DEACON AND THE other guys took care of breading and frying the catfish for dinner while the women fixed some amazing side dishes. It was hot as hell outside, so they gathered up in the house and ate.

He ate a lot of fish. He had worked up an appetite being out on the water, and he wasn’t about to apologize for filling his plate with the side dishes as well. He couldn’t resist the coleslaw, potato salad, watermelon, spinach, and rolls.

And then Megan had made a blueberry and strawberry sponge cake topped with whipped cream that melted in his mouth.

“We should all live together,” Sam said as she ate the last bite of her dessert. “I could get used to this food.”

“I could get used to someone else cooking for me every day,” Jane said. “Especially if there’s dessert.”

Will put his arm around her. “Glad to see you got your appetite back in time for dinner.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “It was perfect timing. I would have hated to miss out on that cake.”

“I like dessert,” Ryan said.

“Me, too,” Tabby said.

“At least the kids burn it all off,” Loretta said. “I’m going to need a long walk before bed tonight. I’m so full.”

After dinner, they cleaned up, then sat outside by the dock. It was just about sunset, which meant the lake community would be starting their fireworks show soon.

Fortunately, they had all brought some of their own fireworks for the kids, so as soon as it got dark enough, there were sparklers and snakes and a few sizzlers, which they set off near the water. Will had the hose at the ready, and they’d prepared a bucket of water to toss the used sparklers in. They left the dogs in the house with the TV sound turned up so they wouldn’t be scared by all the loud noises.

Deacon loved watching Hazel’s face light up as she dashed around the backyard with sparklers in both hands, waving them around. He enjoyed watching Loretta running around with her even more. She had a childlike enthusiasm about her that punched him right in the heart. And hearing her laugh with her daughter brought back memories to some of the Fourth of Julys they’d shared together.

When she collapsed in the chair next to him, he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Remember when we went to the lake on the Fourth that one summer?”

She looked at him for a few seconds, then nodded. “Oh, right. You and me and a bunch of our friends. We packed a cooler of food and drinks, swam all day, then sat on the bed of your truck and watched the fireworks. And then I ended up grounded because I got home late.”

“I remember. We couldn’t see each other for a week after that.”

She nodded, then leaned over and brushed her shoulder against his. “It was worth it. Fun day.”

His lips curved. “Yeah, it was.”

He was glad she remembered the good parts of it. And now, as his gaze met hers, he wanted nothing more than to kiss her. But they were in a crowd of people, one of whom was her daughter, who sat right at her feet. But the way Loretta looked at him told him she wanted the same thing.

A little restraint was a good thing, right?

The first pop of fireworks across the lake distracted him from his need to put his lips against Loretta’s. He settled in to watch the explosions of color and light. The kids all screamed and everyone yelled out as each firework seemed to get bigger and brighter.

“Oh, look at that one,” Hazel said. “Did you see it, Mama?”

Loretta laid her hands over Hazel’s shoulders. “I did. And look at that one, Hazel. All the colors.”

Deacon sat back and enjoyed the show, both in the sky and on the ground. Hazel stomped her feet and squealed, then she and Tabitha held hands and giggled together as they watched.

Looked like Hazel had made a new best friend. He was happy for that. Hazel and Tabitha got up and went to the edge of the dock, letting their legs dangle as they sat together, their heads tilted back as they watched the rest of the show.

“I’ll bet they’ll be friends forever after this weekend,” he said to Loretta.

Loretta nodded. “I sure hope so.”

The fireworks ended with a finale of multiple, colorful explosions, then all went quiet.

They had the kids burn off some excess energy by letting them play outside with the dogs for a while before sending them inside to get ready for bed. Deacon, Zach, Will, and Brady cleaned up outside while everyone else went in.

“Hell of a party here,” Deacon said to Zach as they put away all the lawn furniture and secured the boat. “We sure had a good time.”

Zach grinned. “Yeah, it was fun, wasn’t it? I’m glad my friends decided to spend the holiday in the Hamptons with their family.”

