By the time Suzanne rings the bell, I’ve paced the floor so much, I’ve almost worn a groove into the wood. When I open the door, she gives me a quick once-over, nodding in approval at my conservative black slacks and ivory cashmere sweater.

“You look great.”

“I look like someone’s secretary.”

“No one’s secretary looks like you, bombshell. Stop complaining and get your ass in the car. We’re going to be late.”

I lock the front door, and then we’re off. I make it all of two minutes into the drive before I start pestering her for more information. “So? What else did you hear about Theo?”

She looks sideways at me. I can tell she’s trying not to smile. “Why’re you suddenly so interested in Theo Valentine anyway?”

“I wouldn’t call it sudden.” When she purses her lips, I add, “Let’s just say he’s been growing on me.”

“Huh. Like a mold.”

“Suzanne, please!”

“No, seriously, I find this interesting. You went from thinking he was an asshole to begging me with big Bambi eyes for more deets about why he left. Obviously, there’s something going on.”

Her pause is filled with expectation. I realize I’m not getting any more out of her until she gets what she wants from me. I slump down in the seat and stare out the window. “Fine. Yes, there’s something going on.”

She hollers, “What?” so loudly, I jump.

“Jesus, Suzanne, shout a little, why don’t you!”

Cackling, she pounds her fist on the steering wheel. “I knew it! I knew someone would eventually get to him! I want all the details. Are you sleeping with him? Are you in love with him? Wait, no, answer me this first—is he hung?”

She turns to me with an eager expression, her eyes alight. I want to punch her in the face.

“Number one, you’re demented. Number two, we aren’t sleeping together. Number three, no one’s in love with anyone. We’re just…kind of…circling each other warily.”

She crinkles her face into an expression that would be hilarious if I weren’t so irritated.

“Oh, how romantic. ‘Circling each other warily.’ You make it sound like you’re a pair of feral cats!”

“I don’t know what we are. We’re nothing.” I close my eyes, remembering Theo out on the beach in the darkness, moving one step closer to me each time I called his name. “But there’s something there. A connection. I can’t explain it, Suzanne. All I know is that we’re drawn to each other, and that drives him crazy. Every time I’m near him, it’s like he’s going to jump out of his skin.”

She says smugly, “I told you he had the hots for you.”

“I wish it were that simple.” Then I tell her the whole story, start to finish, beginning with the first time I saw Theo at Cal’s Diner all the way up to the encounter at the restaurant with Craig.

When I’m finished, she’s silent for a while, her brows drawn together in thought. “So what I’m hearing you say is that there’s incredible chemistry between you, which makes you both uncomfortable.”

I think about that. It’s a vast oversimplification of the situation, but it’s not wrong. “I guess so. Yes.”

“And you came right out and told Theo to stay away from you because you were so uncomfortable with it.”

“No, I told him to stay away from me if he wouldn’t tell me why he was so uncomfortable with it.”

She looks at me with her brows raised. “Did it ever occur to you that he’s uncomfortable because he can’t speak, and he hasn’t been in a relationship in years?”

When I don’t say anything, she continues.

“He was in a bad accident, Megan. The man went through a severe trauma. And from what I understand, he was pretty badly burned—”

“Burned?” I repeat, horrified.

“Yes, burned. He was trapped in the car for a while before they got him out. You can see some of the scarring on his neck, but who knows what kind of scars he has under his clothes? The simplest explanation for all his strange behavior is that he’s insecure. He’s got all these physical and mental scars, he knows he’s not the same man he once was, and here comes this girl who rocks his world…”

Her voice gentles. “A girl who’s had some trauma of her own. Maybe he’s thinking of your best interests by trying to stay away from you.”

Could that be it? He’s being protective of me? I think of how he acted at the restaurant when he saw Craig upset me and feel ashamed. “I told him he made me feel like I was losing my mind.”

“What would you do if he told you the same thing?”

I have to swallow around the sudden lump in my throat. “Leave him alone.”

Suzanne says briskly, “The operative word being ‘leave.’ Which he did. Apparently, now we know why.”

I turn to her with wide eyes. “I can’t be the reason he left! We’ve never even kissed! We’ve had a few strange conversations, some random weird emails and texts, an awkward encounter or two! No one in his right mind would walk out on his business, his home, his friends—”

“You’re right. No one in his right mind would do that. But we’re talking about Theo Valentine, sweetie. The man hasn’t been in his right mind for years.”

I groan and drop my face into my hands.

“Moving on—how was the date with Craig?”

