Page 4 of Willow Vale

“Are you sure about this because I can?—”

“Oh, absolutely. But I may have forgotten to tell you one teensy thing.” Desi laughed a little awkwardly with a slight wince. The sound of footsteps trudging down the hall to our left interrupted her before either of us could say anything else.

“Hey, Desi! Where’s the spreadsheet for last week’s sales? I can’t find anything on that damned computer. I swear you rearrange something every week,” a deep, irritated voice asked. The footsteps grew closer until he came into view, his head low as he ran a hand through the unruly strands of his chocolate-brown hair.

He was taller than I remembered him being. Dressed in a black Henley with one hand tucked in the back pocket of apair of faded black jeans. His hair was a messy shag that suited him, oddly enough. There was also an annoyed expression—that suited him110 percent—on his face, perfectly highlighting the dark scruff on his jaw.

One thing that hadn’t changed about Travis Adler: he looked both put together and yet, not at all. Somehow it worked for him.

I wasn’t a jealous person, but there was something about seeing a guy looking ten times better than me that really woke up the green one-eyed monster within me. It didn’t help that it was Travis who awoke said monster.

When he looked up, his gaze swept over me toward Desi, before doing a double take. That’s when he stopped walking. Stopped…moving.

Neither of us said a word.

In fact, I wasn’t sure we were even breathing the same air at the moment.

All we did was stare at each other, our gazes met and locked into place like a couple of magnets. One being affected by the proximity of the other. A fundamental inevitability neither could fight against.

His blue eyes were sharp, and he took me in as if he almost didn’t recognize me. “Delilah,” he rasped.

“Hey, Travis,” I managed to respond through gritted my teeth before I forced a small smile.

Travis knew I hated my name. He knew I preferred to go by Lila, but ever since we were kids, he refused to call me anything else no matter how many times I told him to stop. Hearing him say my name like that brought up memories that I really didn’t want to relive. Yet another reason why I didn’t want to come here in the first place.

A long time ago, I had told myself I was going to be immune to the memory of him—of us—every single part ofhim. But my traitorous heart started pounding in my chest the second he said my name like it still meant something to him, and I knew my attempt to erase traces of him from me had been useless in the end.

Especially when Travis crossed his arms and regarded me for a long second before finally saying, “Long time no see, darlin’.”

CHAPTER 3

Travis

There wasn’t muchthat rattled me.

It probably had something to do with my parents being the most reliable—while somehow being incredibly impulsive—people I’d ever known. My siblings weren’t all that different which made me wonder how I didn’t end up being as carefree as them. My brother Finn liked to say I was adopted. Whenever I’m unfazed by some random thing my family did, I wondered the same thing. I was convinced that the moment I’d be taken by surprise by anything, it would be when the world was coming to an end.

Seeing Delilah North standing in my bar, looking as if this was the last place on earth she wanted to be in, made me ponder if the world was in fact ending.

I polished the clean wine glasses Desi conveniently forgot about to sit on one of the stools and talk to Delilah. As if she didn’t work here.

All the while, I tried my best not to glance at the woman standing behind me. I frowned down at the glass as I worked dutifully to rid any smudges on the crystal with the rag in myhand. The moment I hung the first glass up however, movement caught my eye in the mirror in front of me, and I was once again struck stupid by her reflection.

Delilah was as stunning as I remembered. Her long curly hair was a mess, but it had always looked that way—windblown and untamed. I used to tease her about it when we were kids.

I remembered the day we met vividly. Her grandfather used to work on my family’s ranch up until I graduated from high school. He was a quiet man, he kept to himself most of the time but he was damn good at his job.

Then one day, this tiny girl started showing up on the ranch every now and then. Used to hang out around the bunkhouse while the rest of the men worked around the property. Sometimes she’d wander around, reminding me of the lost puppy my dad once found on the side of the road. Like she didn’t quite know where she fit in the vastness of the ranch I grew up loving for its freedom—land and sky stretching far and wide.

In a small town like ours, it didn’t matter that I was three years ahead of Delilah in every school we attended. Ever since the first day we met, I’d always seen her wherever I went. Visiting her grandfather on the ranch, walking around town, her being my sister’s friend, coming over to the occasional family barbecue because Amelia and Desmond Adler never turned down anyone when it came to having them sit at their dinner table. And then, before I knew it, I recognized her solely by taking one look at her wild locks falling in dark waves down her back.

If I hadn’t been so annoyed with Desi for hiding shit from me in the office, I probably would have noticed Delilah sooner. Now I couldn’t take my eyes off her no matter how hard I tried. I wish I could say she’d changed in the last fouryears since we last stood this close to each other for longer than a few minutes. I wish I could look at her and say I didn’t recognize the woman in front of me.

But I did.

There wasn’t a single thing about her that had changed.

Maybe with one exception…

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