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sister Brandy whipped up, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
    Halfway into her chocolate fix, she glanced up to see the Pac-n-Save door swing open. Brett strolled out, a bottled water in one hand and his keys in the other. He crossed the parking lot, his strides long and sure, and hauled open the door of his pickup parked at a nearby gas pump. His gaze caught hers and she came so very close to flipping him off.
    Really.
    But for some reason, she didn’t seem to have the energy. The cupcake was too good, soothing her anxiety and easing the anger and frustration she felt toward Brett Sawyer.
    That, and there was just something about the way he looked at her, his blue eyes gleaming with an emotion achingly close to regret. As if he wanted to undo that one disastrous night even more than she did.
    Impossible, of course. She’d lost everything that night. Her date. Her parents. Her future. Done.
    The truth echoed in the heavy thud of her heart and she averted her gaze, concentrating instead on the scroll of text messages blinking on her phone.
    Three from Brandy telling her to hurry the flip up. One from Jenna telling her that Eliza Louise Mills had brought yet another flipping/fudging/insert-your-favorite-F-word-here egg salad. And one from an unknown source sending prayers for her sudden loss.
    She stared at the unknown number. An Austin area code. She couldn’t recall anyone in Austin. At the same time, she knew at least a dozen Haverty clients who lived nearby, but had out-of-area cell numbers. Maybe one had heard about James’s death.
    The truck revved nearby, drawing her attention. She set the phone aside and turned up the volume on the ancient radio. A nearby AM station played a popular Florida Georgia Line song and she tried to concentrate on the thumping beat rather than the monstrous truck engine.
    Black flashed in her peripheral vision and just like that, the noise faded and it was just sinfully cute Tyler singing about rolling his window down and cruising down some deserted back road. Relief washed through her and she drew a deep breath.
    Stuffing the rest of the cupcake into her mouth, she gunned the old truck’s engine and headed back to the church to power through what was quickly turning into the longest, most miserable day of her life.

 
    CHAPTER 5
    He’d ran smack dab into Callie Tucker.
    Of all the shitty luck.
    The truth echoed in Brett Sawyer’s head as he turned onto FM 123 and sent his pickup gunning the twenty miles outside of town to his family’s ranch.
    Sure, he’d known there was a possibility of a face-to-face when he’d made the decision to pay his respects, but it had been a chance he’d been willing to take. Because it had been the right thing to do, and Brett had already spent way too much time doing the wrong thing where Callie Tucker was concerned.
    Even so, he’d made sure to stop by well after the main service to avoid just such a situation.
    Not because she’d been the last person he’d wanted to see.
    Just the opposite.
    The truth stuck in his head as his mind riffled back through the past, to all those afternoons in high school where he’d sat across from her while she’d attempted to teach him the ins and outs of senior calculus.
    She’d failed the task, but she had accomplished one thing—she’d piqued his interest like no one else in this map-dot of a town.
    Sure, he’d managed to forget her for the most part once he’d left, but when he least expected it, she crept up on him. Into his thoughts, his dreams.
    She was the only one he’d actually had any desire to run into in the past two weeks since he’d been back at the Bootleg Bayou Ranch. He’d wanted to see her again. Talk to her. Touch her. He’d wanted it bad.
    All the more reason he’d kept his distance.
    Callie was the only woman who’d ever gotten under his skin, into his head, and shaken his precious control.