“He listens to polka music. He takes manscaping too seriously. He has iceberg hands, an ego the size of the continental United States, and, I suspect, thinks when a woman says no, it really means yes.”

Suzanne mutters, “Geez, you’re tough.”

“Can we get back to Theo for a minute? What else did you have to tell me about what you heard?”

We pull into a parking lot, and Suzanne parks the car. She turns to me with a bright smile. “Nothing. I just wanted you to come to church with me.”

She opens her door, ignoring my growl of anger. “C’mon, heartbreaker, let’s get you under the shadow of the cross and see if your mother was on to something.”

She slams the door and sashays away, leaving me no choice but to follow.

* * *

I was expecting a church with a steeple like the one I attended every Sunday as a kid, but what I get instead is a building that resembles a big box store. Squat and unattractive, it’s painted a sickly beige and doesn’t have any windows. It sits alone in the middle of a large grassy lot, surrounded by a chain-link fence.

“It looks like some kind of detention center for the criminal justice system.”

Walking beside me through the parking lot, Suzanne laughs. “I admit it doesn’t have much in the way of visual appeal, but I promise what it lacks in beauty, it more than makes up for in awesomeness.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Blech. You drank the Kool-Aid.”

Suzanne pulls me along by the sleeve of my sweater. “Oh ye of little faith.”

I plaster a pleasant smile on my face as we approach a group of people standing outside the open front doors. One of them is Coop, looking handsome in a dark gray suit.

He sees me coming and does a double take. “Megan. What a surprise.”

“Hi, Coop. I’m here under duress.” I shoot a look at Suzanne, who’s stopped beside me. “This one seems overly concerned about the state of my soul, so here I am.”

Coop looks at Suzanne. In one swift glance, he takes in her tight black dress, her skyscraper heels, and her brilliant smile. His cheeks go ruddy. Though she’s not showing any cleavage—for her, the dress is actually demure—the woman oozes sex appeal.

That evidently isn’t lost on Coop.

He clears his throat and squints up at the cloudless sky. “Well, that’s great,” he says, voice rough. “We’re always glad to welcome new folks.”

I wonder if I can take Coop aside for a moment to ask him about Theo, but my thoughts are derailed when Suzanne puts her hand on Coop’s arm.

“I’m so sorry to hear about you and Christine,” she says softly.

Coop shifts his weight from one foot to the other, scrunching up his face as he turns his gaze from the sky to his shoes. “Yep. Thanks.”

Oh, boy. This doesn’t sound good. And Coop is squirming, which isn’t like him. I assume Christine is his wife, and I’m proven right when the conversation continues.

“How are the kids handling it?”

“They’re good kids,” he says gruffly, running a hand over his unruly blond beard. “They’ll be fine. They’re living with their mother until we can figure out a custody agreement.”

“Please let me know if I can help in any way. You know I’m here for you, Coop.”

She’s not trying to be provocative, but his face flushes a deeper shade of red at those words, like a teenage boy with a crush.

“Should we go inside?” I say into the awkward pause.

“Yes, service is about to start.”

Suzanne turns away, but Coop stops me from following her.

“Megan, can I talk to you? It’ll only take a sec.”

My heart flutters. I know what he wants to talk to me about. “Sure. Suzanne, I’m right behind you.”

She shrugs. “Okay. I always sit in the first row, left side. Come find me when you’re done.”

The front row. I’m cursed.

Suzanne smiles a farewell smile to Coop, who nods back. Then Coop takes my elbow and steers me to the side of the entrance, a few steps away from the people streaming in the front doors. He starts the conversation with no preamble.

“Theo left.”

“I know. Suzanne told me. What’s going on?”

Coop searches my face for a moment. His normally bright blue eyes are clouded. “I was hopin’ you could tell me.”

“Me?”

His gaze steady on mine, Coop says, “Theo was stable before you moved here. Fucked up, but stable. Then one rainy night last month, he pounds on my door, out of his mind. I’ve never seen him so agitated. He needed to get drunk, he said. He didn’t trust himself to be alone, but he had to get drunk. He had to forget. When I asked him what he had to forget, he said not what. Who.”

Goose bumps pimple my arms. My heart leaps into my throat.

“I’ve never seen a man so tormented,” Coop continues, his voice low. “And I was in Afghanistan with the corps. I saw a lot of guys lose their shit. People tryin’ to kill you for too long can make your brain crack. But this…this was different. This scared me, Megan, and I don’t scare easily.”

My mouth is dry. My hands are sweaty. There are people all around us, talking and laughing as they walk into church, but all I can see is Coop’s face. All I can hear are his words, underscored by the roar of my heartbeat.

