Page 6 of Choosing Happily Ever After

“No,” he insisted. “Ladies first. You were sorry to hear what?”

“About your uncle,” she finished lamely because she knew it was a ridiculous thing to say to Levi, of all people. He’d never had a good relationship with Harold Langdon. And that was putting it mildly.

“You know I’m not.” He shook his head with a humorless chuckle. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m sorry for Logan and Katie. And of course Aunt Debbie. His death was a shock to them all.”

Hope nodded. “Is that why you’re back?”

“Yes and no.” He looked as if he wanted to cross the distance between them, but thankfully held himself back. He was already too close, as far as Hope was concerned. There were way too many feelings flying around between the two of them. If he got any closer, she didn’t know whether she’d be able to handle it. Besides that, her skin still burned from where she’d touched him earlier. How was it that the man could still have such an effect on her after all these years? It wasn’t fair. Not even a little bit. “I’ve been out working on the coast,” Levi continued. “On a fishing boat.”

“A boat?” Hope didn’t even pretend to hide her shock. Not once had Levi expressed any interest in boats. He’d loved the land. The horses, ranching, growing things. Besides the fact that he’d lived on the coast in Vancouver with his mother before moving into the mountains when he was a kid, he’d never really expressed any real interest in the ocean. Except for the time when she’d told him how she’d never seen it. Never touched the salty water with her own hands. He’d talked then about how amazing it was, how vast and powerful. He’d also promised her that he’d show the ocean to her one day. That he’d take her himself. That he’d take her anywhere she wanted to go.

But that had been a long time ago. A lot had changed.

Hope swallowed back the memory. “I wouldn’t have expected that.”

Levi blushed and ducked his head a little.

Did he remember that long-ago promise, too?

Did it matter?

“It’s been good money,” he continued. “But the boat I’ve been working on is out on dry dock right now for some repairs so I thought I’d take a bit of time off instead of jumping on with a different crew. And since it’s been a few years since I’ve been back, I thought maybe I’d come check in.”

A few years?

Hope swallowed hard. Her cell phone chirped in her pocket again, but this time needing something to distract her, she reached in and pulled it out.

LEVI LANGDON!? WTF?!

She laughed out loud. She shouldn’t have been surprised that Faith would be freaking out. She scrolled down to the latest text.

Are you okay?

She typed in a quick response.

All good. I’ll call later.

It wouldn’t be enough to satisfy her sister’s nosiness, but at least it would prevent her from calling emergency services to come and check on her.

“Everything okay?” Levi watched her carefully. He nodded to the phone in her hand as she tucked it away again.

“Fine. It’s just Faith.”

“How’s Faith?” He smiled. Faith and Levi had gotten along like brother and sister. Hope hadn’t been the only one affected by Levi’s departure. Only where Hope was brokenhearted, Faith had been pissed off.Reallypissed off. She still didn’t know all the details, but there’d been a story about Faith confronting Logan, Levi’s cousin, in a rather dramatic fashion, demanding answers about where Levi had gone. The two of them had always been a bit of a firestorm, arguing just for the sake of it, but stories had circulated around town about the showdown the two of them had that particular day in the middle of the grocery store. Hope had never asked her sister exactly what had gone down, but she did know that Faith hadn’t gotten anything more out of Logan. She knew where Levi wasn’t, and that was the only thing that mattered.

“Why are you here, Levi?” Hope crossed her arms and looked him in the eye. “Really? Why are you here?”

Levi

Levi could have lied to her. Or made up something else about what had brought him out to her barn so early on a Sunday morning. Or he could have told her the truth he could hardly face himself—that he couldn’t stay away. Any of those options would have been safer than what he was about to say. But Levi wasn’t known for taking the safe option, so he said, “I came for the job.”

Her bravado wavered, but only slightly. In fact, if he hadn’t been paying very close attention to every single thing about her, he might not have noticed the way her eyes blinked a fraction of a second too long, or the way her knee buckled the tiniest bit before straightening again.

She was strong. Stronger than he remembered. Not that she’d been weak or fragile in any way, but Hope had always been the slightly softer of the twins, where Faith had a hard edge running through her.

She shook her head a little. “The what?”

“The job,” he said. “You posted on Facebook. Last night? You posted—”

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