EIGHTEEN.

Luke.

I didn't want to go out with the guys to The Landing, but they insisted. After the week I'd had, I needed to unwind so I let them drag me to the only bar in town and prepared to get drunk. Baker drove, though he a.s.sured me he would be drinking and Rainey had told him she could be our designated driver. I felt at least a little safer.

It was still Friday and I'd only learned of what Joe left me in his will earlier that day. The Landing was packed when we showed up at half past nine. Wolfe paid our cover and we found a table near the band. It was loud so conversation was nearly impossible. It worked for me, though. I didn't want to discuss the events of the day, or h.e.l.l, even the week. I just wanted to forget.

Rainey and Gabby joined us at the table shortly after we got there. Almost immediately, Baker asked Rainey to dance and they left me alone with Gabby and Wolfe. It was beyond awkward. They wouldn't even acknowledge each other. When Mallory walked in, beer burst out of my mouth onto the table. She walked right up to the table as if she wasn't breaking my heart and said something in Gabby's ear. Gabby nodded and then Mallory asked Wolfe to dance before she even ordered a beer. Wolfe looked nervously at me and I gave him a nod.

Mallory was a free woman without attachments. She'd made that perfectly clear. So it didn't bother me one bit when Wolfe twirled her on the dance floor and she gave him a huge smile. Nope, not one bit.

Oh, who was I kidding? I was more jealous than I'd ever been in my life and she had an unfair advantage, since she wasn't the one in love. I took another swig of my beer and glanced at Gabby. She was watching them, too. I thought she looked annoyed, but when she caught me looking at her, she grinned.

"Want to dance?" She shouted above the heavy b.u.mp of the ba.s.s. I nodded and held out my hand to her. It was completely platonic, since she was technically still married and Wolfe was quickly becoming a good friend. Not to mention his left hook was dangerous. I rubbed my jaw subconsciously. There weren't any bruises, but it was still sore.

I spun Gabby around and the beat thumped around us. Near the end of the song, Gabby stepped away to dance with Baker and Wolfe grabbed Rainey's hand. With them paired off, I looked at Mallory. She seemed to have an inner battle before she reluctantly took my hand. Almost immediately, the music slowed and changed to a romantic love song. It was an older song, too. I recognized it as the song Mallory and I had claimed as ours when we were young. I pulled her close but I looked over her head to where our "friends" danced a few feet away. This was all just some scheme on their part.

But I wasn't going to be the one to back down. I looked at Mallory and she moved closer to me so that our slow dance wasn't like a junior high dance with several feet between us. Her amazing scent, berries and vanilla flooded my senses. l.u.s.t hit me like a brick wall. I shifted back as discretely as I could so she wouldn't notice. I gulped and vowed I wouldn't breathe for the rest of the dance, even if it killed me.

She was dressed to kill in that short jean skirt and a white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled. Her blonde hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail and the long tresses hung down her back. Her makeup was dark, much darker than I'd seen her wear before. Her mascara was thick on her long eyelashes and her lips were painted pink and then glossed over. I resisted the urge to kiss those pink lips.

She stared up at me with her bright blue eyes and it took everything within me not to kidnap her until she fell back in love with me. I could use s.e.x to do it, just as Baker had suggested. But she wouldn't be happy. The city life made her happy, and I didn't want to intrude on that life. I didn't want to bring her down.

We danced through the song but didn't speak. Our bodies moved in unison we'd danced to this song so many times. Even though it wasn't a super slow song, it described our relationship to a tee. The lyrics were all about finding a reason to be a better person, a reason to change. I sang the words aloud as we danced our final goodbye. She was moving on with her life and I was going to change.

It wasn't that I was going to become someone different, I just suddenly wanted something more. I didn't know what, but I knew it would come to me. In the meantime, I enjoyed the dance with Mallory. When the song ended, we separated and I went back to the table. Another fast-paced song fired up and the girls all opted to remain on the dance floor while Baker and Wolfe made their way back to where I sat.

"Sorry, man," Baker yelled to me after he sipped his beer. "They put us up to it."

"Yeah, it was Rainey and Gabby's idea, Luke. They insisted," Wolfe piped up. "We couldn't say no."

"You mean you couldn't say no to your wife. What a sally you turned out to be." Baker laughed. "Remind me to come to divorce court with you so I can watch as she takes half your stuff and then some. That way I'll be able to tell how she does it so I don't make the same mistake with Rainey."

