But what he said was that he didn’t blame her. “You should call Mary Nell.” He named her best friend from high school, who lived in Greeley now. “Every time I run into her, she wants to know why you haven’t been in touch.”
Lily picked up her purse, thinking if Mary Nell asked after her, it was likely out of deference to her dad. He was remembering when she and Mary Nell were girls, when they loved horses and barrel racing, experimenting with the latest eye shadow, or hanging out at the Sonic in town, flirting with boys. Girl stuff. What he’d forgotten was how different she was after he’d brought her home from Phoenix, how little she’d resembled the flighty, silly girl who’d been Mary Nell’s best friend. She’d done things, been in places so awful that she couldn’t talk about them, certainly not to Mary Nell, who would have been horrified. There’d been gossip. It was unavoidable in a town the size of Wyatt. Lily had hidden from it, isolating herself. She’d seen almost no one back then, with the exception of her dad, Winona, and Paul. She still kept to herself. What did she have in common with Mary Nell, especially after almost thirty years, given all the unaddressed history that sat between them? It wasn’t a question she wanted to ask her dad.
“Maybe I’ll call Mary Nell,” she said instead, and she was happy when it brought a brief light of relief to his eyes. “You sure you’ll be all right?” she asked him. “I should be back by six or so. I’ll make dinner.”
He shooed her away with his hands. He might saddle up Sharkey, he said, do a little more exploring. He’d keep his phone on. “You’ve got yours?”
She pulled it out of her purse along with her car keys, showing it to him.
Lily arrived in Greeley an hour later with no clear recollection of having driven there. Bo Dean’s, the roadside diner where she was meeting Edward, was ten miles farther north on the outskirts of town. It was one of their chosen places from the past. The coffee was bitter, the food marginal, and there were few regulars. Any crowd was mostly made up of truckers and other highway drivers, families with kids, salesmen. The fact that there was almost no chance of recognition was what made the place ideal.
She was early, but Edward was there before her. In a booth at the back. And when his gaze found hers, there was a moment when his happiness at seeing her seemed to infuse him with light. The world receded, and over the odors of bitter coffee and rancid grease, Lily instead caught the scent of the starch that she knew from memory permeated Edward’s crisp oxford shirt. She could smell the fading note of his aftershave, some mix of citrus and pine. There was more silver threading his dark hair than when she’d last seen him, but it was still rumpled and unruly, appealing, like a careless boy’s hair. But his gaze had sobered now, and his dark-brown eyes were grave, and a little wary, in their regard of her.
“Ma’am?” A waitress appeared at Lily’s elbow and spoke.
“It’s fine,” she said to the woman. “I see him.”
The waitress nodded and walked away, but Lily felt rooted to the floor, her stomach knotted with the thrill of his proximity even as a voice in her brain lectured that their meeting was a mistake. She hadn’t changed from her jeans and boots, or put on lipstick for him, but the lack of preparation didn’t alter the fact that her intent, at least in part, was to woo this man. It was still there, her lovely and terrifying desire for him. It hadn’t lessened, hadn’t changed.
And she had no right to it.
Edward might be unencumbered by a spouse, but she was not.
His marital status could have changed, though, couldn’t it? In three years he could have acquired a wife and even children, for all she knew. Her heart grew cold at the thought.
Still, she walked toward him and, sliding into the booth across from him, thanked him for coming.
The intensity of his gaze caused her face to warm. What is this about? What are we doing here? The questions weren’t less overt without the shape of his voice.
“It’s AJ,” she said.
“That’s what I figured.” He leaned back. “I heard something about it, driving down from Dallas just now.”
“He didn’t kill that girl, Edward.”
“You don’t know where he is?”
“No. He called last night and asked me to bring him his passport, but I told him he needed to come to the ranch or go home to Paul.”
“Was he upset when you refused?”
“I don’t know. Dad took the phone, but before he could say anything, AJ hung up, or the call was disconnected.”
“You realize he might have been forced to make the call.”
“Yes, but I could kick myself. If only I’d agreed, he’d have had to tell me where he is.”
“You’re sure it was AJ?”
Lily took a moment. “I’m sure,” she said. “As sure as I can be.”
“On the news, they said his laptop and cell phone were found at the bus station in Dallas.”
“But no one saw him get on a bus.”
The waitress came to their table. They ordered cups of the terrible coffee and sat in silence once she left. Edward looked out the window. Lily wanted to put her fingertip on the delicate netting of lines that fanned from the corner of his eye. She wanted to trace a path to the dimple that appeared when he smiled. She didn’t dare do either.
Other than the last time they’d been together here, sheltering beneath the diner’s awning from the rain, when their fingers had briefly linked, or when Edward had cupped her elbow in his palm while accompanying her to her car, they had never touched each other, not deliberately. And yet those encounters were seared into her memory and made her ache.
“Is it my advice as a criminal attorney that you want? Is that why you wanted to meet?” Edward brought his attention back to her.
She didn’t know if the edge in his voice was from anger or disappointment. Once, in an unguarded moment, he had told her he hadn’t ever known a woman like her, one to whom he felt he could say anything without risking judgment. It had been after he’d admitted his darkest secret—that he had a gambling addiction. The day he’d realized it, he had said, was the day he’d put another man down on his knees and aimed a gun at his head with the intention of robbing him to get money to go to a casino. That incident was the one that had finally penetrated the fog he’d been operating in. He had been on a rural road somewhere in Louisiana when he woke to himself—that was how he’d worded it, the end of his acting on his compulsion—and he’d run, leaving the man on his knees, leaving his car, the driver’s-side door hanging open. The police had caught him eventually. He’d received probation and a court-mandated order to enter a twelve-step program, which he’d done. He hadn’t placed a bet or gone into a gambling establishment in eighteen years at the time he’d described his experience to her. Twenty-one years now. If he was still keeping his promise.