Page 13 of Secret Stalker

“Got any coffee? I sure could use some even though it’s inching toward dinnertime now,” he said.

She frowned and hurried after him. “I thought you wanted to interview me about what happened at the store? Show me some pictures or something?”

He hesitated, then pulled his phone out. A moment later, he flipped through pictures of five men, holding each one up for her.

“Recognize any of them?”

“No. Are those the gunmen?”

He didn’t answer, just put his phone back in his pocket. After opening the cabinet to the right of the sink, he took down two coffee cups, acting just as familiar and comfortable with the house as he’d been as a teenager. As if the years between had never happened.

A few minutes later he had the old-fashioned coffeemaker spitting and gurgling a thin stream of dark coffee into a carafe.

“Cream and sugar still?” He took the creamer out of the refrigerator, which Bex had topped off just this morning, and grabbed the sugar bowl from the kitchen table.

“Yes. Still.” She pulled out one of the chairs and plopped down. “I’m surprised you remember where Mom kept everything.”

His lips thinned. “I practically lived here in high school. Your mom was like a second mom to me. We kept in touch. I didn’t write her out of my life just because you wrote me out of yours.”

She sucked in a breath, old hurts washing over her. The last time she’d seen Max suddenly felt just as fresh and painful as it had the first time around—as if all the years in between had never happened. She should apologize, explain. He deserved that. But how could she?

Especially now that he was a cop.

He set the cup of creamy white coffee in front of her and a cup of strong, black coffee in front of himself before finally sitting across from her.

He rubbed his neck and let out a deep sigh, stretching his long legs out in front of him. He looked so tired, as if the weight of everything that had happened today had drained the fight right out of him.

“Why did you come back, Bex? After all these years, why come back at all? It’s not like you went to the memorial service.”

She almost choked on the coffee she’d just sipped. She forced the now tasteless liquid down her throat and shoved the cup away. She rose from her chair, fully intending to order him to leave.

“Bex. Please. I’m not trying to fight. I really want to know.” He watched her intently, waiting for her to make the decision.

She drew a deep breath then sat down again. “I had a private funeral for her in...outside Destiny.”

He nodded. “I figured. Which is kind of my point. Why come back? You didn’t have to. You could handle everything remotely. From wherever you live now.”

Silence filled the room, his unasked questions hanging between them. Where did she live? Where had she gone? Where would she go once she left again?

She considered telling him. It wasn’t exactly a big secret anymore, as it had been when she’d fled. Privacy was a fantasy these days. Finding someone was as easy as doing a search online, even if they’d changed their name—which she hadn’t done.

If Max really wanted to find her, he could. Especially as a police officer. He’d be able to track her down. And yet, all these years, he’d never once tried to find her. Had never walked up to her condo or visited her little shop, asking for answers. So she wasn’t going to give them now.

“I needed to settle her estate, go through her things, pack up the house.”

He didn’t say anything, just waited.

She glanced around the kitchen, at the fading yellow drapes hanging above the sink. The horrible red-rooster wallpaper on the wall above the stove, wallpaper that she’d hated while growing up here but that somehow seemed perfect now.

She smoothed her fingers against the faded, chipped laminate-topped table. Her mother had refused to let Bex replace it with one of the gorgeous antiques from her store. Mom had insisted she loved the cheap, worn table. But Bex knew that what her mom really loved were the memories she’d shared with Bex’s father at this worn-out table, before a tight curve on a dark road had taken him away from both of them.

“Bex?”

She forced her hands to stop rubbing circles on the fake wood. “I guess I just...needed to see...home, one last time. I wanted to go through her things, remember her, decide what to keep, what to give away.”

“Was there any other reason that you came back?” he asked, his deep voice soft, barely above a whisper.

He was giving her an opening. It shocked her to realize that, to see the longing in his eyes, bared before her. And, God help her, she wanted so much to tell him that, yes, she came back to see him, too. But that wasn’t true. No matter how much she wished it could be. Once she left this time, she knew she’d never see Max again.

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