Lucas set Mary’s lunch on the edge of her desk. She didn’t so much as glance up from whatever she was furiously pecking away at the keyboard about. Sometimes it was hard to gauge her mood, given that Mary preferred to speak as little as possible until she really got to know people.

He tip toed out of the office with the rest of the food, leaving her in peace. Kellie had dropped by for half a minute to drop off the paychecks. Pandora was only coming in for an early afternoon appointment. Which left Lucas and Carly holding down the shop proper on a Friday. It wasn’t ideal, since the usual walk-ins would begin popping up later, but it was what they had for now.

The longer Lucas was here, the more he understood the need to add to their shop. With three girls out and just Mary there earning the money, it wouldn’t be long before the shop would go belly up, regardless of talent. A shop took a lot of hard work. Kellie and Mary had the ability and dedication to do it, but it was more about priorities.

He didn’t see anything wrong with Kellie shuffling around priorities to help with her significant other’s mixed marital arts coaching, but everything came at a price. The fact that he’d barely seen Kellie was concerning, and it made all the more sense why Mary had reached out to him. She needed someone dependable, who knew what it took to keep a shop afloat and could bring in customers.

Lucas could do all of that.

Which meant announcing to the world he was back home.

There were a number of guys who’d reached out over the years to ask when he’d come back, what his schedule was like, and so forth. He’d left a few jobs incomplete, and though he hated leaving guys hanging, he couldn’t just please clients.

But first, before he brought any work to the shop, he had to figure shit out with Carly. This business about treating her with kid gloves was bullshit. From the little he’d learned of her, she took punches and kept going. She was a tough cookie, and the longer her friends let her wallow in this rut the worse off she’d be.

“Hey, you weren’t here when I left, so I got two entrées and figured if you liked one you could have it.” He held out the containers. “Chicken or beef? I hope you aren’t a vegetarian.”

Food was always a good peace offering. Unless he’d gotten it totally wrong.

Carly leaned back from the desk and stared at the two boxes, her eyes going a little wide.

“If you’re a vegetarian—”

“I’m not.” She reached out and took a box without asking what was inside. She set it on the table next to her laptop and stared at it.

“If you don’t like it, I’m sure someone will eat it.”

Carly’s shoulders shuddered and she sniffed.

Shit.

He cringed.

What circle of hell had he fallen into where all the women in his life weren’t making sense?

“Sit the fuck down and eat.” She gestured to the rest of the desk with one hand and shuffled her stuff to the side with the other.

He pulled a rolling chair over and situated his meal at the very edge of the desk.

Carly swiped at her cheeks with a napkin, lips pressed tightly together and her eyes a little red. Lucas kept his eyes down, pretending like he hadn’t noticed.

“Well?” She all but rolled her eyes and stamped her foot with that attitude.

“Well what?” He did his best to keep his tone even, but her behavior was little better than a teenager’s.

“Aren’t you going to ask?”

“Carly, I don’t know what to do, say, ask, without getting on your bad side, so I’m just going to eat my lunch and go back to work, because you’re going to choose to be pissed at me no matter what.”

“Fine.”

Lucas sighed. This wasn’t his shop, these weren’t his rules, and he’d been specifically asked to give Carly two weeks before it was fair game to call her on her shit.

“Okay, what do you want to talk about? Your homework? Lunch?”

“Forget about it.”

“No, let’s talk about it.” He turned in his seat to face her, leaning forward he put his elbows on his knees. “What’s up? Why the crying?”

Her lower lip quivered.

Was it because of him? Or something else?

He just couldn’t get a feel for it.

“Look, you don’t like me in your shop, breaking up the girl tribe. I get it. Having someone new come in is hard. There’s new dynamics, a new order. Change sucks. I don’t care what anyone says, it sucks.” He studied her profile, watching the way her jaw clenched and relaxed, how she kept staring at the box of food. “What’s really bothering you? Is it me? Or is it something else?”

She ran her finger along the desk, smoothing down a sticker someone had slapped on it.

“Everyone’s leaving,” she whispered.

“I don’t know that they’re leaving. Maybe moving into a new chapter of life?”

“Yeah, but...Pandora’s not going to be around once the baby comes. She’s so excited about being a mom, and she doesn’t have to keep doing this. Brian supports them. Autumn tattoos to keep herself busy while Sammi works, so she doesn’t have to do this either. Kellie... I don’t know what she’s doing, but she’s never here.”

