Half an hour later they sat across from one another at a big wooden booth in one of Heartache’s best-known eating establishments. The owner, Rodney, was on the town council, and he and his wife had been running the place for as long as she could remember. There was a comfort in that, a place with some happy memories for her since her parents had taken her here a few times to celebrate birthdays in the good years before her father went to prison.
Still, it felt incredibly strange to sit across from Clayton. His guitar occupied the seat beside him in the booth, the instrument easily identifiable in the black nylon case.
She ordered a vegetable scramble and coffee while he got the “Big Buck” platter with some of everything on it. His appetite hadn’t changed. He’d always been a bottomless pit at mealtime. Familiarity felt good in the middle of so much change in him.
“I thought you were lured here by the scent of bacon?” he said when the red-headed waitress departed with their menus.
“I’m actually a vegetarian. Just because I don’t eat bacon doesn’t mean I can’t love the smell. I think it’s universally the most missed food of the vegetarian world.”
The waitress returned with two mugs and a coffee carafe, pouring them each a cup before hustling off to the next table. The place was busy with most of the tables filled and a half dozen uniformed wait staff serving the crowd. With a backwoods theme heavy on pine logs and willow branches in the decor, the restaurant hadn’t changed since the last time she’d been here, right down to Rodney and his wife holding court at a table near the kitchen with some other local old-timers including Mrs. Spencer and Harlan Brady. The two looked to be an item now, judging by the way he kissed her ringed fingers and whispered in her ear.
So sweet. Mrs. Spencer had been a widow for a long time even when Gabriella left town.
“In that case—” Clayton raised his coffee mug and clinked it to hers on the table “—cheers to your restraint.”
“Cheers.” Picking up her own cup, she saluted him briefly before taking a sip. The strong java soothed her nerves for a moment and gave her an excuse to plot a course of action with him. How much should she say over breakfast? She sure as heck couldn’t blurt out her past in the middle of Heartache’s most popular breakfast joint.
First, she’d do some fact-gathering. Get to know what he’d been up to these last years. Then maybe she could ask to see him another time. Privately.
Even thinking about it made her jittery all over again. Hot and cold. She swallowed hard and took another long swig of her coffee.
“So I just left your brother’s house.” He eased back from the table to sprawl one arm along the back of the booth. “I was staying with him to keep an eye on his fiancée after she was threatened, but it seems like Sam has nailed down where the threats were coming from.”
The mention of the threats made her struggle not to wince from the old guilt about not coming forward. But she needed to repeat the mantra from the counselor she’d seen. It wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t responsible for the actions of others.
Easier chanted than believed.
At least she wasn’t caught flat-footed by what Clay had said. Gabriella had spoken to her friend Amy Finley, who’d given her the heads-up that Clayton was in town, sparking last night’s bad dream. She hadn’t spoken to her brother much since his fiancée’s frightening ordeal with Covington, but it didn’t surprise her that Zach had hired someone to help protect the woman he loved.
“That was good of you. I haven’t called Zach yet to let him know I’m back in town. I just got in yesterday.” She had been on a speaking tour these last two weeks and had taken a last-minute engagement in Nashville prior to her trip to Heartache, putting her in town a bit earlier than she’d anticipated since she’d decided it wasn’t worth flying back home first.
And while she should have known, at least in a peripheral way, that Clayton might end up in Heartache for the Hastings’ family foster reunion, she hadn’t really expected he would show up until Amy had told her the news. For one thing, he had always looked forward to putting distance between himself and his birth father, who lived just outside Heartache. He’d made it clear he was never setting foot in this town after graduation. Besides, she’d probably only added to his reasons to dislike Heartache when she’d left without saying goodbye. Then again, maybe it was silly of her to think that her leaving town abruptly might have affected him one way or another.
“Did you come for the Covington trial?” he asked, his jacket drifting open to show off the gray tee underneath it and more muscles she didn’t remember.
The trial? Tough to chant the mantra with so many dark shadows lurking around every corner here. Her counselor had also told her if the mantra didn’t work, find a positive distraction. Lucky for her, she had one right across the booth.
If she’d just met him today for the first time, she would have never gotten up the nerve to flirt with him. He’d turned out far too handsome. She’d been a lot braver as a teen before her world fell apart.
“Yes,” she answered tightly, uncertain how much he knew about what happened to her. “I’m not sure what you’ve heard about that night I left town. But if you’ve been staying with Zach...” She let the words hang, hoping he’d fill in the blanks.
It would be strange having the whole town know her long-kept secrets. Once her testimony against Jeremy Covington was made public during the trial, the truth about her past would be common knowledge.
“Your brother told me you’d been cyber stalked and ran into trouble at the quarry with a masked man.” His jaw flexed. “Sam roughed up the guy he now knows must have been Covington and you left Heartache with Sam and your brother to prevent Sam from being brought up on charges since he’d had run-ins with the law in his past.” He summarized it neatly, his eyes steady on hers and giving her no reason to believe he knew more than he was telling.
Or that he thought badly of her for running away without telling anyone. Later in life, she’d learned some of her mother’s family thought she and Zach were highly ungrateful children for leaving their mother in “her time of need” after their father went to jail. What her mother wanted had been the last thing on her mind at the time. Gabriella had done all she could do to keep herself together. Two weeks after that attack, she’d overdosed and was lucky to be alive.
“Right.” Gabriella leaned back from the table as their food arrived, the plates still steaming as the waitress set them down on the plank table. “My brother came back to town a couple of years ago to find some closure. Since we didn’t report the guy to the cops at the time, we’d always worried what if it wasn’t an isolated incident. Turns out, it wasn’t. And now they’ve finally caught Jeremy Covington.”
“A former town council member and a prominent local business owner.” Clayton shook his head as he tossed some pepper on his eggs. “I couldn’t believe the story when I read it in the Memphis newspaper. I didn’t find out until I spoke to Zach that you’d been a victim, too.” He set the shaker down and reached across the table to cover her hand with his. “I’m so damn sorry, Gabby.”
The contact was brief, but the sympathy in his gaze lingered. And even after all this time, she welcomed that. Appreciated his words.
“Thank you.” She cleared her throat and willed away the sudden emotion. “I’ve done a lot of healing since then with the help of a good counselor, but I’ve been back here a few times and it is always a mixed blessing for me.”
“I’ve never been a fan of this town myself. But I hear you’ve got a home out on the West Coast.” He speared a forkful of pancake and focused on his food, a kindness that helped her get her emotions back under control.
She took a bite of her veggie scramble and tried not to think about all she wasn’t saying. All the ways Clayton figured into that life-changing night that sent her running in the first place.
“It’s a town home in San Jose