Chapter 11 Lena Cross Tells the Truth
POV MARA QUINN
Lena asked to meet at the river walk.
No club. No Cole. No pie.
They sat on a bench facing brown water and the abandoned paper mill.
Lena held a paper cup with both hands.
"I nearly didn't come."
Mara watched a heron step through the shallows.
"I nearly didn't agree."
"Reasonable."
Mara looked over.
"Do not borrow Cole's favorite word."
Lena laughed.
That helped more than it should have.
They spoke for an hour.
Lena told the ugly story without decorating it.
Her marriage had been ending.
Cole and Mara had been fighting about club travel, money, and whether Cole would ever choose a life beyond Deke's orders.
One night after a ride, Lena kissed him.
He kissed her back.
The next day he confessed only part of it to Mara, then lied about where he spent the following Friday.
The affair continued.
"When you caught us at the motel," Lena said, "he looked like a man watching his own house burn."
Mara's stomach tightened.
"I remember."
"You told him not to come home."
"I did."
"He took that as permission to leave town."
"Of course he did."
Lena looked down.
"I asked him to come with me. My sister had a place in Memphis. I wanted someone to choose me."
"And he did."
"For a while."
Mara studied the river.
"Did he ever talk about me?"
"Constantly, until I told him it was cruel."
That landed unexpectedly.
Lena continued.
"He would see a diner and say you hated booths. Hear a song and tell me you sang the wrong words. I finally told him if he wanted Mara so badly, call Mara."
"Did he?"
"No."
Mara nodded.
There it was again.
Choice.
Not fate.
Not Deke.
Lena said, "I need you to know something else. He did not leave because I was better. He left because leaving was the thing he knew how to do when he hated himself."
Mara looked at her.
"That does not make me feel better."
"It shouldn't."
They sat in quiet.
Mara finally asked, "Why did you stay with him?"
Lena smiled without happiness.
"Because I was twenty-nine and had already done something terrible. I thought if it became a love story, maybe it would stop being terrible."
Mara understood that more than she wanted to.
Not forgiveness.
Recognition.
"Did it?"
"No."
The heron lifted from the water.
Mara stood.
Lena stood too.
"I don't know if I'll ever forgive you," Mara said.
"I don't expect it."
"But I am done imagining you won."
Lena's eyes filled.
"I didn't."
Mara nodded.
"Good."
They walked back separately.
POV COLE MERCER
Cole waited at the garage and did not ask how the conversation went.
Mara told him anyway.
"Lena said you talked about me constantly."
Cole closed his eyes.
"She would."
"Apparently I hate booths."
"You do."
"I tolerate booths."
"You once moved a whole birthday party because the restaurant gave us a booth."
"My knee was bad."
"You were twenty-six."
"I had standards."
Cole smiled.
Mara's mouth twitched.
Then she became serious.
"She said you left because you hated yourself."
"Partly."
"What was the other part?"
Cole looked at the engine block between them.
"I wanted to punish you for telling me not to come home."
Mara went still.
There was the truth he had been afraid to say because it made him smaller, not larger.
"You cheated on me," she said. "And when I told you to leave, you punished me."
"Yes."
"By leaving harder."
"Yes."
Mara stepped back.
Anger came over her face slowly.
"That is the most selfish thing you've told me yet."
"I know."
She picked up a rag and threw it at him.
Not hard.
It hit his chest and fell.
"Stop saying you know."
Cole bent, picked it up, and set it on the bench.
"Okay."
"You don't get to stand there and be calm while I find out new ways you were a coward."
"I'm not calm."
"You look calm."
"I'm trying not to make my feelings another job for you."
That stopped her.
Mara turned away.
When she spoke again, her voice was quieter.
"Good."
Cole leaned both hands on the bench.
"I wanted you to hurt because I was hurt. That was wrong before the affair, wrong after it, and wrong when I left."
Mara looked back.
"Better."
It was not forgiveness.
It was a measurement.
Cole accepted it.
POV MARA QUINN
Before Lena left town, Mara met her once more in the motel parking lot.
No long speeches.
Lena handed her a business card.
"If Rowan ever wants medical history from my side of any of this, there isn't any. I know that's a strange thing to say."
Mara looked at the card.
"It is."
"I have learned to say useful strange things instead of comfortable useless ones."
Mara almost smiled.
"Safe drive."
Lena nodded.
"You too, Mara."
They went opposite directions.