Stay With Me by Sharla Lovelace Read Free Book Online

eyebrows moved upward. “You think we just carve up cows?” he said, his voice smooth as his eyes bored into me, drilling holes in my defenses.

    “Pigs, too?”

    Ian smiled. “I’ll have to give you a little lesson sometime in what we do back here,” he said. “Give you a tour.”

    “Oh, I’ve had the tour,” I said, letting that memory fill me as my tongue tasted the sourness. Soak it in. Remember that anger, that pain, that— “I don’t need to revisit that.”

    To my surprise, the arrogance left his expression. His eyes went soft, and he blinked away.

    “So, how’s the girl?” he said, changing tack and frowning slightly, methodically putting our tacos together like he did this every day.

    “A woman,” I said, making him look up. “Abby’s twenty-one now.”

    A flicker of something shot through his expression. “Holy shit,” Ian muttered. “She was—”

    “Ten,” I finished for him. “Time flies.”

    His hands stopped, and his gaze fixed on mine. “So it does.”

    The playful, arrogant ass I knew was gone in that instant, looking at me with something much more substantial. It made my heart hurt.

    Lily came back to the counter with Mrs. Sullivan’s steaks and I felt her eyes on me.

    “I’ve got their drinks, Ian,” she said, bringing his attention to her, breaking the eye contact and releasing me from hell. “Are you done with that?” she said, gesturing at the tacos.

    “Yeah,” he said, wrapping them up quickly. Handing them to me, he darted a glance toward Duncan again before landing back on me.

    “Thanks,” I said, trying to mask the jolt that shot up my arm when our fingers touched. Shit-damn-hell.

    He inhaled slowly. I wondered if that was his version.

    “Good to see you, Savi.”

Chapter Five

     

     

    Good to see you, Savi.

    Five chaste and harmless little words that when replayed again and again on long loop with the voice and the eyes pretty much rendered me the world’s worst date.

    I managed to knock over my coffee—all over both of us. I picked apart and mangled my taco so that not only was I not eating it, raccoons would have turned their noses up at it as well. And I spaced out so many times, Duncan gave up on repeating himself, simply smiling and saying it wasn’t important.

    He was a friggin’ prince and I was being a moronic troll. Here I was, finally sitting across a table from the guy of my dreams, and all I could do was obsess over the man behind me (because, yes, I’d insisted on the chair facing away from the counter). The man that cheated on me, ripped my heart out, and left the state, not even returning when his father died. I should despise him. So why on earth did I feel as if I were being tugged backward through my spine at that moment by some invisible magnet?

    I didn’t need to see him. I could hear all the conversations.

    Ian McMasters, why, I never expected to see you behind your dad’s counter again.

    Oh, my goodness, Ian, you look fantastic (giggle, giggle). Where have you been?

    Boy? That you? The prodigal son has returned, huh? Thought you fell off the face of the earth. Guess I need to get a security system.

    What, Key West wasn’t nice enough for you? You felt the need to come back to the armpit of Texas?

    Every greeting, every question, Ian responded with a laugh, a handshake, a “yes, ma’am” or a “no, sir.” He asked after people’s families, jobs, health, and kids he’d grown up with. We’d grown up with. I felt the eyes on me as those people would leave and do a double take. I could just imagine the conversations once they made it out the door. Do you remember those two? I heard they once broke into the mayor’s house to have sex on his pool table. Yeah, I heard he stole a bunch of money and skipped town.

    I’d heard it all, too. And every time I heard his voice, little fires traveled my spine.

    “Everything good?” Lily said, startling me with her sudden appearance at my side.

    I looked at