Chapter 6
Beth
The general store in the tiny town of Goodnight is a place called Rhett’s.
It’s not huge, by any stretch, but it has a weirdly comprehensive selection of goods.
From a small but impressive grocery stand, to camping and hunting gear, hardware goods, fishing equipment and, yes, even an exercise and fitness corner, so I’m able to grab a pair of yoga pants and a shirt, as well as a pair of branded sneakers.
The man behind the counter is super friendly and offers to order in anything else I need. ‘We get a delivery out of Phoenix every other Thursday, so it ain’t no trouble, ma’am.’
I assure him that the outfit is fine, even though the shoes are a half-size too big, but in the end I have to promise I’ll let him know if I change my mind.
People out here are just like that, I realise, after taking my package across the street and popping into the café—the Moon Bean—to order a latte.
It’s just as I’m heading back to the car and putting my shopping bag in the trunk that my cell phone rings. I grab it out of my pocket and stare at the screen, a live wire setting my nerves on edge when I see my sister-in-law’s face staring back at me.
Elsie.
I scrunch my eyes shut in an attempt to stop my automatic physical reaction to seeing her—or anyone—from my old life.
I try to remember my friendship with Elsie before Christopher, when it was just her and me sharing coffee and margaritas and talking about whatever book we were obsessed with that week.
In a way, it’s kind of strange that two such different people should meet, let alone become tight friends, but that’s the power of reading, right?
I worked in a bookstore near her college and she’d come in most weeks to buy a stack.
I often recognised the ones she was into and one day, we got talking.
After that, she’d seek me out to ask me my opinion.
Our friendship just grew organically so that, after a few weeks of talking non-stop about books, she asked me for coffee after my shift finished.
We swapped numbers and started meeting up outside of work.
When her birthday rolled around and she invited me to the party, we were already really close.
It didn’t even occur to me that she came from an entirely different world to mine.
That besides the fictional spaces we shared so much passion for, we had very little in common.
The night of her party, though, it hit me over the head.
It was at a restaurant just off Fifth Avenue, filled with Manhattan’s richest, most privileged twenty-somethings.
A famous DJ was spinning the music, and there was an open bar with top-shelf champagne on tap.
Every part of it was luxe, and I felt completely overwhelmed.
And that’s where I met Christopher. Handsome, suave, charming, able to make me laugh Christopher. At the time, I thought he saw how uncomfortable I was and wanted to help, but now I realise he picked me out as easy prey.
I swipe my phone to answer as I hop back in the car and start the engine. Elsie’s voice pipes through the speakers.
‘Hey, girlfriend. How the hell are you?’
She has that tone of voice. The one everyone’s been using since he died. The gentle, treating-me-with-kid-gloves-so-I-don’t-fall-apart, grieving-widow-sympathy voice. It makes my skin crawl.
‘I’m okay,’ I say, adopting a similar tone, the one people expect me to use. Because, grief.
‘Oh, honey. We miss you.’
‘We’ means Christopher’s family. His parents, Elsie, her boyfriend Chip, their cousins.
I shake my head, pressing my lips together, my lungs burning as though a ton of cement has been pressed onto my chest. Down the street a little way, a car pulls into the kerb and a familiar pair step out—Beau and Austin.
I watch as they stride through a set of timber doors, and glance up to read the sign: Silver Spur Tavern. My pulse kicks up a gear, remembering Cole’s invitation. Is he in there already? A quick scan of the street doesn’t show his pick-up.
‘Do you think you’re up to joining us for dinner over the weekend?’
I frown, shaking my head a little. ‘Actually, I’m not home right now.’
‘Oh?’
‘I needed to get away, Els.’ That much, at least, is true.
‘Oh, honey. Did you go to the Hamptons house?’
I look around and contemplate lying. This is, after all, my bolthole.
But at the same time, Elsie is probably the only part of my real world that I really care about, that I really miss, even though it’s complicated by everything that happened between Christopher and me—all the secrets I kept because I was protecting him, scared to death of what would happen if I told anyone the truth and they didn’t believe me.
