CHAPTER TWO

Chris blinked twice and shook his head to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. He saw her in his mind a lot. Admittedly, in his visions she was usually naked and not snarling at him.

“Well, well… look what the cat dragged in.” He took a long drink of his beer, trying not to stare at her gorgeous legs in that short dress. Her face was red from the frigid temperature, and her teeth chattered as she wrapped her arms around herself. What the hell was she doing out in the cold dressed like that? She’d catch a damn pneumonia.

“Kind of slumming it for a man who should be out celebrating.” Tori smiled slyly at him. All traces of the soft, vulnerable woman who’d walked in here, cold and unsure, were gone.

“Celebrating?”

She uncrossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him, studying him for a moment before speaking. “Don’t play dumb with me. I was at Benny’s. I saw you.”

Chris stared hard at her face, seeking any sign that she was lying. Dammit. He’d known it was risky fighting so close to home, but none of the Sweetbriar crowd frequented those types of events. Which meant he had Luke to thank. What the fuck was Luke doing taking Tori to a place like that? The thought of the cocky prick put a bad taste in his mouth.

“Well, as you can see, I am celebrating.” He held his half-finished beer up in the air in a salute to her and then chugged the rest, placing the empty glass down on the bar with more force than necessary.

Chris nodded at the bartender and then turned his attention back to Tori. “Can I get you something to drink, or did you just follow me here to give me a lecture?”

“I didn’t follow you. I was trying to get a cab, and I came in here to warm up while I called for a ride.” She thrust her chin out and regarded him with a defiant glare as though daring him to contradict her.

“Where’s Luke?” He bit off the name through gritted teeth.

The smug look on her face fell for a second, but she recovered quickly, standing taller. “He didn’t feel like calling it a night yet,” she said as if a guy going out with his girlfriend and then staying out later because he wasn’t ready to call it a night was a totally normal thing.

Fuck, he’d kill Luke for letting her navigate downtown Carroll by herself with nothing more than a scrap of material to keep her warm.

He fought back the urge to get up from the bar, give her his sweatshirt to warm her up, and then take her home himself. That wasn’t an option with as much history as they had. So, he went to his default mode of being an asshole.

“What about you, darling? You want another drink?” he asked the blond woman still sitting next to him.

Her eyes moved from Tori to him in obvious fascination. “Aren’t you sweet?” She laid a hand on his thigh.

He glanced at Tori and found her rolling her eyes as she scrolled through her phone. “Does anyone else know you’re here?”

Chris shrugged. “I don’t send out a nightly agenda.”

“Whatever. Have fun celebrating,” Tori said with sarcasm. She turned toward the door, paused abruptly, and spun back around on her heel. She stalked across the distance between them, not stopping until she was so close that he could feel the cold radiating off her. Then she leaned in even closer, taking him by surprise. “Thirteen seconds. Not bad, hotshot,” she whispered.

He sat stunned as she smiled, flipped her long hair over her shoulder, and walked back out of the bar.

A wide smile pulled at his lips as he watched the door close behind her. It was as close to a compliment as she’d given him in longer than he remembered.

“Friend of yours?” the woman next to him purred.

She was no Tori. Then again, no one was. He’d been living with substitutes for years. Pretending for another night would be easy.

“Nah.” He pushed back from the bar, leaving his full beer. Beer wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

“You wanna get out of here?” He reached a hand out to the blonde. He hadn’t asked her name, and she hadn’t offered it.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“This isn’t working.” Tori threw her stuff into her overnight bag. With everything packed, she gave Luke a sad smile and sat next to him.

“Why don’t you just move back to Carroll?” he whined, throwing a hand up over his forehead. He reached out for her with the other, a waft of liquor and smoke oozing out of him. “Then we could hang more. Go out together and have fun like we used to.”

“We’ve been over this. Sweetbriar is my home. I love my job and working with my brother. You and I are just at two different places in our life right now.”

Luke nodded in defeat, or maybe it was all he could manage with a hangover. She’d expected him to put up a bigger fight for her, but she sighed in relief, signaling to herself that she’d made the right call. She was bored. She’d been bored. No longer interested in long nights spent at the bar and weekends that typically started with the pop of a beer around noon, they’d run out of common interests outside of the bedroom.

Car loaded and ready to go, Tori turned the music up and drove the familiar route back to Sweetbriar. Soaking up the early afternoon sun, she entered the city limits of the small community with a smile. That smile faltered only slightly as she pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex, getting a fresh look at the place’s disrepair. Having taken over the lease from Ryan when he’d moved into his new home over the lake, Tori had been excited about being close to Fit Club and finally living all on her own. The peeling paint on the exterior, the creaky stairs leading up to her entrance, and the flimsy door that she was pretty sure would buckle with one small kick were quirks she could live with. Flipping the switch in her tiny apartment, Tori sighed as the lights flickered before buzzing to life. Add electrical to the list of issues she was learning to look past. It wasn’t exactly her dream place, but it was hers. All hers.

