She didn’t expect to come. While always present between them, the line between the pleasure of intimacy and the anguish of leaving had never been so fine, so easily crossed. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her temples, even as her hips lifted to meet his steady thrusts. He licked away the tears, murmuring nonsense words as he slid his hand under her hips and lifted her closer. The angle narrowed and pleasure coursed along her nerves until her fingers tightened on his shoulders and she cried out.
Holding him while he shuddered out his release was almost unbearable.
She fell asleep in his arms.
• • •
THE NEXT MORNING
while Lucas was walking Duke, she said good-bye to the house. It was as difficult as she’d thought it would be. The walk around in the backyard was even worse, until she saw a single pink bloom on the bush at the corner of the house. After getting the scissors from the kitchen, she snipped off the bloom, then turned over the dirt at the bush’s base to add more fertilizer. The cement poured into the cinder blocks in the foundation was cracked, and when Alana’s hand trowel scraped against it, a glint of gold caught her eye.
Her heart tripped, then picked up to double time as she carefully cleared dirt away from the crack, then reached into it. The ring was dulled from years of exposure and scratched from the freeze-thaw cycle contracting the cement around the soft gold, but it was clearly the ring she saw sketched in the rose-care book. Carefully molded petals unfurled around a small diamond. Even dirty and scratched, the craftsmanship was evident.
It was the perfect way to say good-bye, and thank-you. She rinsed most of the dirt from the ring, and used a toothbrush to gently scrub the ring clean, then took a quick shower and didn’t bother with her contacts. She dressed quickly and zipped her suitcase. When she reached the living room, she found it empty of boxes or cases. The door to her Audi slammed, then Duke and Lucas came into the house.
“How long’s the drive?”
“Nine hours, not including stops,” she said. “I’ll be home by six or so.”
He didn’t offer to get breakfast with her. She didn’t offer, either. There was no point in prolonging this, and based on what had happened last night, she didn’t trust herself not to cry in the middle of the Heirloom. Better to make the break now and get a couple of hours of road behind her before stopping.
“You’ll take what’s in the fridge, right?”
He nodded. Duke, sitting at Lucas’s feet, whined as he looked between the two of them.
“I left the project plan with Mrs. Battle, but I found the building plans in my laptop bag. Can you take them to her?”
“No problem.”
“When you see Cody again, tell him I’ll be in touch. Tell him . . . tell him I’m sorry.”
She ran out of things to say, so she crouched down to give Duke a quick hug. He licked her cheek then whined again, peering anxiously up at Lucas.
Lucas took her case and carried it out to her car. There was room for it on the floor behind the passenger seat. He’d set her purse and laptop bag on the passenger seat. “Cover that with your coat when you’re at a rest stop or a restaurant,” he said.
“I will,” she promised.
The morning air held a little chill. She wrapped her arms around her abdomen and told herself the cool air caused her shaking. “Well, then,” she said, and opened her arms.
He wrapped her in tight. “Take care of yourself,” he said.
“You, too.”
“Let me know when you get there.”
“I will.” She swallowed hard. “I have to go.”
He opened the door for her, waiting until she’d buckled her seat belt before giving her a quick kiss on the lips. “Bye,” he said, and closed the door.
She started the car. As she backed out of the driveway, Duke barked once, a sharp sound in the early morning air. When she was safely in the street, she rolled down the passenger window.
“Look on the ledge in the kitchen,” she said, but her voice caught as she said it.
His brow wrinkled, but he lifted a hand in acknowledgment and a parting wave.
• • •
DUKE WHINED AT
his feet, then set off down the driveway, his plume of a tail waving back and forth determinedly. Lucas clicked for him, then said, “Duke. Come!”
The dog stopped, then looked at Alana’s disappearing car, then back at Lucas. He could see the confusion in the dog’s face.
She’s my person. Where is my person going? Why are you not with her? Why am I not with her? We should be with her.
“She’s gone, boy,” Lucas said when the dog walked back to him, stopping every few steps to peer over his shoulder. “I knew she was leaving, but you didn’t.”
