Chapter 2
Aubrey MacLean hadn’t believed she would truly return to Indiana until her feet touched Henderson’s broken sidewalk. The Greyhound
bus trundled off, leaving her on an unmarked street corner halfway between farmland and civilization.
She breathed deep. To a stranger, the late-September evening might have seemed serene—cricket-song wafted on the air while
clouds as fuzzy and soft as ripe peaches drifted overhead. But to Aubrey, menace lurked within the quiet.
This place had nearly broken her. She’d never wanted to return.
But here she was anyway, with a single purpose, and it didn’t involve standing around feeling sorry for herself.
She set off with her suitcase, her stiletto heels finding wobbly purchase on the buckled cement. In the distance, the steel
mill exhaled gray steam, and she wondered who worked there, these days. Probably most of the people she’d gone to high school
with.
At the thought, her heart rattled out a few gunfire beats. While boarding the bus in New York, she’d vowed not to dwell on
Nick, but now questions crept in. Was he still living here in Henderson? Raising the child he’d had with Tansy? What did he
even look like, after all these years?
She told herself it didn’t matter. But the darkened windows of the passing row homes roused memories of familiar black eyes, and the tangled shadows edging the sidewalk looked for all the world like tousled, night-dark curls.
She gritted her teeth and focused on the staccato tap of her heels. Click, clack, click, clack. One, two, three, four.
After a minute or two or twenty, the ironclad perfection of numbers repelled the onslaught of memories. Nick Thacker might
have had power over her once, but no longer. He probably didn’t live here anymore, anyway. Like her, he’d never wanted to
stay.
The thought loosened a knot within her.
In town, her passing met with curious stares. The men all wore the dark, utilitarian coveralls of steelworkers, while the
women enjoyed sweatshirts and messy buns. Meanwhile, Aubrey sported a shoulder-length red bob, dangly earrings, and a tailored
boyfriend blazer.
She tugged at her clothes. She probably shouldn’t have donned her corporate armor, but old habits died hard. Without meaning
to, she’d dressed for proving herself. For holding her own in a male-dominated industry. Which she just about had, right before
she’d gotten booted out the door.
One sky-high heel caught a ridge in the sidewalk, and she stumbled, pain knifing through her ankle. She caught herself, barely,
and lowered herself to the curb with a whimper.
A massage of her ankle revealed a joint already ballooning beneath her fingers. “Shit,” she muttered.
Cars rumbled past. When she tried to stand, a hot spear of agony rewarded her, so she sank back down, wondering how she would
possibly get her luggage across town to her old house now.
She was still pondering when a car pulled off on the street’s far side—something meteor-gray and fancy, every bit as out of place here as she was. A tinted window rolled down, revealing an undeniably handsome face.
“Hi, miss. Do you need help?” The man’s teeth gleamed in the gathering dusk, somehow familiar. A heartbeat later, recognition
hit Aubrey like a tidal wave.
“Gallant?” she breathed. “Gallant Nobel? Is that you?” God, she hadn’t thought about him in ages. She’d nearly forgotten he
existed.
His brow furrowed. “Uh, hi. Have we met?”
“We grew up together. It’s me, Aubrey MacLean.”
Gallant’s expression slackened. He blinked once, then again. “Aubrey? The cheerleader?”
She offered a half-smile. “Yep.”
Within moments, he was out of the car, crossing the road with long strides. “My god. What’re you doing back? Are you okay?
Where’s your car?”
She gave a weary laugh. “I live in New York. I don’t have a car.”
He grasped her outstretched hands and helped her to her feet. “Do you need a ride?”
“Actually, that’d be great.” She gestured at the offending frost heave. “I’ve been back for all of twenty minutes and already
managed to sprain my ankle.”
He nodded. “These sidewalks’ll get you, if you let them.”
“Right. I’d forgotten.” Apparently, her prolonged absence had taken an eraser to some memories. Just not the ones she wanted.
Gallant squeezed her fingers and perused her up and down. “Wow,” he said. “You look . . . different.”
Aubrey inspected him right back. For the most part, he looked the same, still blessed with the sort of face that graced clothing ads and served as an example of perfect human symmetry.
Seventeen years hadn’t dulled the rich bronze hue of his hair or the crystalline blue of his eyes.
But there was something subtly different.
An aura of confidence, maybe. An easiness.
Not like the overly cocky boy she remembered.
“It’s been a while,” she said.
He let go of her hands. “It really has. I can’t tell you how great it is to see you.”
“You, too.” To her surprise, she actually meant it.
