relationships, and Caitie knew she was right. This was just harder than she thought it would be. The feelings she’d buried a long time ago were fighting their way up to the surface.
Avoiding the counter—and Nate—Caitie delivered her order to the customers in the back corner, then stopped at the booth beside it whose occupants had just been seated. She knew Lindy and Zoey from high school, and though they’d been a grade ahead of Caitie, they had all been on the cheerleading squad together.
There was a third woman with them Caitie didn’t recognize. It was obvious by their sudden silence as she approached the table that they had been talking about her. No doubt Lindy and Zoey were telling their friend the tale of Cait’s defection from her hometown.
What a stellar first day back this had turned out to be and it was barely 9:00 a.m.
Caitie raised her chin a notch and smiled. “Hello, Lindy, Zoey. Long time no see.”
“That’s bound to happen when you leave town without a word,” Lindy said, her eyes cold.
Making a clean break had been her only option. She didn’t expect Lindy or anyone else to understand that.
At least Caitie had escaped the grips of their small town. She had followed her dream and for a while had been a success—and would be again just as soon as she found a new job. This trip home was a temporary diversion. She hoped.
“Word is you had some trouble,” Zoey added. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out.”
Caitie kept the smile firmly in place. Most people would consider going off to college, landing a cushy job at a prestigious finance firm and making a life for herself in New York an impressive feat. Zoey, on the other hand, seemed to revel in her failure. “I’m here temporarily. I’m going back to New York as soon as I find a new job.”
“We should all get together for drinks and catch up,” Zoey said, with a plastic, artificially whitened smile. She and Caitie had never been what anyone would call close friends. And from the looks of her styled hair, manicured nails and designer clothes, her wealthy father was still spoiling her rotten.
“That sounds like fun,” Caitie said, knowing she would do no such thing. It would be a fishing expedition for gossip that Zoey would then spread all over town.
“This is Reily Eckardt,” Lindy said, gesturing to their companion. “She just moved to town a few months ago. She’s engaged to Joe Miller.”
If the rock on the cute blonde’s finger was any indication, Joe, the owner of Joe’s Place, the local bar and grill, was doing quite well for himself.
“Nice to meet you, Caitie,” Reily said with a friendly smile. The fact that she already knew Cait’s name was a clear sign that she’d been the topic of conversation. She was bound to get that a lot now. That was the way things worked in small towns. If the flow of gossip in Paradise could feed the Foothills Hydro plant in Denver, they would have enough electricity to power the entire state of Colorado for the next fifty years.
“What can I get you ladies?” she asked, then quickly took their orders. Though she promised herself she wouldn’t do it, as she walked back to the kitchen, she glanced over at Nate. He sat with near-perfect posture and, because of his broad shoulders, occupied slightly more than his share of space at the counter. He’d been the star running back on the high school football team, and Nate had always been impressively built. But now? She didn’t need to see him out of his clothes to know that he was still ripped. His biceps and pecs strained the fabric of his uniform shirt, and his wide shoulders stressed the seams to the limit.
As if he sensed her staring, he turned to look at her. Their eyes met and locked, and his flashed with such naked contempt her stomach did a violent flip-flop.
She forced herself to look away.
Petty as it was, a small part of her had hoped that he would be balding with a spreading waistline. In reality he looked better than he ever had before. At eighteen he had seemed so mature to her, but in reality, he was just a kid. Now, he was all man. And then some.
She turned in her order, and when she glanced back over at Nate a few minutes later, he was gone. She breathed a silent sigh of relief. That could have gone worse, but not much.
He betrayed you, too, she reminded herself, so why did she still feel so darned guilty?
For as long as she could remember, she had been dependable Caitie, always doing exactly what was expected of her, sacrificing her own dreams, her own needs, to make everyone else happy. Until one day she had just...snapped. When the acceptance letter to an East Coast school arrived with a full scholarship—one she had only applied for on a whim thinking she would never get it—she knew it was destiny. An opportunity she simply couldn’t pass up.
She’d hurt two of the most important people in her life when she’d left so abruptly that fall, and she didn’t expect them to understand why she’d done it, but they couldn’t hold it against her for the rest of her life. At some point they would have to forgive her.
Right?
Caitie made it through the breakfast rush and was about to sit down for a much-needed break when her dad called her into the back office.
“Would you mind running these papers home to your mom?” he said, handing her a manila folder. “I forgot them last night when I closed up.”
She took the folder. “She’s not coming in today?”
“She does the bookkeeping and ordering from home now. Her headaches have been much more unpredictable lately, and more frequent.”
As long as Caitie could remember her mom had gotten bad headaches. Sometimes two or three a month. “How frequent?”
“A couple times a week.”
Caitie sucked in a breath, wondering why she was just now hearing about it. “How long has this been going on?”
“It was a gradual change. I would say that it got really bad this time last year. But now they have her on a new medication. It doesn’t take the headache away, but it makes the pain tolerable. And it curbs the nausea.”
“There’s nothing they can do to stop them?”
He shook his head. “She copes.”
Caitie was sure she did. But her mom had worked damned hard all her life. She deserved better than just coping.
Caitie glanced at her watch and said, “I should go, or I’ll be late for the lunch rush.”
She walked to the row of lockers across from the office to fetch her purse.
“I guess you knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” he said, leaning in the office doorway, watching her. “Coming back, I mean.”
“I guess.”
His brow crinkled with concern. “Is there anything I can do?”
“I can handle it,” she said, hoping that was true. She slung her purse over her shoulder. “I’ll be back before the lunch rush.”
“Before you go...” He wrapped her up in a big hug and said, “I love you, Caitie.”
It was exactly what she needed. Her dad always knew just what to say and do to make her feel better. “I love you, too, Dad.”
She let herself out the back door into the sizzling August heat, crossed the alley behind the restaurant and climbed into the beat-up Ford compact she’d bought her senior year of high school. The driver’s side mirror was secured to the door with duct tape and there was a hole in the dash where the radio used to be, but after all this time it still ran—albeit barely. It took a couple of tries, but the engine sputtered to life and she blasted the air conditioner, which, at its best, spit out air that was more lukewarm than cool. She shut it off and cranked her windows down instead.
She pulled out of the alley and turned left onto Main Street. Her parent’s farmhouse, where