“Yes. You know. Small town. People gossip.”
“I suppose they do,” Forrester said, almost amused that she’d heard something about him. He wasn’t used to it. He’d left Stone Peak when he was twelve years old. First he’d been in Billings, and later in California with Lacey and her father and the brothers. People in Stone Peak might have known his story, but by the time he arrived in California, he was just another kid with a past. He wasn’t used to people knowing his story. He’d never realized that everyone in Stone Peak might still remember him. He’d long forgotten all of them.
“I really shouldn’t have said anything,” Elle said, feeling awkward.
She glanced over at Kelly, who was watching the scene with a bemused look on her face.
To change the subject, Elle brought up the tattoos. “You like pit bulls?” she said. She was so flustered that she’d temporarily forgotten that the pit bulls played as integral a role in Forrester’s story as the cigarette burns. She just saw the tattoos that covered his arm, and brought them up.
“I guess I do,” Forrester said.
“How come?” Elle said, digging herself deeper and deeper.
Forrester thought for a moment. “I guess,” he said, “that they remind me that you can find kindness and love in the strangest of places. Sometimes it’s the very last place you expect, that you find the greatest treasure of all.”
“That’s a nice thought,” Elle said.
“Well, it’s just something I noticed growing up. It happened to me twice.”
“Really, when?”
Forrester laughed. “You have a lot of questions.”
“I guess I just find you interesting,” Elle said.
“And what about you? Maybe I have some questions of my own?”
“About me?” Elle said, surprised.
“Of course. It’s not every day I run into a girl that affects me the way you did.”
“I affected you?”
“You saw what happened,” Forrester said, fixing her in his powerful gaze. “You were pouring me coffee, and I just straight up reached out and touched your hand. That’s not exactly normal for me.”
“Have you ever done it before?”
“Of course not.”
“So why did you do it with me?”
Forrester shrugged. “I don’t know. A million reasons. Who can really say why any of us does any of the things we do?”
Elle was surprised at how comfortable she was starting to feel. She’d been so shy when she started talking to Forrester, she thought her nerves would have only gotten worse, especially because of the tone in which he was speaking to her. He was flirting with her. She was sure of it. But something about him put her at ease. She wanted to stay talking with him. She would have happily stayed there talking to him all night long, but it was at that moment that Kelly beckoned her back over.
Reluctantly, Elle acknowledged her.
“I think I’ve got to go back over to my friend,” Elle said.
The way Forrester looked back at her made her heart pound. He didn’t hold back a thing. He just looked straight at her, into her eyes, and even though she stared right back at him, he refused to look away. The moment lasted for seconds, but it felt like hours. Elle took a deep breath. She had no idea what she and Forrester might have communicated to each other in that moment.
Chapter 12
Forrester
FORRESTER WATCHED ELLE WALK BACK around the bar to her friend. He still didn’t know her name but something about her told him that she was going to be an important part of his life, at least for the immediate future. He’d always had an intuition for such things, and the look in her eye, the intensity of the gaze they’d shared, it meant something.
He watched her perfectly formed ass sway back and forth as she left him, and when she took her seat next to her friend, he looked right at her, making zero effort to hide his interest.
She was going to be his. She had to be. He had no doubt.
In fact, maybe she was the reason he’d come back to this town at all. Only God knew. Before he’d left, Faith and Lacey had given him plenty of reasons not to ever come back. In fact, they’d practically forbid it. But he’d insisted. He’d felt there was a reason.
Was it this girl?
She sure wasn’t like anyone he’d ever seen before. There was a secret strength in her, a quiet confidence beneath the surface. On the surface she was sweet and beautiful and lovely, but he knew that inside her there was something bolder, something more ferocious, something he could love. Call it a hunch, but he knew that once she knew the truth about him, once she knew everything he’d been through, she’d be the girl who could love him too. The one who could truly love him. And if he found a girl to love him, who knew, maybe she’d even give him a child.