Yeah, she’d gotten a lot of that. “Given the fact that I grew up eating whatever my brother could scrounge from a dumpster half the time, I’m absolutely certain that your food is delicious. You seem to think I’m some almighty, powerful city girl. Yeah, I grew up in a city, but I assure you there were days in my childhood when I would have given anything to have what you have here because most of you had parents who loved you, had someone besides your teenage brother who could provide for you. I had a mom who was in prison more often than not. Your food is fine. What I can’t take is the judgement that goes along with it. I’ll avoid that from now on.”

“Oh, hon,” Dixie began, her eyes going oddly soft.

But she was done for the day.

“Lila,” a deep voice called out behind her.

She ignored him and the stares of every single person in the dining room who had heard her describe her crappy childhood. That would go a long way to making them embrace her. They would likely think since her mom had been an addict that she was on drugs, too. And she’d outed her sister. God, she had no idea what her sister had said about their childhood. Remy knew, but he had a mom, sister, and brother who Lisa might not have shared her history with.

She strode toward the door and then stopped because there was the horrible sound of tires screeching, and then the ground beneath her shook as a crashing sound hit her ears. The entire café went still, trying to figure out what was going on, but Lila knew.

Car accident. She took off, pushing through the double doors.

“Lila!”

She didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. This was what she did.

She didn’t have far to go. A pickup truck had smacked against the building that housed Dixie’s café. It looked like it had struck two cars in the parking lot before it had come to rest against the solidly built brick building. That was fortunate because the other cars had slowed the truck down. What was unfortunate was the man on the ground who had apparently also slowed the truck.

She dropped to her knees because the man’s leg was broken and he was losing blood. A lot of blood. It stained the street. She looked down at him and emerald eyes looked up.

“I can’t feel it.” He was dressed in a dapper-looking suit. His reddish-gold hair had likely been slicked back to perfection once, but now it hung around his face. “I should be able to feel it.”