Epilogue
LACEY
What am I doing?
Why in God's name did I think coming back to Three Rivers was a good idea?
I sit in my car, everything I own packed into the seats.
I'm parked downtown, on Main Street near the bookstore.
The stores are draped in vertical strings of white lights from one end of the strip to the other, on both sides, with holly and mistletoe on the streetlamps and merry Christmas tunes playing from hidden speakers.
I hate Christmas. I used to love it, but Eddie ruined it for me.
I'd spend literal weeks decking our house in the finest decorations.
I spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours.
I handmade wreaths from live holly branches, complete with battery-operated light strings.
I could have sold them on Etsy for a fortune.
I handmade garland. I put up trees in every room of that fucking mansion and decorated each one to a room-specific theme.
I bought festive candles. Little scenes with hat-clad penguins that danced and sang Jingle Bells.
Pillows. Blankets. It was never enough. Never good enough.
I threw epic holiday parties for his fancy-ass friends. As in live bands, catering, full bar with bartenders, and cocktail waitresses. I flirted with his asshole boss and dealt with the bastard's fat, sweaty, wandering hands.
I was faithful.
I even sucked him off regularly, on top of regular sex, just to try and keep him happy.
I cooked. I cleaned. I gave up my career for the fucking bastard.
I gingerly touch the black eye that is my Christmas present. That and the string of sexts I found on his iPad between him and his PA. Who, by the way, is nineteen. Eddie is forty-fucking-seven.
I didn't go snooping, by the way. He left it unlocked and open while he answered a phone call from his boss—oops. I didn't go looking. I just happened to be wiping the counter when a message popped up. DING! The notification slid down from the top of the screen, showing a thumbnail of a photograph.
Of a teenager—a literal child. Legal? I suppose, technically. But it’s vile, if you ask me.
She was topless. Pinching her silly little child’s nipples with a vapid, open-mouthed expression which I assume was meant to be, like, saucy, or erotic or something.
She just looked dumb. Wrong number, maybe?
Nope. She followed it with a long message detailing all the things she wanted to do to him.
Lots of typos and grammatical errors. No punctuation.
Used his name a few times. No question it was for him.
Eddie is a silver fox, it's true. Damn good looking. But he's almost fifty. Why would a hot, nubile nineteen-year-old want his old ass? He's thirty years older than her, for fucks sake.
Money? Is that really all it is?
I did a reverse image search and found her socials.
She's all over IG, obviously. And wouldn't you know it?
She got hired four months ago. I remember him telling me about it.
Well, four months ago, her feed started to reveal fancy new things.
New athleisure clothing. A new Coach purse.
New Louboutins. Diamond-dripping tennis bracelets and sapphire pendant necklaces.
And about four months ago, Eddie started acting…less interested in me.
I tried harder.
Bought lingerie. Seduced him. Surprised him with lunch dates to his favorite place in Detroit.
So when I saw the proof, I went a little crazy. Sue me. I'm a hot-tempered woman; he knows this.
I yelled, I screamed, I called him names. Dialed up my friend Susan, a man-eating divorce lawyer who would, in another time period, be the type to wear men's testicles as trophies. I told her, in front of him, that I wanted her to draw up divorce papers.
He slapped me.
I grew up watching my dad hit my mom. He never hit me, but I swore to myself that I would never, fucking ever allow that to happen to me.
I waited until he left for work this morning, packed my shit, left the signed divorce papers on his desk at home, and took off.
I left my cell phone.
I left my rings—not the jewelry he bought me as apologies for forgetting anniversaries and birthdays; that stuff I took with me because fuck being broke.
And now, here I am, back in Three fucking Rivers.
Why?
What's here for me?
Mom and Dad are gone, living in a retirement community down in Palm Beach. I know no one here, anymore.
Yet this is where I came.
I just don't know what to do next.
I need to eat. I need to stretch my legs—I ran into seriously bad traffic on the way up, and the four-hour drive turned into six.
My bladder is on fire and I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.
I spy a cute little coffee shop across the street—Benji's. As I watch and contemplate getting out and going in, a tall, black-haired figure steps out, followed by a smaller individual with curly reddish-blond hair.
My attention is on the man, though. He looks familiar in silhouette.
He turns, and I'm stunned—it's Riley Crowe.
Good god, he got hotter. Look at those cheekbones!
Like every girl in Three Rivers, I had a crush on him at one point, and then on Felix.
But it was Cole Mannix who ended up stealing my heart.
Fuck. No, no, no.
Not going there.
Not thinking about him—about that.
I realize my hand has gone to my belly, and I snatch it away as if burned.
My eyes prickle.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
I fight the prickles for a while, the tight throat, the ache of memory.
I should have told him.
He deserves to know.
I just…I couldn't tell him, back then. I didn't know how.
And then a month passed, and then a year, and then five, and then a decade and I was a wife and a business owner, and it was painful history.
I hear singing—“O Holy Night.” The St. Michael’s choir files out of the church, carrying those candles with the little paper discs, singing in angelic harmony.
