“I’m about to ask you to do something,” she said. “Something for the games.”

He was already shaking his head, his words overlapping hers. “I’m not throwing.”

She showed him her palms. “I get that. I mean, I don’t really get it, but I understand you don’t want to compete. Instead . . . would you consider being my athletic director?”

Stepping back, his hands slid off the caber. He didn’t look spooked, just surprised.

He took out that blue handkerchief—the one that reminded her so much of his dad—and wiped his hands even though they weren’t dirty. “I wasn’t planning on being in Gleann that weekend. The job in Connecticut has the potential to be huge; I may have to work.”

“It’s one day, Leith. Well, two if you count the opening party the night before. Just one day to give back to Gleann before you head out for good. Come on. Please. I need the help. I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to the athletic events, and with so many other changes I want to make, I’m sure I’ll be needed elsewhere.”

He slowly turned his head, scanning Gleann from one corner to the next, his longer hair curling around his ears. It might have been the sexiest he’d ever looked to her.

“There’s this buddy of mine, Duncan Ferguson. We used to throw together, and he’s still really active in the circuit. He lives just across the lake in Westbury. He might even have already signed up to compete here anyway. I’m sure he could help you out.”

“But—”

“I can’t give my promise, Jen.” There was such earnestness in his voice, such belief in his expression. “I make promises, I keep them. I wouldn’t want to say I’d do it and then let everyone down.” He glanced toward town, then back to her. “And I wouldn’t want to let you down.”

She could have prepped for a week straight on how that one sentence would make her feel, and she still would have stammered. She still would have felt the stumble of her heart. “I understand.”

He nodded once, in that way men learned in some sort of existential Guy School. “I’ll get you Duncan’s number.”

“Thanks.”

That word closed a chapter in their conversation. With a tap to the caber, he wandered off toward the playground equipment. The ladder and slide and play structure were faded and weathered. Exactly how she remembered them, but sadder. When he changed subjects and asked, “Hey, do you remember the last time we were here?” she wasn’t a bit surprised.

His lopsided smile said, Aw, yeah. Something dirty happened up there and I was a part of it.

She loved that look.

“I do,” she said, inching closer. “I also remember the first time.”

This was where they’d met, after all. She and Aimee had walked to this park their second day ever in Gleann. She’d been eight, Aimee nine. Leith had been playing here with another boy who’d moved away shortly thereafter. The four of them had quickly fallen into that easy, you’re-my-best-playground-friend thing. Except that the next time she and Leith had met, they’d resumed that companionship while Aimee couldn’t have cared less.

He leaned against the slide. “You do? Because you’re not acting like it.”

So this was it. They were finally going to talk about the past. She was surprised he was the one to bring it up, too, because he’d been so aloof. But last night had shifted something between them, cracked some walls, broke apart some dams.

She stepped into the wood chips surrounding the play structure. “I’m the one not acting like it?”

His head snapped back with an incredulous expression. “You walked up that driveway like your last summer here didn’t exist. You ignored everything that happened between us at the fairgrounds.”

It took her a few seconds to swallow, because the truth felt like a giant horse pill coated in sawdust. “I could say the exact same thing about you, you know.”

He threw out his arms. “I live here. Stood on the side of the road as you drove off, exhaust in my face. Of course I remember. I remember everything. Every. Little. Detail.”

“Okay.” She licked her lips and flicked her gaze to the awning over the slide tower. “You want to know what happened up there? What I remember? It was the first time you put your hand up my shirt. The first time any guy did. There were fireworks, too. Somewhere across the lake, someone was lighting off bottle rockets. And since it was before the first night we actually had sex, it was the greatest night of my life.”

He inhaled. Exhaled. Did them both again. He looked supremely satisfied . . . and also terribly frustrated. So was she.

She kicked at some wood chips, rearranged them with her toe. “I didn’t plan for this, you know. Seeing you again.” Feeling things. “I wasn’t . . . looking for anything.”

For a second he looked amused, then she realized it was sarcasm. “Oh no?”

“No.”