“And then I come in here and you think, they’re all leaving you?”

“It just sucks.”

“It does, and it puts a lot of pressure on Mary to earn enough to keep the lights on and pay everyone’s check. From what I’ve heard, you’re paying your way through school by working here. What if Mary had to close up? What then?”

Carly swiped at her cheek.

“Look, the last thing I want to do is be your enemy. I think the world of Mary and Kellie. They’re some of the best girls I’ve ever worked with, hands down. Total professionals. Talented. Smart. Between them, they’ve got some massive business sense. But they can’t do it all alone, and they can’t keep going if there’s not enough support. That’s why I’m here. I just want to contribute and be part of the team.”

She nodded and leaned back in her seat, shoulders slumping. Maybe he’d knocked the wind out of her sails in a good way. At some point, they had to get over this hurtle or one of them would have to go. Lucas wanted to help Mary and Kellie out all he could, but he wouldn’t work in a shop with such a hostile atmosphere.

“They talk about you, you know? Mary and Kellie. They only say good stuff. And Jenny likes you. Jenny is cool.”

Lucas swallowed. He didn’t want to talk about Jenny.

“Want to tell me what I did wrong today so I can not do it again?” he asked instead.

“There’s this guy. It’s complicated. His family owns this place.” Carly leaned forward and opened the container. She inhaled the fragrance of the fresh food and sighed.

“I know what complicated is like.” He grimaced.

“This is a whole other level of complicated, but I’m guessing someone’s told you all ready.” Carly glanced sideways at him.

“A little.” He opened his food, content with the progress they’d made toward being able to work together.

“So you know he’s married and just had a kid?”

“Someone mentioned it.”

“You probably think I’m a terrible person.”

“I have a lot of experience loving someone I shouldn’t. The...misery of watching them be with someone else.” He stabbed a bit of chicken, since Carly had the beef. “I’m no one to judge.”

“How’d you handle it?” Carly turned to face him, her head tilted and lines marring her brow.

“Well, I sold my shop, packed up everything I owned into the trunk of my car and I left. In my situation, there was no solution. At least not for me. I wasn’t going to stop loving her, and she wasn’t ever going to be...available.”

“Because she was married?”

“She was.”

“Did you ever...?”

“Did we ever have an affair? No. Though some people might consider our level of attachment emotional infidelity. It was a complicated, fucked-up situation. There weren’t many clear wrong or right lines. The only way out I saw was to leave. Let them figure out their lives and try to move on.”

“Is that why you’re back? You moved on?”

“For someone who didn’t want to speak to me fifteen minutes ago, you have a hell of a lot of questions.”

“Fuck. I’m sorry. It’s just... No one understands. They keep telling me to just move on.”

“And it’s not that easy. You can tell yourself all you like that the best thing to do is move on, but...it’s like a gravitational pull. Unless you remove yourself from their reach, they’ll keep pulling you back in.”

“You make it sound like it’s her fault.”

“No. Not at all. I was just as complicit as she was. We never did anything, though.”

“Does she know you’re back?”

“She does.”

“Is it like it was before?”

“Well, our situations are different now, so...yes and no.”

“Jacob will never leave his wife. Do you know people still do arranged marriages? They don’t like each other, but they won’t divorce, and now they have a kid. I keep dating other people. We’ll go for months without seeing each other, then we meet up and it’s like we never stopped talking. It’s hell. I don’t know if moving would make it better.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” It hadn’t helped Lucas. He still felt the same about Jenny now as he did then.

“I don’t hate you.” Carly stabbed a piece of beef and ate it.

“That’s good, I guess.”

“I will actively try to be less of a bitch.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“You might be all right.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You know Autumn is going to hate you on sight, no matter who you are, right?”

“Well, that’s her problem, not mine.”

“Mary’s scared to fire Autumn, now that she’s married to Sammi.”

“Autumn and I will have to figure out how to co-exist.”

“She should have landed already.” Carly checked her watch.

“She’s...back?”

“Yeah.” Carly glanced at him. “I guess...you don’t know that...”

“It seems I’m the last to know anything around here.” Lucas grimaced. He was an employee and it was entirely up to Kellie and Mary what they told him when, but this seemed like more of the poor judgment calls that’d made this first week so difficult.

“Shit.” Carly sighed. “Kellie’s having a welcome home thing tonight, which I’m guessing you aren’t invited to?”

