of the federal tactical team. Were they trying to talk him into leaving Possum Landing to join them? Kari shook her head. She might have been gone for eight years, but some things never changed. Gage Reynolds would no more leave Possum Landing than NASA would send Ida Mae up in the next space shuttle.
She watched as Gage spoke and the other men laughed. Time had honed him into a hard man, she thought. Hard in a good way—with thick muscles and a steady set to his face. Despite the fact that she’d been there when it happened, she couldn’t believe that he’d actually walked into a bank robbery. On purpose! He’d been calm and cool and he’d about made her crazy.
The detective strolled back into the office. “Ms. Asbury, if you’ll wait by the front desk, the deputy will be with you in a couple of minutes.”
She smiled her thanks and followed him out to the waiting area. Ida Mae sat there, her hands folded primly on her lap. When she saw Kari, her wrinkled face broke out into a welcoming smile.
“Kari.”
The older woman rose and held out her arms. Kari moved forward and accepted the hug. Everything about it was familiar—Ida Mae’s bony arms, her beehive hairdo with not a hair out of place, the scent of the gardenia perfume she always wore.
“You’re looking fine, child,” Ida Mae said as she released Kari and sank back onto the bench.
Kari settled next to her. “You haven’t changed a bit,” she said, then patted her hand. “Are you all right?”
Ida Mae touched her chest. “I thought I was gonna have a heart attack right there in the middle of the bank. I couldn’t believe my own eyes when those boys pulled guns on us. Then you walked in and it was like seeing a ghost. And then Gage strolled in. Wasn’t he brave?”
“Absolutely,” Kari agreed. She wasn’t sure she could have knowingly walked in on a bank robbery, regardless of who was at risk. But Gage had always believed in doing what was right.
Ida Mae gave her a knowing look. “He’s still a handsome devil, too, don’t you think? Is he taller than when you left?”
Kari wanted to roll her eyes, but figured she was getting a little old for that particular response. Fortunately, Ida Mae was on a tear and didn’t require an answer.
“No one knew you were coming back,” the older woman said. “Of course, we knew you’d have to eventually, what with you still owning your grandma’s house and all. I can tell you, tongues wagged when you left town all those years ago. Poor Gage. You about broke his heart. Of course, you were young and you had to follow your dreams. It’s just too bad that your dreams didn’t include him.”
Kari didn’t know what to say. Her heart had been broken, too, but she didn’t want to get into that. The past was the past. At least, that’s what she told herself, even though she didn’t actually believe it.
Ida Mae smiled. “It’s good that you’re back.”
Kari sighed softly. “Ida Mae, I’m not back. I’m just here for the summer.” Then she was going to shake the dust from this small town off her shoes and never look back.
“Uh-huh.” Ida Mae didn’t look convinced.
Fortunately the deputy arrived just then. Kari asked Ida Mae if she needed a ride home, as well.
“No, no. My Nelson is probably waiting out front for me. I called him just before you walked out.”
Led by the deputy, they headed out the front door and down the three steps to the sidewalk. By the time she saw that Nelson was indeed waiting for his wife, Kari had broken out into a sweat and was having trouble breathing in the heat.
“Little Kari Asbury,” Nelson said as he approached. He grinned at her as he mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. “You’re all grown up.”
Kari smiled.
“Didn’t she turn out pretty?” Ida Mae said fondly. “But then, you were always a lovely girl. You should have entered the Miss Texas pageant. You could have gone far with a title like that.”
Kari smiled weakly. “It was very nice to see you both,” she said politely, then headed toward the squad car that the deputy had pulled around.
“Gage has had a couple of close calls,” Nelson called after her, “but no one’s gotten him down the aisle.”
Kari waved by way of response. She wasn’t going to touch that particular topic.
“Good to have you back,” Nelson yelled louder.
This one Kari couldn’t resist. She turned toward the older man and shook her head. “I’m not back.”
Nelson only waved.
“Just perfect,” she muttered as she climbed into the car with the deputy. He’d told her his name, but she’d already forgotten it. Probably because he looked so impossibly young. She was only twenty-six, but next to this guy she felt ancient.
She gave him her address and leaned back against the seat, breathing in the air-conditioned coolness. There were a thousand and one details to occupy her mind, yet instead of dealing with them, she found herself remembering the first time she’d met Gage. She’d been all of seventeen and he’d been twenty-three. At the time, he’d seemed so much older and more mature.
“I know this is a crazy question,” she said, glancing at the young man next to her. “But how old are you?”
He was blond, with blue eyes and pale cheeks. He gave her a startled glance. “Twenty-three.”
“Oh.”
The same age Gage had been eight years ago. That didn’t seem possible. If Gage had been as young as this guy, Kari shouldn’t have had any trouble standing up to him. Why had she found it so incredibly difficult to share her feelings while they’d been dating? Why had the thought of telling him the truth terrified her?
There wasn’t an easy answer to the question, and before she could come up with a hard one, they arrived at her house.
Kari thanked the deputy and stepped out into the late afternoon. In front of her stood the old house where she’d grown up. It had been built in the forties, and had a wide porch and gabled windows. Different colored versions of the same house sat all along the street, including the home next door. She glanced at it, wondering when she would have her next run-in with her neighbor. As if returning to Possum Landing for the summer wasn’t complicated enough, Gage Reynolds now lived next door.
Kari walked inside her grandmother’s house and stood in the main parlor. Never a living room, she thought with a smile. It was a parlor, where people “set” when it wasn’t nice enough to settle on the front porch. She remembered countless hours spent listening to her grandmother’s friends talking about everything from who was pregnant to who was cheating on whom.
She’d arrived after dark last night. She hadn’t turned on many lights after she’d come in, and somehow she’d convinced herself that the house was different. Only now, she saw it wasn’t.
The old sofas were the same, as was the horsehair chair her grandmother had inherited from her grandmother. Kari had always hated that piece—it was both slick and
