CHAPTER FOUR
Calvin was halfway down Main Street when he saw Sarah step off the front porch of Lakeside Stitch & Knit toward a group of women chatting outside.
She was so beautiful.
He was glad he had another thirty seconds to get used to looking at her. Unfortunately, he needed to do a heck of a lot more than that—he needed to get his head screwed on straight, needed to remember that tonight was about catching up on old times.
Nothing more.
“Calvin!” His next-door neighbor Dorothy called out to him, pulling him into the group with a firm hand. “Did you know your old girlfriend was back in town? Isn’t she lovely?” Sarah’s face, which was already a little flushed, went pink, and still she took his breath away, just as lovely as Dorothy had said.
“We’re meeting for a drink, actually,” he told his nosy but well-meaning neighbor. “You ready to head over to the Tavern, Sarah?”
“You’re a dark horse,” Dorothy whispered in Sarah’s ear, loud enough for everyone to hear. “You didn’t mention you had plans with the town’s most eligible bachelor tonight.”
Guessing she wanted to disappear right now just as much as he did, Calvin reached out to take her away from the crowd. She looked down at his outstretched hand, not taking it right away, and he swore he could see the pulse at the side of her wrist fluttering just beneath the skin. Finally, she put her hand into his.
And the shock of her skin against his made Calvin wonder how he could possibly have waited ten years to touch her again.
* * *
Sarah felt stupid. So incredibly stupid.
How had she thought she could come back to Summer Lake, see Calvin again, and not feel anything? And why hadn’t she connected that new, deep voice on the phone to the fact that she should have prepared herself for the positively breathtaking man holding her hand?
He had been good-looking at eighteen, but his shoulders were so much broader now, his dark hair trimmed shorter, and the faint lines around his eyes and mouth gave proof to the fact that he smiled easily and often. He wasn’t a boy anymore, not even the slightest bit. A man stood in front of her, one who’d overcome more challenges in the past ten years than most people would during their entire lives.
And she’d let him go.
The thought shook her, almost as much as how good it felt to hold his hand now.
Sudden panic made her pull away from him. It had been ten years since she had seen him. And now that he was here in the flesh, as they walked together toward the Tavern, she didn’t have the first clue what to say to him—or how to say it.
“I forgot just how small a small town can be, but the Monday night knitting group just brought it all home.” In a light voice that she hoped belied her nerves, she added, “Parts of it were fun. It’s just when they get personal, they really get personal.”
His voice was also light as he asked, “What did they want to know?”
“Oh, you know, the usual things. Why I’m not married with babies yet. If I’m dating anyone.” The words slipped out before she could stop them.
She felt him grow still beside her, but then that easy smile was back and she knew she was imagining things. The problem was, his smile had always had the power to rock her world. Clearly, judging by the way her heart had raced and her body heated, growing up hadn’t made a lick of difference.
Still, for all his easy charm, when he asked, “Are you?” his voice held a slightly rough edge to it that sizzled over her.
If only she had actually been seeing someone. Then she wouldn’t have to give such a pathetic answer. “Nope.”
Sarah didn’t need to ask him. She already knew about the girl with the lipstick, about how he deserved better. And Dorothy was right. Calvin deserved to be with someone amazing—someone who would be there for him the way he was always there for everyone else, someone who would love his town as much as he did. A woman whose dreams included high school football games and town picnics. One day, probably in the near future, he would slip a ring on someone else’s finger…and promise to love that woman forever.
Her step faltered as he held open the Tavern’s door and she stepped inside. Once upon a time, she had thought she could be that woman, but she should have known better, should have known the fairy tale wasn’t in the cards for them.
Her stomach clenched into a tight little ball, Sarah was so lost in her conflicted thoughts that she practically bounced off a man’s chest. Calvin’s large hands came around her waist, pulling her against him to keep her from falling. But instead of feeling steady, Sarah felt shakier than ever simply from being so close to him.
And from how badly she wanted to get even closer.
“Sarah,” the man said, “it’s been far too long since we’ve seen you in town.”
She found herself pulled into a warm hug by Henry Carson, the owner of the general store, who had been a friend of her father’s. She smelled wood smoke and sawdust on Henry’s shirt, reminding her of how her father had loved to chop wood and light it on fire. She’d wanted so badly to be a boy at those times, for her father to hand her an ax rather than telling her to get back inside before she got hurt.
