Page 35 of Like A Moth To A Flame

That one day had taken all that hope away from me.

After breakfast at the diner, Barrett had taken me back to his place for a change of scenery. It was a beautiful blue Victorian farmhouse, framed with white picket fences and rolling hills. Behind it, acres and acres of farmland and pastures stretched for miles farther than the eye could see.

It’s what my dad’s old house could have been if he had worked a little harder at home and a little less at work. Just the thought had me sad.

We sat on the wooden porch swing, the chains singing as we rocked, nursing cold beers from the fridge and talking about life. For the first time in a long of years, nothing bothered me, and I wished I could reach out and hug him for that alone.

“No one? Not even a cute vet tech?” Barrett asked, and I snorted.

“I am avet,” I huffed. “It’s a female-dominated industry, and sadly, I am straight as a ruler.”

“Well,” he shrugged, looking over at me. “You never know unless you try.”

“I did, actually,” I countered, and Barrett choked on the beer he’d sipped from. “In college.”

“No shit?”

“No shit,” I agreed. “Typical college lesbian experience. Even after six tequila shots, it wasn’t for me.”

“After six tequila shots, I’m surprised you were capable of coherent thought.”

“Again, cop’s daughter,” I said, smiling over at him. “Drinking’s in my blood.”

He shook his head, swiping at the drop of beer that had slipped down his chin with the back of his knuckles.

“Funny,” he said, taking a deep drink. I stared at him with narrowed eyes. If he was about to say what I thought he was about to say, I may just smack him.

“What’s funny?” I asked.

The tone of my voice tipped him off. I could see it in the way he tried to bite back a smile.

“You stop lookin’ for a man, and now you’ve got one lookin’ for you.”

Yep. He had been thinking what I thought he was thinking.

He was thinking about my stalker.

Now, the boulder in the pit of my stomach was back.

I should have smacked him.

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “Funny how that works.”

I watched the smile fall from his face, and he looked over at me with eyes full of apologies.

“Sorry. It’s not funny, really,” he grumbled, tipping his bottle back and swallowing what was left of his beer. He tossed it over the railing into a pile that slowly accumulated over the summer with the loud clatter of glass. Sometime around fall, before the first snow, he’d gather them all up and drive them to the recycling plant.

“Who do you think it is?” he asked.

“What?”

“Your secret admirer,” he said, pulling off his hat and dropping it onto one railing post. Night had fallen, and with it, so had the heat. “Any guesses on who it might be?”

There was a smile on his face, and I couldn’t tell if it was snarky, or if I was just really tired.

I glared at him.

“Barrett William Foster, if you are about to tell me it’syouand this is all some big fucking prank, I will turn your insides into outsides.”

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