she wasn’t really cold, she nodded her head, doing everything in her power to keep her attention riveted on Bill’s face and not wandering back over to where Dylan was still standing. From the instant she’d stepped outside and noticed him, she’d been doing her best not to think about the last time she’d seen him. It’d been … God, it’d been so long ago that that incredible night was merely a fuzzy collage of images in her head at this point, so she wasn’t sure why she was even affected by him.

But she was.

“Dinner’s gonna be served in about ten minutes,” Jake informed her. “Do y’all need anything else?”

“No, I’m good. Really.”

“Thanks,” Bill stated kindly.

“Okay.”

Her nephew’s eyes strayed in Dylan’s direction, and Sarah prayed that he wasn’t going to want her to go over and talk to him. She prided herself on being strong, but having to deal with him so soon after seeing him for the first time since…

Yeah.

Sarah wasn’t sure she could handle that right now.

It had taken every single second of the last three years to get her world in order, to discover who she really was after spending so many years walking in the shadows of the people who had derailed her life. Her deadbeat sister. Her dead husband. Her overbearing but well-meaning mother. Dylan.

You’re not that woman anymore.

No, she wasn’t. Gone was Sarah Fulton, the sweet, innocent schoolteacher who had mourned the death of her husband until it had consumed every part of her. She was Sarah Davis once more. The new and improved version. Strong, confident. Unbreakable.