“I’m sorry about James’s passing,” Henry said when he drew back and let her go.
Not wanting to get caught in the well of grief that always bubbled up when her father was mentioned, she forced another one of those fake smiles she was really starting to hate. “Thank you, Henry. It’s nice to see you again.”
“You planning on sticking around town for a while?”
“I’ll be here for a couple of weeks at least.”
“Good. Your father would be glad to know you’re home with your mother and grandmother.” Then Henry said to Calvin, “I’ve got the new blueprints you said you needed. You’d better put on your football pads for the next architectural review, because I am going to come at you with everything I’ve got. This time, I’m not going to take no for an answer.”
“You’ll keep getting a no until your building fits in with the historical architecture of the town,” Calvin replied in a firm but friendly voice.
Henry raised his eyebrows at Sarah. “Hard to believe us old folks are the ones who get blamed for resisting change. If I didn’t know better, I’d think this guy wanted to live in the Colonial period.”
Sarah forced another smile, even though all of this talk about architectural review committees—and Calvin’s surprisingly firm stance—sent shivers of unease up her spine. Until now, she had hoped he would be as excited about her project as she was. As they headed for the only open table, a very private, very small booth in the corner of the room, she wondered again, What if I’m wrong?
She couldn’t hold on to the question, though. Not with his hand still resting on the small of her back, creating a patch of heat that burned through the rest of her. And not when she was remembering a hundred times when he’d held her like that, so gently…and the other times too, when he had been just the right kind of raw. Hungry. As desperate as she was for their lovemaking. And always—always—he’d touched her with such love.
What, she couldn’t help but wonder, did he feel when he touched her now? The same sizzle of heat? Or nothing but cool fabric on his fingertips, no spark at all?
“What can I get you to drink?” he asked.
“I’d love a club soda with lime.”
“Just because I don’t drink, doesn’t mean you have to abstain.” Though he spoke softly, there was a slight edge to his words.
“I had a couple of glasses of wine with the knitting club. That’s my limit.”
In high school, when everyone else was experimenting with beer they’d smuggled out of their parents’ basements, Calvin had always stuck with Coke. His father hadn’t been a nasty drunk; he’d just always had a can in his hand. Solidarity made her stick with soda too. More than a decade later, it was instinct not to drink when she was with him.
After he returned from the bar with their drinks and they sat down, an awkward silence fell between them for one beat. Then two. Then three, before he said, “I was surprised to hear from you today. It’s been a really long time.”
“I know,” she said in pretty much the most stilted voice ever. “It has.”
It was as though she were watching the two of them sitting together from a distance. Two people who had once been so close, who had shared the most intimate moments possible. Two people who had no idea what to say to each other anymore, because they had left too many things unsaid for too long.
Suddenly, she understood that all the years she had spent trying to convince herself that they were nothing more than childhood sweethearts, that their past was water under the bridge, were just lies she’d told herself so that she could move on with her life. So that she could try to forget him.
But how could she possibly forget when the past was still holding them so tightly together?
She hadn’t been planning on having a big conversation about their past, but if they were going to have any chance of working together successfully in the future, they needed to have it. Now. Before things got any more stiff and weird.
“I know we’ve never really talked about what happened with us, but—”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said before she could finish her sentence. “Not on my account.” But his fingers had tightened around his glass, white beginning to show at the knuckles.
“It’s just that I’ve always felt bad about the way things ended,” she pressed on, despite the out he’d just given her, “and I guess I thought that if we cleared the air, then maybe—”
“We were just kids. Besides, what teenage romance ever works out?”
Okay, so he didn’t want to talk about their past. Which meant she couldn’t do anything but nod and say, “You’re right. Never mind.”
She should be glad that he was letting her off the hook. But she wasn’t. Because now she knew for sure that their relationship, one she’d thought had been so important, hadn’t actually meant anything to Calvin at all.
* * *
Calvin could see that his response had hurt her—and he hated seeing that flash of pain in her eyes, regardless of what had gone down between them when they were kids. But he didn’t think it was a good idea to go there. Not when talking about their past was a one-way ticket to a potentially bad situation.
