Page 33 of Untamed Heart

My head whipped around to her, my eyes wide. “Holy shit,” I breathed. I didn’t know the man one bit, but to run against a Brady... well, he was either incredibly brave, or he had a death wish.

“That’s just a rumor,” Lennon added quickly. “But we’re all secretly hoping there’s truth to it. This town deserves better.”

She wasn’t wrong about that. I wasn’t sure “better” was a possibility as long as there was a single Brady still living there, but it would have been a lie to say I wasn’t curious to know how this whole thing would play out.

I looked back to the man in question, really taking him in for the first time since he stepped into the diner. I could see why Iris was so enamored. The man was handsome as hell, and the smile he was shooting at Bea as she handed over a bag of take-out containers only made him even better looking.

Sure enough, when I turned to Iris, her attention was still locked on him as he bid Bea goodbye and headed out. A huge smile stretch across my face and a giggle burst past my lips. “Oh my god, woman. You’ve got it bad.”

“Shh!” she hissed, waving her hands in my face.

“He can’t hear me, sweetie. He’s already gone.”

“Still,” she grumped, her face pulling into a pout as she sank back in the booth and crossed her arms over her chest. “And I don’t have itbad,” she mocked.

Lennon snorted. “Oh, honey. You so do.”

“That’s impossible.” She glanced back at the door where he’d disappeared a few seconds earlier. “He doesn’t even know I’m alive.”

My heart gave a painful squeeze at the sadness on my gorgeous new friend’s face. “I highly doubt that. You’re impossible to miss.”

Her smile didn’t come anywhere near her eyes. “I wish. Such is the curse of being a nerdy wallflower in school.”

I couldn’t imagine the vibrant woman beside me being anything but what she was right that second. Then again, I didn’t know her when I was younger. But I had so much shit going on back then that I didn’t really have time for friends. Even if I did, I was too embarrassed about my home life to ever invite friends over. When you made excuse after excuse why you couldn’t do something, eventually people stop asking. All I had was Remy and Roe. Back then they were enough. That was all I needed. At least that was how it felt at the time.

Shaking off the melancholy that suddenly wanted to pull me under, I focused on the here and now, where I was having one of the best days I’d had in longer than I could remember. I was determined to enjoy it.

“If he really doesn’t know you exist, that’s his loss,” Lennon said passionately.

Iris chuckled self-deprecatingly. “You’re only saying that because you love me.”

“She’s saying it because it’s true,” I said vehemently. “If you doubt her, believe me. I’ve only known you for a few weeks, and I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, you’re officially one of my favorite people.” I turned to Lennon to include her as well. “Bothof you.” I reached over and placed my hand on Iris’s, giving it a squeeze. “I’ve never had many friends, but I already consider both of you my friends. No matter what happens, that isn’t going to change.

Iris sniffled a bit, and I could have sworn I heard Lennon clear her throat.

“Same goes for you,” Iris said in a watery voice. “And if you think I’m going to let you leave Ashland without putting up a fight, you’re sorely mistaken, sister.”

Our conversation turned lighter after that, and by the time I left and headed back to Redbud Inn, I felt like I was floating a foot off the ground.

I should have known, given my track record, that the good wasn’t meant to last. Luck really didn’t like me.

I pulled into a parking spot right in front of my room at the inn, feeling content and tired in a way that felt nice, as opposed to the bone-weary exhaustion I’d been experiencing the past few days. I used the key to enter my room, ready to hurry through my nighttime skin-care routine so I could fall into bed for a nice, restful sleep, but as I stepped across the threshold, the crinkle of paper beneath my shoe drew my attention to the floor.

On the floor right inside the door was a large manilla envelope with my name written on it in big, black letters. I bent with a furrowed brow, lifting the envelope and flipping it over to undo the metal tab keeping it closed. The sheets of paper inside were thick and smooth, and when I pulled them out, I discovered they were printed pictures, and what was on them made me drop them on the floor and stumble back on my heel.

They were picture after picture of me. Coming to and from the inn. Walking into the market. Standing in front of the pasta with a dazed expression on my face. There were pictures of me coming in and out of the hospital on different days, but the one running theme in all of them was that they were taken after myreturn to Ashland. Someone had been following me around, as recently as earlier that day, and I hadn’t noticed. And I had a feeling I knew who it was.

In the same black marker that was used to write my name, the wordsI see youwere scrawled threateningly across each picture.

Fear chilled my insides, threatening to take hold, but before it could, I reached deep inside for my anger and yanked it to the surface. I stomped over to the fallen pictures and snatched them up, crumpling them in my hands as I turned to the wastebasket. I ripped each one to pieces before throwing them away.

If TolliverfuckingBrady thought he could scare me into running away, he was sadly mistaken. I’d spent too much of my life letting other people control me and dictate my actions. I was done. I was fuckingdone.I might have been thirty-five years late, but as the saying went, better late than never.

“Stupid, egotistical bully,” I grunted as I violently shredded the last picture and squeezed the pieces into little balls before throwing them away with the rest. “If he thinks he can get rid of me that easily, he’s sadly mistaken.”

Tolliver Brady could kiss my ass, because I wasn’t going anywhere, damn it!

SEVENTEEN