Anna

Sitting in the parking lot at the Iron Cactus on Trinity Boulevard, I tipped my head back and stared out the moonroof of my car. The wispy clouds blended into the evening sky, their edges burning pink against the violet sunset.

“Jolene,” my favorite Ray LaMontagne song, whispered softly through the speakers. It was an anthem for my life after Sean had left, and the refrain hit me hard, like a hammer to the chest.

I’d found the CD in a box in the garage, tucked away with the other relics from my old life. Pictures and poems and other trinkets that told the story of our shared past.

That was the price of seeing Sean again, I guess. Letting him inside me, both literally and figuratively. Four years of progress erased in two days. Followed by four days of utter misery.

If Mom hadn’t called me that second day and told me that Willow was having an asthma attack, prompting me to freak out and demand that she bring my child straight home, I might still be at Sean’s.

Since Willow ended up in the hospital, it was a good thing I’d followed my instincts.

Still, it hurt like a bitch, leaving Sean that way.

I shook my head, dismayed. I really had fallen into old habits, stalking Sean’s social media, Google searching anything related to Caged.

And what did I find?

An article on that reality star, Kimber what’s-her-face, talking about how good it was to see Sean when she was here.

Here. In my hometown. The thought of her in Sean’s bed, looking out the same window that faced the dam . . . I couldn’t even think about it. The tabloids claimed that Kimber was planning another trip to Austin, so it was a good thing I got out before she showed up on his doorstep.

Knocked out of my trance by a tap on the passenger window, I shifted my gaze to Peyton, arms crossed over her chest, scowling at me with her stormy gray eyes.

Reluctantly, I unlocked the door.

Sliding into the seat, she stared straight ahead. An awkward silence hung between us. Since I was the one in the wrong, I spoke first.

“I’m sorry, Pey.”

Ever the dramatic, she turned slowly. “You’re sorry. You haven’t returned my calls in four days, and you’re sorry?”

Hands knotted in my lap, I twisted my emerald ring.

“I went to your house last night,” Peyton continued, accusation dripping from her tone. “Didn’t you hear me banging on the door?”

Guilt bloomed in my chest when our eyes met.

I’d spent the last forty-eight hours lounging with my little girl inside the pillow fort I made on my living room floor, ignoring my phone. The only knock I remembered was from the pizza delivery guy.

“I swear, Pey, I had no idea. Willow was really sick when she got home and we just . . .” Peyton wasn’t buying what I was selling, so I gave up, offering a conciliatory smile. “I didn’t mean to freak you out. I did text though.”

Once.

Not cool.

Peyton tossed her designer bag on the floorboard and then twisted in her seat. “You texted?” Leaning against the car door, she scrutinized me like a hostile witness she was about to interrogate. “I figured your rendezvous with Sean was at least worth a phone call.”

My cheeks flamed, heat crawling up to my hairline. “It wasn’t a rendezvous. We had a few drinks and I went back to his suite. And I was kind of buzzed, so I stayed the night.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up.” Peyton lifted her hand in the universal don’t-you-dare-say-another-word signal. “You spent the night in his suite? I thought you just had drinks. Isn’t that what you told me?”

We’d been best friends since we were six. I never lied to her. “Well, yeah, but it was at the Four Seasons.”

Her eyes narrowed, growing darker by the second. “So y’all had a tryst in his suite?”

I shook my head. “No tryst in the suite.”

It wasn’t a lie. Not technically. But still, I had to work hard to keep from melting into the plush leather seat.

Peyton let out a relieved sigh. “Thank fuck. It would be just like the slimy asshole to take advantage of you after everything with . . .” Her eyes darted to mine and she softened considerably. “With Gran.”

At the mention of Gran, the familiar lump hardened in my throat. “It wasn’t like that. Sean loved Gran.” Gazing at the traffic, the lights blurred when tears formed. “He even sent flowers to the cemetery.”

“How chivalrous of him.”

Her sarcasm drew my heated glare. “Drop it. You don’t know how Sean was with me.”

The vein on the side of Peyton’s head pulsed. “Then tell me!”

My teeth dug into my bottom lip as I weighed the pros and cons of getting into this with my best friend. If anyone deserved an explanation, it was Peyton. She was the one who’d glued me back together after my breakup with Sean.

But, no, it was too soon, and I was still too raw.

