Before she could protest or curse the negligent pet owner who’d let the animal run loose, especially after a spring rain had dumped nearly an inch of water overnight, the critter took off upstairs, its dirty feet undoubtedly tracking up the new beige carpet.
“No!” she yelled. “Don’t go up there. You come back here. Now!”
Before she could dash after the darn mutt, a man’s voice sounded behind her. “Excuse me, but did a dog just run in here?”
Mallory spun around, ready to give the dog’s owner a piece of her mind—and to tell him that he owed her the cost of cleaning the carpet—until her gaze met a familiar face.
Rick Martinez?
Her breath caught, and her jaw must have dropped clear to the floor. She wasn’t sure what surprised her more—the fact that the notorious Brighton Valley High School bad boy, a sinfully gorgeous adult version, was standing in her doorway. Or that she still had the same breath-stealing reaction to a pair of dazzling blue eyes she’d never expected to see again.
“Mallory?” he asked, clearly just as astonished to see her.
She had to close her mouth before she could respond, yet even as her lips pressed together, then parted again to allow her to speak, the words only wadded up in her throat.
She finally managed a nod.
He glanced at the broken vase, at the muddy paw prints on the floor. “Oh, no. Did Buddy do that? I’m so sorry. I’ll pay for the damages. Where did he go?”
She pointed upstairs.
Rick whistled, then called, “Buddy!”
A bark sounded, and the dog came bounding down the stairs to its master, its tongue dangling from its mouth.
When it plopped down on its haunches, its muddy tail swooshing across the hardwood floor like a dirty dust mop, Rick slipped his hand under the collar and snapped on the leash. Then he straightened and scanned the cardboard-box-filled room. “Did you just move in?”
At that, she finally found the words to go along with her nod. “Yes.”
“That’s a surprise.”
Wasn’t it, though!
She’d loved Rick once, with all her heart. But things had changed.
He’d changed.
She’d changed.
They stood there for a moment, caught up in some kind of weird time warp, where nothing made sense. The air grew thick, making it hard to breathe.
Rick seemed to gather his wits first, as he took another glance at the mess his dog had made. “I’m really sorry about this, Mallory. Buddy has the heart of a puppy and still has a lot to learn. I’m afraid he jumped the fence and was exploring the neighborhood. I’ll walk him back to my place, then I’ll come back and help you clean up.”
His place? Did that mean Rick Martinez was one of her neighbors?
If she’d known that, she never would have agreed to take this house, no matter how cute it was. In fact, she’d assumed that he’d moved away from here years ago, like the teenage drifter he’d claimed to be when she’d first met him, when he’d had to move from his uncle’s home to foster care.
Well, apparently her assumption had been wrong.
But there was no way she could accept his offer of help. No way at all.
“You don’t need to do that,” Mallory said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“I can’t leave you with the mess.”
Why couldn’t he? She’d cleaned up the mess they’d made of their young lives years ago all on her own, hadn’t she?
“So you’re back in town,” he said again, as if finding it difficult to believe. But then again, why wouldn’t he be surprised? After the first few months, she’d never expected to come back, either.
“My grandfather is having some health issues,” she said. “I need to be close to him.”
Rick nodded as if that all made sense. And while his family hadn’t been close, he should understand. Mallory’s grandparents had raised her after her parents had died. Gram was gone now, too, and Grandpa was all she had left.
Grandpa and Lucas.
Oh, no. Lucas.
Please don’t let Alice bring him home now. Not until I’ve had time to think things through, to decide what to say to who—and when.
Things were complicated. And it would be tough to explain, especially when it was sometimes hard for her to believe how it had all come to be.
“Well,” Rick said, “I’d better take Buddy home. But I meant what I said about helping you clean up. I’ll also pay for any damages the dog might have caused you. Like the broken vase and the cost of the carpet cleaning.”
“Don’t give it another thought,” Mallory said, eager to see him go, to begin the cleanup, to put her home and her life back to right again.
As Rick turned and walked his dog outside, Mallory followed him to the porch and waited until he started down the sidewalk. When he finally reached the street, she reentered the house and closed the door. Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief.
Of course, she wasn’t foolish enough to think that the relief would last very long. If Rick lived nearby, which he apparently did, eventually they’d run into each other again. And one of these days he’d undoubtedly cross paths with Lucas.
She had no idea what Rick would think, what he’d say, how he’d react when she finally told him about the amazing chain of events that had occurred since she’d left Brighton Valley—if she actually said anything to him about them at all.
She might be older and wiser, but for the second time in ten years, Mallory feared what the future would bring.
* * *
It wasn’t every day that a guy ran into the girl who’d broken his heart as a teenager, so to say that Rick had been surprised to see that Mallory Dickinson was back in Brighton Valley and living just down the street was a no-brainer.
He’d been sucker punched by the sight of her, by the shoulder-length blond hair that was just as glossy as he remembered, by the big green eyes that had grown even more expressive over the years, by the knockout shape that was far more womanly than when she’d been an innocent teenage girl and he’d been an angry, rebellious teenager on a fast track to nowhere.
Back then, he’d had a chip on his shoulder a mile wide—due in large part to all the times he’d had to change schools. He’d just transferred to Brighton Valley High at the end of his junior year, and he’d been tempted to drop out. But when he met Mallory in the high school cafeteria, he’d been slammed with a classic case of puppy love for a real-life good girl who attended church, even when it wasn’t Sunday.
The beautiful
