"It's so good to see you at last. It's been so long." The strain in her voice twisted my heart.

Two weeks apart and I hadn't missed her. I swallowed the bad taste of my betrayal.

"Come in. I've prepared tea for us." She pulled me inside the hallway. "I even brought back some macaroons from Paris. You wolfed them down the last time you were here."

I'd spent last Christmas with the Carringtons, partly here in D.C. and partly at their house in the Hamptons. Yeah, several universes away from Steep Hill.

"Go to the library. I'll bring the tea in there."

I nodded silently. Lenor didn't seem to notice I hadn't said a word since I'd arrived. I made my way toward the library. I sat on the Chesterfield and the old leather squeaked under my weight. I kept the vacuum inside my head. If I started thinking, I'd muddy the thoughts I'd carefully formulated during my trip from Kansas. But maybe what I had to say was more like a Band-Aid: I'd better rip it off quickly rather than bit by bit.

Eleanor was back. She kept chattering while serving tea. Mundane stuff, empty stuff. She'd been spending time with her socialite mother. I'd never felt connected with this version of Lenor and I had tried to help her break away from it. Obviously I had failed.

I cut through the bullshit. "Has your mom gone into rehab?"

My question startled Lenor and she splashed some tea over the side of the cup, causing her to stop the small talk. For this I was grateful.

"Daddy doesn't want me to talk about it."

She handed me a cup and saucer and a creamy macaroon. Every one cost more than a day's wages. When the tea ritual was over, Eleanor settled back against the sofa, a twin to the one I was sitting on. We drank in silence. I wanted to break through this stone wall of hers.

"So she is in rehab, then."

"Yes. Since Monday. Daddy is really embarrassed by the whole thing. I mean, first the divorce, now this. What will people think?"

"Who gives a shit about what people think?" Lenor's eyes shot from her cup to me. I had never talked to her like this before. "What matters is that your mother sorts herself out for good."

Lenor gave a slow nod. Her expression fizzled. "I think going back to France was what she needed. It's very difficult..." She placed the saucer on the table between us. "It's very difficult to exist around Daddy."

This was the first time she had criticized her father.

Maybe it wasn't my place anymore but I wanted her to find a way to exist beyond Bruce Carrington. I grabbed her hand across the mahogany table. Her skin was cold underneath my fingers.

"Lenor, your father loves you but you have to start stepping out of his shadow and living for yourself. You have to be your own person and stop living through the people you love."

Her eyes were now fixed on me and glistening. "You're leaving me, aren't you?"

Her question fell between us like a dead weight.

I didn't move. I kept my hand over hers. I felt sick.

"Yes. How do you know?"

"I've seen that look before. I was in love with my childhood's sweetheart once. I had what you have. Except he didn't love me back." She gave me a sad chuckle.

She had never said anything about having her heart broken before.

"What happened back home?" she continued. "Has she changed her mind?"

I rested my back against the sofa, breaking the contact between us.

"No. She still expects us to adopt Lucas. She gave her word and she won't go back on it. I'm the one who isn't keeping my word."

"So you're going after her."

"Yes." I said the word in a breath.

Lenor sat straight, almost regal. Stiffness was her way of coping but she wasn't fooling me.

"I knew you would." She glued her eyes on her wringing hands. "I almost left Maman on her own in Paris to fly to Kansas City. I knew that if you spent time at home with Cassandra and Lucas, I would lose you."

I wanted to say how sorry I was, but it would sound lame.

"I didn't mean to lead you on." That was the only truth I had for her. "We get along so well. I knew you would be a great partner, a great mom. It's just..."

"You love her." Her voice was soft, and she said the words with a sad smile.

"I do."

"Then go." Her hands were now crossed over her stomach.

Lenor was proud. She wanted to cry but she could not let go in front of me. So I stood and grabbed my bag which I had left at the foot of the Chesterfield. As much I had not missed her these last weeks, I knew I would miss Lenor for the rest of my life.