Really bad.
Still, she needed to know that he hadn’t been sitting around for the past ten years nursing his resentment. And that she didn’t need to feel guilty for anything. His mother’s death, his father’s suicide, Sarah’s leaving had all happened so long ago. He was over it—all of it. He had everything he wanted, everything but the right woman to share his life with. He would find her eventually, but only if he remembered that this woman sitting across from him could never be her.
“Things are good now. Really good.” He didn’t want to look backward, didn’t want to see that kid who had struggled to recover from losing nearly every single person he’d ever loved.
“I’m glad to hear it.” He could hear the forced enthusiasm in her voice, but he didn’t blame her for that. This meet-up wasn’t easy for him either. “And I’m so glad you made time to see me. How’s Jordan doing?” Sarah’s expression softened as she asked about his sister.
“She’s in fifth grade now. She has lots of friends, loves ballet and dancing. She claims she hates fishing, but she humors me and does it anyway.” He smiled, thinking of the freed pickerel. “She’s just a really happy kid.”
Sarah was smiling now too, and he realized it was the first real smile he’d seen yet. Even that small upturn of her lips made his heart knock around faster inside his chest. Made him want to tangle his hands in her hair and see if she tasted the same way she had all those years ago.
Damn it. He couldn’t go there. Not with her.
“Do you have a picture I can see?”
Glad for the chance to look away from her, he pulled out his phone and showed her Jordan’s latest soccer photo, the one where one of her pigtails was falling out and she was missing a tooth on the right side of her big smile.
“She’s so grown up now. And so beautiful.”
Sarah was staring at the picture of the little girl who meant everything to him, but Calvin couldn’t keep from looking back at her when he said, “I know.”
When she looked up at him, her eyes big and full of emotion, he was hit with a potent memory of when she used to look at him like that. When she’d wanted him not only to kiss her, but to give her more. When she’d begged him for more. And he’d begged her right back. Because her kisses, her arms around him, putting a smile on her face, had meant everything to him.
He knew better, but he couldn’t help asking himself, would she beg him now if he gave in to the urge to pull her closer and lower his mouth to hers? Or would she push him away?
“Jordan looks so much like you did in fifth grade,” Sarah said. And in her grin he saw a flash of the fun and sweet girl he’d been head over heels in love with. “Now I know what you would have looked like in pigtails,” she teased.
Calvin couldn’t hold back his own grin. For all that he was working to keep his emotions in check, it was nice just to be with her like this again. Just for one short moment, like they used to be. “I’m not sure pigtails would fly in the town hall.”
“Congratulations on being elected mayor.” Just that quickly, she seemed to rein herself in. “How do you like the job?”
Disappointment flared at how brief their moment of connection had been, but she was right to move past it as quickly as she had. It would be better for both of them to keep things bobbing along on the surface, rather than diving deep. Especially considering his attraction to her hadn’t waned even the slightest bit in ten years.
“I’m enjoying the challenge. It’s a pretty big change from being out there on the football field with the kids every day, although I help out with the team whenever I can. I thought I’d be stuck behind the computer more, but I’ve had to deal with open-space issues so often that I’ve got to keep a pair of mud boots in my truck.” Her grandfather had been mayor, so he figured she knew more about the job than most people.
“When I heard that you’d been elected, it felt right,” she said. “You’re the perfect person for the job.”
“Thanks.” Her words settled into a part of his heart he’d sworn he’d shut down a long time ago. “I wanted to find a way to pay everyone back for what they did for me and my sister after my parents died. And I’ve always loved this town. I’ve always figured that if you love something enough, there’s got to be a way to make it a priority.”
“My dad always thought the same thing. That once you figure out what you want, you’ve got to just keep reaching for it, no matter what.”
“I’m sorry about your father. I know how much you loved him.”
“I—” She swallowed. “Losing him was really hard.”
Calvin wanted so badly to take her in his arms, wanted to hold her and tell her that if anyone understood what she was going through, he did. But he couldn’t.
Once they’d been best friends. Lovers. But now they were little better than strangers.
And despite every wall he’d put up, despite every time he’d sworn he was fine, that he was completely over her, it broke his heart all over again.