Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

“Hold the door please, Jamie!” I called out as I hauled one more box off the moving trailer. It was heavier than expected; must have been full of books.

“Hurry up, Lee, gonna let all the cold air out,” Jamie called back from the door. He was a tall and lanky man in his mid-forties with thinning red hair, wearing a cowboy hat, a sweat-dampened plaid shirt, and jeans. His boot was stuck in the screen door, holding it open for me.

I was really glad to have him helping me move in. Jamie was a neighbor from the farm down the hill when I was a child. Now he was married and his own children weren’t too much younger than myself and he owned the farm his parents used to. After being away so many years, the number of people I knew who could help me unload were unfortunately few, but my grandparents were still his neighbors, so when they had asked he’d been happy to oblige.

I knew he remembered me as the little sunburned kid with a rat’s-nest of curly blonde hair, still calling me ‘ Lee’ instead of Leah . There was a time when that would have annoyed me, but I was finally reaching a time in my life where I didn’t mind so much. It felt good, kind of like a clean slate. There was no disappointment in his eyes when he looked at me.

“Thanks,” I breathed as I shuffled past him through the doorway, my arms full of the large cardboard box. The creak of the screen door slamming shut came as I dropped the heavy box. On straightening up, I let out a slow breath and held a hand to my head as I let a wave of pain pass. Just a little stab at the back of my skull and a moment of dizziness, and then everything was back to normal.

I took a deep breath and readied a soft smile. “Okay, so that was most of them,” I said, turning back to Jamie, hands on my hips as I took in the mess of moving boxes around me. “I think I’ll just need help bringing in the bed stuff and bookshelf.”

Thankfully some of our old family friends had a mother-in-law apartment on their land that they were willing to rent to me. It was a cozy little thing, one bed, one bath, one living room with an attached kitchen—I’m sure you get the picture. But it also came slightly furnished, with a table and some chairs and so on, so thankfully, I hadn’t had to worry about bringing anything but my bedroom essentials.

And bookshelves were always essential. I’m not a barbarian.

“Do you want to wait till the rest of help arrives or…?” I trailed off. Back before my accident I wouldn’t have hesitated to try and do it just the two of us, but since my diagnosis and everything going wrong with my health, I was more aware than ever that I was a petite woman and not the strongest. I’m sure we could do it on our own, but he would probably appreciate having another able-bodied helper.

“Sure, that’s fine,” he decided after a second. Suddenly, I wondered how much Nana and Papaw had told him. Maybe he knew I was broken too. I bit the inside of my lip to stall my runaway anxieties.

“Cool!” I went for a chipper tone. “You want some lemonade? Nana put some in the fridge for us when she came by earlier.”

“Well,”—Jamie took his hat off and brushed a hand over his sweaty head with a grateful look—“I’m not one to say no to Miss Ruby’s lemonade.”

“Great! I’ll just grab us some—” I was cut off mid skip to the fridge by the creak of the screen opening followed by a rapping on the interior door. Jamie must have shut it when he came in.

“Oh welp! Speak of the devil.” Jamie went to open the door. I tried to peek around the fridge to see who the last promised member of our move-in-crew was. It was hard to get a good view and I was craning my neck to see. Which hurt, of course, but I couldn't resist. When I did finally catch a glimpse, my breath caught in my throat and time slowed down.

Listen, is that cliche? Yeah. I know. But sometimes life really IS like the movies, and all you can do is try to keep yourself from audibly gasping when a handsome six foot stranger walks in your front door.

This newly appeared stranger had a healthy tan and light brown hair with streaks of sunkissed blond. Broad shoulders and a strong jaw, and a set of what I could only guess from this distance were hazel eyes. Overall he was captivating, but a little sense of familiarity nagged at me. Something about his lopsided smile…

Oh! My eyes bugged momentarily in disbelief. No way…

“Howdy, Spence!” Jamie’s pleasant voice was punctuated by a nice loud clap of a handshake and a muffled shoulder clap.

“Hey, Mr. Groves.”

I gawked in disbelief as the two men exchanged greetings and pleasantries, the pitcher of lemonade dangling precariously in my hands. Impossible. No way. Couldn’t be.

“Spencer Williams?” the incredulous words dripped from my lips like an accusation.

His hazel gaze finally shifted from Jamie to me. At first a look of confusion passed over his face, his smile dropping, but then recognition dawned behind his eyes. Slowly, that lopsided grin spread across his face. Were my eyes playing tricks on me or did it look almost… sinister?

“Well, well, if it isn’t Leah Henley.” Spencer cocked a brow and crossed his arms. He did a once over of me, his roving gaze a mixture of amusement and judgment. “You’re still short.”

My face flushed with embarrassed rage. I gave him a fake smile of my own. If that’s how he wanted to play I wasn’t going to be the one to back down. “I barely recognized you without those magnifying glasses on your nose.”

It was my turn for satisfaction as I watched his jaw and left eye twitch, his smirk faltering. He was about to open his mouth to spew some other pathetic remark when our burgeoning spat was interrupted by Jamie.

“I’m so sorry, y’all,” he started not even paying any attention to us but glued to his phone. “Just got a text from the wife that our youngest had some kinda accident at school and needs somebody to come grab ‘im.”

Spencer snapped his attention back to the older man, once again a perfect mask of respect and concern. “Is Cody okay?”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. His voice sounded so earnest, but I’d sooner believe that Santa was real and used alligators for reindeer than believe Spencer Williams could be earnest about anything ever.

“Yeah…” Jamie slipped his phone back into a jean pocket and resituated his cowboy hat on his head. “A little scuffed up and madder than a wet hen, but he’ll be alright. I’m so sorry, y’all, but I really oughta head out and pick him up.”

He turned a specifically apologetic look to me. “If Carolyn were available, I would stay and help but—” My old neighbor pursed his lips and gave a little headshake.

I took a deep breath and gave him a reassuring smile. “No, no! Of course! That’s totally fine, you gotta take care of your family. Don’t worry about me.”

“We can manage,” Spence chimed in with a nod. We? Pfft. Okay. “Give the kid a hug for me.”

“Sure thing.” Jamie looked a bit relieved as he headed for the front door. “Y’all be safe now getting the rest of it outta the trailer, ya hear?”

We nodded in unison, and for a split second there it felt like we were little kids in Sunday School again, taking instructions from the teacher.

“Good. And don’t you kill each other!” He gave a knowing chuckle and I stiffened, suddenly feeling like I’d been caught doing something naughty. “See y’all ‘round.” With a quick tip of his hat he was slipping out the apartment, the screen door clacking shut behind him as he went.

We watched in silence for a second, before finally acknowledging one another. Like it or not, if I wanted to get that shelf inside the house today, I’d have to rely on his help. Internally, I groaned and bemoaned why, of everyone in town, my grandparents had to pick him? Why couldn’t they have asked one of my cousins, one of the Whitakers, or Nate? Anyone but my childhood nemesis.

“Is that for me?” Spencer Williams pointed a finger at the lemonade pitcher still clutched in my hand. His stupid devilish smirk was back, and I had to bite my cheek to keep from doing anything equally stupid.

If he wasn’t careful it was going to be on him.