“That’s bullshit, Jen.” But he smiled as he said it, shook his head at the ground, pieces of golden-brown hair falling over his forehead. “Somewhere deep down you knew I’d still be here. Somewhere deep down you hoped for it.”

She didn’t know which struck her harder: his confidence or his candor. At first she was indignant, ready to battle him, to deny all he’d just claimed. The way he stared at her said Bring it. I’ll defend myself. But the power of the desire to sink her hands into his hair and yank his mouth to hers was so strong that her fingertips tingled. Fighting him and his words was pointless.

It was quite possible he knew her better than she knew herself. Maybe he always had. The thought was overwhelming.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about it yet.” Was that her voice, shaking like that?

“It.” He was toneless. “‘It’ meaning what happened to us ten years ago? Or ‘it’ meaning what’s happening between us now?”

Denying the latter would be stupid; there was definitely something going on between them in the present day. Sure, it had begun when they were younger, but this yearning, this connection had aged too well. It was too delicious and she couldn’t stop drinking it.

But to tell him about her past now, to explain why she’d come to Gleann in the first place and then left so abruptly, meant talking about Mom. Her confrontation with Aimee last night and the sudden reappearance of their mother had left Jen too raw.

She knew there was a direct line drawn between the end of her and Leith’s relationship and what she’d never told him, but she wasn’t that eighteen-year-old. The reasons shouldn’t matter today.

“I’m not ignoring the old us, Leith. I promise. What we had, what happened, is here between us, no matter what we say. It will always be here, whether we talk about it directly or not.”

What exactly did he want out of this conversation? To pick up where they’d left off? To start something new? Didn’t he realize that both were impossible, even if they were desirable?

“I’m not quite sure what you want me to say,” she said. “Are you looking for a complete rehash of my last summer here? You want to relive the night I left, or our last phone call? Because I don’t. The memories are strong enough, thank you very much, and we’re different people now.” She glanced up to the slide tower. “Or are you looking for another make-out session up there?”

“That last one would be nice.” He went to the seesaw, set a massive boot on it, and sent the opposite end flying up. “You know what? I’m not exactly sure. I guess I just didn’t want you to pretend we never existed.”

“I’m not pretending. Not at all. I’m compartmentalizing. I thought you were the one pretending.”

“Maybe I was. But not anymore.”

In that moment, she realized that since they’d entered the park, she’d completely forgotten the true reason for her coming back to Gleann. Leith had consumed her thoughts, even for this short time. That scared her. Too many people—Aimee and Aunt Bev’s memory most of all—were relying on her to do good work here. She only ever did her best; nothing less was acceptable. And these were only the first few days of what she knew would be a massive amount of work.

Her phone rang and she pulled it out of her pocket. Gretchen.

“Ah, there it is,” Leith said wryly. “I was wondering if you’d had it surgically removed.”

“Hey, Gretchen,” she answered, throwing Leith a perturbed look. She moved away from the playground to talk to her assistant.

“How’s it going out there in the boonies?” Gretchen asked when they were done talking about preliminary items regarding Fashion Week.

“Fine. I feel like I’m still missing a few pieces, but they’ll come together.”

Right as she said it, she noticed Leith slowly walking down the length of his old caber, hands in his pockets, his profile set to the town. After Jen went back to the city, this was how she’d remember seeing him, as much a part of the town as his dad.

Mr. MacDougall. That was it.

“Gretchen, I gotta run.” She clicked off the phone and shoved it back into her pocket, then crossed to Leith.

He watched her approach, his shoulders less tense and his eyes warm. The sun hit him, bringing out the gold streaks in his hair, and she forced her voice to be steady in the presence of a man whose looks she’d correctly pinned as approaching godhood. “Hey. Have a question for you.”

“Shoot.” He smiled in the same relaxed way she’d once known—and loved—well.

She rubbed her hands together. “Remember those old photo albums your dad had? The ones from back in Scotland, showing all those games he competed in?”

The smile faltered. “Yeeeaaah.”

“You wouldn’t happen to still have them, would you?”