Devlin could make it. Just a few more steps and he would be out of the diner and into his van parked close to the rear of the building. He pushed open the door with his free hand, the other clutched his food in a crushing grip. The bell tinkled, and the bite of the late winter air bit sharply into his bones.
A knot tightened and grew into a painful lump inside his chest, then it exploded, and his heart damn near ripped out from his chest. Ava Kane. Forcing himself to keep walking without once looking back, without running inside to her, took super human strength. His hands trembled and his throat tightened. If he didn’t know better he would think he was about to damn well cry. A rough humorless laugh spilled unbidden from Devlin’s lips. He was a fucking pansy, tearing up over a girl who didn’t give a shit about him. He’d dreaded seeing Ava again, seeing her happy and contented with another guy while he was a fucking mess inside, broken into tiny pieces over her.
Why the hell had he chosen to return to Benton, (population nine hundred and twenty four in last year’s census), where his family was considered trash, an unwanted stain on their fair town? And why the hell had he come into town knowing there was a real possibility of seeing her again? Because he was an idiotic glutton for punishment. Fishing into his pockets he dug for his keys and opened the door to his van. After carefully arranging his food on the passenger seat to his right, he allowed his head to drop back against the headrest. Ava Kane. From the moment he’d seen her in the diner, she’d gotten him hard, so fast, it’d almost taken his breath and driven him to his knees.
Little about her had changed at all. Same tousled strawberry-blond hair, exquisite, delicate heart-shaped face, and the most soulful, light blue eyes he had ever stared into. She was still as beautiful as ever, even more so. She had cropped her shoulder length hair close to her scalp, and damn if it didn’t make her look pixie like, but even more sensual and just as heart achingly sweet. He wanted a taste, a bite. He wanted more than just a kiss; he wanted her every which way he could. His cock throbbed and he growled in disbelief at his weakness.
Scrubbing a hand over his face did not stop the memories flooding in, stirring feelings up in his heart that he had tried so hard to drive away. Despite everything he had missed her. Just then, he wanted more than anything to walk up to Ava, wrap an arm around her hips, and just hold her. What the hell was he thinking? He’d returned to Benton for one reason only, and that was because his brother, Matthias, was being released from Aberdeen Penitentiary in five weeks’ time, and the pain of being so close to his former lover or the ugly memories Benton cursed him with, wouldn’t prevent him from being there for his brother.
His cell phone buzzed and he fished it from his pocket. It was a call from the Penitentiary.
“Matt,” he answered pleasure riding above the bitter memories. They spoke at least once per week, and he was always grateful to hear from his brother. It helped just to know that at least for now, Matt was still alive and alright. It was one of the roughest jails in the state and his brother had been incarcerated for the past ten years. It had never been guaranteed that he would not meet with some fatal accident while he was doing his time. “How are you doing?”
A chuckle filled the line. “As good as can be expected. Hey man, you back in Benton?”
“Yeah,” he said grinning, although his heart still ached again for Ava’s loss. “The ranch is ready and waiting for you.”
A throat was cleared. “Have you seen her?”
A fist tightened across Devlin’s heart. Willow Sinclair, a blue eyed, black haired beauty, his brother’s own torment. “Yeah, she is doing good,” he said gruffly. “She graduated from Penn State last week, with honors. She back home in Benton for good.”
“I’m glad,” Matt said.
“I heard that she visited you again…and you turned her away…again.”
His brother went silent and Devlin clenched his jaws together tight. It made no sense for him to even give his big brother, older by three years, hell at this moment. Matt had always loved Willow. He had discovered her filthy uncle had been hurting instead of protecting her. And Matt had been swift and brutal in concluding his vengeance. Though he had only been sixteen at the time, he had always been a scrapper, hard headed, and determined. He had sliced the man’s balls opened and done enough damage there, that her uncle wouldn’t ever think about defiling Willow again. At his sentence hearing, when the court had waited for Matt to show remorse, he’d only expressed satisfaction of maiming Jack Sinclair.
“Are you going to see her when you’re out?”
“She deserves better.”
“Matt—”
“I just wanted to know she was doing good. I’ll see you in a couple weeks, bro. Love you man.”
“Love you too, bro.”