She tossed her bag on the bed then pulled her cell phone from her back pocket and dialed Claire. Guilt nagged at her for the way she’d neglected her best friend over the last year while she ran back and forth to Carroll visiting Luke.

“Guess who’s single,” Tori said as Claire answered the video call.

“No way. You and Luke broke up?” her friend asked, gasping between breaths.

“Are you out running?” Tori asked in disbelief.

“Yes, I guess you can call it that,” Claire answered between breaths. “I decided to go for a run to get away from a man at my apartment.”

“O-o-oh, do tell. Who’s the lucky guy?”

Looking around, Claire lowered her voice. “Remember Johnny Willard?”

“Brace-face Johnny from chemistry class?” Tori squealed and then covered her mouth and giggled like they were still in high school.

Claire nodded. “Yeah well, the braces are gone, but as for chemistry — I think he needs to go back to school for that one. Uh-oh, he’s calling. I gotta go. Call you later.”

She shook her head as Claire’s face disappeared from the screen. Looking around her empty apartment, Tori wasn’t sure what to do next. How long had it been since she’d had a Sunday afternoon to herself? She broke the deafening silence by turning on the TV and watching The Golden Girls re-runs. A guilty-pleasure show, it made her laugh with the witty banter between the women. She only hoped that in thirty years she and Claire would still be that close. Only with men.

Tori woke with a start. An alarm and pounding from the front of her apartment filtered through her open bedroom door.

“Tori, open up!” A voice shouted from outside her apartment.

When she glanced at the clock, her foggy brain registered the numbers, and she groaned until the commotion outside and the faint smell of smoke made her sit straight up in bed, heart racing. A pile of clean clothes sat at the foot of her bed, and she grabbed a sweatshirt from the top. She tugged it over her head and grabbed her vibrating cell phone from the nightstand.

She hurried into the living room just as Jake kicked through the front door. It was something straight out of the movies, which made Tori smile in her sleep-induced state.

Her hazy smile was short-lived as she caught sight of the stern and serious look on Jake’s face. A local police officer and a friend of her brother’s, Jake also lived in the complex. Dressed in his crisp, black uniform, he entered the apartment without saying another word. He pulled her outside and led her to a crowd of people. The parking lot was filled with other residents, some standing quietly in groups, others in hysterics. Sirens blared in the distance.

“What’s going on?” she asked after Jake stopped and released his hold.

“There’s a fire in apartment 2A. It hasn’t spread, but we’re evacuating everyone until the fire department gets here. Do you want me to call your brother to come get you?” he said in his serious-police-officer tone. Judging by the way he stood surveying the situation behind her, she could see he was eager to move on and get in the action.

Her phone vibrated again, and she looked down at it. “Actually, he’s calling right now I should let him know I’m okay.”

“He is right behind you,” came Ryan’s voice, tight and clipped.

Tori turned to see a pair of worried looks on the faces of the two men approaching. Chris and Ryan were dressed in their gym clothes — sweaty, sleeveless t-shirts and long athletic shorts. “What are you two doing here?”

Ryan pulled her into a hug, ruffling her hair from behind. “We were at the gym and saw all the commotion, so we walked over.” He pulled back and scanned her from head to toe. “You’re okay? You weren’t answering your phone. I was worried.”

“I’m fine as you can see.” She held her hands out to her sides but crossed them back in over her chest as she remembered she was sans bra. Sneaking a peek at Chris, she found him watching her, a pinched look on his face. He’s probably sad to see I didn’t go up in flames.

She followed Jake, who, after shaking hands with the guys, was headed in the direction of the emergency vehicles that had now arrived. “Jake, do you think it’s possible I can go back and grab a few things?” She gave him a pleading look, pointing down at her flip-flops.

Looking unsure, he nodded. “Yeah, I better come with you.”

“Thank you,” she squealed. “Let me just say bye to Ryan.”

She jogged back to her brother and gave him a quick squeeze. “Thank you for checking on me. I’m gonna grab a few things, and then I’ll come to the gym until things die down around here. Hopefully, I can get back in tonight, or I’m going to be shacking up at your place,” she joked, but cringed at the thought.

Chris’ eyes burned into her, but she kept her gaze carefully trained away from them and the disappointed scowl she’d grown used to him flashing in her direction. Jake led her back to her apartment and she surveyed the busted doorframe as she entered. She’d been right about the flimsy thing buckling under pressure.

