The Girl He Used To Love

His frustration showed as he pressed the same button over and over without a positive result. Giving up, he headed in their direction. Josie readied herself for the big introduction by primping her hair with one hand and putting the other on her hip.

“You don’t happen to have a pay phone I could use or maybe a cell phone I could borrow?” His voice was deep and husky. Now that he was close, his intensely green eyes made Faith’s heart stop. She hadn’t recognized him from afar, but those eyes...she would never forget those eyes.

“You can use my phone, stranger,” Josie said, completely unaware of who she was talking to. She hadn’t lived in Grass Lake long enough to know the man was no stranger. “You look like you’ve been standing in the rain all night.”

“Something like that,” he answered. “Got a flat on Highway 14 and had to walk here.”

“Dean?” Faith choked out, her heart pounding like crazy.

Water from his hair dripped into his narrowing eyes. She could tell the moment he recognized her. She watched the muscle in his jaw tick before he exhaled her name.

She never thought she’d see Dean Presley again, and certainly not in Grass Lake. If there was one thing she remembered clearly, it was his desire to leave this town for good. Part of her had been relieved by his decision. It had saved her from having to face him after what had happened.

She forced herself to breathe as she pulled a clean dish towel out from under the bar and tried to act like there wasn’t a heartbreaking history between them. With a plastered-on smile, she handed it to him. “This won’t help all that much, but you can at least dry your face.”

He tentatively took it and wiped his brow. “It’s been one heck of a night.”

Josie put a hand on his shoulder. “You two know one another?”

Faith and Dean exchanged a look. Faith had known a Dean Presley who was probably very different than the one standing on the other side of the bar right now. His sister had been the best friend she’d ever had. He had been her first love. She had lost them both one fateful night a dozen years ago.

“You could say that,” Dean said, handing the towel back to Faith.

“Hey, Josie!” Bruce Gibson called from a table across the bar. He and his buddies were celebrating his fortieth birthday. “Another round!”

Josie glanced at Faith, silently checking if it was okay to leave them alone.

“I’ll let you two catch up, then,” she said once Faith gave her a nod.

Faith’s throat was too dry to speak. For a fleeting moment she thought about how Addison would make fun of the two of them staring at each other like a pair of idiots.

“You look great,” Dean finally said. “All grown up.”

He had always treated her like she was a little kid. Faith and Addison had followed him around like puppies. He used to get so annoyed, but that changed the summer Faith was eighteen. That was the year he’d finally looked at her as someone other than his baby sister’s friend.

“That’s what happens. Time passes, we grow up.”

Dean swallowed hard and nodded. “That’s true for most of us.”

She really was an idiot. Not everyone was lucky enough to grow old. Seeing him had caused her to lose her mind. She pulled the cordless phone out from under the bar. “You can use this,” she said, setting it in front of him.

He thanked her and seemed anxious for their reunion to come to an end. She moved on to another customer and tried to keep her emotions in check.

Josie cut the music that played throughout the bar and welcomed Sawyer back to the tiny stage in the corner, barely big enough for the two of them to stand on. Josie stepped down as Sawyer strummed his guitar. He gave Hank a shout out before singing his version of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire.”

For some reason the song seemed to give Dean pause. He hung up and set the phone down. Dean had always had a thing for country music. People used to tease him given his last name and his complete inability to carry a tune, but Dean didn’t have to play music to love it. Addison used to call him obsessed. When Faith was a kid, she wished he was as passionate about her as he was about music. Now, she’d give anything to go back in time and make sure he never gave her a second thought.

She realized she had been staring when Dean waved her over.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked him, his eyes returning to her brother.

“No, but you can tell me who that guy is.” He pointed in the direction of the stage. Maybe he was as surprised as Hank that a young guy could make such an iconic country song his own. That was what Sawyer did best, take something old and make it new.

“That’s my brother.”

His wide eyes showed his surprise. He held a hand waist high. “That’s your little brother?” Twelve years ago, Sawyer had been a scrawny middle-schooler.

“That’s what my daddy told me when they brought him home from the hospital. Although, I often wonder if the doctors pulled a switcheroo.” Her attempt at lightening the mood fell flat. Dean went back to watching Sawyer with intense interest.

After the cover song, Sawyer sang one of his originals about chasing fireflies. He’d never admit it, but that song had something to do with their mom. She had run off and left them behind when Sawyer and Faith were just kids, but before that she had been the one who would take them out on a hot summer night armed with a pickle jar and a lid poked with holes. He pretended to hate her. Maybe a little part of him did, but there was another part of him that missed her as much as Faith did.

“Can you reintroduce us when he’s finished?” Dean asked when the song came to an end.

“Why? You want him to help you change your flat tire?”

“No,” he answered as if she hadn’t been kidding. “I want to make your brother a star.”

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_d91fbb17-923a-5c43-8edf-d8cbf454150f)

DEAN SHOULD HAVE left the moment he realized he was sharing space with none other than Faith Stratton. At the very least, he should have stayed on the phone, begging his business partner to come rescue him so he could get out of this town before anyone else spotted him. Though, given their history, it was unlikely Faith would go running to his parents’ house to announce his arrival.

Gone was the little girl who had been attached to Addison’s hip and the sweet, doe-eyed teenager who had made him lose his mind and his sister in the process. In her place was a gorgeous, dark-haired, grown-up woman. Those warm brown eyes were still capable of stopping a man’s heart, but everything else had changed...matured.

Seeing her stirred up feelings he preferred to avoid, bury, pretend he never felt. Dean was the master at hiding his true emotions. He also had a knack for keeping his personal life very separate from his business life, and this detour into Grass Lake had quickly become business.

Sawyer was the answer to Dean’s prayers. It had been a long time since he had heard someone sing with such real emotion. He had noticed it during the Johnny Cash cover; he had felt it during the second song. Dean needed to talk to this guy and get him in front of Landon immediately.

With her hands on her hips and her chin tipped down, Faith frowned in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’s amazing, Faith. I could introduce him to some people in the business. Does he write his own stuff?”

Her eyes gave away her wariness. She folded her arms across her chest. “Sometimes.”

That was a plus and made the guy that much more desirable. “I have a legitimate record label with real artists signed to it. He could have a real music career.”

“My brother helps me run the farm. Singing is what he does for fun, not for a living.”

Before he could explain how that could change, Faith was called away by another customer. Dean had worked at the Strattons’ horse farm and equine therapy center that last summer in Grass Lake. It was a worthwhile business, but Dean knew how much work went into it. Hopefully, Sawyer would be a little more excited about Dean’s proposition than his sister was. He was exactly what Grace Note Records had been looking for—young, attractive and, most importantly, talented.

Bringing in a potential new artist would ease Landon’s mind and keep him from giving up on their company. Without Landon, Dean would have to close up shop. He didn’t have the capital to buy his partner out.

The rest of Sawyer’s set finished strong. It didn’t matter if he was singing a cover or an original, the songs all sounded as if every note belonged to him. He had a unique sound that would do well on the radio.

Faith approached her brother as soon he stepped off the tiny corner stage. She whispered in his ear and he immediately glanced in Dean’s direction. The two siblings exchanged a few more words before Sawyer made his way to the bar.

“Dean Presley—long time, no see.” Sawyer Stratton looked more like his father than the boy Dean had once known. He had big, brown, soulful eyes and chiseled features that would definitely make women swoon when he was on stage. There was nothing scrawny about him and he might have been an inch or two taller than Dean. “You got something against umbrellas?”

Dean could only imagine how ridiculous he looked as the two men shook hands. He ran a hand through his towel-dried hair and glanced down at the puddle of water that had collected under his bar stool. He was a wreck.