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Amos trotted toward the voices, panting and furiously wagging his tail now.
Lyric scrambled to get up before her friends made good on their threat. Kyra had some serious lower-body strength. She could easily kick in the door.
Without bothering to make herself more presentable, she unlocked the door and pulled it open. “How’d you find me?”
“We spent all last evening doing some detective work.” Tess marched past her. “First we thought you were in Jackson, so we went there.”
Oh, geez. Her poor friends. They’d probably been out all night.
“Then we finally got ahold of the spa manager, and she told us you weren’t teaching.” Kyra stooped to pet Amos. “So we had to have a little brainstorming session about where else you might’ve gone. I knew you had Amos with you, and Tess remembered seeing they allow dogs here.”
“But we called, and they wouldn’t tell us if you were staying here.” Tess dropped to the couch with an exhale, rubbing her belly.
“So naturally, we had to drive here, and then we saw your car outside.” Kyra clutched her arm and dragged herto the couch, forcing her to sit between them. “What. The. Hell, Lyric?”
She had nothing. No explanation that would justify her behavior. She couldn’t even begin to form an apology that would make up for sending her friends all over Wyoming to look for her. “How’s Thatch?” Tears started to fall again when she said his name.
“He’s awful.” Kyra wasn’t exactly the most subtle of the three of them. “I mean, he was worried sick about you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him as frantic as he was when we were looking for you.” The concern on her face balanced her tone. “We were all worried sick.”
“I’m sorry.” That was so inadequate. “I don’t know what happened.” Another lie. Lyric hugged her knees into her chest, trying to hold herself together. She had to start telling the truth. These were her best friends. “I was sitting in the café yesterday, and I saw Luke come in.”
The only sound was Kyra’s slight intake of breath. She didn’t know all the details about what Luke had done to her, but she knew enough.
“Luke?” Tess looked back and forth between them. “Who’s Luke?”
Lyric forced herself to keep her head up, to look at her friends. “My ex-husband.”
“Oh.” Tess’s posture immediately softened. “Did you talk to him?”
“No. I couldn’t.” A familiar panic punched her in the stomach again—the same way it had when she’d seen him. “I totally shut down. I got sick and terrified, and I was desperate to get away.”
Tess’s eyes were growing wider and wider. “What happened between you two? I mean, I knew the divorcewasn’t a great time in your life, but you’ve never said much.”
“He was abusive.” That was the simple truth. “For our whole marriage.” Though the behaviors had started when they were dating; she recognized the signs now. The controlling and the isolating and the belittling. “He was mean and angry, and he pushed me around.”
“Oh, my God. Lyric.” Tess slipped her arm around her while Kyra held her hand.
“I thought I’d left that all in my past, that I was over it.” A sob slipped out. She’d wanted to be over the pain, but she’d never fully confronted the damage he’d done. She’d simply stuffed it down deep. “And then I saw him, and it brought me right back to that helpless, frantic place.” And then she’d walked away from the one man who’d shown her care, compassion, and tenderness.
“I didn’t know.” Now Tess was crying too. “I’m sorry. How awful. That’s so awful.”
“No wonder you ran.” Kyra squeezed her hand harder. “Any of us would’ve done the same thing. You can’t blame yourself for having a reaction to seeing someone who mistreated you.”
“But I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t want to hurt Thatch.” Yet she had hurt him. Deeply. She’d heard the wound in his voice. She’d seen his expression fall. “Things with us were moving fast, and then his parents wanted to hang out with me, and then I saw Luke and remembered how horrible my marriage was, how I had felt so trapped. I panicked.”
“Of course you did.” Tess pulled some Kleenex out of her purse. “Why haven’t you ever talked to us about this? It’s so much to carry on your own.”
“I didn’t want anyone to know how weak I was. That I stayed with a man who hurt me for so long.” She’d never fully been able to accept that their problems weren’t her fault. Until now. She had to accept her past in order to have a future. She had to forgive herself and let go. “I got out and got away, and I never wanted to think about him again.” But that method of moving on hadn’t worked. She’d never dealt with the scars he’d left on her heart. For the last week, she’d been telling Elina not to keep secrets—to let people in and let them help—and she wasn’t following her own advice.
“Does Thatch know about Luke?” Kyra asked.
“Some. But he doesn’t know I saw him. I didn’t tell him.” She’d run away instead.
“He’ll understand,” Tess insisted. “Everyone will. We could’ve helped you. We could’ve protected you from him, especially knowing he was in town for the rodeo.”
“I should’ve told you everything.” These friends were her family. They would fight for her anytime she needed them to. But she needed to start fighting for herself too. She’d never gotten closure. She’d never taken a stand, and she had a right to tell him how much he’d hurt her. God, she was still hiding from Luke after all these years. “I want to confront him.” She needed him to know that she wasn’t going to be afraid anymore.
“I don’t know, honey.” Tess shared a look with Kyra.