Jake stopped in front of the door. “You’ve got two minutes. The fire department should be up here any second, and if anyone realizes I’ve let you back in, I’ll have everyone giving me hell.”

She nodded her head and walked feverishly around her apartment, grabbing anything she thought she might need for a night or two. Thankful for her procrastination, she grabbed the still-packed bag she’d taken for the weekend and added a couple sports bras and workout outfits to it. She slipped on her tennis shoes and snagged her phone charger from the wall.

Jake escorted her to her car as the firemen hustled into the smoke-filled building. After pulling away from the commotion, she drove the short distance to Fit Club, saying a silent prayer she’d have somewhere to sleep tonight.

The gym didn’t open for another hour, but Tori spotted the two familiar vehicles she already knew would be here. Her brother’s Mustang and Chris’ truck were parked on the far side of the lot. A thin layer of condensation covered them as if they’d been parked there for some time. She knew they liked to come work out early, but before this morning, she’d had no idea they were up at this hour.

Walking through the dark gym and upstairs to her office, Tori stopped halfway up and watched the figures in the ring below spar in rhythm to the loud, ‘80s heavy metal that blared through the building. Chris was bigger than Ryan by several inches and a good fifteen pounds, but her brother was holding his own. The murderous look that had been in Chris’ eyes the other night was gone. Maybe he separated his feelings depending on whom he was fighting. By the smile on his face as Ryan dodged a punch, it appeared Chris was having fun. Saturday night had been something else entirely, but he certainly hadn’t looked like he was having fun then.

Tori wasn’t sure what to make of him boxing in secret matches that no one knew about. She thought he had given all that up years ago when his construction company had started picking up. Maybe he hasn’t changed as much as I assumed. She smiled at the thought that, despite everything that had happened between the two of them, there might still be a part of him that was the determined teenage boy she’d once fallen for. With visions of that boy, she skipped up the remaining stairs to her office.

Checking her schedule for the day, she noted that one of her favorite clients, Autumn, was coming in first thing this morning. Tori had trained and worked as an occupational therapist before working at Fit Club. While she had traded working solely with OT clients at her last job for primarily organizing and leading group training classes at the gym, she had maintained a small list of local clients who needed occupational therapy that wasn’t available nearby. Autumn was one of those clients.

A first grader at Sweetbriar Elementary School, Autumn was one of the spunkiest and most kindhearted people Tori had ever met. Diagnosed with autism and sensory processing disorder when she was five, the little girl had started seeing Tori soon after for sensory integration therapy. Autumn struggled with loud noises, body control, and social skills, all of which they worked on weekly in their sessions. The therapy was hard to find outside of the larger cities, and Tori found working with clients like Autumn to be one of the most rewarding parts of her job.

Five minutes before their appointment, Tori headed down the stairs to wait for her young client. Every week, she met Autumn and her mother at the front desk where Tori would get two high-fives before Autumn made a beeline for the elevator.

“Miss Tori! Miss Tori!” Autumn came tumbling into the gym, her long, brown hair in braided pigtails that whipped around her head with each bound forward.

“Hi, Autumn. How are you?” Tori said, holding up her hand as Autumn smacked it twice with her own.

Susan and Dax, Autumn’s parents, held back as they always did, giving Autumn space to practice her conversation skills and manners.

“Guess what! Guess what!”

“Autumn, Tori asked you a question,” Susan gently reminded her.

Tori prompted her again. “How are you?”

“I’m very good. How are you?” Autumn recited, swaying from side to side.

“I’m good. Are you ready to have some fun?”

“Yeah!” the little girl yelled as she skipped to the elevator.

“Autumn, wait by the elevator. Don’t press any buttons yet,” Susan said sternly before turning to Tori. “Dax and I need to talk with you about Autumn’s sessions.”

“Of course. Is everything okay?”

Susan wrung her hands as she looked to Dax. He stepped forward and placed an arm around Susan. “I’m afraid our insurance won’t pay for the therapy anymore.”

Tori looked from Susan to Dax, hoping there was a but coming.

When neither Susan or Dax continued, Tori forced herself to remain professional. “I’m so sorry. I could try and call the insurance and see if that helps. Autumn is doing well with the therapy. I think she’d benefit from continuing at least for another six months.”

Susan shook her head with a defeated look. “I’ve been on the phone with them and the pediatrician all week. They won’t budge. This is her last session. I’m sorry. You’ve been such a blessing for her. We can’t thank you enough.”

Tori nodded, afraid if she spoke, her voice would tremble with the anger and sadness she felt for Autumn and her family. She watched Susan and Dax walk away then turned to the elevator and Autumn and forced a smile on her lips.