She kept her gaze fixed downwards, so I walked towards the door. Before leaving the room, before leaving her life, I turned back.

"Lenor, be who you really want to be. Not what your dad or any other man wants you to be. You have so much fire inside you. Don't let it die."

"I'll try," she said without looking at me.

I left the library. I left the grand house. I left Lenor and hoped she would find her own happiness one day soon.

thirty-nine.

Cassie Greenwood Cemetery was where people ended up in Steep Hill. That said, I used to think the whole town was a freakin' graveyard because living here was like a death sentence.

That was where Gran was resting. In peace, I hoped. Although I had that feeling she could still see me. She never used to pass judgment but what she thought now of my life, I wasn't brave enough to want to know. I switched off the engine of my Chevy. My Chevy that was a few miles away from the scrapheap.

The last week had been busy. Sorting out Gran's papers, dealing with the realtor, patching up my friendship with Woodie. Of course, there'd also been Sam. He'd left earlier today to go back to Oxford for this mysterious family business of his.

But it was back to "Cassie on her own" mode now. It'd stay that way until further notice. I hadn't closed all doors though.

There was one last thing I had to do before leaving Steep Hill behind. It was one last goodbye to the two people who'd been my entire life. I could always say goodbye. That didn't mean I'd stop loving them. That didn't mean I'd stop carrying them in my heart.

I slammed the door of the Chevy and let the wind play with my hair. It was warm and dry. I enjoyed it. It was worth all the ancient buildings and history I'd seen in England. And if that made me a hillbilly, I couldn't care less. I also enjoyed how there wasn't one sound apart from the wind whizzing through the grass of the prairie. And the endless Kansas sky, so big that it didn't hang over me, but engulfed all around me. I could touch it and tonight it was blazing red.

I walked underneath the old wooden archway marking the entrance to the cemetery. There was another entrance on the other side. You could reach it through a path that started at Sweet Angel Point. He might come from there. I snooped around the graves. Some of them dated back to when Steep Hill was a cattle town. I'd always liked it here. Maybe because my mom wasn't buried here. Otherwise I wouldn't have liked the place that much. I didn't even know where she was. It didn't matter.

In the month since Gran's funeral, the grass had dried. Gone was the squishy ground I'd walked on that shitty day and the mud that had caked itself to my best shoes. I guessed it hadn't rained while I was away.

This was the last time I'd see him. I couldn't get my head around it. I didn't want to. I reached the top of the butte at the center of the cemetery. I passed the small pyramid that marked the resting place of one of Steep Hill's oldest families. On the other side was Gran's grave. Small in comparison, but my grandmother didn't need anything sticking out of the ground to make anyone who'd known her remember her.

He stood there. Next to the simple white stone that had her name on it. I was right. He'd come from Sweet Angel Point. He wore those same old jeans and a black T-shirt. It was so washed out that I only knew the name of the band written on it because it'd been my present for his birthday.

I swallowed hard.

Josh looked up from the gravestone. My heart danced around my ribcage. The last time... was it also the last time a man would have that effect on me? For sure, the years ahead would be damn plain. And I was only twenty-three.

"Hi," he greeted me. As always with Josh, I heard much more than just a "hi." I heard so many of the other times he'd say that same little word.

My lips twitched. "I'm glad you asked me to come with you." My voice hadn't broken so it was maybe safe to say more. "She'd be happy to see us together."

He shoved his hands into his pockets. I liked the way it made the skin of his forearms tighten over his muscles. "She must think I'm the scum of the earth."

"No, she doesn't. She never did. She loved you dearly until the end."

He bit the inside of his cheek. "I never came to say goodbye." He stole a glance at me but then shot back to the grave. "I told you I' come and talk to her before leaving for Georgetown. I never did."

I already knew that. It was after I'd come back here for good and I'd prayed for him not to show up. After the Clarissa fiasco, I'd never have been able to look him in the eyes. Still, Gran had always kept a piece of her heart for Josh MacBride. If nothing else, I wanted him to leave with that truth. "She never held anything against you. She hoped things would work out eventually for the two of us."

