was smiling, but it wasn’t her usual quirk of amusement; there was something thin and worn about it. She turned her head and the wind teased her hair into a flag of bronze and brown ribbons, shot through with whispers of silver. If she were a painting, she’d be titled something artsy like Wistful or Wanting.
“If your mind’s anchored,” he said slowly, “then something must be weighing you down.”
Just like that, her faraway gaze was sharp as a scope and locked on him. For a second, she looked breathtakingly unhappy, so painfully vulnerable that it shook him to his bones. Then she blinked, flashed a one-sided smile, and the moment passed.
Maybe everyone on earth was hiding something massive inside them. He had the anger he didn’t want and could rarely release. And Rae, apparently, had sadness. So much fucking sadness.
He’d never noticed before now.
Clearly, she hadn’t wanted him to, and still didn’t. She avoided his gaze as she said, “I’m just nervous about something. Work stuff. It doesn’t matter. I’m taking up your break, aren’t I?”
He wanted to say no, but that would be a lie, so he said nothing at all.
She gave him a wry smile. “Go on. Duke and I need to get home.”
But I don’t want you to go. Not until I figure out how to make you smile for real.
“If you ever want to talk about the… work stuff,” he said carefully, “you should call me.”
She rolled her eyes, all light-hearted amusement. “I’m sure. Let’s pour some wine and have a DIY therapy session.”
“Rae.”
But she was already walking away, Duke trotting loyally beside her. Opportunity gone, then. For now.
“Wait,” he called. “Just—will I see you tonight?”
She paused, shooting a look over her shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You should come.” To the pub, he meant, for their group’s unofficial Friday night drink. “When you don’t, I’m surrounded by couples.”
“Poor baby,” she snorted, and left.
Rae had heard on the small-town grapevine that once upon a time, not so long ago, Zach Davis had been… well. Sexually prolific. She’d never seen him in action as the town sex god—apparently, he was now retired—but she’d bet he’d been fucking magnificent. He could certainly seduce her with the crook of a finger. She’d pay good money just to run her tongue over the fine map of raised veins on his thick forearms.
Then again, Rae was horribly sex-deprived, so perhaps that didn’t mean much.
By the time she and Duke got home, she was still overheated by the memory of the man’s smile. Zach Davis, barely clothed, was an atomic weapon. He looked like something out of a book: twelve years younger than her and ten times hotter, all broad shoulders and rough hands and subtle, effortless flirtation. Since he was practically a fictional character, he was safe to salivate over. The lust she felt towards him barely counted: they were friends, and he was the epitome of delicious impossibility.
He was also a complete sweetheart.
Thank God she hadn’t buckled under the force of his quiet concern back there and spilled her guts. What would she have said—that her debut novel had been nominated for a prestigious award, and it was making her miserable? That she’d agreed to sign copies at an amazing fantasy convention, and the thought filled her with dread? That she was so anxious she couldn’t write a word, all because she was about to spend a weekend working and sleeping in the same hotel as her ex-husband?
“No, no, no,” she murmured to Duke, leading him into the kitchen. “Because that would be pathetic. And Ravenswood Rae is not pathetic.”
But that was the problem: at the Burning Quill convention, with Kevin and his new wife swanning about, she wouldn’t be Ravenswood Rae. She’d be Kevin’s Rae. Abandoned Rae. Sad, pitied Rae. And the thought made her want to vomit.
It was time to think of other things.
She filled her baby’s massive water bowl, set it down before him, and asked, “You felt Zach’s chest, right? Is it heavenly? Is it like a big, sexy slab of concrete?”
Duke gave her a look that said, You’re sick, and lapped up his water.
She stepped out of the splash zone, chuckled to herself, and sat down at the kitchen table. But when her phone dinged with a new text message, her smile collapsed like a deflated soufflé. It was her mother. Oh, joy.
Marilyn: If you’d put as much effort into your marriage as you put into whining, you wouldn’t have lost Kevin in the first place.