Whispers of You (Lost & Found #1)(19)

I’d taken comfort in that before, felt safe in the walls I’d built around my existence—ones that he didn’t exist within. But something about that didn’t sit quite right now. Maybe because I’d seen him as a real, live, breathing human.

Maybe because I’d seen the hollow look in his eyes, the one that told me he’d turned something off within himself. I knew how that went. You thought you’d pay any price if you could just make the pain stop.

But when you turned off the pain, you turned off the pleasure. You couldn’t appreciate the way the moon glimmered on the lake. Or how a piece of chocolate tasted as it melted on your tongue. You missed the joy of friends wrapping you in so much love you thought you might drown in it.

You weren’t truly living.

I gave those thoughts a healthy shove. Holt hadn’t earned my empathy and understanding. And he’d made it clear that he hadn’t wanted my worry.

The best I could do was wish him nothing but good, even if that meant knowing he had a life that would never involve me.

Invisible claws of grief dug into my heart, but the pain was worth it to stop myself from drowning in anger and resentment. I would send him hope for a happy life, but I would do it from a distance.

Shadow’s head snapped up, her gaze cutting to the woods behind my cabin.

I grinned down at her. “Hear something you want to chase? Sorry, girl. Not tonight.”

My gaze flicked to the trees where a light glimmered for the briefest moment before extinguishing. The hair along Shadow’s spine rose as she let out a low growl.

I blinked a few times, wondering if my mind had conjured the light with all my reminiscing about the past. Bringing nightmares out into the light was never a good thing. I strained to see through the trees and swore I saw a flicker of movement.

A chill skittered across my skin. No one should’ve been out this way. The person who owned the property that butted up to mine had never built on it. The nearest house was a good mile away.

My eyes strained harder, but Shadow settled back on her dog bed. It was nothing and no one. I shook my head. Apparently, I was seeing ghosts everywhere now.





7





HOLT





The door opened with a faint creak as I stepped inside Dockside Bar & Grill. My wrist ached with the motion—just another reminder of last night’s shitshow.

“I’ll be damned. Holt Hartley? Is that you?”

Jeanie’s voice carried enough that half a dozen patrons turned in their seats. An older couple I remembered as parents of a classmate bent their heads to whisper. A woman I thought had been a couple of years older than me blatantly stared.

I had to fight the grimace that pulled at my mouth, turning it into another of those damned forced smiles. “Good to see you, Jeanie.”

She pulled me into a back-slapping hug. “It’s good to see you. It’s been way too long.”

“Chris and Jude here?”

“The three musketeers back together again. Pleased as punch to see it. They’re at that booth in the corner.” She pointed her notepad toward a table by the windows.

“Thanks.”

“You want something to drink? I’ll grab it for you while I’m getting the boys theirs.”

I guessed we’d always be boys in her eyes. The same ones who stopped after school for french fries and root beer floats. My smile came a little more genuinely this time. “Still got root beer on tap?”

“Is the sky blue?”

I chuckled. “I’ll take one of those.”

“Coming right up.”

I maneuvered through tables, trying to avoid any questioning stares. I didn’t have the answers they were looking for.

“Always were Jeanie’s favorite. She gave you extra french fries every single time,” Chris grumbled.

“She gave you extra ice cream in your root beer float.”

Jude’s lips twitched. “So much for keeping a low profile, huh?”

“Guess so,” I said, sliding into one end of the semi-circular booth. “It wasn’t like that was going to last anyway.”

Chris took a sip of his water. “Not in Cedar Ridge.”

Gossip spread like a wildfire in the dead of summer. And since things had been relatively calm over the last several years, I qualified as news.

I rubbed the back of my neck. “I hate feeling watched.”

“People are just bored,” Jude said. “Before long, someone’ll have an affair, or a kid will shoplift, and you’ll be old news.”

The tightness in my chest eased a fraction. I’d known that. It had just been so long since I’d experienced small-town rhythms that I’d forgotten. In Portland, I could disappear into the crowd. I didn’t know the neighbors in my high rise beyond a polite hello in the elevator. I didn’t have friends beyond the guys on my team. My social life consisted of knocking back a few beers at the bar around the corner from our office. Suddenly, that all seemed a little empty.

Jeanie sidled up to the table with a tray. “Two Cokes and a root beer. You boys know what you’d like to order?”

“Usual, Miss J,” Chris said.

Jude handed her his menu. “I’ll do the fish and chips.”

“You need a minute, honey?” she asked me.