Page 69 of Always Be Mine

“Daddy! Can I please have two scoops?” Meri called from the other side of the shop, where Kristie was dishing out her treat.

Craig took a breath and forced himself to calm down.

“One.” He held up a finger. “A small one.” He gave them both a look. “I mean it. Just a small one, and you better eat all your lunch.”

Meri groaned dramatically.

“You’re jealous,” Charli said as soon as he turned back to his sister and the clear view they had of Lucy and the man outside, who’d been joined by a woman.

“I am not.” Jealousy didn’t begin to explain what he was feeling.

“You are.” She put a spoonful of her treat in her mouth. “But I think the real question is,why?”

“There is no question at all.” He shook his head. “And I’m not jealous.”

But hewasjealous. And worried and angry at the man who would dare to hurt Lucy. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and it was unsettling. And those feelings had sat with him all day, growing and morphing into something bigger. It didn’t help that when Lucy joined them inside, Charli immediately asked her about the man.

“Who was that?”

Lucy immediately looked uncomfortable and shifted in her seat a little. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, which only confirmed what he knew. “Just somebody I knew from back home.”

Her response only fueled the strange feelings simmering inside him, but it wasn’t the time or place to push any further.

Long after Lucy and Meri left the shop to continue their day, the feeling remained. It simmered beneath the surface while he sorted through résumés and conducted phone interviews. And then later, when he got home and saw Lucy in the kitchen with Meri preparing dinner, he still couldn’t help but think about it.

He’d run about a hundred different scenarios in his head and was on the verge of making himself completely crazy.

Craig had almost talked himself into knocking on her door to see whether she’d join him for a drink when he heard the snick of the doorknob down the hall.

Craig jumped up from the couch as Lucy appeared in the living room.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” He lifted his hand awkwardly. “I thought you might be asleep already.”

She shook her head a little. She’d changed out of her jeans and sweater into a pair of leggings and an oversized T-shirt. Her hair was pulled away from her face in a messy bun and as far as Craig was concerned, she’d never looked sexier.

Oh yes. He was in trouble.

“I couldn’t sleep.” She gestured to the couch. “Can I sit for a minute?”

“Of course.” Craig grabbed the throw cushion on the far side of the couch and tossed it to the floor. He waited until she sat before he took his own seat on the far end. “I’m not really watching this…” He picked up the remote. “If there’s something else you?—”

“This is fine.”

He watched her for a moment as she stared, unblinking at the television.

“So that was him, huh?”

Her head spun around, and she stared at him, her mouth open.

“Ross,” he clarified. “The man who made you cry.”

Her shoulders sagged, and she dropped her head as she nodded. “I forgot I told you about him.”

He hadn’t.

He’d spent far too many hours thinking about the man who was stupid enough to walk away from her.

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