At least, he was assuming they weren’t all scraped up anymore. He hoped not, anyway. Because her skin was smooth and creamy—
He pinched the bridge of his nose, cutting off the memory. It was as unwanted as the envy he’d felt at his own brother’s happiness.
He just wanted things the way they used to be.
Easy. Comfortable and familiar as a pair of old, beloved boots.
He dropped his hand and looked at her from the corner of his eyes. “If I let you punch me in the nose, would you finally get over your mad?”
She stabbed her fork into her pie, seeming to focus fiercely on it. “We’re not five.”
“We were nine.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I remember it vividly, since you managed to break it.”
She huffed out a breath. “I never intended to break your nose,” she muttered.
“I know.” He waited a beat. “We survived that. So can’t we survive another kiss, even one—I hate to admit—as badly executed as it was?” It had been a helluva lot more than a kiss, but he didn’t figure she wanted to get into that territory any more than he did.
He was right. “It doesn’t matter. It was years ago.”
He leaned over the arm of his chair toward her. His gaze caught on the wedge of creamy skin showing between the unbuttoned edges of her shirt. And he couldn’t look away. Which was stupid, because there wasn’t anything like that between him and Tabby.
Except that one time they were both trying not to think about.
“And things haven’t been right between us since,” he said.
She slowly sucked a smear of chocolate from her thumb, taking long enough for him to get his eyes off her chest and onto her lips.
Now he was focused on her soft pink lips pursed around her thumb. How freaking stupid was that.
She finally lowered her hand, wiping it on her crumpled paper napkin. Then she rose to her feet with as much agility as she’d had when they were nine. “You’re gonna leave again before any of us can blink, so why does it even matter?”
Slipping his empty plate out of his fingers, she worked her way around the horde of people blocking the way and left the room.
“Stupid. Stupid, stupid, freaking stupid.” Tabby was still kicking herself an hour later when she got home to the triplex she’d bought the previous year.
If she’d wanted to prove that she wasn’t affected by Justin Clay, she’d failed.
Monumentally.
Running out the way she had while everyone was still congratulating Izzy and Erik over the baby?
“Stupid,” she muttered for the fiftieth time while she made her way through the apartment, flipping on lights as she went until she reached her bedroom at the back.
She tugged the tails of her white shirt free from her jeans and yanked it over her head, not bothering with the buttons. Her bra—a glorified name for the hank of lace and elastic that was all her meager bust had ever required—followed. She’d ditched her cowboy boots at the front door already; now she kicked off her jeans, pitching all of the clothing in the general direction of her closet before pulling a football jersey over her head.
“Stupid,” she said again. Just for good measure and because she evidently liked punishing herself.
In stocking feet, she went back to the living room and flipped on the television to watch the football game she’d recorded.
“He’ll be gone tomorrow,” she said to herself. “You won’t have to think about him for another six months.” The sounds of the football game followed her into her kitchen, but it didn’t drown out the cackle of laughter inside her head.
Since when had Justin’s absence ever stopped her from thinking about him?
She shoved a glass under the refrigerator’s ice dispenser, but not even that racket outdid the cackle.
Which just annoyed her all the more.
She thought she’d prepared herself for seeing him.
Every year, she thought she’d prepared herself for seeing him.
And every year, she failed.
The phone hanging on the wall next to the fridge suddenly rang, and she snatched up the receiver. “What?”
A brief hesitation, then female laughter greeted her. “Criminy, Tab. Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.”
Tabby forced her shoulders to relax. “Sam,” she greeted. “Aren’t you still on duty?” Samantha Dawson was the only female officer with the local sheriff’s department.
“Taking my supper break.”
“Too bad you have to work on a holiday.”
“Not for my bank account. Double-time pay. How was the big get-together over at the Clays’?”
Even though Tabby had gotten pretty friendly with Sam over the past few years, the other woman wasn’t privy to the history between Tabby and Justin.
Nobody was.
“It was fine.” She shook herself. “A lot of fun. Always is. Have you heard how Hayley’s day went?”
Hayley Banyon was a good friend of Sam’s. She was also a Templeton, and as such, would have had as much reason or more to be at the Clay family fete as Tabby, since she was one of the relations the Clays had recently learned about.
“I saw her, actually,” Sam said. “Needed her professional help on a family dispute call that came in. She said she was grateful for the call, if that gives you any hint.”
It did. “That’s too bad.” If there was dissension between Vivian Templeton and Squire, according to Hayley there was even more between Vivian and her own sons. One of whom was Hayley’s father. “So did you call to shoot the breeze, or what’s up?”
“Just checking whether you’re opening the diner tomorrow.”
“Yup.” She’d be there before 4:00 a.m. as usual to get the cinnamon rolls going. “Pool tournament at Colbys kicks off tomorrow and I’m figuring I’ll get overflow business from it like I did last year. Why?”
“Promised a dozen to Dave Ruiz if he covers a shift for me next week.”
“They’ll be hot and fresh by six, same as always.”
“Good enough. See you then.”
Tabby was still smiling when she hung up. The phone rang again before she had a chance to take her hand off the receiver, and she picked it up again. “Let me guess,” she said on a laugh. “Two dozen?”
“Two dozen what?”
Her nerves tightened right back up at the sound of Justin’s voice. “I thought you were somebody else. What do you want?”
“I want you to get over the damn stick you got up your—”
She hung up on him.
It took only a second before the phone rang again.
She disconnected the phone line, and it went silent.
Then she turned back to the refrigerator and poured cold tea over the ice in her glass, flicked off the light in the kitchen and went back to the living