Page 5 of Only One I Ever Wanted

He splashed his way over to me. “Sorry, my kid took the only seat, huh?” He moved the box off the counter by the back door and picked me up.

Startled, I hung onto his shoulders. The familiar scent of laundry detergent and cedar was like a memory slap. Along with afternoons at Jenny’s, getting jammed into a booth with Sully, Booker, Tina, Mercy, and Ripley to share a pizza after school.

“There we go.” He set me on the counter. His dark eyes locked with mine. Surprise heat lit his eyes for a second before it was banked. He stepped back with an easy smile. “Now let me see what’s what and you can tell me what you’re doing back in Indigo Valley.”

He walked through the wetness to the ShopVac and plugged it in. He grinned over his shoulder. “After I suck up some of this water.”

Sullivan Murdock. Of all the people to see my place on the first full day back, it had to be him.

He and Booker had been joined at the hip all through high school. We’d run around in a huge group of people, thanks to the guys being on the baseball team. And when it wasn’t baseball season, they were running track. Anything to be outdoors.

Once Booker got picked up for college ball, and Sullivan hadn’t—things had changed.

Booker had worked his ass off to go to Stanford University, and I’d been enamored enough to follow him. It turned out to be exactly what I needed in getting out of New York. When Booker had gone pro, I’d been his anchor. Even when it had started feeling like the wrong fit, I’d stayed.

I’d loved him.

Took me a few years to figure out that I just wasn’tinlove with him anymore.

The vacuum shut off, dragging me out of the past. Sully took the top of the vacuum off and hauled it out the back door to toss it in the grass. He set the canister down beside me on the half counter.

“Nora Hart.”

“Baker,” I corrected and flashed my naked ring finger. “Not that I actually took Booker’s name. Made the divorce easier paperwork-wise, anyway.”

His eyebrows shot up. “I thought you guys were...always.”

“We grew apart, I guess.” I gave him a half smile as I curled my fingers over the edge and swung my feet. “You?”

“Never pulled the trigger.” He went back to the dishwasher and opened the door. He pulled out the bottom rack of dishes and set it down on the floor. “Don’t think these actually got anything other than wet.” He went down on one knee to look inside. “Great.”

“So, you have a boy? Split custody?”

He glanced over at me. “Nope. He’s just mine.”

The fierceness of his voice made my belly flip. What was that like? To have a guy speak so clearly and vehemently forsomeone?

I wasn’t sure Booker had ever sounded so resolute about me, even when he yelled up at my window a week before college graduation and asked me to marry him.

“You’re my anchor, No. I need you.”

Always his anchor until it pulled him down too firmly.

“Nora?”

I shook off the past one more time. I needed to leave it there. “What?”

“What are you doing back in Indigo Valley?”

“Starting over. Divorced at thirty-four. My mom is so proud,” I said wryly.

“Single dad at thirty-four. My mom is actually more in love with Danny than maybe anyone on this planet.”

“Your mom was always taking on kids in the neighborhood. She took me prom dress shopping when my mom had to work.”

“She loved it. Dirty boys didn’t give her any of those kinds of mom moments.”

“She was so patient. Took me to three different shops until we found the one.” I remembered that more than shopping for my wedding dress.

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