“So we got drunk. Eventually, he passed out. Slept on my couch. Like a dead man, he never moved once. I sat up and watched him because I was afraid if he woke up alone, he might do somethin’ stupid. Next day, he wouldn’t communicate. Wouldn’t eat. He sat on my sofa with his head in his hands for hours. I thought I was gonna have to call a doctor. Then he gets up all of a sudden at seven o’clock and leaves. Just takes off, no explanation. I send him a text, where you goin’? No answer. Few hours later, he’s back, in worse shape than the night before. Goes into my kitchen and heads straight for the liquor cabinet. Drinks a bottle of Jack in one go.

“That can kill a man, Megan. But I let him do it because I knew if I got in his way, it would get ugly. He doesn’t normally have a temper, but he was as close to snappin’ as a man can get without goin’ over the edge. He passed out again. Next mornin’, he left without a word.

“By chance, I had breakfast at Cal’s Diner that day. My friend Jean McCorkle told me she met a nice young woman two nights prior who bought the Buttercup Inn. Happened to mention Theo was in at the same time. Happened to mention he left in a state.”

Coop’s voice drops even lower. “Happened to mention she almost ran Theo over the night before on the road in front of Sunday Anderson’s house. Came to a screeching stop just inches from his legs, she said. Appeared out of nowhere and scared her half to death. He never even looked up. Then I find out later from Sunday that you were at a party at her house…the same night Jean McCorkle almost ran Theo over on the street outside.”

My heart races so fast, I can’t catch my breath. I remember the look on Theo’s face as he gazed out at me from the shadows of Sunday’s back porch.

All that hostility in his eyes. All that strange, unsettling longing.

Coop runs a hand over his head, adjusts his tie, and exhales a long breath. “Couple weeks pass, Theo’s a bull to handle the whole time. Just a bull. He’s antsy, sleepin’ less than usual—which isn’t much to begin with—drinkin’ too much. Somethin’s wrong, and it’s big. Haven’t seen him that fucked up since right after the accident. So I sit him down and tell him I’m worried. You know what his response was?”

Afraid of what Coop’s going to tell me, I shake my head.

“‘How can you remember someone you’ve never met?’”

That startles me to the point of speechlessness. My mind forms the word What? but nothing comes out of my mouth. My tongue is frozen, like the ice water slicing through my veins.

Coop’s still talking. He hasn’t noticed my sudden stillness or the way all the blood has drained from my face.

“So I told him you can’t. It’s not possible. They just remind you of someone you already know. He agreed, but I got the feelin’ he was only placatin’ me because I looked so worried. I hoped that would be the end of it, that maybe he was just goin’ through a rough patch…”

Coop focuses on me. He says quietly, “But then he told me I had to go visit a new client. Said he couldn’t do it himself, though he wouldn’t say why. But he made sure I knew that this wasn’t any client. Told me to make sure Hillrise got the job no matter what. Even if we had to do it for free. I almost laughed, that was so dumb, but he was dead serious. So the next mornin’, I find myself knockin’ on the front door of the Buttercup Inn…and there you were. And now Theo’s gone.”

Coop pauses. His gaze is piercing. “You comin’ to town and him fallin’ apart and leavin’ so soon after isn’t a coincidence.”

Coincidence.

There’s that word again. The word I’ve been telling myself over and over again is the explanation for everything where Theo is concerned.

“I know you’re loyal to him, Coop,” I say, my voice tremulous. “I don’t expect you to answer this. But did he say anything before he left? Anything about me?”

Coop stares at me long and hard. I get the sense he’s trying to decide something. Then he reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out a folded piece of paper, and hands it to me.

“He left this for you. I have no idea what it’s supposed to mean, but he said you will.”

I take the note. The paper is almost blindingly white in the bright morning sunlight. Hands shaking, I unfold it and read.

The world tilts dangerously sideways.

Coop was right: I know what it means. It’s chapter seven, verse seven from the gospel of Matthew, but that’s not what makes it so extraordinary.

I have that particular verse memorized because Cass had it tattooed on his back.

I hear myself ask, “Coop, how long ago was Theo’s accident?”

He looks at me strangely. “Five years. Why do you ask?”

Scalding heat flashes over my skin. I begin to hyperventilate. “By any…” I have to stop to force breath into my lungs. “By any chance, do you remember the date?”

“Yeah. May seventeenth.”

Everything starts to spin.

Theo’s accident was exactly five years ago to the day that Cass died.