"Wherever she is, she must be damn disappointed."

I thought about it for a moment. Gran wouldn't have been disappointed. Sad, for sure. Sad I wasn't going to have my "Happy Ever After" with the dashing Joshua MacBride. Iris O'Malley had been a hopeless romantic. She'd wished for me the same ending as for any of the heroines in the cheap novels she used to devour.

But my "Happy Ending" wasn't Josh's problem. So I forced myself to look at the picture from a different angle. One that might make Gran happy.

I gave him a sheepish smile. "You don't hate me anymore."

His eyes shifted violently toward me and I stepped back.

"Hate you?"

"Yes." My words were soft.

"I thought I did once."

"But..."

"I don't hate you anymore, Cass. I never really did."

"Good." I breathed, still unsure. Yeah, not quite the mad profession of love you could find in those stupid romance novels. They set expectations far too high.

Josh circled around the grave and I drank the sight of him, imprinting all the details of his face in that fuzzy brain of mine. His jawline, the tensed muscles in his neck, the lines of his collarbone pushing against his tight shirt.

The need to feel him made me take a step in his direction. He stared back at me as if he expected me to come even closer. As if he wanted me to?

"You're leaving for Kansas City tomorrow?" he asked.

"Yep. I'll be staying at Mr. Guidi's until you and Eleanor take over."

Shit. Saying her name felt like having my throat skinned from the inside. He nodded but didn't say anything. Josh was kind of silent tonight. Maybe it was better that way.

He leaned forward so that the tips of his fingers brushed at the gravestone. It looked like his last goodbye.

"Can you do something for me?"

Nothing I could do now would cost me as much as what I had already. So it was easy for me to answer. "Of course."

"Can you walk with me down to Sweet Angel Point?"

The longer I waited to turn my back on him, the longer my heart would bleed. Going to Sweet Angel Point would leave it to hang dry.

"Yes." My heart could take the hit because I wouldn't need it after tonight.

So, after one last nod at Gran's grave, we started toward the other exit. It wasn't an arch like the main entrance I'd used before, but a small, rotten wooden gate. It creaked when it closed behind us. We started down the path and I kept myself busy by letting my palm caress the top of the high wild grass bordering the path. I let the last rays of sun warm my skin.

"Will Sam go with you to Kansas City?"

"Why on earth do you think that?"

Josh gave me a stiff nod. "He proposed."

"And my answer was 'no,' and it still is."

I swear I saw the tension ease from his shoulders. They sank. He still didn't look at me.

"I'm not going back on my word, Josh. I promised I wouldn't step in your and Lenor's way and I won't."

He didn't say anything else for a while. He took my elbow a couple of times to guide me along the uneven path. I'd miss the strength of his hold on me. But that was the only connection we had. It was like traveling back to when I'd arrived in Oxford, totally unwanted. And that so wasn't the feeling I wanted to take away with me... to torture me for the rest of my life.

"How did the job hunting go in D.C?" I asked.

"Well. I met with a senator." He named a guy that even I had heard of. "I might join his staff. It won't be as well paid as the job I was offered by Lenor's dad, but the money is still good and I can see myself doing it for a while."

Hmm. "I thought that dick Carrington would keep the job offer open."

"It's not happening," he answered flatly. "It's for the best."

I wasn't going to give Josh career advice. I didn't even know what I'd do for a living tomorrow, or where, for that mattered. So if he told me it was "for the best," I trusted him that it was, for him and for Lucas.

The path came to an end. We'd reached Sweet Angel Point. Josh's truck was parked there.

I stepped around the cotton tree. Josh stood next to it. He leaned against it, his hands buried deep in his pockets, fists clenched. He rested his right shoulder against the trunk. I saw him swallow and the fire reappeared in his eyes, not as fierce as before, but slow-burning... like foreplay. Now it was my turn to swallow and to ignore-well, at least try to ignore-the ache traveling from my tummy to that place between my legs.