Then another truth hits me like a bolt of lightning. The woman in the mirror is going to leave.
I know it in my gut before I let myself say it aloud. It’s like I watch myself decide from a distance. I know it the way I have always known what is about to happen.
I have to leave. It’s the kind thing to do. I can’t drag Jordan through this mess. He deserves so much better. He deserves uncomplicated and easy. It will be just like the situation with his ex. He won’t follow. He’ll let me go in an instant. He’ll realize that not wasting another minute on me is the right thing.
Leaving is theonlykind thing to do.
I start packing and not the way a person packs for a trip. I pack like a pro. I pack like someone who has done this so many times before. There’s no crying or prioritizing documents. Everything and I mean everything goes in the trunk of my car.
Passport. Birth certificate. The folder with my certifications. The hard drive. The cash I keep folded inside the lining of a coat I never wear. Clothes I can carry in one duffel. The good knife. The good pan. The book I am halfway through, because I am still the person who can't leave a book unfinished, even now.
I leave the deadbolt Jordan installed and the chair too. Maybe the next person won’t need them, but if they do I hope it gives them a little peace.
I tell myself the things I always tell myself. Only this time, they don’t go down quite as easily.
I tell myself that Jordan wants a wife. He told me he wanted a wife. He wants kids walking to school and Sunday dinners and a porch full of people on the Fourth of July. Truth is, I’ve always known deep down that life can’t be for me. When I sat on histailgate and looked at a valley with his life in it, for one terrifying, ridiculous second, I let myself picture my life being here too.
But I cannot be his wife. I can’t be anyone’s wife and I certainly cannot be the woman his kids walk to. I am a fire. The chaos follows me everywhere I go and I can’t keep pretending that isn’t true.
I have to leave now before I take any more days from him that he can't get back. I swallow back a pang of doubt and grab a pen before my emotions can take over. I scribble the note on the back of a grocery receipt.
Jordan, I'm sorry. I can't ruin your life with my mess. You deserve a big life in your beautifully small town and someone is going to win the gift of a lifetime to share it with you. Thank you for the best two weeks of my life. Please don't come after me. Lana.
I don’t writeI love youbecause I have no right to. Jordan's on shift until tonight. By the time he sees the note, I’ll be gone. I put the receipt on the kitchen counter under the cabinet where he wrote his phone number in Sharpie, which feels like a lifetime ago.
I look at the phone number for ten excruciating seconds. My stomach lurches and aches. A small voice in my mind is screaming for me to pick up the phone and dial. But in the end, I know that’s selfish.
The last thing I want is Jordan putting himself between me and some psychopath arsonist. So I don’t call it. Instead I pick up the duffel, swallow back my broken heart, and lock the deadbolt behind me.
CHAPTER 10
JORDAN
I getoff my shift and my eyes burn. I’m ready to slip right back into my routine with Lana. It’s amazing how she’s become such a fixture in my world. Every missed connection and failed relationship makes sense. All of it was a roadmap straight to her.
I pick up two coffees in a tray on my passenger seat. Hers is some kind of latte with low sugar, just like she likes. Mine, of course, is black.
When I pull up to Lana's place, the sun is sliding down behind the ridge and the porch light's already glowing against the dusk. We'll take our coffee out front, and then, if she's up for it, I'll cook her a full dinner and we'll watch the dark come down over the valley. It'll be the kind of long, quiet evening I've been looking forward to since before she came down off that mountain with her hand in mine.
I take the porch in two strides and let myself in with the key she gave me. I slip into the bedroom, surprised to find Lana’s bed empty. “Sweetheart, you up?”
I listen for a reply, but the house is eerily quiet. There isn’t even a podcast playing in the background. I move from room to room and my heart races as I note the items missing from each space.
Then I step into the kitchen and find a grocery receipt on the counter. There’s a note in Lana’s handwriting scrawled on the back.
I read it once.
I read it twice.
I read it a third time, slowly, because my brain has gone somewhere else and my body is still in this room. I need rational thought to come back to this room before I do anything.
My eyes run over the note again and again until they settle on one sentence.Please don’t come after me.
There’s no way in hell I’m doing that. This time I’m fighting.
I don’t know what or who spooked her, but Lana isn’t slipping through my fingers that easily. A new thought settles and it makes my blood run cold… It sure as hell better not be her ex.
I go from frozen to taking action in a matter of seconds. I head to the police station. On my way over, I call every guy on the squad and cash in every favor I’ve got. Then we do what we do best, we organize.
