The Welcome Home Garden Club by Lori Wilde Read Free Book Online Page B

change the subject.” He didn’t want to think about Caitlyn, much less talk about her. He leaned down to kiss Moira. “I came here to see you.” He reached for the last buttons on her shirt.
    Moira held her palms up. “I won’t be taking advantage of a vulnerable man.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    Solemnly, she shook her head. “You’ve held it in too long. Who is she and what did she do to muck ya up so badly?”
    The air left his lungs like a thief in the night, sneaking out in a tiptoe swirl, leaving him sucker-punched and breathless. “Who said there’s a she?”
    Moira leveled him a knowing glance filled with feminine intuition. “What was her name?”
    He sank back on the bed again, all the energy drained from his body. “Caitlyn,” he whispered, realizing it had been years since he’d said her name out loud.
    Saying it was like scrubbing salt across a wound once thought healed, only to discover the flesh was still freshly flayed. Hell, they’d been together for only a few months. He should have forgotten all about Caitlyn. But he hadn’t.
    He’d seen terrible atrocities in battle. As a warrior, he’d done some dark things himself. But even the moment when his hand had been blown from his arm was not as clearly vivid as when the letters he’d written her, telling her how much he loved her, had all come back unopened and marked “Return to Sender.” Until he’d finally wised up and stopped sending them. That was when he realized he was on his own. That she’d washed her hands of him.
    “You loved her very much.”
    “Yeah,” he admitted. “Once.”
    “Have you tried to contact her? Reconnect?”
    “Hell, no.”
    Moira shook her head. “Stubborn man.”
    “I don’t grovel. If a woman doesn’t want to be with me, I’m not going to chase after her like a lapdog hungry for affection.” He clenched his jaw.
    “You love her still.”
    He shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
    “Maybe not,” Moira said, “but still she has a hold on ya. You’re never going to loosen that grip until you face her again.”
    He shrugged, but in his heart, he knew Moira was right.
    O ver two weeks had passed since Caitlyn’s father had promised to have the carousel delivered to her house. She’d accepted the job of designing and overseeing the victory garden. The contest entry paperwork had been filled out and sent in. Supplies and seeds had been ordered, but still no carousel.
    Like it or not, she was going to have to confront her father again, and she’d been stewing all morning over the best way to go about it.
    Caitlyn was in the back of the shop snipping stems off some roses when she heard the bell over the door tinkle. She set down the flowers, smoothed her damp hands over her smock, and stepped to the front of the building.
    Crockett Goodnight was standing there looking like he’d been kicked in the teeth. His hair was disheveled, his face was the color of cookie dough, a day’s growth of beard ringed his jaw. His shirt was untucked and wrinkled, his stare vacant.
    “Crockett?” She walked toward him. “What’s wrong?”
    The expression in his eyes broke her heart. “My . . . my dad just died.”
    “Oh,” she said, and put a supportive arm around his shoulders. He wobbled on his feet. She might have hated J. Foster Goodnight’s guts, but a death in the family was a death in the family. “Here, sit down.”
    Caitlyn took Crockett’s arm and guided him to a wrought-iron patio chair. “How are you holding up?”
    “I’m good, I’m okay.” He nodded, shoved his fingers through his disheveled hair. “I’m a mess.”
    “You can talk to me.”
    “Can I, Caitlyn? Can I really?”
    Did she truly want this intimacy with him? They’d been dancing around a flirtation for weeks, Crockett was funny and handsome and he knew how to have a good time. He was exciting to be around, but there was something about him—and not just the fact that he was J. Foster’s son and Gideon’s half