Brynne waited, not frowning, but not smiling, either.

Eli pushed his chair back and stood. “Would you mind sitting down?”

She considered, looked around at the empty café, then peered through the front window to check the sidewalk.

No customers.

No excuse.

“Okay,” she said, sounding bemused. She pulled back the chair Cord had occupied before and sat. “What is it?”

Eli was still ravenous, but he didn’t touch his food. “Do you like it here? In Painted Pony Creek, I mean?”

Brynne looked puzzled. “It’s home,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“Because—well—it can’t be all that exciting, after Boston.”

Her perfect brows drew together for a moment. “Eli,” she asked quietly, “what on earth are you getting at?”

“I’m just trying to make conversation.”

“Why?”

He felt a flush climb his neck. “Does there have to be a reason? We went to school together.”

“We did,” Brynne agreed, with a wisp of a smile and no trace of bitterness whatsoever. “We went steady, in fact. Then Reba Shannon came to town and you ghosted me.”

It was true. “That was high school, Brynne,” Eli reminded her, but he knew he was losing ground, if he’d ever held any in the first place. “I was a dumbass kid with a perennial har—” He stopped himself just in time. Or maybe not. “I was a dumbass kid,” he repeated.

Reba hadn’t been prettier than Brynne—practically no woman was—but she’d been willing, and to a horny seventeen-year-old boy, that made her irresistible.

She’d also been a tease, playing not only Eli himself, but J.P. and Cord, too, for fools.

A few months ago, Reba’s daughter had shown up in the back room at Sully’s, the living image of her late mother, and announced that one of them—Eli, Cord or J.P.—was her birth father.

A lot of drama ensued.

As it turned out, Cord was Carly’s dad.

In his heart of hearts, Eli still felt a twinge of disappointment at the knowledge. It would have been a fine thing to have a daughter, even if she was practically grown before he’d even met her.

Now he and J.P. were the girl’s honorary uncles, and they tended to spoil her accordingly.

Suddenly, Brynne unleashed that smile of hers—it was blinding, like headlights on a dark highway, set on high beam. “I’m over it, Eli,” she said.

I’m over you, Eli.

When he didn’t answer right away—he was still catching his breath—she went on. “What’s this all about? We were both kids, we had a thing for each other, and it ended badly, at least for me. A lot of time has gone by, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Did I ever apologize?” He hoped he had, because no matter how long ago it happened, he’d acted like an asshat.