"Low blow, Baker. Especially coming from a man who's been shut off," Wolfe replied. "I hear Rainey hasn't been giving it up since the first night she slept with you."

I looked at Baker in surprise. He brushed it off.

"We realized we were going too fast and decided to slow it down," he muttered. He swilled his beer and I saw his eyes flash.

"Yeah, slow down by stopping completely. I heard that," Wolfe raised his bottle. I tapped mine against his just to irritate Baker and we laughed.

Half an hour later, the ladies rejoined our group and I noticed Mallory chose a seat between Gabby and Wolfe. She was avoiding me. I didn't quite know what to make of it. We were over, shouldn't she at least not want to be around me anymore? Shouldn't she scream at me and demand I leave her friends?

But she acted so comfortable, as if my presence didn't bother her at all. She didn't try to make me jealous, either, which I figured would have been her number one priority. She should want to never see me again. It was so confusing.

Across the bar, Carrie caught my eye and waved me over. I excused myself from the group, where the conversation had turned to Rainey and Baker's "relationship." Definitely not a conversation I wanted to have. Again.

I walked over to Carrie, who sat at the far end of the bar where the music was low enough to invite conversation.

"Hey Luke," she greeted. She patted the barstool beside her and I sat.

"Hi, Carrie. How have you been?" I asked politely.

"Oh, the same. I just wanted to check in with you and make sure you're doing okay. I know Joe meant a lot to you. I tried to talk to you at the funeral reception, but you acted like you didn't hear me and then you drove off in a huff. I figured I would run into you eventually. Small town and all," she laughed. It was obvious she'd had more than a few drinks.

"Yeah, I was a little upset," I told her. She leaned toward me and put a hand on my thigh.

"You know, Luke, I miss you. A lot," she squeezed. I gulped, certain I couldn't go through this again. Breaking up with her had been hard enough the first time. I didn't want to do it again. I almost laughed aloud when I realized I could have been thinking about Carrie or Mallory. That was my life-one big comic show. I pushed her hand away.

"No, Carrie, we aren't doing this. Have a nice night," I got up from the stool and walked away before she could reply. When I arrived back at our table, Mallory was nowhere to be found. Rainey and Gabby glared at me.

"What?" I asked.

"We saw you hitting on Carrie," Gabby pouted. Were they insane? Carrie came on to me. And I pushed her away. I wasn't about to get involved with anyone else. At least, not right now.

"Where's Mallory?" I asked. It all suddenly clicked in my head.

"She took off," Rainey said. "She said she was going to walk home." Walk? It was after eleven at night and she lived several miles from the bar. I sighed.

I was never going to understand women.

NINETEEN.

Mallory.

My brain wasn't functioning properly. It couldn't be. At least, that's what I told myself to reason why I had left a crowded bar and gone out into the night alone. It was a stupid, childish thing to do, but now that I'd done it, I sure as h.e.l.l wasn't turning around to watch Luke maneuver some other woman. Especially Carrie. It was bad enough I had been jealous enough, and drunk enough the first time she was brought to my attention to try to break them up.

Now that I had slept with Luke again, I didn't even want to think about the dumb things I would do if I knew they were back together. It tore my heart to pieces. As I walked the sidewalk through town, I thought about the past I shared with Luke.

It was my sixteenth birthday. Long after the surprise party Dad and Luke threw for me, I lay on my bed exhausted while Luke thumbed through my loot.

"Do you know how much money you got? There has to be at least five hundred dollars here," he said with a sigh. While money had never been a problem for Dad, we weren't exactly rich, either. I had my own savings account with two grand in it that no one, not even Luke knew about. I planned on using the money when I moved to Boston.

My plan, for as long as I could remember, had been to escape the lame small town life in order to get a better education, better job, and ultimately, better life than Casper could offer me. I included Luke in my plan to move, since he insisted on putting off college until I graduated high school so we could go together. I hadn't asked him to do that-he simply wanted to be with me.

"Yeah, people are generous," I brushed off his obsession with money. That was part of the reason I didn't tell him about my stash. It wasn't that I didn't trust him; he would just want to use it for something local, like buying a car or investing in our future. And while those weren't bad ideas, my money was my escape fund. It was my way out.

"Generous? h.e.l.l, I wish I knew so many generous people," he muttered. Luke had grown up on the poorer side of life. His deadbeat father had done little to support him and his mother, and then when she pa.s.sed away, Luke had been more or less on his own. He had worked nearly full-time all through high school while maintaining a decent enough grade point average to be considered for several colleges. But he'd pushed college off. For me.

