There were so many things to worry about. Aside from the most pressing issue—how to support the baby she couldn’t wait to meet—there were a million other problems... How would she continue to afford her rent or gas for her geriatric truck? How could she ever replace the job that had given her so much joy, so much to look forward to?
The museum was Katie’s past and present. She’d believed until this news that it would also be her future, as she’d planned to work her way up to director and take over from her boss one day, in time to send her kid to college.
Her mom and dad had taken Katie to the Pumpkin Festival every year since they’d moved to Peach Leaf just after Katie’s sixth birthday...right next door to Ryan Ford. The two had been best friends from the instant they met, despite Ryan’s hesitation to hang out with a girl “covered in cooties.” Like the rest of the town, the neighboring families had gathered at the festival every year, and those times were some of the best of Katie’s life. It was why she’d been so thrilled when she’d gotten this job, and it was why she put every ounce of her heart into the museum.
Katie braced herself against the sudden memories of weekends with the best friend she’d eventually grown to see in a different light, and eventually lost to someone else...someone who saw that light first and claimed it.
She shook her head, pushing Ryan Ford from her memory.
Katie sighed. It was with a leaden heart that she had stepped back into the pub that late afternoon on her way home to see if her former employers needed any help. She wasn’t alone anymore; she would soon have another person to provide for. When she’d stepped into the kitchen and Jimmy—pretending not to eye the curve of her growing belly—said she could come back anytime, even if there wasn’t any work to be done, she wasn’t sure if she should smile or cry.
She grabbed a fresh Jenkins’ T-shirt to wear on her first shift. They’d agreed she would start the first of November, and Katie had just swung through the saloon doors to make her way back to her truck when her eyes landed on Ryan Ford, eating chicken wings at the bar as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
An icy tickle ran up Katie’s spine and she stopped midstep.
“Ryan?” she called across to the bar, her voice shaky and thin. Maybe it wasn’t really him. She’d had a long, terrible day, so maybe she was just imagining him sitting there like a mirage from her past, or a ghost; she couldn’t be sure. Her feelings for Ryan Ford were so complicated, had wavered so much over the years that she couldn’t be certain what would happen if it really did turn out to be him.
She didn’t have to wonder much longer, because it only took one glance at his face—that incredible face she’d hated so hard, and loved even harder—to know that it was Ryan.
My Ryan, she thought, before instantly correcting herself.
He’s never been yours.
He stared back at her, blinking as though trying to see her clearly through a veil of fog. He didn’t say anything for a moment that stretched out like eternity. Then he set down his fork and spoke her name, the sound of those two simple syllables rolling over his tongue making her knees go weak until they were about as useless to stand on as pillars of sand.
Katie grasped at the doorframe and steadied herself, and when she looked up again, he was crossing the room toward her.
He stopped about a foot away and seemed to second-guess his decision. She immediately cast her eyes down, unwilling to glance up again, but that didn’t stop what she’d already seen. Ryan Ford had always been a pleasure to look at; there wasn’t a woman in the world who would disagree. But the man who stood before Katie was...gorgeous.
He had Ryan’s deep hazel eyes—tiger eyes, her mother had always called them—and Ryan’s russet hair, wavy and unkempt and too long, as usual. And that was Ryan’s mouth she’d seen, the bottom lip fuller than the top—lips Katie had kissed only once and wished for since. And there was Ryan’s height, towering over her...making it darn near impossible to deny the truth.
A million different things rushed through her all at once. She wanted to punch him right in the face, and she wanted to wrap her arms around him. She wanted to scream at him and tell him to go back where he came from and she wanted him to hold her. She wanted to kick him in the shins, and she wanted to feel his mouth on hers. Katie couldn’t make sense of any of it, and she was afraid of what she might do if he stood there much longer.
She didn’t ask him why he’d done what he had done, why he’d never once contacted her after he’d driven out of town in that rusty old piece-of-junk truck—that stupid old thing Ryan had worked his ass off for just so he wouldn’t have to use his dad’s money—and never looked back. Why he’d refused to answer her that night when she’d asked him if he felt the same way she did. And...why he’d let her fall right out of his life, as though she’d never been important enough to hold on to.
The thoughts wouldn’t stop swirling around in her head, and Katie felt as if she was going to be sick. Ryan was still standing there staring at her, his face an unreadable mask, when she sucked in the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding and pulled herself together. Before she had a chance to do anything stupid—before she had a chance to make her day even worse than the epic disaster it already was—Katie did what Ryan had done all those years ago.
She slipped past him and walked away.
Footsteps crunched over the gravel behind her as Katie raced through the parking lot toward her truck, and she couldn’t help but wonder if they belonged to Ryan.
Jeez. Is that what I wanted? For him to follow me?
Once, a long time ago, it would have been a resounding yes, but now...now her world was so completely backward that she wasn’t sure.
Could this day get any worse?
“Katie,” Ryan’s voice rang out behind her.
So that was him following her. Her head and heart were in such a jumble that she didn’t know how to react, so she just kept walking, digging through her purse for her keys so she would have them ready when she got to her truck. Maybe there was still a chance that the whole day had been just one big nightmare. There was still a chance—a slim one, she knew, but she would take it—that she could wake up from this and find herself back in her normal life, where each day was wonderfully similar to the one before it and where things made sense. She wanted to go back to that life, because having Ryan Ford show up in town after eight years...that did not make sense.
“Katie, stop!” Ryan called out, his voice somehow gentle and firm at the same time, the sound pouring over her like rain, tempting the dried-up place inside her heart—the place she’d given to Ryan when she’d been just a teenager.
And dammit if she didn’t obey.
Katie halted and turned around, her pulse thumping, still reeling from the surprise of seeing him in the pub, of having him so close to her body, and from the strange mix of anger and sorrow that always welled up at his memory...and now his presence.
She’d imagined this moment before...had always envisioned herself coming face-to-face with her past love in such a way, only to meet him with poise and apathy. A single person shouldn’t be allowed to turn another into mush just by his presence, yet that was exactly what he did to her. Years of time passing, of Katie maturing into a hardworking adult and now a parent-to-be, and still the sound of his voice made her want to fall into his arms.
She took a deep breath. Just because he made her feel that way didn’t mean he had to know it.
“What in the world are you doing here, Ryan?”
There, she’d said his name. It tasted bittersweet on her tongue and felt raw coming out of her throat, but there it was. And it hadn’t killed her.