The Girl He Used To Love. Amy Vastine

after church to set up a time to meet and go over the design.

      Faith glanced back at the pickup as the Hackneys got in their car. Sawyer gave her a thumbs-up and Dean was definitely smirking. Seeing him smile was almost worth the embarrassment.

      The sign outside the flower shop clearly said Closed, but Faith knocked on the bright green door like she did every Sunday. The window boxes were filled to the brim with a beautiful mix of verbena, petunias and white snow mountains. It smelled like heaven.

      Faith heard the lock slide open and was greeted by Harriet herself. “Good morning, Sugarplum. Come on in.”

      Harriet Windsor had been Faith’s mother’s best friend. When their mom left, Harriet had stepped up and done her best to fill the hole she’d left in the kids’ lives. Her sage advice had been the only way Faith had survived puberty in a house with two clueless males. Sawyer still had the picture of the two of them in his room from when Harriet had gone as his date to the Boy Scouts’ Mother/Son Dinner and Dance.

      “I set aside some arrangements I thought you might like, but go ahead and look around while I finish getting ready.” Harriet’s cheeks were rouged but her eyes and lips were bare. Not to mention, her caramel-colored hair wasn’t nearly big enough. There was still plenty of teasing and hair-spraying to be done.

      Faith spent a minute poking around but settled on two of the bouquets Harriet had put together. She was the expert, after all. Faith found her upstairs in the bathroom of her small apartment above the shop.

      “I’ll take the ones you picked out.”

      Harriet smiled at her through the vanity mirror as she applied her mascara. “Good choice. How are you doing?”

      Faith’s eyes fell to the baby blue tiled floor. “Fine.”

      Harriet knew better. “Missing your daddy or stressed out about the return of one Mr. Dean Presley?”

      “You heard, huh?”

      “I’m sure half the town has heard by now. No one thought he’d ever come back here. Are you worried about seeing him at church?”

      “He’s been staying at the farm,” Faith confessed.

      Harriet set down her applicator brush. “He’s what? You’ve seen him already? Has he been nice to you?” She was the only person who knew how horribly things had ended between Faith and Dean. Faith had cried on her shoulder more times than she could count.

      “It’s been awkward. It’s like nothing and everything’s changed since the last time I saw him. And he wants Sawyer.”

      “What?”

      “Dean wants him to come to Nashville with him to record some music. He heard him sing at the Sundown on Friday.”

      “Sawyer wouldn’t leave you.”

      “I know.” Faith swallowed down the lump that had formed in her throat. “He’s not going to go. We have NETA coming to do the accreditation visit next weekend. Summer camps start in a month. He can’t go—I can’t do this without him.”

      Harriet went back to her makeup. “You don’t need to worry about any of it. Everything is going to work out. You got two angels up in heaven looking out for you.”

      Faith wanted to believe that. “Thanks again for the flowers.”

      “Anytime, sweetheart. Can I still count on you to help me out on Tuesday?”

      Faith didn’t feel right taking the flowers for free and Harriet refused to take her money, so once or twice a month, Faith helped at the shop in exchange for the bouquets. This Tuesday was busier than usual, but Faith couldn’t say no.

      “I’ll be here.” She started to go. “Sawyer and Dean are waiting for me. I’ll see you at church.”

      “Hey,” Harriet said to get her attention one last time. “Don’t let him feed that guilt of yours. You understand me?”

      Faith nodded and gave Harriet a reassuring smile even though deep down she knew it wasn’t possible. Dean had been home less than forty-eight hours and her guilt was back with a vengeance and a voracious hunger.

CHAPTER SEVEN

      “IT’S FUNNY HOW this town can seem familiar and yet so foreign at the same time,” Dean observed as he and Sawyer waited for Faith.

      “It’s not funny how long my sister takes when we need to be somewhere.”

      “Be happy you have a sister to be annoyed with.”

      Sawyer stopped complaining. Chagrined, he took a deep breath and apologized. Dean couldn’t be mad. He knew firsthand how easy it was to take people for granted.

      Dean’s gaze drifted back down the street. He wasn’t surprised the bank where his father had worked for the last thirty years hadn’t changed. There was a new gas station on the corner. The old-fashioned gas pumps were a nice touch and made it look like it had been there forever. The movie theater had gotten a facelift and the sign above the hardware store was new. The barber shop where his mom had taken him to get his hair cut as a child had closed and a nail salon stood in its place.

      “Here she comes,” Sawyer said, pulling Dean’s attention away from comparing this Main Street to the one in his memory.

      Dean knew who the flowers were for the moment he saw Faith making her way to the truck with bouquets in her arms. A familiar unease settled in his stomach.

      What could his mother really do to him if he didn’t show up for church? She had nothing to hold over him. She couldn’t ground him or take away his phone. He didn’t live under her roof or have to follow her rules. He was a grown man who could decide where he wanted or didn’t want to go.

      He didn’t want to go to the church. He didn’t want to be within a hundred feet of the cemetery. Even sitting in the parking lot would be too close. He’d have to walk back to the farm. He didn’t care how far it was.

      “Did you tell Harriet you couldn’t help her on Tuesday because you rescheduled Freddy’s therapy?” Sawyer asked his sister as he got out of the truck so she could get in.

      “I don’t want to cancel on her. She asked me to enter the inventory information into the computer. I’ll run over there at lunchtime and get it done quick.”

      Dean was again reminded of his sister. Addison had worked at the flower shop all through high school. She had wanted to become a botanist. Dean hated that she’d never got the chance to live out any of her dreams.

      Sawyer groaned as he started up the truck. “You have a full day of therapy scheduled. All the horses have to be prepped.”

      “I’ll be back in time to help with the horses,” Faith assured him.

      “And you’re still going to go to Lily’s award ceremony, aren’t you?”

      “I promised her. She got into National Honor Society. That’s a big deal.”

      “Can you skip Bible study then?”

      Faith looked down her nose at her brother. “You don’t skip Jesus, Sawyer.”

      “You’re burning the candle at both ends, Faith.” He sounded sincerely worried about her.

      Dean wondered how often she stretched herself so thin.

      “I’ll be fine. As long as I have you to help me out.”

      She relied on him, but Faith needed Sawyer more than he needed her. If he was going to get Sawyer to follow him to Nashville, Dean needed to find a way to break their co-dependent relationship.

      The potent scent of the flowers started to make him nauseous as they drove to the church on the outskirts of town. There had been so many flowers at Addison’s funeral they had overwhelmed the small