She’d told him to look on the kitchen window ledge, but he couldn’t bear to go back in the house right away. She’d likely left him a note, and he didn’t feel like reading her elegant good-bye, written in her decisive, angular hand. She’d say she had enjoyed his company, appreciated the time they’d spent together, thanks for the memories.
Best to just get it over with and keep moving. He walked back into the kitchen and looked at the ledge. A single rosebud, small and tightly furled, lay in the sunlight streaming through the window. When he picked it up something gold slid off the stem to clatter into the sink. He reached down and picked up his grandmother’s ring, lost for decades.
Found.
Sunlight glinted off the small diamond. He opened the note:
Lucas—
I found this while you were walking Duke this morning. I went out to the rosebush to cut the first bloom for you, and when I loosened the dirt worked into the foundation, there was the ring, glinting in the dirt. The gold is a little scratched, but a jeweler can polish that out and check the prongs to make sure the diamond is secure.
You and Duke just turned the corner onto this block, so I don’t have much longer here with you. I’m fairly sure we’re both going to be grown-ups about saying good-bye. After all, this was a contract position for me, a short-term lease for you. You helped me find the strength I needed to go back to my life stronger, more confident, better able to hold my ground against other people’s expectations. I’m glad to have found something of yours in return.
Alana
She thought he’d helped her find something? That strength was there all along. All he did was give her sex and sleepless nights chasing Tanya all over the county. He’d given her a troubled boy and a fixer-upper rental house.
She’d found something much more valuable.
He looked at the ring, then at the bloom, and for a moment longing swelled inside him, pushing at the edges of his skin. He wanted to get in his truck and follow her, chase her down on the interstate and pull her over, and beg her not to leave. He wanted to tell her how she made the house feel like a home again, with her books and her simple homemade meals, how Duke ignored the other tenants, how he checked to see if a light was on every time he pulled into his driveway.
His fist curled tight around the ring. The pain of the sharp edge of the petals cutting into his palm brought him back to reality. He had nothing to offer a Wentworth. He had two houses in a small town in South Dakota. At thirty-two, he’d reached the pinnacle of his career in law enforcement. He had an aging dog, and a police vehicle he drove because it was so old and battered he wouldn’t send another officer on patrol out in it. He had a failed marriage, a failed effort at mentoring, and a family that was falling apart in slow motion.
He had a heart that had been broken so many times, the pieces weren’t even worth offering to someone else. Especially not to Alana. Who would soon be in India, and then in London.
There was one thing he could give her, something that would make her happy, because it wouldn’t just be for her.
• • •
THE NEXT DAY,
Lucas locked Duke in the screened porch and headed down County Road 46.
The trailer’s front door was wide open when he pulled off the road and onto the dirt tracks leading to the front door. The little kids were playing in the turtle sandbox. Cody sat on the steps, a sketch pad balanced on his knees. Lucas almost didn’t recognize him without the hoodie, but the way his shoulders hunched under the T-shirt when he saw Lucas’s truck tipped him off.
The little kids perched on the edge of the sandbox turned to stare when Lucas got out of the truck.
“What do you want?” Cody said. “I finished my community-service hours. Mrs. Battle signed my form on Friday. We’re done.”
Okay, they’d skip the pleasantries. “Is your mother home?”
“Yeah,” he said. “She just got up.”
Mrs. Burton appeared in the doorway. She wore a pair of sweatpants and a tank top, and her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. “What did you do?” she hissed at Cody.
“Nothing!”
“He hasn’t done anything,” Lucas said.
That I’m aware of and I want to keep it that way.
“I’d like a minute of his time, ma’am.”
Mrs. Burton gave Cody a little shove down the stairs. The boy crossed the lawn at a lope, resentment clinging to him like the faded jeans and T-shirt.
“What?”
“You’re going to paint the mural in the library,” Lucas said.
“You can’t make me do something I don’t want to do,” Cody said.
“No, but I can help you do something you
do
want to do,” Lucas replied.
“I don’t want to do it.”
“You wanted to hurt Alana. You wanted to withhold the only thing you had to give her. But she’s gone, and the only person you’re going to hurt if you don’t do this is yourself.”
“She lied to me.”
