Zeke stepped forward, his chest heaving, his eyes wild as they scanned me from head to toe, checking for injuries, for signs of harm, for anything that would justify the violence I could see simmering just beneath his skin. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded, his voice low and dangerous. “What the fuck just happened?”
I looked at him. At Kansas. At Angel, who was watching me with that same sad, knowing expression. At the otherDiamondback brothers who were starting to gather, drawn by the commotion like moths to a flame.
All of them were waiting for an explanation. All of them expecting me to say something, anything that would make sense of the chaos. But there was nothing to say. Nothing that wouldn’t make me sound pathetic and foolish and so desperately, achingly alone.
I shook my head slowly, feeling the weight of their stares pressing down on me like a physical thing. “Nothing,” I whispered, my voice barely audible over the pounding of my own heart. “There is nothing to say.”
And then I walked away.
I didn’t run. Didn’t rush. Just put one foot in front of the other and moved through the crowd with my head down and my arms wrapped around myself like I could hold all the broken pieces together through sheer force of will.
“Hope! Hope, wait.” Zeke’s voice followed me, but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. If I stopped, I would shatter completely, and I couldn’t do that here. Not in front of all these people. Not where everyone could see just how thoroughly I had been destroyed.
The family farm truck sat at the edge of the lot, dusty and familiar and blessedly empty. I climbed inside, my hands shaking so badly I could barely get the key in the ignition. The engine turned over with a rough cough, and I pulled out of the lot without looking back. Without checking to see if Zeke was following. Without caring about anything except getting away from that place, from those people, from the memory of his face when he realized the truth.
The drive home felt endless.
The road stretched out before me, familiar and unchanging, but it might as well have been a foreign country for all the comfort it provided. My hands gripped the steering wheel sotightly my knuckles went white, and I focused on the simple act of breathing, in and out, in and out, because if I let myself think about anything else, I would drive this truck straight into a ditch.
The smell of jasmine clung to my skin. It was everywhere. In my hair. On my clothes. Embedded so deeply in my pores that I wondered if I would ever be able to wash it away. It used to be my favorite scent. The one I chose for all my lotions and soaps because it made me feel clean and fresh and somehow more myself.
Now it just smelled like heartbreak. Like a ghost I could never become. Like the reason a man had touched me with reverence and then left me with nothing.
A sob broke free, raw and ugly, as I pressed my hand against my mouth to muffle the sound. Tears blurred my vision, hot and relentless, streaming down my cheeks faster than I could wipe them away.
I didn’t know what I had expected. Maybe that he would look at me and seeme. That he’d realize I was the one who had been there that night, who had given him everything I had to give, who had let him call me by another woman’s name because I wanted so desperately to ease his pain.
Maybe I thought he might be grateful. Or angry. Or something, anything other than the blank, devastated shock that had crossed his face before he turned and walked away. But he hadn’t seen me. He saw the truth of what he had done, and it had broken him all over again. And I was left standing there, invisible and aching, wondering if I had ever been anything more than a convenient substitute for the woman he really loved.
The farm appeared through the windshield like a mirage. Familiar fields, the old barn, the greenhouse with its glass panels catching the late afternoon sun.
Home.
I parked the truck and sat there for a long moment, my hands still gripping the wheel, my breath coming in short, shallow gasps. I couldn’t go inside yet. I needed... Faith.
I needed Faith.
I climbed out of the truck on shaking legs and walked toward the greenhouse, my vision still blurred with tears, my chest so tight I thought my ribs might crack from the pressure.
The greenhouse door opened with a soft creak, and the smell of earth and growing things washed over me. All familiar, comforting, and safe. Faith stood near the back, a watering can in her hand, her attention focused on a row of seedlings that were just beginning to sprout. She looked up when I entered, her expression shifting from peaceful concentration to immediate concern. “Hope? I thought you were at the barbecue. How did it—”
She stopped. Her eyes widened as she took in my tear-stained face, my shaking hands, the way I was barely holding myself together.
The watering can hit the ground with a dull thud.
“Oh, honey,” she breathed, crossing the distance between us in three quick strides. “What happened?”
And that was all it took.
The dam broke as I collapsed into her arms, my body shaking with sobs so violent they felt like they might tear me apart from the inside out. Faith caught me, held me, her arms strong and steady as she lowered us both to the ground, cradling me against her chest like I was something precious and fragile.
“He knows,” I choked out between sobs, my voice raw and broken. “Faith, he knows. He came to the barbecue, and he saw me, and heknows.”
“Knows what, sweetheart? What does he know?”
“That it was me. At the pond. That I wasn’t—” Another sob cut off my words, and I pressed my face against her shoulder,breathing in the scent of lavender and soil and home. “He thought—and when he realized, when he saw me today—he walked away. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t even look back. He justleft.”
Faith’s arms tightened around me, and I felt her press a kiss to the top of my head.
