What Katy did was cowardly, she was the first to admit it. The next morning she rose early. Actually, she hadn’t slept at all. Rather than head to the main house, she waited until she saw James pass by on his way to the stables and she chased after him.

“Could you…uh, would you mind giving me a ride to the airport?”

He looked confused and she caught his quick glance toward the main house, but she cut off his questions by rattling on about how she was running late and needed to run.

She did need to run, that wasn’t a lie. And there was no escaping the fact that she was running away.

Like a coward.

No, she told herself on the plane. It was self-preservation, which was not the same thing.

Close enough.

But if she’d stayed any longer, or worse—if she’d run into Dax again—she wasn’t sure she would have the willpower to leave.

I’ll say goodbye in the morning.

The words haunted her as she rode in the taxi through the crowded neighborhoods that led to hers.

What a coward she was. And how depressing to come back to her empty, lonely apartment. Nothing felt right when she walked in the door. The furniture she used to love felt cold, clinical. The silence inside felt oppressive and lonely while the noise from the street grated on her senses.

She waited for the feeling to pass as she busied herself with unpacking, but it never did. Nothing felt right. Being here felt wrong.

And the guilt she felt over the way she’d run away didn’t help matters at all.

The worst part, of course, was coming to terms with the fact that she would never see Dax again.

Ever.

Tears welled up every time she tried to tell herself that. She had some idea that she could inoculate herself against the pain if she could just get the reality of it through her thick skull.

But every time she tried to swallow the fact that her little glimpse of heaven had come to an end, she heard Dax’s voice in her ears. I want you to stay.

No! She couldn’t. Didn’t he understand that? But yeah, of course he did. He’d even admitted he had no right to ask.

She sighed as she took her dirty laundry to the washer. This would be so much easier if he wasn’t so understanding. If he’d been a jerk and tried to demand that she change her life for him, she could have walked away without a second glance rather than running like a scared rabbit.

She wasn’t scared, she told herself as she went about the mundane business of doing laundry.

Liar.

No, she wasn’t scared. She was just protecting herself.

Because you’re scared.

She growled at the voices in her head, thanking her lucky stars that she lived alone lest anyone think she was crazy. If she’d had roommates, they would definitely think she’d lost it.

Because you walked away from true love?

She muttered a curse as she slammed the lid shut. No, because she was even contemplating what it would have been like if she’d stayed. For another week…or forever.

She slammed the door of the laundry room behind her. That was it. She couldn’t keep torturing herself like this. She needed a distraction and there was no better cure for a wandering mind than work.

Turning on her phone, which she’d turned off for the flight, she went to text Hannah to let her know she was back in town and ready to discuss the potential wedding venue whenever she was ready.

Potential wedding venue. Yes, that was how she’d think of that magical place that had completely transformed her life.

She found herself debating whether she wanted the wedding to happen there or not. Oh, selflessly she hoped it would. For Alice’s sake, and Dax’s.

She felt a grin pull at her lips, despite her overall misery. But her mind had conjured a mental image of Dax’s resigned stoicism in the face of a Hollywood wedding on his property and her heart clung to it.

She hoped Hannah chose Twilight ranch for herself, as well. It truly was the kind of once-in-a-lifetime locale that her friend deserved for her wedding.

So really, the only dilemma was for her. As the event planner, she would have to go back there.

Oh, who are you fooling? You’re dying to go back there.

She couldn’t lie to herself. She was dying to go back to Twilight…to Dax. But it would only be harder to walk away the next time.

And that was assuming he didn’t hate her for running away like she had.

But all thoughts of the wedding were temporarily halted as her phone came to life and message after message popped up on the screen. All from Alice. All worried about her, making sure she was okay.

Guilt plagued her as she quickly typed a response back, apologizing for her rude departure and thanking her again for everything.

Alice responded quickly with a smiley emoji and the message, glad you’re home safe. Then, after a moment, we were worried.

We. There was no doubt in Katy’s mind who we referred to.

She slumped down onto her couch with a sigh as she admitted the truth once and for all.

She was a coward.

But coward or not, she had a job to do. She texted Hannah, who wrote back right away, excited to hear every detail. They made a plan to get together mid-week once Hannah returned from shooting on location.

That done, Alice got back to work unpacking and cleaning. Then she set about reorganizing her kitchen and sorting through the files on her desk.

Anything, really, to keep her mind from going where it wanted…back to Dax. Back to Twilight.

The worst part was, it wasn’t just her mind that kept wandering off without her.

Despite telling herself over and over that she hadn’t known Dax well enough to have developed real feelings, everything in her said otherwise.

So while her mind kept traveling back to Twilight, she had the uneasy feeling that her heart had never left.