He swore as he struggled to pull himself up onto the couch. Jack could walk on his leg, he could even run, but he still had a tough time from a prone position. The knocking banged again and the handle rattled.
Jack had a good idea who it was this early in the morning. He didn’t want anyone interfering in his business, and the best way to ensure that happened in a town like this was to act as if there was no business in which they could interfere.
“If this isn’t the zombie apocalypse or you’re not Salma Hayek,” he began as he finally pulled himself up and grabbed his gun, “you’re about to gain ten pounds of lead.”
Why had he come back? If he’d never— He cut the thought off. He’d come back because even though he was ready to die, he still had affairs to put in order. Jack was a man of his word and he’d told her he’d come back. It had been visions of her, of his promise, that had kept him alive, and while part of him hated her for that, he’d been the one stupid enough to make the promise.
“I’ve got your ten pounds and I’ll raise you another ten,” Caleb Lewis, one of Glory P.D.’s finest, said with a grin and his hand on his gun. “Saw your light on and thought I’d stop in.”
Jack had been in town for only a few days and he was glad their reunion was private. It meant more that he wasn’t just one of the rubberneckers.
“I could have left it on because I’m afraid of the dark. You might have interrupted my beauty sleep.” The words felt hollow to him, and this easy banter that had once been the hallmark of their friendship felt forced and awkward. At least for Jack. Although he did put his gun down.
Caleb snorted. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re not getting any prettier.”
“That’s because you woke me up.” Jack forced the corner of his mouth that could still hold expression to curl into a half smirk. He appreciated the other man’s frank observation. It was something Caleb would have said to him before the explosion.
Silence reigned for a moment and the air was thick with expectation. It snapped when Caleb spoke again. “You know Betsy will want to see you.”
This was the collision of past and present Jack had been waiting for—the debt he’d come back to settle.
A tidal wave of memories hit him hard and fast. Betsy. Caleb’s sister and the girl he’d left behind holding only his dog tags and a childish promise to return. The way she’d looked at him at the bus station, as if her whole world hinged on the very air he breathed. He’d have done anything to keep that adoration in her eyes. Jack had never been anyone’s everything, and after he saved her from drowning, he’d become her hero and he’d allowed her to hoist him up on a pedestal.
He’d almost knocked himself off that pedestal when he came home after BUDs. She’d been so beautiful....
“Jack?” Caleb prompted, stemming the flow of memories.
“Yeah, I know.”
“I don’t think you do. She’s still half in love with you.”
“She’ll get over it.” He looked at Caleb pointedly.
“Hey, you know her better than that. She doesn’t care what you look like. In fact, she’ll hoist your pedestal even higher when she sees the sacrifices you’ve made.”
“So what is this? Warning me off your sister? Really?” He scowled. “I’ve never taken advantage of her.” He’d come precariously close to crossing the line, but he hadn’t. Instead he’d given her his tags and a promise to return.
“You’ve never sat in the dark alone in your dress whites with your weapon in your hand, either. I won’t pretend to understand what you’re going through, but you’re as much a part of my family as she is.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“That I see you. Maybe you should see you, too.” Jack opened his mouth, but Caleb cut him off. “And that’s all I’ll say. I gotta go, man. Maybe we can catch up over a few beers later.”
He should’ve known that Caleb would see through all of his carefully constructed walls and chimera within seconds and that he’d call him on all of his bullshit.
Especially where Betsy was concerned.
The best thing to do with her was settle up, just as he’d planned to do. Then he could leave and he’d never have to think about this town, the people or the weight of a hero’s mantle that Betsy had so artfully pinned to his scarred shoulders.
BETSY LEWIS NEVER planned on staying in Glory. There was a big world out there with so much to be seen, done and most important, tasted. For one brief year, she’d escaped to the Institute of Culinary Education in New York.
If anyone were to ask her, she’d say freedom tasted like New York. Specifically, coffee and cheesecake from Junior’s before class. Sometimes, after class, too. For a city that was supposed to have horrible water, coffee didn’t taste the same anywhere else. Neither did the pizza crust, but that was another matter entirely. Her mouth watered just thinking about it. New York was freedom, success and happiness.
Paris, on the other hand, Paris tasted like Glory. A brew of bitter failure and broken dreams. She had gone there after graduation from the institute, one of the few chosen to be mentored by the famous Chef Abelard. Instead of being the jewel in her crown and the beginning of her career, it was a black stain. For her first dish, she and the other students had been told to prepare mushrooms bordelaise. They had to hunt for the mushrooms themselves, and rather than paying attention to what she was doing, she’d been too busy soaking up the countryside, the culture and Marcel to notice that she’d gathered death cap mushrooms. If not for Chef Abelard’s highly sensitive caninelike sense of smell, she might have killed someone.
After the incident, she’d told herself she never wanted to cook, she never wanted to be a chef, she was a baker. An artist who wrought beauty out of sugar and flour. Not someone who worried about brisket.
So she’d returned to Glory and the small-town life that always seemed too small. But after the incident, New York was too big.
Except for Jack McConnell. Yeah, she’d rather think about him than how she’d blown her dreams out of the water with both guns blazing. He was the only thing about Glory that was big-screen.
Jack. Even thinking his name made her insides flutter like a thousand butterfly wings. Of course, that fluttering nonsense had been cordially invited to stop when his letters stopped. The butterflies didn’t take the hint, but she hadn’t found a way to effectively serve them an eviction notice.
They were the reason she hadn’t slept. Or more accurately, Jack was the reason she hadn’t slept. The butterflies were hosting a rave at the prospect of seeing him again. Jack had come home and as of this particular moment was barely three blocks away. The knowledge they were even in the same zip code had each nerve ending on high alert. Betsy was sure her eyes were open so wide she looked like some kind of speed freak.
She’d replayed every memory over and over again until the edges seemed tattered like an old quilt, and just like that old quilt, she’d wrapped herself in those memories—especially of his kiss.
Betsy hadn’t been kissed like that since—an electric current she felt all the way through to her toes. Not that many had gotten close enough to try. Betsy didn’t trust easily. She was friendly and warm, but few were invited to her inner circle. Almost drowning as a child had been a hard lesson. When it had happened, Betsy could see the people