Page 27 of 50 Ways to Win Back Your Lover

Unsure I can handle much more today, I pack faster.

Not as fast as the brisk steps nearing me. “You have some nerve.”

Hayley Moon, mother to her only child, Delilah Moon, glares at me, her fine-boned features pinched. Her thick dark hair is still so much like Delilah’s, but there’s silver threading through the curly strands and murder in her eyes. When I dated her daughter, Hayley Moon was warm and kind and talked to me evenly, like an equal. She supported my and Delilah’s young love. Now the heat of her seething anger practically singes my eyebrows.

“I’m sorry” is all I say. Not it’s complicated. Not we had a family emergency. Whatever Delilah suffered after our disappearance, Mrs. Moon bore the brunt of it.

Her laugh has a maniacal edge. “When she told me you were back, I thought she was joking. I mean, what kind of narcissistic egomaniac would waltz into town after destroying the people he supposedly loved, like nothing ever happened?”

My pulse pounds harder, shooting heat through my face. I was wrong yesterday, thinking my reappearance would be good for Delilah. She’s spent most of today hiding from me, and half the people on my game show from hell were furious on her behalf. My reappearance has done nothing but pick at old scabs.

I tilt up my chin, give Mrs. Moon my jugular. The vein is hers to cut if she wants. “I can’t imagine wh—”

“I’m not done, Edgar Eugene Bower.” She leans down, so close the smudged mascara under her lined eyes is unmistakable. Evidence of dried tears. “You have no idea what Delilah’s been through. Your disappearance didn’t just hurt her. You devastated my daughter. She has wounds that will never heal, and I will not stand by while you creep back into her life. I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m telling you that you need to leave. You—”

“Mom.” We both look at Delilah, who’s breathing hard, glaring at her mother.

Mrs. Moon steps back.

I blink the burn from my eyes, try to swallow. Nothing works.

Devastated. Wounds that will never heal.

Whatever Delilah went through, it’s miles worse than I imagined, and I can’t breathe. I can’t stand the suffocating heat and coffeehouse tunes and too-sweet smells. I’m up and rushing out of the shop as fast as I can move. Forget a marathon. I need to sprint back to Houston.

I make it half a block when I hear “E, wait!”

I stop on a dime. Delilah’s voice has that effect on me, and she called me E, not Edgar. I don’t turn, though. I don’t want her to see me like this. My neurotic teen self, times ten.

She touches my arm. I know it’s her by my body’s reaction—a flare of warmth across my skin, that telltale tingling up my spine. My Delilah.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” she says. “That crazy story—your dad laundering money for some drug cartel. All of it’s true.”

I slump, relief loosening my bones. I’m still a mess. Shaky and sad and not sure I should be here, but Delilah’s faith in my story is everything. “It’s true.”

We’re getting looks from the people along the street. Even the scarecrow attached to the lamppost ahead of me is staring at us. His stitched face is droopy. Straw pushes out from the top of his shirt, his cuffs, and the bottom of his pants—jagged pieces he can’t keep contained. It’s like looking in a mirror.

Instead of forcing me to turn around or hugging me from behind like the night of nights when Delilah took pity on me while I fumbled setting up our lovemaking scene, she walks around me and stops in front of my face.

“Did you want to leave me that night?” Unshed tears turn her blue eyes into twin pools of pain.

“Delilah.” I reach to touch her cheek, a magnetic need, desperate for my first feel of her skin in way too long. I drop my hand. “Everything exploded so fast—the cartel learning my dad was an informant, us being loaded into a van and driven away. Leaving you was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“You didn’t call.” The choked words are accusatory but also a confession. I wanted you to call. I waited. Why did you make me wait?

“They didn’t let me.”

“You could have tried harder.”

“And risk people getting hurt?”

Angry puffs of air flare her nostrils. “So, all this time, you’ve been in hiding, wishing you could be with me, but you were forced into witness protection and couldn’t call or write or reach out in case this cartel found you.”

“No, not in case they found me. Not like that.”

Unable to keep my hands to myself any longer, I reach between us and slip one finger under hers. Subtle enough that our audience doesn’t see, but feeling her skin against mine sends a blast of desire through me.

Her breaths deepen, her finger twitching against mine.