God, it's beautiful.
I can't seem to stop my feet from carrying me out of my car and into the cold. Snow stings my nose, cold nips my ears. I fish my wool hat out of my coat and put it on, and then my matching mittens. Hood up, face hidden. I stay back as a crowd gathers, singing.
My heart wants to lift at the bucolic, cozy, Hallmark-worthy scene. If only I didn't have Eddie's voice in my ear, bitching and complaining and criticizing.
I press up against the side of the cinema's brick wall as the crowd files away once the choir is done with their performance.
I'm about to walk away and find something to eat and a bathroom when I see Riley and his girlfriend still in the square, huddled close.
I have to muffle a gasp when he goes to his knee.
Good for him, truly. I heard what happened all those years ago, and while I've avoided any information about you-know-who, I've kept tabs on the Crowe brothers.
I know Felix got married and has a baby, now, but I'd thought Riley would be a lifelong bachelor.
The woman claps her hands to her mouth as he makes a pretty long-winded proposal. She accepts, and god, they look happy.
I thought that was gonna be me. Eddie swept me off my feet.
He was wealthy, successful, handsome. Funny.
He seemed to like me. And then love me. I had no reservations about accepting his proposal, which was on a boat on the Detroit River as part of a Valentine's Day date. Yeah, should’ve seen the truth then.
Didn’t see the warning signs—how he treated servers or anyone he thought was beneath him…
which, spoiler alert, is everyone. The way he spoke to his mother—rude, often mean.
I didn't see the possessiveness as a problem until I realized he was tracking my movements with spyware.
I didn't see the way he'd hide his phone whenever I was around as a problem until I realized why—that he was a serial cheater.
Yeah, I knew he was cheating on me. It was the fact that his latest side piece was fucking nineteen that was the last straw.
That, and the slap.
No sir.
You only hit this bitch once.
I watch the happy couple whisper and kiss and cry together. Oh, god. Fuck me, so sappy. He's crying?
Deep down, though, I admire that.
Up top, it's easier to let myself feel bitchy and cynical, because I'm angry at him and myself and the whole world, and I feel like a fool.
And then there's a crowd of people I recognize—the Cartwright twins, who have aged very, very well, indeed.
Cody Nyx, the silly fuck, who doesn't seem to have changed a bit.
A giant red-haired guy I don't know with Noelle…something—I didn’t know her well—who seems to be with the ginger giant.
A blond woman who must be Felix's wife, since Felix is behind her with his hands on her hips.
There's another woman who I don't know, too.
And him.
Cole Mannix.
All six feet two inches of him, in a Sheriff's uniform, wearing a knit cap.
My heart stops.
Cole.
My Cole.
I whimper as my heart drops out of my chest. I can't be here. I can't be near him. I can't see him. And god fucking forbid he sees me.
I whirl and flee—or at least, that's the intent.
Instead, I slip on a patch of ice hidden under a layer of snow and face-plant.
Nose? Definitely broken.
I groan and push to my knees—which are bruised and aching and now getting wet as I kneel in the snow.
"Fuck me," I mutter. "Fuck my entire life."
Eddie hates my cursing. It's not 'demure,’" he says. Yeah. Demure and mindful I am not—ha fucking-ha.
Fuck you, Eddie.
I try to get to my feet, but I slip again, and I would hit the ground again if not for a strong, hard hand steadying me.
"Hey, whoa. You okay, ma'am?"
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
His voice is not gravelly and rough and deep like that. Not warm and concerned and friendly.
"Yeah," I rasp, my voice hoarse and tight. "All good. Thanks." I keep my hood up and turn away from him.
His hand is bare, despite the cold. He has my arm. "You took a pretty bad spill, there. Sure, you're not hurt?"
My nose is sluicing blood all down my mouth, chin, neck, and chest. "Yup. I'm good."
He hears the lie, though. He always could. "Hey, you're bleeding. Ma'am, let me help you, please."
"I don't need your goddamned help, Cole!" I snap, yanking my arm out of his grip.
And then I realize what I'd just said.
His name. Out loud.
Fuck me.
The silence is thick and freighted. "How…how do you know my name?" He knows. I can hear it.
He moves around in front of me, and suddenly I'm face-to-face with Cole Mannix again for the first time in fifteen years.
He's more handsome than ever. His face is lined, weathered, and hard-bitten.
Rugged. He's got a beard, short and thick and neatly-trimmed.
His eyes are as liquid brown as ever, and so deep, so expressive.
The kind of eyes you get lost in. He's got a new scar bisecting his left eyebrow. His mouth is…
Jesus, that mouth.
The things he could do with it, my god. I've dreamed of those lips off and on my whole life.
The patch on his jacket and the gold star say he's not just another deputy, he's the big deal himself. Figures. He always said he'd be sheriff one day, just like his dad, God rest the old man.
"L-Lay…" he blinks, swallows hard, stumbles back a step, literally staggering in shock. "Lacey?" his voice is utterly stunned.
I sigh, ignoring the blood still bathing my front. "Hello, Cole."