“We all knew she was leaving, Cody. It just didn’t occur to us that you didn’t know. I’m sorry about that. Alana’s sorry about that.”
“You knew?”
Lucas nodded.
“What’s the point of painting the mural if she’s not here to see it?”
Lucas tipped his head toward the little kids, playing in the sandbox under their mother’s watchful eye. Between her and Cody, those kids might have a chance at something. It was a brutal sacrifice to watch Cody make, but he was making it, without complaint. “They’ll see it,” he said. “They’ll see it every week and know their big brother did that. So will everyone else who uses the library, and everyone in town’s going to be using that library.”
Cody shoved his hands into his pockets. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You know what matters? What you decide matters, and that you choose something. Anything. Anything positive, not destructive,” he added hastily. “It’s a really nice design.”
“I’ve never done anything that big before,” Cody admitted. “Or worked on that surface. I’ve done canvases in art class. I drew a sketch, a stupid sketch, with colored pencils. That’s it.”
“It’s okay to be afraid of what you’re going to try,” Lucas said. “It’s not okay not to try it.”
Cody stared off into the distance for a while. Lucas watched him waver, then decide to fight off the cynicism and apathy. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
Together they crossed the grass to Mrs. Burton. “Cody’s going to paint the mural,” Lucas said. “With your permission, I want to take him into Brookings to buy the supplies.”
A smile of pure delight flashed across Mrs. Burton’s face. “Oh, Cody, honey. I’m so glad. You’ll do just fine,” Mrs. Burton said.
Lucas looked at his watch, thinking about the second shift at the plant. “Are you working today?”
“It’s my day off.”
“I’ll have Cody home in time for supper,” Lucas said.
Neither of them said much on the drive into Brookings. Lucas called Mrs. Battle and told her about the mural; Cody’s shoulders hunched at the delight in her voice. At the art supply shop, they filled a cart with cans of paint and brushes, tape and charcoal and pencils. Lucas didn’t say a word about Cody’s selections, just pulled out a credit card when the cashier rang up his purchases. When they’d loaded the bags into the back of the truck, Cody paused to thumb through his thin wallet.
“Gunther paid me to plant his garden,” he said defensively.
The kid had every right to assume Lucas would jump to conclusions. “You forget something?”
“Yeah,” Cody said, “give me a second,” and he trotted back into the store.
Lucas waited outside, the spring sunshine warming his face and shoulders. Cody returned with one more bag.
“Sketch pads and crayons for the little kids,” he said. “I’ll have to bring them with me when I’m working at the library. They want to do what I’m doing.”
Cody shrugged, as if this kind of planning to keep his little brothers entertained while he worked wasn’t the foundation for keeping kids out of trouble, as if he wasn’t modeling hope and positive choices and community engagement, all before he could vote. In that moment Lucas remembered why he did this job.
He did it because he cared.
• • •
“GOOD THINKING,” LUCAS
said. The library was controlled chaos, and Lucas was glad he wasn’t the one in charge. He found Mrs. Battle in the library director’s office. She’d quickly dispatched work crews to tape plastic to protect the floor. “You have what you need?” Lucas asked Cody.
“Yeah,” Cody said absently. “I’m good. Whatever.”
Lucas lifted an eyebrow, then went back to Mrs. Battle’s office. “He’s good to go.”
“I’ll make sure he’s fed,” Mrs. Battle said. “He’ll forget to eat if I don’t.”
• • •
HE WENT HOME
through the twilight, driving under the banner the town council was erecting over Main Street announcing the library’s grand reopening. When he pulled into his driveway, a blond woman was sitting on his porch steps, her arm around Duke. For a moment his heart stopped dead in his chest, but his brain noted that the hair was too long to be Alana’s.
So much for not missing her.
“Tanya,” he said when he got out of the truck.
She’d been crying, and crying hard. Duke’s fur was wet. Her hands were shaking and she was gaunt to the point of skeletal. “Hey, Lucas,” she said shakily.
“What do you need?” Money, he thought. She needed money to get the utilities turned back on, or maybe for groceries. He’d buy the groceries for her, or pay the bill, but he wouldn’t give her cash—