Hunter stared at me for a long moment. I looked down at my scone, crumbling off another piece between my fingers, worried that he might see some of how I felt in my eyes.
“Gentleman, huh?” he murmured. “Maybe too much. I stayed with Paige longer than I really wanted to just because I didn’t want to hurt her.”
I lifted a piece of scone to my mouth and chewed, considering my words carefully. “I think you can still be a gentleman and be happy, too. They’re not mutually exclusive.”
He cocked his head and grinned down at me. “How is anyone who hangs out with Lila so smart?” he teased.
I let out a laugh and studied my remaining scone. “I won’t tell her you said that.”
“Thanks. That will probably save my life. But it is true, you know.”
“I’m not so smart. Just an old soul.” That’s what Daddy always told me. It was one of the few things I remembered him saying to me. That and to look after my mother. It stuck in my mind because after Mom dropped me at Gram’s I used to wonder if my dad was looking down on me with disappointment. Did he think I’d failed him?
Suddenly aware that Hunter hadn’t responded, I snuck another glance at him. He wasn’t grinning anymore. He was simply studying me. And not in a way he had ever looked at me before. He studied me like he was really seeing me. “Yes. I can see that.”
I tried not to fidget beneath his scrutiny.
“I’m glad I ran into you,” he continued, his familiar smile sliding back in place as the pensive look melted away. “I was wondering if you wanted to ride home together for Thanksgiving next month. Unless you have other plans.”
“No.” I shook my head, heart hammering with excitement at this sudden opportunity. Last Thanksgiving he’d gone home with Paige. Truthfully, I had been debating flying home rather than making the four-hour drive. Especially considering how unreliable my car was.
“Great. It will make the ride go faster to have someone to talk to.”
“For sure,” I agreed.
“Cool.” He nodded. “I don’t think I have your number.” He slid his phone from his pocket. “What is it?”
I rattled off my number.
“Great.” He pushed a button and my phone started to ring. “Now you have mine.”
I glanced down like I could see my phone through my jacket pocket. “Great,” I echoed.
“Let’s stay in touch.” He glanced back down at the time on his phone. “Man, I’m late. I gotta go. Meeting with my tutor. Chem is kicking my ass.”
“You should have picked a different major,” I teased.
“They didn’t offer basket weaving,” he countered, his expression mock serious. Like he somehow would have chosen the slacker course if it had been available.
“As if Hunter Montgomery would be anything less than a brain surgeon.”
“I’m actually interested in reconstructive surgery. Correcting birth defects . . . that type of thing.”
Of course. He wouldn’t want to be your standard plastic surgeon. Helping people who most needed it. That was his MO. Saving puppies and rescuing the new girl from bullies. Standing, he slung his backpack over his shoulder. He waved his phone lightly in the air. “Talk soon.”
I watched him weave between tables and exit the coffee shop. He passed the window to my right and waved cheerfully at me through the glass.
Yes. We would talk soon. Before Thanksgiving. I would see him again. A couple more run-ins like this and he might start to think of me as more than a friend, more than the girl he grew up with, more than his sister’s best friend. He would see me. Finally. Maybe.
Chapter 8
Stepping inside the Campbell house was like coming home. Only no home I had ever known. Mrs. Campbell greeted me, adjusting her earrings, as her two daughters raced past her and flung themselves at me.
I grabbed hold of them with a gasp, lifting both up off the floor.
“Pepper!” they cried in unison. “We missed you!”
“Hey, guys,” I gasped. “I missed you, too!”
“You like our costumes?” They both dropped back down to model and twirl in the costumes.
“I ladybug,” Madison announced, holding out her black tulle skirt.
Sheridan hopped several times to gain my attention. “I’m a princess!”
“You guys are awesome. These are like the best costumes I’ve ever seen. I didn’t even recognize you until I heard your voices.”
They tackled me again, elbowing each other to get in a better position. For two years old, Madison held her own remarkably well against her seven-year-old sister. I staggered, wincing as I stepped on what felt like a Barbie. I glanced down. Yep.
Mrs. Campbell closed the door after me. “Thanks for coming, Pepper. They’ve been bugging me all day about when you were going to get here.”
I dropped my bag near the door under the weight of squirming girls and readjusted my hold on them. “I wouldn’t miss a chance to hang out with my favorite monkeys.”
“I’m ready. Let me just round up Michael. We’ve had a minor crisis today. The garbage disposal died on us.” She shot a narrow-eyed look at her oldest daughter. “Sheridan might have decided to put some marbles down the sink.”
Sheridan’s face went pink. I rubbed her small back comfortingly.
Shaking her head, but still smiling, Mrs. Campbell waved me after her into the house. “C’mon. I made spaghetti and I have garlic bread in the oven.”
“It smells delicious.”
“Thanks. It’s my mother’s recipe,” she called over her shoulder. “Michael would probably prefer to stay here and eat that than the five-course dinner at Chez Amelie tonight.”
Even without the rich aroma of garlic, meat, and tomatoes, the renovated farmhouse always smelled good. Like vanilla and dryer sheets.
