Page 2 of Promise Me a Forever Texas Love

CHAPTER ONE

He was here.

Eight years ago, Cadee Stockton had been prepared for Huck Hennessy to show up at her door.

Now she wasn’t prepared at all.

She wasn’t prepared for the skinny, smooth-faced boy she’d grown up with to change into a muscular man with a mustache and sexy scruff. Wasn’t prepared for her smiling, teasing childhood friend to become the angry looking stranger who pounded on her door.

Her first thought was to step away from the window and go back to canning pickles. But she would have to deal with Huck Hennessy sooner or later. It would be better to deal with him now, than when her brothers were there.

The Stockton boys had never liked the Hennessy boys. All hell would break loose if Cooper and Callum were there.

No. It would be better if she dealt with Huck alone.

Besides, she had put the inevitable off long enough. It was time to give him the truth she’d been holding onto since he’d disappeared from town when they were eighteen.

Wiping her hands on a dishtowel, she took off her apron and headed to the door. When she pulled it open, Huck was halfway down the porch steps. He whirled and she felt pinned like a faded photograph to a memory board beneath his intense gaze. This close, he looked even angrier . . . and even more of a stranger.

Where was the laughing boy who stole her Little Debbie oatmeal snacks every day at lunch, dressed up as a Minion to her Gru, carried her to the nurse’s office when she’d broken her arm?

Where was the cocky middle school kid who teased her about her first pimple, punched out John Gomez for doing the same, and gave her an awkward hug when her cat, Pussy Willow, had died?

Where was the charming teenager who had bought her an entire box of Little Debbies when she hadn’t made freshman cheerleader, punched out Mike Rawlings for breaking up with her right before homecoming . . . and would have taken her himself if her daddy hadn’t forbidden her from hanging out with Hennessys?

She missed that Huck. She didn’t realize how much until now. The only thing remaining of that boy was the wayward strand of light brown hair that stuck up from the cowlick on the back of his head . . . and his eyes. Eyes that went from a burnished sienna to an autumn gold depending on the light.

“Cadee.”

He had said her name a million times before and it had never once made a lump form in her throat and tears burn the back of her eyes. She had the overwhelming urge to throw her arms around him and bury her nose against his chest.

To beg him to be her best friend again.

But giving in to your emotions was sheer foolishness. She’d made that mistake once. She wouldn’t do it again. Especially when, this time, it wouldn’t just be her that got hurt.

“My, my, what a surprise,” she said in a voice that only quavered slightly. “If it isn’t Huckleberry Rory Hennessy. I heard you were back in town. Of course, I didn’t believe it. I thought surely my childhood friend would stop by to see me if he were in Promise Springs.” She paused. “But then again, we stopped being friends long ago, didn’t we?”

His eyes glittered in the morning sunlight like two gold doubloons in a pirate’s treasure. She tried to read the emotion that flashed through them, but it was gone too quickly.

“Why are you in my mama’s will?”

She knew the question was coming, and yet, she still wasn’t ready for it. She steeled her features and stalled for time. “How did you find out?”

“Our lawyer, Billy, found out. Why would you keep it a secret?” His gaze ran over her from head to toe as if he was cataloging all the changes in her like she had done to him. She wished she had put on makeup this morning. Wished her hair wasn’t in a sloppy ponytail. Wished she wasn’t wearing an old T-shirt with a bacon grease stain she’d never been able to get out. His gaze returned to hers. “But you’ve always been good at keeping secrets, haven’t you, Cadee?”

It was true. When she’d turned thirteen and her daddy had wanted her to stop being friends with Huck, she’d refused to listen, keeping their friendship a secret from everyone. Her parents. Her brothers. The townsfolk. Everyone except the Hennessys. Huck’s mama and siblings were the only ones who knew how much time she and Huck spent together. Mostly, because that time was spent at the Hennessy’s house or Honky Tonk Heaven, the dancehall their mama owned in town.

But her daddy had been right. She should have stayed away from Huck.

She stared back at him, wondering how this intense man had ever been the carefree class clown who kept everyone laughing. The charming flirt who made girls giggle and drop their panties. The lighthearted friend who made all the pressures of living in an overachieving family bearable.

But it looked like that Huck was gone.

“I just never thought you’d keep secrets from me,” he said.

Cadee hadn’t planned on going off on him. She’d planned to keep a cool head and the past in the past. But damned if she could after that remark.

She uncrossed her arms and straightened. “And I just thought that my best friend wouldn’t leave town without even a simple goodbye. That he wouldn’t refuse to answer my texts and calls and then change his phone number like I was some kind of a telemarketing stalker. We were best friends, Huck, and you ghosted me. And when you came back into town, you didn’t once try to get ahold of me. All because I made a simple mistake and turned to you for comfort after my daddy died!”