I shake my head. “Nope. He feels terrible about the way Gage treated you and went to my dad about doing whatever it takes to make you feel safe again.”
Her eyes tear up and one drop of moisture falls from the slit of her swollen lids. “He’s a good guy.”
“He’s a great guy.” I swallow back the emotion I feel at seeing her break down but give her a second to regain her composure. Once she does, I breach the subject I hope won’t piss her off. “Thank you for telling the sheriff about what Dustin did to the McKinstry place. I know you really care about him; it had to have been hard to turn him in.”
She doesn’t meet my eyes. “I felt like shit not telling you sooner. I mean, hell, your parents were like second parents to me. After everything Nash has gone through, I hated that Dustin did that to him.” She picks at a loose thread on her blanket. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but whatever he felt for you in high school only intensified after you left. He was so drunk, jealous of Lucas, that he told me later what he’d done. I think he felt bad about it after, but that doesn’t make it okay. I would’ve said something sooner, but Lucas wasn’t my favorite person at the time either so . . .”
“I understand.”
“You do?”
I sigh, long and hard, so over all this drama between us. “Do you think we could start over? You know, put all the hurt feelings and animosity behind us and just go back to being friends?”
I watch her swallow and she nods. “I’d like that.”
After getting all the heavy stuff out of the way, we catch each other up on the last five years of our lives. She tells me about a secret crush she’s been harboring for the young dentist who moved to town a few years ago, and I tell her some of the better stories of college life, making sure to leave Trevor out of every one of them. After a while, she loses steam and I take my cue to leave.
“Get some sleep, okay?” I fold over her and kiss the matted hair above her forehead.
“Thanks for coming.” She squeezes my hand. “I missed this.”
“Me, too, but we’ve got a lifetime to catch up.”
She yawns and the way it stretches her battered face makes me cringe. “So you’re staying in Payson?”
My mind cranks back to Lucas, all the plans we talked about between making love last night, and yeah . . . “I’m staying.”
She grins and her hold on my hand goes slack as her good eyelid slides closed. “Good.”
And with that, my future just got a whole lot brighter.
EPILOGUE
SHYANN
Three years later . . .
“Where do you want this?” Cody’s standing in the doorway to my new office, holding a box labeled with my name and HEAVY: Don’t let her lift this.
I swivel around in my brand-spankin’ new ergonomic desk chair and point to the corner next to my new file cabinets. “Over there would be great.”
He drops it down with a thunk and I take another rotation in my seat, checking out the one-hundred-eighty-degree view from my picture windows. Even though it’s winter and there’s snow covering everything from treetops to blacktop, the office is warm due to the woodstove we had put in the lobby. I love this place.
It only took two years and eight months to convince my dad that Jennings needed a better office space, a more visible location, and a structure that would exemplify the product we produce. It took another four months for the place to be built, and today is moving-in day.
“You gonna unpack all that?” My brother motions to the boxes he’s been bringing in and leaving where I direct him to.
“Eventually.”
“I love it here!” Sam calls from her office located directly across the lobby from mine. “I can see Star Valley from my desk!”
Shortly after Sam recovered from her injuries, she took some accounting classes at the satellite school and my dad hired her on. It’s been so much fun working with her. We chase my dad out most days with our incessant chatter, so he’s on job sites more, which only helps business.
In the last couple years, Jennings Contractors has doubled. Not only did Payson open a fancy new country club and resort in town, but also the housing prices in Phoenix have gone up, so many have left to seek out the more affordable lifestyle that Payson can offer.
“Hey, I brought you a decaf. That fancy pod coffeemaker is the bomb.” Sam puts a mug on my still-empty desk and props her legging-covered hip on the arm of my chair. She sighs long and hard, mirroring my feelings on the place. “So much better than the portable. I could live in here.”
“I know, right?” I blow on my steaming cup of coffee. “Although, what would Doctor Smile say?”
She blushes and shakes her head. “He’d drag me back to our place, still smiling of course.”