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So she’d stopped long enough to change back into her street clothes, and by the time she was dressed, Heath was long gone. She’d borrowed Harmony’s car and gone looking for him, but she hadn’t found any trace of him. Even stops at his favorite bar, restaurant, and ice cream shop had yielded her nothing—no one had seen him. No one had a clue where he was.
Which was why, seven hours later, she was wearing a hole in her bedroom carpet as she paced back and forth, dressed in a pair of Harmony’s old pajamas.
Damn it, where was he? Why wasn’t he answering his cell? And why was he hiding from her, of all people? Heath had always talked to her, even way back in junior high and high school.
The fact that he was shutting her out now hurt, especially since she was walking around with his very big, very beautiful ring on her finger. She knew this whole wedding thing was fake, but she couldn’t help feeling like their relationship had changed. There was something between them that felt real.
Frustrated, worried, and more upset than she wanted to admit to herself, she checked her phone for the millionth and one time. Still no Heath. Damn it. Was this stupid thing even working?
It took every ounce of self-control she had not to reach for a screwdriver and take the damn phone apart just to make sure. She’d reached her closet again, so she turned around and started pacing back to the window.
Where could he be? San Angelo wasn’t that big a place, and he hadn’t been here in a long time. While everyone in town would pretty much open their house to the Deuce, she knew him well enough to know that when he was like this, hanging out with people—having to be “on”—was the last thing he wanted.
She paused at her window, looked out over the dark landscape, and told herself not to worry. Heath was in pain, but he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t do anything crazy, no matter how upset he was. He wouldn’t—
That’s when it hit her. The tree house. Heath was at the tree house.
It was where he’d always gone to think when they were younger. It was where he had gone to escape his daddy’s drunken rages and where he’d gone to lick his wounds when he hadn’t gotten out of the house fast enough to dodge the blows. It was also where she’d given him her virginity all those years ago.
Damn it.
The tree house was the one place she’d avoided like the plague since he’d told her he loved her and then called her by her sister’s name. She’d sworn then that she would never set foot in the damn thing again. And she never had.
She stripped off Harmony’s pajamas and pulled on the yoga pants Heath had brought to her daddy’s hospital room the other day. Ugly past be damned. Heath was hurting, and she needed to be with him. He’d held her hand all the way from Hawaii, all the way from Austin, all the way through her daddy’s surgery. And even if he hadn’t … even if he hadn’t, she would still want to be with him. Still want to hold him as his own world fell apart. No way was she letting him go through this all alone.
Her mother was at the hospital, so there was no one to make excuses to when Lyric slipped into her Birks, made her way to the kitchen for provisions, and then headed to the garage, where her daddy’s truck was parked.
As she pointed the truck toward the tree house—toward Heath—she tried not to think about the last time they had both been there. Tried not to think about the days and weeks and months that had followed, when her heart had felt like it had literally been ripped out of her chest. It was a different time, and they had been different people. Dwelling on that night would only end up hurting the both of them.
She drove west toward Heath’s thousand-acre spread. The Concho River Ranch hugged a good bit of the Concho River. Lyric bounced along in her daddy’s old Ford pickup. The night was quiet and so was the cab of the old pickup truck. It felt strange to be in a vehicle without Neil Diamond playing, and she kind of missed it. Not that she was going to tell Cherry Cherry that.
She rolled her eyes. God, now she believed that old Caddy was alive?
It had been so long since she’d been out there that she almost missed the turnoff to the ranch. The sign was missing, and the trees on either side of the road were overgrown. Heath wasn’t kidding about his place needing work. It was good that he’d hired a new caretaker.
Maybe this place really would be where Heath ended up.
She shook her head. She knew she had suggested it, but she just didn’t see him as a rancher. He hated solitude, and he needed people. Who would he tell his crazy-ass stories to if he lived all the way out here? She was pretty sure the cows wouldn’t appreciate them.
It took her three tries, but she finally found the old two track that led down to the river. She smiled to herself as she drove along it, letting the good memories come instead of concentrating only on the big, bad one that had loomed over the ranch—and her relationship with Heath—for so long.
In high school, Heath had done some of his best fast-talking trying to convince her and Harmony—mainly Harmony—that skinny-dipping was the most efficient way of swimming. No clothes meant no drag. She remembered that on one particularly bright sunny summer afternoon, as they’d all been sitting on a log by the river drinking Shiner Bock, Heath had stripped down to his boxers and dared them to do the same. Lyric knew that if Harmony hadn’t been there, she totally would have done it.
And embarrassed herself all over again.
Back then, she would have done anything to make him love her.
That was the hold Heath had once had on her. That was the hold he still had on her.
The heart she no longer listened to broke all over again for her teenaged self who only had eyes for Heath Montgomery. He hadn’t loved her then, and he didn’t love her now. No matter how it felt when they had sex … no, when he made love to her. They were way beyond just sex.
Her past feelings were getting tangled up in the now. The engagement had started out as a misunderstanding and grown into a giant mess. She was starting to believe that it was real.
She glanced down at the shiny diamond on her hand, the one that had made her heart beat way too fast when Heath had given it to her. Even though she knew Heath wouldn’t end up with a girl like her, that didn’t matter. Just like it hadn’t mattered in high school. She’d known that he wanted the popular cheerleader and not the teacher’s pet who asked for extra homework to fill the empty hours that should have been filled with dates.
He played the part of fiancé so well that she could actually see them ending up together. It was a dangerous kind of game, one that was getting harder and harder to separate reality from fiction.
She wanted something real, and Heath’s feelings for her were nothing but make believe.
