Page 25 of Holding On To Good

“Let go!” the boy shouted, twisting and thrashing in Urban’s grip. “Help! Stranger danger!”

Urban released him and slowly stepped back. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The kid eyed him warily, his arms straight at his sides, hands fisted. Then he tipped his head back and yelled, “Help!” again.

“Josh! Oh, my God!” The woman who’d screamed reached them and pulled the kid into a fierce hug. “Are you all right?”

A surge of recognition blew through him, had the nape of his neck prickling, and he stepped back, rubbing a hand over his chest, where it felt like he’d just been jabbed with the end of a two-by-four.

Miranda Watterson was back in town.

She looked the same. So much the same that it was easy to forget it’d been well over a decade since he’d last seen her. Her hair still fell to the middle of her back in honey-blond waves. Eyebrows two shades darker framed eyes the color of smoke. The white sundress she wore cinched at the waist, showing off her hourglass figure, the skirt ending mid-thigh giving him a view of her toned, tanned legs. She’d acquired a few wrinkles, the faintest of lines around her eyes, but they only added to her appeal. Softened her beauty, making her seem more approachable. But not any less perfect.

He waited for some feeling to overcome him. Longing. Lust. Loss.

There was nothing.

Almost nothing. There was appreciation, as she was a beautiful woman and he was a healthy man with eyes in his head and blood in his veins. There was nostalgia for what they’d had all those years ago. What they’d been to each other.

But that was a long time ago and he’d learned it best not to live in the past.

Had learned not to fight what he couldn’t control.

Something tugged at the back of his T-shirt and he turned. Looked down.

“Hi. I’m Alayna Jane Schuster,” the little girl said, staring up at him with the same big gray eyes as her mother, her dark hair a fluffy cloud of curls around her face. “I’m four.” As if to prove it, she held up the fingers of her left hand. “What’s your name?”

“Urban,” he said, and from the corner of his eye, he saw Miranda stiffen.

Guess she hadn’t recognized him—thanks, he was sure, to his beard. That and the fact that they hadn’t come face-to-face with each other since they were twenty. Had somehow managed to avoid this exact situation the few times she’d returned home over the past twelve and a half years.

“Urban,” Alayna Jane Schuster repeated in her sweet voice, her brow puckering. “That’s a funny name.”

“Alayna,” Miranda admonished, a layer of resignation under her sharp tone as she stood. “That’s not polite. Apologize this instant.”

The little girl sighed, obviously having been reprimanded for the greatest sin of all—rudeness—many times before.

“Yes, Mama.” She looked up at him, her expression one of contrition and sincerity. But there was a spark of rebellion in her eyes. “I’m sorry your mama gave you such a funny name.”

He couldn’t help it. He laughed.

Miranda stepped forward, bringing the boy—Josh—with her, her hand on his shoulder. Either to steady herself after his close call or to keep him from taking off again.

“That’s not what I meant,” she told Alayna. “And you know it.”

But Alayna wasn’t easily cowed. She blinked up at her mother, as innocent as an angel in a froufrou pink skirt and a shirt with a sparkly unicorn on it. “It’s not?”

“No. And if you want to stay up and watch the movie with us, you’ll apologize properly.”

“It’s okay,” he said when Alayna’s face fell. “It is a funny name.”

“See?” Alayna asked her mom. “I told you.”

Miranda’s mouth tightened, but then she shook her head and turned to the boy who was glaring up at Urban from under the brim of his hat. “Josh, tell Mr. Jennings thank you.”

“What for?” Josh asked, surly, rebellious, and resentful. Took after his father that way.

“For stopping you from getting hit by a car.”

---