"Luke, we should talk about college," I said from my spot on my bed. I sat up and crossed my legs indian-style. He turned to look at me and sat in the ratty old chair at my desk.

"What's up?" He asked.

"I want to go to college in Boston," I explained. He didn't even blink.

"Then that's where we'll go," he answered. He moved over to the bed and took my hands in his. "I want to be where you are, Mallory. Always."

I fought the memory as it flooded my mind. I had been so sure we could survive anything at that point. We were so in love. But his mind had changed. He had chosen to stay while I had gone. If I had known then about my father's cancer, I would have stayed, though. Or, at least, that's what I told myself. But Luke had known and chosen not to tell me. He'd let me go instead of keeping his promise to always be where I was.

"Mallory! Wait up," a deep voice called from somewhere behind me. I half-turned toward the voice, but I knew it was Luke before I saw him. I stared at him for a moment before I decided to cross the street. I was leaving in the morning. The more distance between us, both physically and emotionally, the better. I jogged through the crosswalk and begin my ascent up the big hill in town toward one of the stoplights. I heard his shoes behind me against the pavement and I willed him away. Just as I pa.s.sed the local book shop and cafe, he caught up with me.

"What the h.e.l.l, Mal?" He said as he stood in front of me to block my path. I stopped and stared at him. "Why did you leave?"

"Seriously, you have to ask?" I replied. I rolled my eyes and made to move around him. Was he really that dense?

"Mallory, please "

"No, Luke, I'm not doing this. I can't watch you move one while I'm still stuck in a place where I am pretty sure I'm in love with you. And all the while, you get to go back to the bachelor life and hit on Carrie or any other woman. I can't do it," I whispered. His eyes widened at my words, but he didn't say anything. I stepped closer to him. "I want you to want to be where I am."

I quoted his words from so long ago and wondered if he would even remember. I doubted it. Men were dense. I tried to step around him again and he let me. He didn't speak, but he followed me up the hill. I a.s.sumed it was for some sort of protection, but when Rainey appeared at the corner in her minivan, I jumped in the front seat and told her to drive. She didn't question me.

Luke stared after us; I watched him in the side-view mirror. He didn't move the entire time I watched him. He looked frozen in place. My heart constricted uncontrollably and I fought back tears. It was probably the last time I would see him I tried not to think about him.

I only had a few drinks, but I knew better than to get behind the wheel. Rainey, on the other hand, hadn't had a single drink all night.

"What's with you, Rainey?" I asked to distract myself from thoughts of Luke.

"Nothing. Why?" She sounded nervous. I didn't want to push it. She would tell me when she was ready, just like Gabby had suggested. It hurt that she had confessed her secret to Gabby before me, but I push the pain away, much as I had done with all the other pain in my life.

"Never mind," I muttered. I was leaving in the morning. It was probably better I didn't know what was going on with her any way. I stared out the window as she drove me home. The town pa.s.sed with silent quickness and then we were on the back road that led to my house.

The small ranch was in need of some repairs, but now that it was for sale, I wouldn't have to worry about it. The buyer would have to see to those repairs and I would have to mourn the loss of my childhood home. Alone. Always alone. Dad had made sure I could stand the loneliness, though-he'd sent me to Boston without a second thought. He didn't want me to rely on him or Luke, or anyone. And I didn't. I was perfectly fine alone. Or so I told myself. But the people in my life kept leaving, which meant I had to accept the loneliness.

Even though I was the one leaving Luke, he didn't make much of an effort to convince me to stay. But that wasn't what I wanted. Not really. I wanted him to be willing to make sacrifices for me, the way I'd sacrificed my city-life to come home for my dad. That was love. But I knew it was impossible. Rainey pulled into my driveway and I got out.

"Thanks for the ride, Rain," I said. I was about to close the door when she stopped me.

"Mallory? I know I need to tell you, but I don't know how," she whispered. I sat back in the minivan and grabbed her hand.

"You don't have to tell me anything, Rainey. I know you're going through some stuff, and although I don't know what it is, I want you to know that I will always be here for you. You're my best friend," I said. She wrapped her arms around me and we hugged. She had a hard time letting go, as did I.

"I'm going to be in Boston on Tuesday, for, umm, a business meeting. Can you do lunch?" She asked. She wasn't telling me the truth, but I let it slide.

"Of course. I would be happy to," I a.s.sured her. "Call me when you're in the city and we'll meet up."