Instead, I took her hand. “What does it matter? I was bound to see Sean one day.” I gave her a small, knowing smile. “Someday I won’t have a choice, and we both know that. Let’s save the dramatics for that day. Okay?”

After appraising me for a long moment with her face pinched as tight as her brows, Peyton’s mask fell away. “I just don’t want him to hurt you again.”

My attention shifted to the emerald ring on my finger. Yes, Sean had outgrown me, outgrown us, but I had the evidence of the great love we’d shared, the best part of Sean Hudson, whether he knew it or not. And for that reason alone, my ability to hurt him far outweighed his ability to hurt me.

“You can’t talk about him like that, Peyton.” I tipped my chin at her, defiant. “He’s Willow’s father.”

Hearing my daughter’s name in the same sentence with Sean’s sent my stomach tumbling. They didn’t exist in the same space in my head. In my mind, the Sean I knew when we made her was gone, his love and light extinguished by the rockstar he’d become.

But I’d glimpsed something in the hotel suite and again at his house. An echo of the past. I’d chalked it up to geography, sharing the same space, breathing the same air. But it had been four days, and the feeling hadn’t diminished.

Peyton touched my arm, bringing me back to the here and now. She blinked at me, her face pale in the reflected light from the dashboard. “You didn’t tell him about Willow, did you?”

I shook my head. “No.”

He didn’t ask.

I left that part out.

Peyton’s shoulders sank as she released an audible sigh. “That’s good.”

“Willow will find out someday, Pey. You know she will. And then they’ll both hate me.”

Peyton straightened, setting her jaw. “Dean is on her birth certificate, so Willow doesn’t ever have to know.”

Frustrated, I shook my head. “Dean doesn’t want anything to do with her.” Peyton cringed at my harsh tone and harsher words. But it was the truth. Before I could stop myself, I blurted, “Which do you think is worse, a father that doesn’t want you, or a father who’ll show up on occasion?”

Peyton scrutinized me with a cocked brow. “Remind me again, which one is Sean?”

Anger surged through me on Sean’s behalf, indignation he didn’t ask for and likely didn’t deserve.

“I didn’t give him a choice. I didn’t—”

“You found Sean with a groupie,” Peyton shot back. “Before he even left town. He didn’t give you a choice.”

Peyton’s gentle reminder knocked me back. All the way back to the frantic eleventh-hour phone calls I’d made that she knew nothing about.

Admittedly, I was weak back then, and the day before I’d married Dean, I tried to find a way out.

But Sean had changed his number, shed the vestiges of his old life, like a worn-out piece of clothing that no longer fit.

And I was part of that old life, so I let it go.

“It doesn’t matter now anyway,” Peyton grumbled. “Once Caged signs the offer from Benny Conner you won’t have to worry about Sean for at least eighteen months. Probably longer.”

My heart slammed against my ribs with such force that my hand crept to my chest to make sure there wasn’t a hole. “What offer?”

Peyton’s face fell, pity swimming in her stormy eyes. “I thought you knew. Benny Conner retained the firm to draw up some papers to open up negotiations with the band for a tour of Europe and Asia. The Euro-Trash Festival. Memos have been flying around the office for the last couple days.”

And if I checked my email, I would’ve known that. But apparently, I was too busy reliving my past to be bothered with the present.

Stupid.

I forced my lips to bend, my cheeks nearly cracking from the effort. “That’s great.”

The understatement of the year.

Benny Conner was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, a sure-fire ticket to superstardom for Caged.

I took a fortifying breath and then grabbed my purse. “I’m happy for them.” Walking the tightrope between the truth and a lie, I pinned the smile to my lips. “Let’s go eat. I’ve got to pick Willow up in an hour or so, and I’m starved.”

Peyton looked around as if she just realized why we were here. When our eyes met, her lips parted, but I shook my head, signaling an end of the discussion.

My chest constricted under the weight of everything said and unsaid in my life as I climbed out of the car.

Peyton stole concerned glances at me as we crossed the parking lot.

But I held my head high, determined to prove to her that I wasn’t the fragile girl Sean had left behind four years ago. I’d survived the storm then and found beauty in the chaos.

Willow.

She was my reward.

“Are you okay?” Peyton asked as she pulled the door open to the cantina.

“Yep.”

Breezing past the hostess, I headed for the stairs, for the rooftop bar, and all the twinkling stars just beyond my reach.