A click signaled Matt had ended the call. Throwing his phone on the next seat, Devlin tugged on his seatbelt. “Forget Ava, you damn stupid fool,” he muttered as he stuck the keys into the ignition and allowed his van to purr to life. Pushing all thoughts of her sweetness and betrayal from his mind, he headed home, wishing his damn heart wasn’t still playing maracas in his chest, wishing his mind would stop reliving their times together.
Chapter Two
Lightning cut across the sky and thunder rumbled, jarring Ava’s already shaky nerves. The Calhoun place loomed dark and empty, making her wonder about whether the old ranch house was occupied, like she’d heard. The Mouton’s ranch had been empty for years, and then it had finally been sold four months ago. The town folks had been eager to know who had bought the place, and who had hired local talent to breathe new life into the ranch.
The owner had remained anonymous until a few weeks ago, when word had filtered through the tiny town that a Calhoun now owned the ranch and its surrounding land. Then the name had not jarred anything inside of Ava. She had vaguely recalled Devlin had sit behind her in Biology and third period English in high school, the oldest Calhoun was in prison, and the youngest had joined the marines. She had been thoroughly fascinated by the townsfolks’ rabid curiosity and whisperings about the Calhouns. Her neighbours’ behaviour had intrigued her, but when she had asked her mom, Ava had only gotten a thin lipped reply that it was of no consequence. Of course that had not prevented her from hearing the speculations that it might have been dubious dealings and not honest work which had allowed one of the Calhoun to afford the Moulton two hundred and fifty acre ranch property.
The sprawling ranch house came into sharper view. The rooftop was still laden with snow, the sidewalks had been cleared, but snowdrifts still clung around the road edges and covered the fields and woods in the distance. It
was a picturesque panorama but it was not the beauty of the scene around her that Ava was seeing. Her brain was playing back scenes which all starred Devlin Calhoun. She shivered in her down padded parka, mentally shook herself and forced her mind to concentrate on driving. She was almost at the ranch. Ava tapped gently on the gas, moving the four-wheel-drive van forward, careful of the thin sheet of ice which had formed on the rutted driveway.
Devlin had seen her a few days ago in town making an ass of herself, as she had gawked at him, and he had done nothing. So why was she trekking to his remote home, at after midnight on such a bad night? It was such a terrible idea, even if it was not late at night and lousy weather. But the hazy visions wouldn’t stop, the churning in her gut and the crazy sense of knowing which would not go away, they were driving her insane. Knowing that he was part of her life, or at least had been a part of the life she still could not fully remember. The emotions roused from mere memories absolutely terrified her. She had not been able to sleep properly since she had seen him in the diner. Ava had never imagined she could feel so intensely about anyone. She had let the questions bubble inside of her for three days and endless nights. Driven by a terrible restlessness, she’d made the decision to head out to his place, praying the cold, closed look she had seen on his face in the diner, didn’t mean the distaste she thought it did. Hopefully, she would finally get some closure in her life, on those missing twelve months her doctor told her she would never be able to regain.
She’d lied when Dr. Thompson had questioned her about what happened at the diner. She hadn’t had an “episode” in over eight months and he was—as expected—concerned. But those memories of Devlin, she could not have shared. For a wild moment she had even wondered, if they were simply a raw fantasy from seeing someone so wonderfully masculine and handsome. But the guilt in her mother’s expressions had put Ava on the alert.
Ava had asked both of her parents about him once she was back at home from the doctor’s, but they had remained tight-lipped. And strangely, they’d seemed angry as well as guilty. Even Patrick, the man she had been casually dating for the past few months, had been furious when she had asked him about Devlin. Benton was a small town, and Patrick had already gotten numerous calls from his friends to say that his girl had lost some of her marbles, when she’d spotted the middle Calhoun boy. She had wanted to rail at Patrick. Not just because she wasn’t his girl—not like that. But also because he’d had seemed more concerned, about what the townsfolk thought about her reaction, than about why she’d had a reaction in the first place. As if she could control her response to that strong a memory. If her parents thought that hiding the truth from her would make the memories go away, then they were wrong.
For the hundredth time she wondered if she was doing the right thing in dating Patrick. Ava knew she didn’t love him. They’d been friends as long as she could remember, but it was only at her parents’ insistence that she’d gone out with him in the first place—possibly because he was safe, a comforting anchor in her uncertain world. But six months later, they still hadn’t moved beyond lukewarm kissing. It obviously frustrated him, but she just wasn’t ready to move to a deeper level of intimacy.
She was broken.