I put the truck in drive and started down Truitt’s driveway.
“This is it. Are you okay, Nolan?”
“I’m not sure. It’s been eight years.”
“Eight. Years.” Her voice was so soft I could barely hear her.
“We did the right thing,” I said, not even sure if I believed it anymore. “We did the right thing.” Why I said it twice was beyond me. Maybe trying to reassure her, or possibly myself.
“I don’t think any of us thought it would take her so long.” “When they said she might not ever remember, I really thought they were wrong,” I stated.
“Oh Lord. She’s going to hate us. Hate us, Nolan.”
When Truitt and Saryn’s house came into view, I felt my heart race. I was finally going to be able to look right into those baby blues again. God, how I missed her. I missed her so much I felt sick thinking about it. “I’m here, Amy. I need to go in.”
“Okay. Well, oh dear. Should Steve and I come? Or should we stay here? I…I don’t know what to do.”
“Do you feel like you need to be here?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. “No. My gut is telling me no.”
“Okay. Well, we’ve come this far on gut instinct.”
She let out a humorless laugh. “How will you do it?”
I shook my head and looked at the front door. “I don’t know.”
“Nolan, sweetheart, you’re not in this alone. We all agreed.”
I swallowed hard. “I know. That doesn’t make it any easier though.”
Linnzi
THE ENERGY IN the room suddenly changed, and I felt my entire body come to life. It was a strange sensation. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and a warm feeling in the bottom of my stomach started to grow. I was in the kitchen helping Saryn get the trays of food ready to put out and had been pretty busy since I arrived. There must have been a couple dozen people here, but I found myself diving right in to help her. Out of a sense of wanting to help or just to occupy my busy mind, I wasn’t sure. Most of the folks I didn’t even know, but there were some whom I had apparently gone to high school with—although I didn’t remember them.
Saryn had been acting odd ever since I showed up especially when Truitt saw me. He had actually choked on his drink when we made eye contact, then grabbed Saryn and hauled her off to another room. Of course, that was after he had hugged me and told me he was so happy to see me again. Truth be told, I barely remembered Truitt. High school was wrapped up in that forgotten part of my past. It was then, as my mind continued to wander, that I heard him. I froze in place. The man who stood behind me had the voice of an angel. I’d heard it before, though I don’t know when. All I knew was that his voice was assaulting my memory banks, trying to break in. Then, I realized it was the whispered voice from my dreams. That voice was the reason my senses were on high alert and goosebumps were forming all over my body.
“Saryn.”
Saryn’s eyes flew up past me, and she sucked in a breath of air. “Nolan!” she cried out as she ran around the island and threw herself into his arms.
I turned and smiled, ready to finally meet this man. His back was toward me as he spun slightly after Saryn launched herself at him.
So, this is Nolan, I mused.
Even knowing I had met him before, it still felt weird. Damn it all to hell, there was something else there. I felt it simply with his presence in the room. It was overwhelming. I’d felt this same feeling before. A few years ago.
When Saryn stepped away, she swallowed hard and her eyes flicked over Nolan’s shoulder to me. Her smile wobbled, and I tilted my head. She looked nervous.
Nolan turned, yet I was too caught up in Saryn’s odd expression to focus on him. Then, drawing my gaze away from her, my eyes landed on him. I inhaled deeply and stared.
He smiled, and my entire body felt like a jolt of lightning had traveled through me. That same feeling I’d had in Paris was back ten-fold. “It’s you,” I whispered.
“Do you…do you know who he is?” Saryn asked as she rushed over to me. “Do you remember?”
I slowly shook my head in wonder, a smile forming on my lips. “France.”
Nolan lifted a brow. “France?”
With a chuckle that seemed so out of place, I covered my mouth and laughed once more before I dropped my hand to my side. Was it really him? How could it be him? “I saw you, in Paris. It was about four years ago.”
His smile faltered, but only for a moment. One quick moment.
“He’s your mystery man?” Saryn shouted.
“Mystery man?” Nolan asked, his eyes bouncing between us in confusion.
A rush of excitement ran through me as I felt my cheeks warm. This was the man I saw at the coffee shop. The man I had followed. The man who appeared almost nightly in my dreams.
Before I could think better of it, I blurted out, “Did you send me the flowers?”
Nolan’s head jerked back so hard, I wasn’t sure how he hadn’t hurt himself. “How did you know that was me?”
Now I felt lightheaded. He’d just admitted it. He was the man in Paris. He had sent me flowers. I clearly knew him at one point in my life, that black hole I’d tried to close up for over eight years, and he made me feel utterly…I honestly couldn’t explain how I felt in this moment. Alive. Filled with longing. And something else I wasn’t sure I was ready to admit to myself.
I swayed slightly while the room felt like it tipped. “Oh my God. Wait. Hold on. Wait.”
“Sit down, Linnzi,” Saryn said as she guided me to one of the chairs at the small table set off to the side of the kitchen. I looked back over my shoulder at Nolan. He stood there with a look on his face that was a mixture between horror, excitement, and confusion.
Lord Almighty. He was even more handsome, if that were possible. The only difference between Nolan now and my mystery man from back in Paris? He had replaced the baseball cap with a black cowboy hat. And the way it made his eyes stand out left my body feeling very, very warm.
I squeezed my own eyes shut as a sudden memory came rushing forward so hard and fast, I dropped down into the seat.
“I’ve always wanted to make love to you while you wore a black cowboy hat. With you sitting in a chair.”
I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat and let myself look at him once more. We had indeed shared a past. Or was that a fantasy, another dream that I’d conjured in the lonely nights spent in Paris?
Shit. Shit. Shit. It was clearly a memory. Saryn’s words started to come back to me. She had mentioned Nolan so many times, and the hopefulness in her voice now made sense.
“You were there, waiting for me, weren’t you?” I softly asked.
Nolan came over and sat down in the chair next to me. I couldn’t seem to pull my eyes away from him. All those days I stared down at that stupid café and prayed I would see him again. I still had one of the roses he’d sent pressed into my worn-out copy of Pride and Prejudice.
He looked torn about how he wanted to answer.
My voice trembled as I barely got my next words out. “Please, don’t lie to me, about any of it.”
There must have been something in my eyes, because he smiled so sweetly and said, “Yes. I was there because I knew you were there.”