“No.”

“Then we must be breaking the news to Autumn tonight. That kind of makes sense. Sammi does have a calming effect on her.”

“Well, I look forward to meeting them both.”

Lucas swallowed down his bitterness.

First Jenny was closing him out, and now his co-workers. He understood what was happening, but it still sucked.

Maybe he needed to head down to his parent’s tonight after all. Show Mom some support, even if it pissed off Dad. She was right, and at his age, he should have retired already. In truth, Lucas would just be keeping himself busy.

He’d just about decided that Jenny needed space. She’d ducked out of the house early on purpose and hadn’t responded to his texts. She’d shut him out and it sucked. Maybe he’d send her some flowers, stay at his place and wait until she was ready to talk to him. They had gone from zero to sixty awfully fast. He’d thought that was what she wanted. What she said. But maybe she’d changed her mind? She had that right, even if it sucked for him.

After all these years, he still felt the same way about her. That was likely not going to change any time soon—if ever. Which was probably why the burden of his secrets was getting heavier. At first, it was easy to ignore the past. It was history. Nothing more. But the truth was, they wouldn’t be where they were now if it weren’t for Lucas putting Walker on a self-destructive path. They might have still divorced, eventually, but not until Jenny woke up and realized what she really wanted in life.

What Lucas had done was to take that choice away from her. And he wasn’t sure he could forgive himself for that.

g

Jenny stared at the front of Kellie’s house.

Lucas’ Jeep was nowhere to be seen.

She’d wanted to ask if Lucas was invited, but couldn’t figure out how to do it without bringing up questions she wasn’t prepared to answer. There was no way she could face him right now.

For hours, she’d agonized about going home to check on Dolly, for fear that he’d be there, waiting for her to come home and talk about it. She didn’t want to speak to him right now. She had no idea what to say, how she was feeling. She’d thought that was what she wanted, she wasn’t sure now. This could all be one big mistake.

Jenny sucked down a deep breath.

Maybe the texts would clue her in?

She’d ignored them earlier because she had a lot of work to do, and thinking about him was hard enough. If she read the texts, she’d likely lose her composure.

He’d said he loved her.

Those words had frozen her in fear.

What did she say to that?

They didn’t stir up warm, happy feelings. No, she wanted to run and hide. Love was...dangerous. It took no prisoners. If she fell in love again, would she lose who she was again?

Jenny scrolled through his texts. They were innocent enough—random, kind messages about his day, wondering how she was, what her plans were, asking how the dog show was going. There was no demand to talk, no telling her to come home.

He wasn’t Walker. Then why did she have this huge sense of dread eating at her?

She had to get out.

Lucas’ Jeep wasn’t there.

If he showed up, she’d make some excuse and leave. She’d have to say something to Lucas or else he’d follow her home again. She could always plead exhaustion after working the show. That would work.

She had her plan.

Now, to execute it.

Jenny grabbed her purse and opened the door. She slid out of the truck, feeling slightly off-kilter in a dress. She wouldn’t have bothered, except most of Kellie and Quinn’s events migrated to their patio, and with how hot it was getting, she wanted to wear as little as possible while still being decent.

Judging by the cars in the drive, the gang was almost all there.

Why was this welcome home party such a big deal?

Sammi and Autumn traveled almost half the year, in part because of Sammi’s expanding work. The girls from the shop had rarely commemorated these returns, so why now?

Headlights turned down the street and a sporty two-seater whipped up to the curb behind Jenny. She shielded her eyes and waved, figuring that it had to be the guests of honor.

She let herself into the house.

Kellie, Mary, Pandora and Carly sat on the sectional sofa in the living room. They held drinks and each looked more uncomfortable than the next.

“What’s wrong?” Jenny set her purse on the kitchen bar. Should she have come? “Autumn and Sammi just pulled up.”

“I still think someone should have told her before right now,” Carly said, as though she were continuing a conversation.

“Yeah, well, can’t do anything about that now.” Kellie pushed to her feet and sighed.

The front door banged open and Autumn stepped in, arms flung wide.

“My bitches!” She grinned and bounded into the room, suffusing it with the charm that only Autumn could command. When the room did not respond, she stopped and tilted her head, staring at each woman in turn. “Wow, who died?”

Mary and Kellie glanced away from each other.

