Charlie needed a third job. Although, honestly, as there’d been no more tutoring opportunities since the one with Finn’s son had gone down the drain, it was only a second job.

She didn’t want to take a full-time job during the day because it would mean having to say no to any tutoring jobs. If any actually ever came her way again.

Nothing quite like trying to keep a dying dream—one gasping its last breath—alive. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to put it out of its misery. Every day she prayed another call would come. Another chance. But, so far, nothing.

Hopefully she could get a job at The Eagle’s Nest. A few day shifts per week would be flexible enough to allow her to take any education assignments that came her way. She was here now on a Wednesday night, thinking it might be a good time to talk to the manager. The bar shouldn’t be very crowded, and maybe they’d let her go ahead and start tonight.

Because she needed money desperately. It was the first of the month, so the payment was due next week, and once again she wasn’t sure she was going to have enough.

Forty-five hundred dollars, an amount that at one time she wouldn’t even have batted an eyelash at, was now the sole focus of her day-to-day life.

She realized her mistake the moment she walked inside the bar. It might be Wednesday, and The Eagle’s Nest could definitely use some waitressing and bartending help, but it was way too crowded for her to be able to talk to the manager.

Some sort of celebration was going on. A guy was sitting at a booth near the front, arm in a sling, a big grin on his face even though he looked like he was in a little bit of pain. Everybody was stopping by his table, shaking his hand, and generally cooing over him. It was packed.

A lot of these people were ones she remembered from high school. Just for a minute, her reality seemed to shift.

This would’ve been her life. This was what she had envisioned for her life. She would’ve been one of the gaggle of women buying shots, planning to flirt, dance, and drive the guys a little crazy. She would’ve been one of those hugging, smiling, and bumping hips casually with others as they walked by, laughing out loud at a joke that wouldn’t even seem funny tomorrow. This would’ve been her tribe. This town would’ve been her home. They had been meant to be hers.

But they weren’t.

She walked over to the bar, grabbing a stool in the far corner, ignoring whatever was roiling and twisting in her gut. She sat, just watching.

Just wishing.

It was Riley Wilde, the little tomboy who had grown up into a gorgeous woman, who saw Charlie and waved to her. Before Charlie could even decide how to respond, Riley was making her way over.

“Charlie Devereux! Come join us for shots!” The woman already had some sort of bright blue concoction in a glass in her hand.

But damn if it wasn’t nice to have someone just pull her right into the fold like that. Maybe Riley had already had a couple, or she was just as friendly as she had been when they were younger. But either way it was nice to be invited. To not be on the outside.

What the hell, ten dollars’ worth of drinks wasn’t going to make the difference in whether she could make her payment this month or not.

She slipped off her lightweight jacket and let Riley pull her into a group of other women. They all started talking to her and seemed to be celebrating something to do with Anne Nichols, who was evidently a doctor now and had said more in the last two minutes than Charlie had heard her say during the entire four years of high school. Anne looked so pretty, soft, and happy. A glass of the blue stuff in her hand, she glanced over at a table across the bar. Her pretty features softened even more with happiness as she did.

Charlie followed Anne’s gaze, a shot glass in her own hand now, to see what the other woman was looking at.

Not what. Who. Zac Mackay. Anne wasn’t just pretty, soft, and happy, she was in love. And Zac—unable to tear his eyes away from the woman—was obviously just as in love with her.

It was sweet and beautiful and made Charlie want to drink in their honor.

“Let’s go make the guys drink these, ladies!” Riley yelled, and the others agreed.

“Where?” she yelled over the din.

“There!” Riley pointed toward the table where Zac was sitting.

She hesitated. But maybe it would be okay. Zac didn’t have a problem with her, she didn’t think, even though he was Finn’s best friend. She could stay for a little while. Be part of a life outside of just surviving.

Then someone moved, clearing her view. Zac was sitting with a bunch of guys.

Including Finn.

His eyes met hers and she couldn’t look away. She didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to breathe.

But she couldn’t stay.

“Riley.” She grabbed the younger woman’s arm. “I just remembered something I have to do. I’ll catch you guys next time, okay? Don’t let those drinks kill you.”

Riley was caught up in the women’s march toward the table. She yelled something back, but Charlie couldn’t hear it. And it didn’t matter anyway.

She couldn’t stay. She should’ve known that from the second she walked in. And definitely recognized that a job here was out of the question.

She slipped her jacket back on, consciously not looking over at Finn, and headed straight for the door.

She made it across the parking lot to her car before releasing the breath she’d been holding. She’d escaped without another showdown with Finn. Good. She didn’t have the energy.

“You running and me chasing after you. Seems about par for the course.”

She squeaked and spun around. “Damn it, Finn, you shouldn’t sneak up on people like that. It’ll get you punched in the gut.”

“Punched in the gut is pretty much what I expect from you, princess. Believe me, I’ll never be stupid enough to leave my guard down for it again.”

She couldn’t blame him for that.

They stared at each other for a long minute before he took a step forward. She eased back, finding herself trapped between him and her car. Something over her shoulder caught his attention.

“This yours?”

“Yeah.” The BMW 3 Series was old but paid off. She didn’t want to explain why she was driving it. He probably expected her to have something much newer and fancier.

But that wasn’t what had caught his attention.

“Geez, princess, what the hell is all this stuff?”

An icy panic seized her. Explaining an older car was much easier than why everything she owned was split between the trunk and back seat.

“Finn. . .” She searched for words, lies, for anything to get out of telling the truth.

