For a guy who was never going to come back to Reckless Falls, just like me, Cole Granger sure fits in here.

Sitting across the table from him at Indigo, he looks happy. Confident. Like he doesn’t mind being surrounded by all these small-town minds. I’m not a huge fan, and the city pricks at the back of my mind. I’d be happier in the city, probably. It would mean not ever seeing Reggie again, but what’s there to lose with her? Nothing. She wants nothing to do with me, and the sooner I sell my asshole father’s house, the sooner I can get away again, back to where I belong.

Back to where I thought Cole Granger belonged, too. Last I heard, he was employed at a firm in the city. We didn’t see each other much, not in Manhattan, but I guess that’s because he moved back here. He’s telling me about the development he constructed on the old Melton Marina.

“…so, the city council’s got a concert series going at the gazebo on Thursday nights, and all the shops love it. People buy ice cream for hours. Everybody loves it.”

I can’t help but snort a laugh. “People here would love it.” They would. This place is frozen in time. It’s how I feel when I look at Reggie, and after how fucking badly she reacted to that kiss, I’m over feeling that way. I don’t want to go back, no matter how intoxicating she was back in that chapel. No matter how much her eyes draw me in and make me want to kiss the beauty mark on her cheekbone until she laughs and gives up her secrets.

A frown flickers across Cole’s face, but he just leans back in his seat. “So, what’s the big emergency?”

It’s different, talking to him now, but not that different. Cole was always good for a prank. I’m sure he felt the same high I did from pulling off something stupid and reckless, but nobody could ever top the time with the cow. They needed a crane to get it out of the third floor of the high school.

I clear my throat. “My father’s property. I need to sell it.”

He wrinkles his forehead. “The entire estate?”

It makes my stomach turn just thinking about it. What a fucking showoff. My father had a big house on a big, sprawling piece of property, and he always wanted it to be picture-perfect. He was just playing at being a rich man. Now that I actually am one, I know you don’t need to brag about it the way he did. “Yeah.” The laugh that comes out of my mouth is a bitter one. “I wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea.”

“The wrong idea about what?” There’s no mischievous sparkle in Cole’s eyes now.

“I wouldn’t want them to think I’m holding onto it for sentimental reasons.” I shake my head. “I don’t give a shit what happens to that place. Turn it into a bunch of condos. Sell it to assholes from the city. I don’t care.”

“Are you two ready to order?”

The voice is a stab through the ugly feeling in my chest, and I turn already knowing who it is. Of course it’s her. Of course. I got here a few minutes late, and Cole already had a bottle of wine on the table. I didn’t see the waitress until just now.

But you know what? I’m not going to let her see that she got to me.

“Hey, Reg,” I tell her with a big smile, but there’s anger flashing in her eyes. It takes everything in my being not to roll mine at her. She’s the one who practically pushed me into the lake, not the other way around. “What’s good here?”

She puts on a smile that might seem real to anyone else as she rattles off specials that seem like something from one of the experimental menus from one of those restaurants in the city that will be gone in a weekend. Cole waits patiently as she recites the entire list. “The usual,” he says in the ringing silence once she’s done.

“Toasted?”

“What’s the usual?” Why do I care that I don’t know what the usual is for Cole Granger? Why does it suddenly matter that Reggie knows what it is, that he’s got some special in with her, that he’s so damn comfortable here, and I’m seething underneath my dress shirt and shorts?

“A BLT,” Reggie says.

“It’s not always easy to get something like that at Indigo, but they indulge me,” Cole says with genuine warmth in his voice.

God. Why does he think this place is so great? Am I missing something?

Besides Reggie, that is.

“I’ll have the same.”

She doesn’t bother to ask me if I want anything else, just sticks her notepad into her pocket and leaves.

“Well,” Cole says in a measured tone. “I hadn’t planned on any new developments this year, but I could take a look at the property.”

“It’s just about lakeside,” I tell him. “But you already knew that.” My father couldn’t afford property on the actual lakefront, but he got as close as he could on the nice side of town. “I don’t know. It’d probably be perfect for some luxury units. You could do a lot with it, I bet. Stuff the people of Reckless Falls will absolutely love.” The last sentence comes out sarcastically, and now Cole does frown. This time, he doesn’t bother to hide it.

“Are you in town for long?” he asks, and I tell him about the city, about my company, about how I wouldn’t dare stay any longer than I need to. Not in a place like this. He lets me ramble on until the food comes, delivered by a silent Reggie who disappears as soon as the plates are on the table.

I swallow the curdled feeling in my chest and try to steer the conversation in a better direction. “How’s Autumn?” Cole married Autumn Melton a year or two ago. At some point during the reunion, I saw pictures featuring a redheaded toddler who looks just like her.

“Good,” he says around a mouthful of his BLT. “Really good. She might go for the new principal job at the elementary next year. I think she’d be great at it.”

“She probably would.” I’ve already inhaled my BLT. I didn’t realize how hungry I was when I walked in here. “She’s one of those who doesn’t mind being trapped here. That school building has to be sixty years old now.”

Cole isn’t finished with his sandwich, but he puts the last quarter of it down on his plate and gives me a long look across the table. “Speaking of, I’m supposed to pick some things up at the school. New school year. Packing up the classrooms and all that.” He doesn’t smile, which is uncharacteristic of him. “I’ve already got the bill, so—” He stands up, producing a business card from his pocket. “When you’re ready to have me go take a look at the property, give me a call.

“Hey, thanks, man,” I say, standing up to try to catch his hand, but Cole is already weaving his way through the tables. “Shit.” I say it under my breath, but naturally, someone hears.

“You know—”

Reggie is standing by my elbow, emerging out of nowhere, and it scares the shit out of me.

“Reg, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”

She narrows her eyes, looking down her nose at me. “You’re going to give everyone else a heart attack. Do you realize how loud you’re talking?”

“Not that loud.”

“Loud enough for everyone to hear the asshole from the city talking about how much this place sucks.”

The place does suck. This is the place where my father decided to cheat on my mother with a nurse he saw every day at the local hospital. This is the place my mother had to walk through, moving all of our belongings to a rental in the Ass End. She was fucking humiliated, and so was I.

“Are you here to talk to me, Reggie?” I look down at my empty plate and feel mildly sick. This is not how I wanted this lunch to go. All of that old hatred bubbled up and spewed out all over Cole and this perfectly good, if pretentiously presented, BLT.

“No, I’m here to yell at you. Stop shitting on everyone in Reckless Falls.”

“You do love to yell at me.” Reggie makes a show of collecting the plates on the table. It doesn’t have to take this long.

“You love to act like an idiot. If you weren’t such an idiot, no yelling would be necessary.”

“Oh, I’m the idiot? I think you’re blinded by love.” I laugh, and Reggie rolls her eyes. “What’s so great about this place, then?”

“The ice cream at Scoops is pretty good.”

“Yeah, but the food at Bob and Lou’s was always terrible.

Reggie thinks for a minute. “That stuff doesn’t matter. We both know that the best place is the falls.” She’s trying to look at me like she hates me, and maybe she does, but she’s still not walking away.

“I can’t argue with that.”

She shrugs, and even that movement is so damn beautiful that I want to kiss her right now. It’s an overpowering feeling, so intense that I almost stand up and do it, but the way she shoved me off of her on the rock the other night hits me again. “I don’t go up there much.”

“I haven’t been to the falls in years.” The words are coming out of my mouth like I’ve been possessed by a man even more masochistic than I am. “I’d go, but—”

“But what?” Reggie can’t seem to help herself either.

“I’ll only go if you go.”

She doesn’t say no.