The Second Chance Café (Hope Springs, #1) (37 page)

“I didn’t know anyone was here,” she said, ignoring the urge to go to him, to hold him, to touch him, to feel him along with her past. “You scared me.”

“Wouldn’t want that now, would we?” He closed the door, shutting out what light had been shining through. Shutting them in the room that was full of old pain and Sierra and that very sad silence.

She wanted him to reach back and fling the door open. She wanted him not to know how nervous she was. She wanted to ask him a thousand questions. She wanted him to leave. She wanted him to stay forever. “What are you doing here?”

“No, baby,” he said, stepping closer to where she stood, and smelling of sunshine and sawdust and madness. “My house. I ask the questions.”

Photo by Robyn Arouty

A
lison Kent is the author of more than fifty published works, including her debut novel,
Call Me
, which she sold live on CBS’s
48 Hours
, in an episode called “Isn’t It Romantic?” Her novels
A Long, Hard Ride
and
Striptease
were both finalists for the
Romantic Times
Reviewer’s Choice Award, while
The Beach Alibi
was honored by the national Quill Awards and
No Limits
was selected by
Cosmopolitan
as a Red Hot Read. The author of
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Erotic Romance
and a veteran blogger, Alison decided long ago that if there’s a better career than writing, she doesn’t want to know about it. She lives in her native Texas with her geologist husband and a passel of pets.