“They can. You’ll still have the memories. Believe me, no one knows that better than I do. But you can come to think of them as another lifetime, one that was part of your journey but has no bearing on it now.”
She let out a soft scoff. “I wish I believed that.”
“You don’t have to believe it. Not yet, anyway. Things take time, but the beauty of that is, you’re young and you have all the time in the world.”
She backed up then, settling against the wooden door. Then she met my gaze. “You seem so…together. So much more together than I could ever hope to be.”
“Together is an illusion. No one is fully together, not even Dr. Phil himself. You can bet on that.”
“That’s old news. I’ve lived my life by faking it until I make it. I don’t want to do that anymore. I can’t.”
“Fake it till you make it is bad advice,” I said. “If no one knows you’re struggling, no one will help you, and that can lead to horrible things.”
I knew that better than most, for reasons I tried not to think about.
Shit. That was a boner killer.
Maybe tonight wasn’t the night.
I brushed my lips over Riley’s in a soft kiss. “Good night, honey.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “You’re leaving?”
“Yeah. You said you’re not ready for anything more, and I respect that. I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I do understand. I’m here, at least for the next week while you’re here. If you need some help chasing away the demons, I’m pretty good at that.”
“I’m not ready, Matt. But I also don’t want to be alone tonight.”
“You came here to a tiny town where you don’t know anyone. You came here to be alone, Riley.”
She smiled shyly. “I did, but then I met you.”
This time I lifted my eyebrows.
“I’m not anywhere near ready for anything, but I can’t deny how attracted I am to you. And honestly, it’s not just because you’re gorgeous to look at. I think you’re one of the good guys, Matt, and for a while, I was wondering if good guys still existed.”
I kept my smile from splitting my face. This was serious, and I wanted to give her the respect she deserved. “Honey, good guys still exist. In fact, there are a shitload more of us than there are bad guys.”
She sighed. “Not in my world.”
“Then I think you need to find a different world.”
“Like this one?”
“Not necessarily. You don’t have to pack up and move. You just need to—”
She moved forward quickly and kissed my cheek, rendering me speechless.
“What if I want to? What if I want to pack up and move? What if I never want to go back there again?”
“Are you married?”
“Of course not! I would’ve told you if I were.”
“Any kids?”
“Again, I would’ve told you.”
“Then why can’t you pack up and move?”
“I have a…”
“Job?”
“Yeah. A job.”
“Quit. Without anyone depending on you and your paycheck except yourself, you can do whatever you want. Pack up, move, and find a new job.”
She dropped her gaze to her feet. Yeah, definitely hiding something.
I tipped her chin upward, forcing her to look into my eyes. “Look, Riley. I get it. I do. There are times when I don’t want to be alone either. And there’s nothing more I’d love than to come inside and make love to you until the sun comes up, but that won’t solve either of our problems.”
Well, it would solve one of mine—the hard-on that had returned as soon as she kissed me.
She wrinkled her forehead. “You have problems?”
Had she not just heard me say I understood? I couldn’t help it. I guffawed. “Honey, everyone has problems.”
“I know. That made me sound really self-centered and privileged, didn’t it?”
“Yeah. It did.”
“I’m sorry. That was rude.”
“It was.”
I didn’t mind, though. She’d just given me a big clue into what she was hiding from. Something really bad had happened to Riley Mansfield. Something really, really bad. And I’d also bet she wasn’t a teacher from Pittsburgh. She’d used the word privileged to describe herself, and a teacher, who was most likely underpaid and notoriously not privileged, wouldn’t have used such a word.
Who the hell was she? And what the hell had happened to her?
Walk away, Matt.
Good advice. Advice I’d taken from myself before. The last thing I needed was drama. I enjoyed my life and kept it as drama-free as possible.
Riley Mansfield? She would lead to drama. Big time.
Walk away. Do it. Walk the fuck away.
But my feet didn’t move.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“I accept your apology. Good night.” I kissed her cheek lightly.
She nodded. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
“If you want to.”
She smiled. My God, she was gorgeous.
“I definitely want to. Goodnight.”
Lucas, one of my best buddies and the late-night bartender at the Stein Saloon across the street from Trudy’s, set a beer in front of me. “Who is she?”
I took a long draught of the beer. “Who’s who?”
“The looker everyone’s talking about. The girl you took to Trudy’s tonight for dinner.”
“She rented my cabin for a week. Her name’s Riley. Riley Mansfield.”
“And you took her to dinner? Since when do you take your renters to dinner?”
I laughed. “Since they started looking like her.”
“Funny. When you get a good-looking renter, you don’t usually take her out to dinner. You usually eat in and then take her to bed.”
I couldn’t fault his observation. Frankly, I probably could be making love to Riley Mansfield at the moment. She’d made it pretty clear she didn’t want to be alone, and I knew exactly how to handle a needy woman, including one with a past. Hell, I’d done it before.
But Riley was different. I wasn’t sure Riley was even Riley. Or rather, I wasn’t sure she was Chloe. Perhaps Riley was her real name, and she’d given it to me by mistake.
“Maybe she turned me down.”
That got a good guffaw out of Lucas. “That’s great. Means there’s hope for the rest of us.”
“There’s a story there,” I said. “I just couldn’t do it, Luke.”
“There’s another first.”
I polished off my beer. “I’m out of here. See you tomorrow.”
“Bright and early!”
I nodded and left the bar. Lucas and I had agreed to repair the fence over at Molly Carson’s house. Molly was an elderly widow, and everyone in town helped take care of her.
Good hard labor was good for the head. I was looking forward to this project.
I had left my truck at my cabin after I said goodnight to Riley and walked into town for my nightcap. Now I walked home, enjoying the starry night, the half-mile to my cabin. In the distance, light shone from the windows in Riley’s cabin. Temptation coiled through me. I could walk over there. I could knock on the door just to see how she was. Under the pretense that I was concerned.