Deacon arched a brow. “You must know some interesting people.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I know a few.”

Zach was an enigmatic guy. He didn’t reveal a lot about himself other than that he loved teaching and coaching the high school football team. He was a great guy and Deacon had grown to like him a lot, but he didn’t know a lot about his background. He knew he’d moved here to Hope a couple of years ago from Detroit, that he was an ex–football player who’d suffered a career-ending injury. Zach didn’t talk much about his football career. Maybe he was just a guy who liked to look forward, not back.

Deacon knew all about the looking-forward thing. Mostly. Maybe he hadn’t completely shut the door on the past. But everything in his past with Loretta hadn’t been bad, so why would he want to shut that away?

“Anyway, thanks for inviting me. I had a great time.”

Zach grinned. “Anytime. I’m all about gathering my friends together and having some fun.”

They finished up in the backyard, then everyone headed inside. Josie was in the kitchen unloading the dishwasher, and Zach went to help her. Loretta came down the hall, so Deacon met her in the living room.

“Did you get Hazel settled in?”

Loretta nodded. “She’s still a little hyped up from all the fireworks excitement, so I left her reading. I’m sure once she settles down, she’ll fall right to sleep. It’s been a hectic day, and I know she’s tired.”

He ran his hands down her arms. “Do you need to be in there with her?”

“Oh, no. If I stayed in there with her she’d want to talk all night, and then she’d never go to sleep. It’s best if I give her some quiet time.”

“Then how about a walk?”

She looked down the hall. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll keep an eye on her for you,” Josie said.

Loretta looked around Deacon to Josie. “Are you sure?”

“Of course. I’m not going anywhere but the sofa right now.”

“Thanks, Josie. I won’t be gone long.”

Josie offered up a knowing smile. “Take your time.”

“Yeah,” Zach said. “Take your time. We’ve got this.”

Deacon gave a nod to Zach, and they headed out the front door. As soon as he closed the door, he took Loretta’s hand and they started up the path. It was hot and muggy outside, and Deacon could already feel his shirt clinging to him. There were probably already a billion mosquitos ready to dive-bomb them, but they’d put on repellent earlier before the fireworks, so hopefully that would protect them. All he wanted was a few minutes of alone time with Loretta before the end of the night.

“Did you have a good time?” he asked as they crested the hill.

She looked over at him and gave him a warm smile. “I had such a great time. Thank you for bringing Hazel and me. She had a blast. She’s going to be so wiped out she’ll probably need to go to bed early for the rest of the week.”

“It’s good for her to get out and try new things, have a little fun. Before you know it, school will be starting.”

Loretta nodded. “Just a little over a month. That reminds me, I need to make a mental note to get some cute notebooks into the bookstore. I think the schoolkids would really like that.”

“See? A little walk to clear your head and you’re already thinking of work things.”

She let out a quiet laugh. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to let work intrude on our minivacation.”

He stopped and turned to face her. “Hey, it’s okay. That’s your livelihood, and it’s important to you. Don’t ever apologize for making that a priority in your life.”

She tilted her head to the side. “You’ve been so nice to me. Why?”

He frowned. “What?”

“Ever since we got past that initial period of being uncomfortable around each other. You’ve been nice to me. Forgiving. I don’t know, Deacon. I just don’t feel like I deserve the way you treat me.”

“So you want me to be mean to you?”

She let out a short laugh. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s what I’m used to. Or maybe that’s how I feel you should act around me. I was terrible to you, Deacon. I dumped you. I just don’t understand how you could even speak to me, let alone want to be around me after all that happened between us in the past.”

He placed his hands on her shoulders. “Are you the same person you were all those years ago? God, Loretta, you were barely eighteen then. We were just teenagers trying to make the best decisions we could. You had all those forces bombarding you. Me, your parents, Tom, his parents. Everyone was telling you what was best for your future. You made what you thought was the right choice. I didn’t always make the best decisions at that time, either.”

