“So what’re you doing here? I thought you were heading right to the house to make dinner for us. My mouth’s been watering all day, thinking about your burgers.” Meghan’s family owned and ran a beachfront restaurant in Florida, and I loved it when she made us their signature hamburgers.
“I’m on my way.” The smile left her face, and she bit her lip. “I just wanted to talk to you by myself before tonight.”
I leaned back against a covered table. “Oh, yeah? What’s up?” My stomach turned a little; was this it? Was she going to tell me . . . she and Sam were getting married? No, I knew my brother; he’d definitely talk to me about that before he proposed. Or was she pregnant? My gaze dropped to her middle, still flat in her low-rise jeans.
“I stopped in town just now. Sam asked me to pick him up some part at Boomer’s.” Boomer was our local auto mechanic and one of my brother’s best friends, even if he was a full generation older than us.
“Okay.” I was mystified now. What could Boomer have to do with anything Meghan had to tell me?
“Ali . . .” She reached out and laid a hand on my arm. “Brice Evans died yesterday morning.”
For a moment, I was confused. Brice Evans? No, I’d just seen him last week at the grocery store. I hadn’t spoken to him, of course; the Evans family and I had operated on a strictly nod and fake smile basis for the past eight years. But he’d been there, looking the same as always. The same as he had when he’d taught my junior year history class in high school, and the same as when I’d seen him practically every day for four years. There was a time when I’d been like one of his daughters.
Meghan was continuing to speak, and I heard her vaguely over the buzzing in my ears. “Boomer said . . . it was sudden. Apparently he got up yesterday, went into the kitchen to get coffee and just . . . dropped. A heart attack, they think. He probably never knew it was happening.”
“Oh, my God.” I whispered the words, bracing my hand on the edge of the table as unexpected tears stung my eyes. “But . . . he was so young. I can’t believe it.”
“I know. Poor Reenie.” Brice’s younger daughter Maureen had been my best friend all through high school, but we hadn’t spoken in over eight years. She and Meghan had gotten friendly last summer, although Meghan didn’t say much about it, out of deference for my feelings, I suspected.
“I can’t believe I didn’t hear about it before now. Yesterday morning, you said?”
Meghan nodded. “Boomer said no one knew until early today. Mrs. Evans and the girls were at the hospital most of yesterday—they tried to resuscitate him, I guess. And then . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she glanced up at me with worry and sympathy in her green eyes. “They wanted to wait for . . . Flynn to get home.”
I’d known it, realized the truth in some hidden part of my brain, but hearing his name aloud jolted me. Of course he’d come home now. He’d return because he had to.
“He’s here, then?” My voice was surprisingly steady.
“Boomer said he got in before lunch. He’s with his family, at the house.”
My body was stiff and my movements jerky as I nodded. “Okay.” I swallowed hard. “I’m . . . I’m going to close up here and head for home. You coming?”
Meghan gripped my arm. “Ali . . . are you all right? I can’t imagine how you must feel.”
I forced a smile, as wooden as the ones I’d aimed at Brice Evans since the summer after senior year. “Yeah, I’m fine. I mean . . . it is what it is, right? I’m sorry for Reenie and Iona. I know what it’s like—” My throat closed. “I need to go, Meg. I need to get home. Bridge—”Shit.She was staying in town, at Katie’s house. I wanted her home, with me, away from where anyone—and by anyone, of course I meant Flynn—might see her.
Which was absolutely ridiculous. For eight years, my daughter had been living here, right outside Burton. She’d been going to school in town since she was five. In kindergarten and again this year, she’d shared a class with Graham Fowler, the son of Iona Evans Fowler . . . nephew of Flynn Evans . . . and while I’d been a little worried at first that someone might suspect the truth, when no one did, I’d relaxed.
But it was different now. Now her father was back in town.
Meghan stayed with me while I finished locking up, and she drove me to the house. Usually, I walked from the stand; cutting through the newly-planted fields and the budding groves of peach trees gave me a few minutes of peace and quiet between working the stand and dealing with bedlam at home. But today I didn’t hesitate when Meghan steered me into the passenger seat of her Corolla.
“Are you going to see him?”
I turned to look at her, frowning. I’d been wrapped up in my own spinning thoughts, forgetting she was even in the car. Which was really stupid, since she was the one driving it.
“See who? Oh, Flynn? No. No, I doubt it. I mean . . . I don’t think he’d want to see me. And . . . his dad. That’ll keep him busy. The funeral. And . . . everything.” I sniffed. “And then there’s the fact that he left me here, alone and pregnant, eight and a half years ago.”
“But Ali, what about Bridget? Flynn’s back in town. Aren’t you going to tell him about her?”
“God, no.” On that point, I was absolutely certain. “He won’t be here long. Trust me, he’ll get the hell out of town as soon as he can.”
She was quiet for a minute, and then as we pulled into the long driveway that led to my house, she glanced at me sideways. “Ali, remember last summer? When I was leaving to go back to Florida, and Sam and I were . . . well, you remember. I believe your words to me were something like ‘too stupid to see what was right in front of us’?”
I sighed. “Yes, of course.” I had a feeling I knew where she was going with this.
“And I asked you what you’d do differently if you could go back to the day Flynn left. You said you’d leave with him. That not a day went by that you didn’t regret letting him go.”
“I know what I said, and I meant it. If I could go back to that day, I’d change what I did. But this isn’t the same thing. It’s nothing like the same thing. Because almost nine years have passed since he walked away from me, and a hell of a lot of stuff has happened. What do you think he’d say if I told him now that I had his baby and never let him know? You think he’d thank me for that?”