Gallant’s eyes crinkled as he scooped up her suitcase. “Here, why don’t I get this? Can you walk? Or should I bring my car
around?”
She tested her hurt ankle, pleased when it took her weight. “I can get there on my own, I think. It just won’t be pretty.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Aubrey couldn’t stop an eyebrow from arcing. The old Gallant would’ve seized the opportunity to tell her she looked pretty
doing anything. But maybe he’d changed. Either that, or he wasn’t in a position to flirt. Yet when she glanced down, both
of his ring fingers were bare.
He wheeled her suitcase across the road. Aubrey hobbled after him and situated herself in what proved to be a Tesla. The vehicle’s
interior reminded her of a spaceship, sleek and dark and polished. As she latched her seat belt, Gallant rolled up his window,
shutting out the evening chorus of crickets and frogs. “Where to? Your old place, I’m assuming?”
She nodded. “That, but maybe the grocery store first, if you have time. I could use an ACE wrap and a few things for the house.
Nobody’s been inside for a while.”
Gallant made an affirmative sound and eased the car into motion.
The quiet startled her. She’d been in electric vehicles before, mostly Ubers in New York, but the city’s din had prevented
her from appreciating the lack of engine noise. Here, the silence was almost eerie.
Gallant’s gaze flitted between her and the road. “So, what brings you back to Henderson? Now, I mean?”
She didn’t miss the subtle emphasis on now. “You mean, why didn’t I come back when my dad died?”
“Yeah.” His look turned sympathetic. “I’m sorry about that, by the way. He was a good guy. But I was pretty surprised we didn’t
see you afterward.”
Aubrey turned to the window. Outside, single-level homes rolled by, backdropped by a twilit sky. The warm colors belied the
chill in the air, which struck her as the perfect metaphor for her feelings toward her dad—warm and cold at once. “I’m sure
you weren’t the only one. But my dad never wanted a funeral. He just wanted us to spread his ashes somewhere beautiful. So
my mom and I went to Switzerland.”
Gallant nodded. “That sounds like a nice way to honor him.”
“It was.”
He didn’t seem flustered by the macabre subject and smoothly moved on. “And how’s your mom doing out in . . . California,
was it? She got remarried, right?”
“Yep. LA suits her. And my stepdad treats her like gold, which makes me feel a lot less guilty about living thousands of miles
away.”
Gallant turned onto Main Street. A heavy silver watch glinted on his wrist—something expensive, though Aubrey didn’t recognize
the brand.
“I’m glad she’s happy,” he said. “When she left Henderson, though . . . I kept thinking you’d show up. Put her house on the
market, maybe.”
Aubrey wondered if she was imagining the wistfulness in his tone.
As if he really had thought about her, more than once.
“I didn’t need to. Rich is . . . well, he’s rich, so my mom hasn’t needed the money.
” She paused, then decided Gallant deserved the truth after offering her a ride.
“My mom’s been wanting to deed me the house, but to be honest, I’ve been avoiding coming back. ”
He glanced over with curious eyes. “How come?”
She hesitated. “You know.”
“Nick Thacker,” he said. Not a question.
“Yeah.” She swallowed the thousand other words scrabbling for purchase on her tongue. She wouldn’t ask if Nick still lived
here. It didn’t matter. Her stint in Indiana would only last for as long as it took to convince her ex-boss to rehire her.
She would hole up in her childhood home rent-free, put her nose to the grindstone, and glue the shattered pieces of her professional
reputation back together. The moment she got her job back, she’d disappear.
Gallant filled the heavy quiet. “So now you’re here to . . . what? Visit? Stay?”
“Visit.” She ejected the word with force. “I should be back in New York by the end of the year.”
“Oh yeah?” He chuckled. “Funny. That’s where I’m headed. Probably in February.”
She missed a beat. Henderson was the kind of town that sank its claws into people and didn’t let go. “You’re moving?”
“Yep.”
“To New York City?”
“Yep.”
A pang clamped around her chest. He said it so easily, like it was something just anyone could do, any time they liked. “What
prompted that?”
He shrugged. “I’m just ready for a bigger pond. You can only go so far in this town, you know?”
She nodded. She did know.
“Hey,” he said. “Last I heard, you were doing something brainy out there. Something mathy, like you always said. Accounting,
maybe?”
Aubrey mustered a limp smile. People who didn’t work with numbers rarely grasped the distinctions, so she doubted Gallant had demoted her on purpose. “I’m a mathematician, actually.” Or had been. Right now, she wasn’t anything, except disgraced.
“Wow.” His eyes flared. “That sounds important. Good for you.”