She’d been looking down at the ground, but she lifted her head, and he saw the misery reflected in her eyes. “But you didn’t hurt anyone in the process.”

“How do you know what I did or didn’t do? You were gone. I made some tough choices, hurt some people in relationships. It happens. You feel shitty about it and you hopefully mend fences. Sometimes you don’t, and you have regrets about it. You’ve got to stop beating yourself up over what happened between us. If I’m okay about it, shouldn’t you be okay about it, too?”

She heaved in a deep breath. “I . . . guess.”

He folded her against him. “Stop bringing it up, Loretta. It’s over. It’s in the past. It’s done.”

She laid her head against his shoulder. “Okay. I’ll try.”

He took a step back. “Try really hard.”

“It’s just that you’re so . . . nice.”

His lips curved. “I’m not always nice.”

They started walking again. It finally started to cool off some, though for July, that meant it was probably ninety degrees instead of ninety-five. But the sun wasn’t beating down on them, and that meant he wasn’t sweating, so it would do.

“When were you not nice?”

His gaze snapped to Loretta. “What?”

“You. Not nice. When?”

“I don’t know. Lots of times. Why?”

She shrugged. “It would make me feel better if you gave me an example.”

He blinked. “Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“You would make me tell you an awful story about myself to make you feel better about yourself?”

She gave him a half smile. “Yes.”

He sighed. “Fine.” He couldn’t believe she was asking him to do this. But she’d been upset, and if this was what it took to make her happy again, he’d do it. God knows he’d been no Boy Scout. He’d made amends with the people he could, though some didn’t want that. He understood why.

“Okay, fine.”

“Oh, good. Make it a really bad one.”

He laughed. “Loretta.”

“Sorry. I’m feeling particularly lousy tonight.”

He thought back to his youth, and one woman popped into his head. “After you left, I didn’t date anyone until about six months later. Then it was random dates here and there, no attachments. I just wasn’t ready for anything long-term after what I’d gone through with . . . after you . . . well, you know.”

“This is not making me feel better, Deacon.”

“Sorry. Anyway, I finally started dating this girl, Wendy. She was a waitress at the diner. Really sweet girl, working part-time while she went to the community college to start building credits for an art degree. She was pretty talented, too. She used to draw on my napkin when I’d stop in to eat on my lunch breaks.”

“She sounds really nice.”

“She was nice. Pretty, too. Kind of shy and quiet, but I liked her. As much as I could like anyone at that point. But it was clear after a while that she was way more into having a relationship than I was. I felt . . . suffocated. So I just . . . broke it off. Suddenly and brutally. I told her it was obvious that she liked me more than I liked her and that I wasn’t interested in her that way.”

Loretta frowned at him. “Ouch.”

“Yeah. I hurt her and I knew it, but I was so into my own pain that I didn’t realize how badly I’d broken her heart.”

They’d made their way to the lake’s edge. Loretta turned to him and grasped his arm. “Oh, Deacon.”

“Yeah. Wendy didn’t have a mean bone in her body, and I tore her apart without even thinking of how it affected her. And then I walked away without a backward glance. So the next time you want to kick yourself about how you dumped me, think about that. You’re not the only one who’s hurt someone, Loretta.”

“Did you ever see her again? Ever talk to her?”

“I stayed away from the diner for a while after we broke up, figuring it’d be best if we didn’t run into each other. She ended up quitting her job there to go to school full-time in Kansas. I ran into her at a club one night a couple of years later. She had a new boyfriend and a new job, and she was fine. But I apologized for hurting her and told her she had every right to hate me until the end of time.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she did hate me for a while, but she moved on. And she forgave me, because that’s the kind of person Wendy is. And then she hugged me and introduced me to her boyfriend, who already knew who I was, because Wendy had told him about me.”

Loretta’s brows rose. “Uh-oh. Did he want to punch you in the face?”

Deacon laughed. “Nah. Wendy explained that I’d apologized, and the guy was fine with it. He was a really nice guy, too. I heard they ended up getting married. They both live in Kansas now and have a two-year-old little boy.”