She smiled happily and I wondered if she would finally tell me what the h.e.l.l was going on with her at our lunch. I doubted it.

The following morning, I was all ready to go. Gabby came by around seven to see me off. Irene was at the house already, since she had moved in. They both cried when we said our goodbyes. I hugged them both fiercely as the small town and these amazing people tugged on my heart. I wanted to stay. It wasn't a revelation, but rather a knowledge deep in my soul that I was meant to be here.

But I wasn't going to stay and watch Luke date other women. So even though I knew I should unpack all my things, I would get into my car and drive away from the life that could have been mine. The life I should have lived, in another, more innocent life.

Rainey didn't show up, but I hadn't expected her to-we'd said our goodbye last night. And I would see her in just a few days in Boston. Baker and Wolfe pulled into the drive just as I was about to get in my car. I smiled when I saw them. I noticed Gabby seemed irritated to see Wolfe, but she didn't protest. These men had become my friends in the short time I'd been home.

"You didn't think we were going to let you leave without a proper goodbye, did you?" Baker asked. He slammed the door of his truck and wrapped me in a bear hug, lifting me off the ground. I laughed as he twirled me around. It reminded me of my first night home at The Landing. I felt the tears well up again, but I managed to tamp them down.

"I'm going to miss you," I said into his ear. I squeezed his neck and he put me down.

"You wouldn't have to miss me, you know, if you stayed. I could annoy you all the time, then," he promised.

"Oh, that would be something," I murmured. He was right, though-I didn't have to miss any of them. I could stay right where I was. But I wouldn't back down. I would not make sacrifices for Luke if he wasn't at least willing to sacrifice something for me. I knew it was childish, but I needed to know he would put forth the effort.

"Have a safe trip," Wolfe said. He hugged me loosely and I put my arms around his waist. I gulped down my tears and managed to pull away from him without bursting into tears. I smiled up at him then turned to the group.

"Thanks, guys. Time to get on the road," I said. Luke didn't show up. I hadn't expected him to and yet when I pulled out of the driveway, I felt like he should have. I growled at myself. I needed to stop this ridiculous attachment to him. I hit a b.u.t.ton on my iPod and my favorite Pistol Annies song blasted through the speakers.

I screamed the lyrics along with the song as I let the tears flow.

TWENTY.

Luke.

Mallory was gone for three full days before I lost it. I drove out to The Landing at noon and spent six hours there, drinking my pain away. When Baker and Wolfe showed up after work to try to get me to go home, I tried to fight them. Lucky for me, I wasn't able to do more than just stagger around the bar.

"Let's get you home," Wolfe said as he and Baker each grabbed one of my arms. I didn't want to go home, but I knew I needed to get out of this bar.

In Baker's truck, I sat in the pa.s.senger seat with my head almost completely out of the window, just in case. I hadn't thrown up from drinking in several years, but the way I felt, I knew it was a definite possibility. Behind us, Wolfe followed along behind the truck. When we got to my apartment, they had to more or less carry me up the stairs. They deposited me into the bathroom.

"Throw up, take a shower, do whatever you have to do to get yourself cleaned up," Baker demanded in a harsh voice. He'd never been serious a day in his life, but here he was, firm and even fatherly. Rainey must have rubbed off on him. I groaned when I wondered what Rainey and Gabby would have to say about this. Lucky for me, Rainey was getting ready to visit Mallory in Boston and Gabby was busy helping Irene get the Wells' house ready for the sale.

The door slammed behind Baker and I was left alone with my thoughts. I thought I might feel better if I purged, so I leaned over the toilet and let go. Several minutes later, my head cleared a little and I was able to start the shower. The steamy water refreshed me even more. When I stepped from the shower, I felt like this afternoon was some long ago dream. Or nightmare. But I was reminded of exactly what I'd done when I stepped out of the bathroom and into my living room. I had thrown on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt I had hanging on the back of the door in the bathroom. Wolfe and Baker stared me down as I approached them in the kitchen.

Wolfe leaned casually against the counter while Baker stood rigid in the center of my kitchen, arms folded across his chest. I was about to be scolded and I never felt like I deserved it more. Wolfe handed me a bottle of water and a handful of aspirin. I took them gratefully.

"Are you an idiot?" Baker asked me after another minute of silence.

"It would seem so," Wolfe replied for me. He was right, of course. I was an idiot. I never should have let Mallory go back to Boston, never should have started drinking today, and never should have become friends with these two.

"I have my reasons," I mumbled. I swigged more water.