Page 74 of Fallen Hearts

My head whipped around to the entranceway. “Pia,” I said, stupidly. I could execute a perfect ambush, but one look at Pia and I was grasping for words like a raw recruit.

“Mason,” she said back as I belatedly realized her arms were full of bags.

“Let me grab those,” I said to Beck. “Be right back.”

“No problem. I’ll just be here working if you want to join me.”

Pia stifled a smile.

“Thanks,” she said as I grabbed her bags and brought them to the kitchen. I began to put the things away. “I’d help, but I don’t know where anything goes.”

“I got it. Thanks for grabbing these. I ended up having to go into town anyway but figured you’d gone already. I should have texted you.”

When Pia didn’t say anything, I shoved chicken into the fridge, closed it, and glanced back at her. She had an odd expression on her face.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing,” she said, her voice unnaturally high. Something was up.

“No?”

“Nope. It’s just… I did see you in town.”

I grabbed the box of angel hair pasta and put it away. “You did? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You were…”

I couldn’t read her expression, but something was off. I stopped putting away the groceries.

“I was?”

“With someone.”

It took me a second to figure out what she meant. Beck’s aunt. She was his mother’s youngest sister and had Beck’s good looks. I tried not to smile. Pia was jealous. For some reason, that was hot to me.

Sidling up to her, amazed we were in a place that I could now touch her as I’d wanted to do from almost the moment we met, I reached around to the back of her neck.

“That was Beck’s aunt.” To drive the point home, I brought her face to mine and kissed her, hard. When her mouth opened for me, I immediately captured her tongue, promising her, without words, tonight would be more than dinner and a talk.

As quickly as the kiss began, it ended.

That felt like a good place to leave it.

“Dinner’s at six.”

I was certain Beck’s strange look when I left the kitchen and re-joined him was because of the way I grinned from ear to ear as if I were him, or Parker.

Just a few more hours, and I’d be with her again. Why did that suddenly feel like forever?

25

PIA

I’d originally planned on heading down right from work, but by four o’clock I was getting restless. So instead, I packed up my things and left. There was no sign of Mason, or Beck, but the reception room looked amazing. I couldn’t wait to see all of the renovations when they were completed.

If I was still at Heritage Hill.

After taking a shower and changing into jeans and a cream sweater, something occurred to me. Before heading out, I grabbed my phone and texted Mason.

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