“Welcome home.” Carly pivoted her chair toward Autumn. “Mary and Kellie hired that guy they used to work for, Lucas Hewitt, to work in the shop with us while you were gone, and didn’t tell any of us.”

Jenny gulped down a breath.

They all stared at Carly, who merely shrugged.

“What?” Carly spread her glare around the room. “Someone had to tell her, and you two were going to take all night deciding how to break it to her gently. Now it’s done. Can we eat yet?”

Jenny had to agree that the longer they put it off, the worse Autumn’s reaction would be. But there was still a right and wrong way to go about it.

Autumn closed her eyes and shook her head, mouth working silently.

“We need more people in the shop on a regular basis.” Mary even used her hand to punctuate her words.

“You hired—Lucas?” Autumn stared around the room, her mouth set into a hard line. “Lucas? Really?”

“I didn’t think you’d ever met him.” Kellie frowned.

“Hell yeah. I met him a few times, actually, but seeing as you two do nothing but think his shit smells of roses, I kept my opinion to myself.” Autumn pivoted, setting her gaze on the back door, and strode across the living room to the patio.

They all watched her exit, though she didn’t slam the door.

That was good.

If Quinn and Kellie were home, they likely had Quinn’s daughter. Everything was fun and games until the child was woken up.

The room breathed a collected sigh of relief.

“Carly, what the hell?” Kellie turned toward the young woman, her glare on full blast.

“What? Rip the Band-Aid off.” Carly shrugged.

Mary took a few steps toward Sammi. This was why they’d more than likely waited to tell Autumn, because Sammi was the shop’s landlord. And Jenny’s.

“Sammi...” Mary clasped her hands in front of her, her face creased.

“Hey, it is none of my business how you guys run your shop.” He held his hands up. “I don’t want any part of this, okay? I get that you need more people in the shop. I’m on board with that. I also have no idea about this Lucas person. I just can’t get involved.”

Mary nodded.

The way Jenny saw it, that was about as good of a result with Sammi as they could hope for. He had never been particularly biased toward his wife when matters within the shop arose, but who knew? It could always change.

“Okay, why don’t I go talk to Autumn and check on the food?” Jenny was the impartial party to this discussion. Now it made sense why they’d asked her to be part of this. Someone connected to them, but not involved in the shop.

“Would you? Do you mind?” Kellie ran a hand through her hair. “I was hoping we’d have a minute to talk to you before she got here.”

“Why don’t I go out on the patio with her? Come on, cooler’s outside, right?” Sammi gestured for Jenny to proceed him.

Together they walked out to the patio where Autumn had a beer in one hand and her phone in the other. Quinn manned the grill, tossing them a look that could only be interpreted as please, save me?

Sammi pilfered a beer from the cooler for each of them.

“Did you know?” Autumn wheeled around, pinning Jenny with a stare.

“Well, yes. He was next door in the shop,” she said slowly.

“And you’re okay with this?”

Jenny’s complicated situation with Lucas reared its head. She felt the sting of her uncertainty and the surge of panic. Personal feelings aside, was she okay with Lucas being home again?

“Yes.”

“Sammi, I’ve got to go. I can’t stay here.”

“Honey, can we talk about this?”

“In the car, yeah, but I’m not staying here. I’ll walk—”

“In those heels?” Sammi quirked a brow.

“Fuck you. Take me home.” Autumn stared at the concrete, arm wrapped around herself. Even her lower lip seemed to protrude.

Sammi glanced at Jenny and she shrugged. She didn’t know what to make of Autumn’s reaction. Hostility at a new comer she’d expected, but this? It was personal. Whatever had happened to Autumn because of Lucas...she felt betrayed. But had anyone known better? What had Lucas done? Did Jenny want to know?

“All right. Come on.” Sammy placed the beer back in the cooler and held his other hand out to his wife.

“Give me that, I’ll finish it for you.” Jenny took the cam from Autumn.

She wrapped her arms around Jenny. Autumn’s heels were so high, Jenny was practically looking into the other woman’s cleavage.

“We need to talk,” Autumn whispered.

“Then talk to me.” Jenny peered up at her.

“Later. Not now.” Autumn shook her head.

Sammi took her hand and escorted her back through the house. Jenny watched them go. No one spoke. It was strange, seeing the women so divided like this. Sure, they fought, and tensions got high from time to time, but all was eventually forgiven.

What had Lucas done that was so unforgiveable? Was this what her gut was warning her about?

•  •