It’s Saturday night and the sound of bellowing laughter rumbling out of Mill’s Tavern makes Alabama’s head pound with the force of a thousand hammers. It’s not her shift, but she’s picked one up for another waitress, a good deed she instantly regrets. She should be at her glossy apartment in Nashville, soaking in a bubble bath, a glass of wine in her hand. But she’s not. Instead, she’s dealing with aching feet from wearing heels today during the lunch rush. She stifles a groan and shifts her purse from one shoulder to another. Her hip’s aching in that old familiar spot. Even after all these years, it still gives her trouble. Still has her remembering that night on the Ridge. The night that sent her life in another direction she never saw coming.
She’s hidden her limp well. Even while parading around onstage, no one would ever guess she had fractured her pelvis in three places. She gave the stage her everything and ignored the pain. Stiff hips, she told people if they asked. If they noticed anything at all.
She pushes open the double doors to the tavern. As usual, it’s bustling. By night, the tavern transforms into a wild honky-tonk that could rival Nashville any day of the week. The jukebox cranks out Hank Williams at deafening levels. Waitresses bark orders as they tap the drafts. On the small peanut-littered stage, a microphone glitters in the neon light. Alabama can’t help but smile whenever she sees it, knowing that she cut her teeth on that same stage.
After dropping her purse in the storage room, Alabama’s tying on her apron when Holly finds her. “Al,” she says, her brown eyes buzzy and bright. “You got a customer askin’ for you.”
She arches a brow. “Who is it?”
Holly’s mouth twitches at the corners. “Corner booth. You’ll see.”
Following her best friend into the bar, Alabama grabs a menu and scans the room. Sitting in the booth is a man with his head down, scribbling on a napkin. She frowns. If it’s another lookie-loo come to gawk, he’s got another thing coming.
When she reaches the table, she props a hand on her hip. “You need a menu or do you know what you want?”
“Wow,” the man says in a voice gravel-rough and whiskey-aged. “You must be rakin’ in the tips with an attitude like that.”
Her temper flares and her eyes narrow. “Buddy, I don’t know who the hell you think you—”
The words strangle in her throat as the man raises his face. When his eyes snap to hers, recognition hits her like a lightning bolt and Alabama finds herself staring at the roguish smile of Griff Greyson.
Her heart picks up its pump as memories, as feelings of the past slowly curl like smoke inside of her. Except for a mere passing at events or catching him on TV, she hasn’t seen Griff up close and personal for the last twelve years. Hasn’t wanted to. Not since he left her in Clover, taking her heart and her dreams with him.
Still, she can’t help her eyes tracing over his face, his body. Life on the road has aged him, but not in a bad way. In a rugged and weathered hot-as-hell way. Blond and tall, the stocky boy she knew has hardened into a wall of chiseled muscle. His face is covered in a scruffy beard. Only faintly can she make out the long scar from the left corner of his eye to the corner of his jaw. His eyes are still the same strange tawny gold color she remembers. Eyes like a lion, she used to say. A myriad of colorful tattoos wind their way around Griff’s tan forearms, his shredded biceps. Alabama takes in all the rings on his fingers—skull, fleur-de-lis, horseshoe, a bright band of turquoise. Her heart hitches in her chest as her eyes travel to his hands. Those big broad hands that used to hold her tight beneath the bleachers, in the back seat of his old Chevy, in the swing on his mama’s front porch, right before they moved in for the kill.
His grin is wicked. “Hey, Al.”
She feels a small flutter of tenderness at the resurfacing of her old nickname. Right before she stomps on those old feelings and channels them into anger.
Yeah, she’s fucking angry.
“What the hell do you want?”
His gaze lingers on her. As if he’s clocking every difference between teen Alabama and adult Alabama. “How ’bout a beer?”
“Get your own damn beer.” She flings the menu at him. The hard slap of plastic against his face has his expression darkening. “Read it. If you’re sober enough to.”
He gives his jaw a massage. “Guess I deserve that.” Crossing his arms, he sits back and appraises her. “Alabama Forester. Workin’ the night shift at Mill’s Tavern.” A suck of his lip. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
Annoyance flares through her. Griff giving her shit about her life choices when most days she reads about him waking up in a gutter in Nashville is rich.
She tosses her hair. “And I never thought I’d see Griff-fuckin’-Greyson comin’ to grace Clover with his pain-in-the-ass presence.” She props a hand on her hip, smirking when he scowls. “What are you doin’ here, Griff?”
“I want to talk to you.” But the look on his face says he’d rather be doing anything but that.
“Well, I don’t want to talk to you.”
What she wants to do is scream at him. Demand an answer for why he left Clover, why he left her before they could leave for Nashville together. People always said you don’t marry your high school sweetheart, but Alabama knew she and Griff had been different.
Or so she had thought.
“Shame.” He runs a hand through his chin-length muddy-gold hair. “And I came all this way. At least the scenery is good.”
Alabama resists following his eyes to the stage. She knows what he’s trying to do. Bait her. And though she tells herself it won’t work, tells herself she’s over it, she can’t fight the past.
She remembers it all. How Griff’s mama bought him a guitar and they taught themselves how to play. How they sang every Saturday at Griff’s place and begged the owner of the tavern to take pity on them and let them sing on Sundays after church. How the first tip they ever made was two cents tossed in a cheap guitar case by a wasted patron. And when Alabama cried out back behind the dumpsters that they’d never amount to anything, Griff took her face in his hand and kissed her like she was a melody. He told her the pennies were lucky. They each took one, and then and there, they made a vow. He’d stick around in Clover an extra year until she graduated and they’d go to Nashville. Together. They even had a name for their band: the Copper Hounds.
But all those dreams went up in dust after the accident on the Ridge. When she looks at him, the only thing she sees is all the love she had for him, and that last goodbye she didn’t get.