With Madison and Sheridan clinging, their skinny little legs wrapped around me like vines, I managed to follow their mother through the living room (avoiding additional Barbies) and into the kitchen, where Mr. Campbell stood over a guy who was half buried in the open cabinet below the kitchen sink, his long, denim-clad legs sticking out into the kitchen, various tools surrounding him.
“Michael. Our reservation is in forty minutes. We need to go. Can you please let Reece off the hook?”
My stomach bottomed out. Reece?
My gaze fixed on those long legs jutting out from beneath the sink. His face was beyond my vision, but I could make out the familiar flex of his tattooed bicep and forearm as he worked. My lips tingled, remembering how his mouth had moved over mine, and it took everything in me not to reach up and touch my lips.
Mr. Campbell shot his wife a pleading look and motioned to the sink—to Reece really. “We’re almost done.”
She looked on the verge of laughter. “Really? We?” She sent me a knowing look. “We had to call in reinforcements. Michael’s an accountant. Not quite the handy man.”
“Nice.” Mr. Campbell’s face flushed. “We all heard that, honey.”
She shrugged. “Maybe you should take some of those weekend classes at Home Depot and stop calling up Reece every time something breaks.”
Mr. Campbell pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose even though they didn’t appear to have slipped.
“Michael. We’re going to be late,” she reminded him sharply.
He motioned to Reece again with a swift wave of his hand. “Ten more minutes.”
Reece’s deep, familiar voice rumbled up from under the sink. “I’m almost done here. You can go on, Mr. Campbell.”
“Thank you, Reece.” Mrs. Campbell’s voice was all relief. When her husband looked prepared to object, she cut him off. “Michael, get your coat.”
Mr. Campbell’s shoulders slumped but he nodded. He kissed both his girls and reminded them to behave. “Thanks, Reece,” he called, a certain glumness to his voice as he exited the kitchen.
Mrs. Campbell turned to me. “The girls have had their baths already. We shouldn’t be too late tonight. Just text or call if you need anything.”
I nodded, knowing the drill by now. “We’ll be fine.”
“Thanks, Pepper.”
At the pronouncement of my name, my gaze flew to the sink—to the guy under it—registering the way he froze. I swallowed. How many girls could be named Pepper, after all? He knew I had watched the Campbells’ kids before. It only made sense that it would be me here. Pepper from the bar. The girl he kissed. The girl who less than smoothly gave him her number. Not that he had called or texted me. A knot formed in the pit of my stomach and I quickly decided this was going to be uncomfortable.
Awareness crackled in the air. He knew I was here. He knew I knew he was here. And the last time I’d seen him he had kissed me. He slid partway out from beneath the sink and propped himself on one elbow. His gaze locked on mine. My chest tightened as we stared at each other. His well-worn T-shirt hugged his chest, leaving little to the imagination. Under that shirt his body was firm, muscled. Stroke-worthy.
“Hey.”
I snapped my gaze back to his face and found my voice. “Hi,” I returned, the sound small and breathy.
Madison started bouncing her weight against me. I staggered, squaring my feet on the floor to keep my balance. “We hungy, Pepper!”
“Okay.” Grateful for the distraction, I untangled myself from the girls and ushered them out of the kitchen, leading them into the hall bathroom to wash up for dinner.
When we returned several minutes later, Reece had picked up the tools from the kitchen floor and was washing up at the sink.
He glanced at me. “You can use this sink now.”
I nodded as I helped Madison up into her booster seat, my thoughts churning feverishly, trying to come up with something to say that didn’t reflect the hot mess I was inside.
“Are you gonna eat with us, Reece?” Sheridan asked.
My gaze shot to his as I clicked Madison’s buckle into place.
“We eatin’ noodles,” Madison declared, slapping her chubby little hands on the top of the table as I dragged her chair closer.
“With meatballs,” Sheridan added. “Momma makes the best meatballs.”
“The best, huh?” Reece looked at her, considering her thoughtfully, like what she was saying really mattered. Not like other adults, who just looked through kids without really seeing them. Or talked down to them like they were some sort of sub-level human. “What are we talking about here?” He dried his hands with a dish towel and leaned a hip against the counter. “How big are these meatballs?”
Sheridan bit her lip, thinking, and then formed a circle with her hand about the size of a softball. “’Bout like that.”
I grinned at the slight exaggeration.
“Oh, man. Really? That’s the perfect size.”
Sheridan nodded, clearly happy to have Reece agree with her judgment.
His gaze slid to me.
“Would you like to stay?” Really. What else was I supposed to say at that point?
“Sure.”
The girls cheered, and I quickly moved toward the stove and the waiting bowls beside the pots of noodles and sauce. I grabbed a fourth bowl from inside the cabinet.
Turning, I jumped with a small yelp to find Reece directly behind me. The girls giggled uproariously, Madison snorting through her nose.
He held up his hands, palms face out. “Sorry. Just seeing if I could help.”
I nodded, hating the way my face burned. “Yeah. Thanks. Um. Could you pour drinks? There’s milk in the fridge.”
He opened a cabinet—the right one; clearly he had spent some time here—and selected four cups. I smiled, noticing that he picked two princess cups with sliding lids for the girls.
He poured milk as I dished noodles into each bowl. From the corner of my eye, I watched as he set the glasses on the table. Without being told, he opened the oven and removed the heavenly smelling garlic bread from inside.