But he just laughed. “What, are your maids on vacation? If not, you need to fire them. They are doing a piss-poor job of keeping this car clean.”

He thought she was a slob, too lazy to clean out her own car. That was better than him knowing the truth, but it still cut at parts of her she didn’t want to acknowledge.

“Just leave me alone, Bollinger. Go back to your friends.”

That was a challenge. One of those sexy, dark eyebrows rose. “You know this is where I hang out.” He stepped closer, trapping her further. “You following me, Charlie?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” He was too close. All she could do was breathe in the woodsy, leathery scent of him. He still smelled the same even after all these years.

She should leave, get some distance between them. But she couldn’t seem to force herself to do it.

“Don’t you have a husband at home wondering where you are?” he finally asked.

She should tell Finn yes, she was still married, that Brandon was in fact waiting at home for her. It was the surest way to get Finn to leave her alone.

But once again she couldn’t. “No. We divorced four years ago.”

“Ah, ‘the course of true love never did run smooth.’” He didn’t even hide his smirk.

Asshole. She responded with her own weapon. “Isn’t Shakespeare a little above your pay grade, soldier?”

His eyes narrowed. She’d scored a direct hit. His lack of college education still ate at him. Of course, she’d helped rip open that chink in his armor eight years ago.

He rebounded quickly, as he always had with their verbal sparring. He may not have gone to college, but it hadn’t been because he was stupid. “Why are you here, Charlie?”

“I came in for a drink—”

“No, in Oak Creek as a tutor. You never mentioned wanting to help kids when we were together.”

That was because she thought she’d have half a dozen kids of her own. It had never occurred to her that she might want a job helping someone else’s children.

Yet another thing she was never going to tell him. She crossed her arms over her chest. “We haven’t seen each other in almost a decade. I think we can agree that people change in that time. I got a master’s degree, found something I was good at. Is that a sin?”

He took that final step so all the ways he hadn’t been touching her, he now was. He was pressed against her from thigh to shoulder. Again, she should move away.

Again, she didn’t.

She had the strength to survive what would bring others to their knees, but not to move away from Finn Bollinger. She’d done it once, and it had nearly killed her.

“Sin,” he whispered, his mouth so close to hers. “You mentioned that last time I saw you. This is the only sin I think about when I’m anywhere near you.”

His hands started at her elbows and slid all the way up to her shoulders. She shuddered inside her thin jacket even though the night was mild. His fingers kept trailing up, along her collarbone, then to her throat. He tilted her chin higher as he bent toward her.

And then his lips were on hers, like they belonged there. And maybe they did. She gripped his wrists and held on as the heat surrounding them crackled in the air.

The kiss was lush, open, and hot, the way it always had been between them. It had been a long time, so damn long, since she had kissed anyone. Since she had been this close to anyone at all. Her body was starved for it.

But it hungered for Finn most of all. Only he had ever been able to ignite a fire in her with just a kiss. And this one went on and on like it had when they were in high school, when kissing was all they’d known how to do. When they’d been young and hadn’t figured out there was so much better.

She would’ve expected his lips to be hard and punishing, vengeful. But they weren’t. They coaxed, slid, nibbled against hers, as if he could sense how alone she had been, how close to the edge she’d been walking these last few months. How close she’d been to breaking.

They both emitted low sounds of hunger as their tongues met and dueled. His thumbs rubbed gentle circles on her throat, the sensation more arousing than anything she’d experienced in years. The feel of his big body pressing her hard against the door of her car should probably have made her wary. Concerned.

But it didn’t. This was Finn. They might tear each other apart, but he would never hurt her. She just wanted to stay here and kiss him forever and forget about everything else that waited, ready to pounce, beyond the two of them.

But it wasn’t long before people were coming out, laughing, talking, and very definitely coming within visible range. Finn eased his body back from hers, then took a step away, completing the distance.

She wanted to cry at the loss.

“I’ve got to go back inside,” he said. “We’re celebrating and it’s important I be there.”

She looked down at their feet, his so much larger than hers. “Yeah, no problem. I need to get going.” To absolutely nowhere.

“You can come in if you want. Hang out with us.”

She swallowed. God, was that possible? Could she actually start over? Reclaim some of what she’d lost here when she’d turned away all those years ago? Friends. Finn. The slightest bit of hope bubbled up inside her. Possibly she could find her way back.

It wasn’t definite, she understood that. But she didn’t need it to be definite. Just the possibility was enough.

A maybe.

She tried to keep it casual. “Sure. I guess I could. . .”

She looked up at his face, and the hope that had been building inside her was wiped away in an instant. He was just being polite. The tension in his features was concrete evidence he didn’t honestly want her inside with them. She made him uncomfortable.

And who could blame him?

She almost wished she didn’t know him so well. But she’d spent so many years studying that face, that body. Most people wouldn’t have been able to tell that he was feigning politeness.

She gave him her best smile, hoping it would hold up for just a few more seconds. “Actually, what am I saying? I can’t stay. I’ve got somewhere I have to be.”

It sounded like the most pathetic excuse in the history of pathetic excuses.

Evidently to him, too. His features softened. “Charlie. . .”

Oh God, she couldn’t stand any kindness right now. She would shatter all over the ground. “We both know I don’t belong in there, Finn.” Her voice was low, husky.

He rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand. “Yeah, probably not.”

And there it was. The truth, stated as gently as possible. But the jagged edge of it ripped across her heart all the same.

She slipped away from him—what she should’ve done as soon as he’d followed her—opened the door of her car and got inside.

He didn’t try to stop her.

Because what else was there to say?