Loretta sighed. “A happy ending. I like that.”

“Yeah, me, too. I wasn’t the right guy for her. I’m glad she found the right one.”

They took a seat at the edge of the dock. Loretta leaned against him. “Even in this story where you were the bad guy, you ended up looking decent.”

“Trust me, I wasn’t decent. I hurt her. I made her cry. And at the time, I didn’t care. Plus, she wasn’t the only woman I hurt. There were others.”

She tilted her head back and looked up at him. “Care to tell me about them?”

“Not really. Looking back on all of them, I feel bad about every woman I hurt. But in the long run, it made me realize that you can’t mess with people’s feelings. It made me more honest.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“I guess it is. We all have to grow up and evolve. We have to learn from the mistakes we made in our youth so we don’t keep repeating them.”

Loretta thought about what Deacon had said. God knew she’d made plenty of mistakes when she was younger. Deacon. Tom. The choices she’d made. She really hoped she’d evolved enough to not make the same mistakes again.

But here she was, reliving her past with Deacon. Though maybe it wasn’t the past she was reliving with him.

She didn’t know. A part of her was still so confused where Deacon was concerned, which was why she was still keeping her heart closed. She knew what she felt for him deepened every day. How could it not? He was still the same guy she’d fallen in love with all those years ago, only he was so much more than that now. Back then it had been fun and sexy and playful. And while those things remained, there was more of a thoughtfulness and depth to him that hadn’t been there in high school.

It was like with every step he’d taken through life, he’d learned something about himself and applied it to becoming a better person.

Had she done the same thing?

Thunder rumbled off in the distance, and the clouds flittered with lightning.

“We should head back,” he said.

She nodded, and took his hands when he held them out for her. He pulled her up and wrapped his arm around her.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get much time alone together these past couple of days.”

She rubbed her fingertip along the side of his jaw. “It’s not necessary for us to be alone. I’m happy enough that we were together.”

“Maybe we could have a date night sometime next week or next weekend.”

“Hazel will be with her grandparents next weekend, so I’m sure we can arrange something.”

He leaned in and kissed her, and they made their way back to the house. When they walked inside, Zach, Josie, Megan, and Brady were in the living room watching a movie, so Loretta and Deacon grabbed something cold to drink and settled in with them.

The movie was, of course, Independence Day. There was nothing better to wrap up the Fourth of July than watching people kill off Earth-invading aliens.

When the movie ended, the discussion turned to the best way to handle an alien invasion.

“You have to have the technology, but I think biological warfare is the key,” Zach said.

Josie turned to him. “Which could also destroy human life.”

“Oh, like the aliens aren’t already intent on doing that? I’m just gonna say that our scientists will come up with an idea that will kill the aliens and protect the humans.”

“Yeah,” Deacon said. “Then we’ll be able to pump it into the atmosphere and knock them all out.”

“And you know the aliens all have a weakness,” Brady said. “So once we figure out what that is, the humans will go after them, both barrels blazing.”

Deacon nodded. “Alien-killing silver bullets. Only more like some kind of thermonuclear blasters.”

Loretta turned to Josie and Megan and shook her head.

Megan shrugged. “Video games.”

Deacon vehemently defending his point of view on alien-fighting weaponry was a side to him she’d never seen before. She sat back and enjoyed hearing him argue with Zach and Brady, trying to imagine him sitting in front of his television, at war with some imaginary world.

No wonder Hazel loved him. He could work his ass off all day long as an adult, then immediately enter a make-believe world. She’d never been able to do that. She could barely figure out how to use the controllers without having her characters walk into walls over and over again. It must be nice to be able to seamlessly make that transition from real world to pretend world. Although she did find her escape in books and their make-believe worlds. That was her love, her escape and her way to relax. Maybe it was similar.

And maybe someday she’d try video games again. Maybe Deacon could show her how.

She obviously had a lot to learn about this adulting thing. And maybe it didn’t always have to be so serious.