things never changed, Keely thought with a smile as she walked into the store. The same mismatched wooden and upholstered chairs sat around the same ragtag collection of tables in the café area. The walls were faded to the color of butter, still hung with the same antique pressed-tin signs and sepia photographs. The same wooden children’s toys, knickknacks and memorabilia still sat on the blue shelves. And Darlene still stood behind the counter, a little older, maybe, a little wider, but with the same broad smile. “Keely Stafford. I heard you were back,” she said.
“You heard right. I figured I’d come spend the holidays with my parents.”
“I bet they’ll like that,” Darlene said. “I’m sorry to hear about your troubles.”
It was a simple comment, casually uttered. How was it that it had her eyelids prickling? “Thank you,” Keely said, blinking. “It’s going to be fine.”
“I’m sure it will be. They’ll figure out soon enough you weren’t involved,” Darlene said comfortably. “You just be patient. Now, what can I get you?”
“Got anything fresh out of the oven?”
Back in the kitchen, a timer peeped. “You must be a mind reader,” Darlene said. “Give me just a minute.”
As she bustled into the kitchen, the front door jingled. Automatically, Keely glanced over to see who had come in.
It was a man, dark and unshaven, rumpled-looking in jeans and a black leather jacket. His build was rangy, his stride careless as he headed to the counter. His dark hair ran thick and undisciplined down to his collar, as though he didn’t much care about what it did. When he got closer, she saw the lighter streaks of brown on the top. Sun, maybe? It would go with the tanned skin. Who had a tan in New England in December?
It was his eyes, though, that caught her attention, an almost unnatural green, smudged now with fatigue. There was something disturbing in those eyes, that direct gaze, something that gave her a little shiver deep down.
“’Morning,” he said, coming to a stop beside her. “Can a guy get a decent cup of coffee here?”
Keely nodded. “You’ve come to the right place.” He definitely didn’t look like he belonged in Chilton. Just passing through, she was guessing. Or casing the joint. There was something about him, something unpolished and just a bit raffish that started a little buzz inside her. He reminded her of someone, an actor, maybe, with those cheekbones. That was probably why she kept finding herself sneaking looks at him.
He stared into the glass baked-goods case at the neat pyramids of croissants, scones, cherry Danish and doughnuts. “So what looks good here?”
You.
The thought came unbidden, just as he glanced up and caught her gaze on him. For a breathless instant, they looked at each other and she felt a sudden, surprising stir of heat. Her cheeks warmed. She would have known she was blushing even if she hadn’t seen the slow smile spread over his face. Fortunately, Darlene came bustling back out of the kitchen to rescue her.
“Here we go, a fresh pan of corn muffins,” she said. “I’ve also got carrot and blueberry and—” Her mouth fell open as she stared at the newcomer. “Trey? Trey Alexander? As I live and breathe. Just look at you!”
And recognition hit Keely with the force of a blow. Of course. Trey Alexander, Bradley’s older brother, the one who’d been disowned. The one Bradley always joked had been voted most likely to in high school—most likely to be arrested, that was. With his faint flavor of lawlessness, Trey had always made her uneasy when she was younger. Granted, she hadn’t seen him since she was fourteen, but still, she should have recognized him.
Darlene bustled out from behind the counter to hug Trey. “Look at you. You haven’t been eating enough,” she fussed. “Look how thin he is,” she said to Keely.
Not thin, exactly. You could see the muscle and strength at a glance. It was more that he was stripped down, as though something had worn away the inessential parts, paring him down to nothing but muscle and bone. The cleft in his chin ran deep, his face all lines and planes and angles, with the sharpness of cheekbones pressing against the skin. It was the face of a hard man who lived in a hard world. A smuggler, Bradley had said, and he looked it. Only his mouth held any softness. Maybe that was why it kept drawing her gaze. It was a mouth that could fascinate, a mouth that could make a woman forget her better judgment.
At least until one corner of that mouth tugged up into the sardonic smile she remembered so well.
She knew that smirk, oh, she knew that smirk. It was the same one he’d given her when she’d seen him at the country-club tennis courts or around town, that hint of disdain, the curve of his mouth as though he were enjoying some private joke at everyone else’s expense. Who was he to look down on her, anyway? What had he done that was so great, besides being disowned?
And now, here he was, popping up at the worst possible moment. She was already neck-deep in trouble, coping with the mess Bradley had made of her life. The last, absolutely last thing she needed was to deal with another Alexander. The last thing she needed was to deal with that smirk. Next, she’d walk out the door to run into Bradley’s mother, Olivia, and her misery would be complete.
“A coffee, two lattes and three crullers,” she said to Darlene. “To go.”
“What’s your hurry?” Lex asked, studying her.
Blond, slender, almost luminous, there was about her a bit of that smooth elegance the women in Chilton always had, the result of salon pampering, expensive cosmetics, luxurious clothing. Amazing what money could buy.
“I’ve got to get back.”
“To where?”
“Her mother’s florist shop,” Darlene broke in. “Although I guess that all happened after you left. You’re behind the times, Trey. Or I guess it’s Lex you go by now, isn’t it?”
“Lex?” the blonde repeated. “That’s new.”
“Short for Alexander,” Darlene explained. “Our Trey grew up.”
And he saw. Older than he remembered, thinner and somehow more brittle, yet more beautiful even so.
Keely Stafford, his brother’s fiancée.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.
Lex had never deluded himself that he could come into town and avoid everyone but Darlene and his mother. He’d never expected to run into Keely Stafford, though. Olivia had babbled about her leading Bradley astray. Lex wasn’t so sure of that. Bradley was quite capable of getting into trouble on his own; he didn’t need Keely to help him.
Which didn’t mean Lex hadn’t always found her irritating on general principles. She was part of the perfect plastic world he’d walked away from, one of the twin-set-wearing, country-club tennis players headed off to get their Mrs. degrees at college. He didn’t want to remember seeing her at the club when he was almost eighteen, just before he’d left home for good. She’d been maybe fourteen if she was lucky, on the court in a little white skirt, a disturbingly innocent sexuality in her coltish legs and unself-conscious strides.
She might have been a kid then, but she was all grown up now. And if she’d disturbed him then,