‘Actually, I’m in a tiny town in northern Arizona,’ I say, a small smile tilting my lips at the unexpectedness of it all.
More than that, it’s the agency I’ve shown by coming here.
For the first time in years, I made a decision on my own, for myself, without consulting anyone. Without asking for permission.
‘What? You can’t be serious.’
‘I just … needed to not be there,’ I say, honest again.
‘I get that. But Arizona? I mean, it’s so far. And so … different.’
I laugh. ‘Yeah, you’re right about that.’
‘What the hell are you doing out there?’
‘I took a job.’
‘A what?’
I roll my eyes. ‘I know. Incomprehensible. How dare I actually work?’
‘I didn’t mean that. It’s just … you’ve just lost your husband and you’re still mourning him. How can you be working?’
‘It’s a good distraction.’
‘You don’t need the money.’
‘No, but I do need to be busy. I like being busy,’ I say.
‘God, Christopher would have hated that,’ Elsie says, her voice trembling a little at the emotions that are flooding through her.
‘He always wanted to take care of you, you know, Beth. It was his mission in life, from that first night you guys met. I remember him saying to me, “I’m never gonna let her go,”’ she sobs.
I shudder. What might sound sweetly romantic to someone who didn’t know Christopher like I knew Christopher reaches my ears and lands as I think he intended it: a threat.
And a promise.
‘It’s just a three-month contract,’ I say, voice soft. ‘I’ll be back in the fall.’
She makes a disapproving noise. ‘But it’s Mom’s birthday in a few weeks. You have to come. It won’t be the same without you.’
I can’t think of anything worse, but to save that difficult conversation for now, I murmur, ‘I’ll see what I can do. Let me think about it.’
‘We all miss you. We all miss Christopher. You should be here.’
I shake my head. I really shouldn’t. ‘Hey, Els,’ I say, my own voice trembling now. Not with grief, but with an explosion of feelings like fear and frustration and anger. ‘I’ve gotta go.’
‘Call me soon, okay?’ she pleads.
I nod, even though she can’t see me. ‘I will.’
‘I love you, Beth. We’re going to get through this, I promise.’
I disconnect the call, not wanting to tell her that I’m through the worst of it.
Not wanting to have to keep lying about what Christopher’s death meant to me.
I sit back in my seat, eyes closed, until the slamming sound of a car door startles me and I straighten, looking around just in time to catch Cole jumping out of his truck right as another guy does the same thing.
They swagger into the Silver Spur side by side, talking intently, and then Cole laughs, tilting his head back and making the whole world shine with the force of that simple motion.
Everything grinds to a halt.
Every cell in my body, every piece of me.
I came here to escape New York, but maybe what I really wanted was to escape myself as well. To get away from the timid, reserved woman I’ve grown into. To really, finally get out from under Christopher’s shadow.
Because the thing is, he died, and I thought that made me free, but the way he’s dictating my choices, making me afraid of my own shadow, shows that he’s controlling me still. And I’m about done with that.
My pulse begins to thunder and I shift in my seat, staring straight ahead now, wondering: do I really have what it takes to be someone else?
Cole
Round these parts, a wolf whistle don’t mean squat, and usually, it’s not something I’d pay any mind.
Hell, I probably wouldn’t even hear it above the din of the Silver Spur’s Friday night crowd.
But this wolf whistle comes from right beside me, as Beau lifts his fingers to his lips and lets the sound rip across the room.
I look at him first, prepared to call him a jackass, but then follow the direction of his gaze and see the last thing I’d expected: Beth Tasker walking in wearing black pants, a floaty singlet top and high heels, her long blonde hair out and wavy.
All the blood, and I mean every last drop, drains out of my face and fills another part of my body.
My mouth goes dry. And the lie I’ve been telling myself ever since last night in the office, when I stood so close I could almost taste her perfume, when I just wanted to reach out and ball her blonde hair into a fist and draw her face to mine, to kiss her until we both saw stars, the lie I’ve been telling myself that I’m just lonely, that any other beautiful woman would make me feel the same thing, bursts in my face.
At Beau’s holler, Beth’s cheeks flush and she glances around, clearly embarrassed by my buffoon of a brother’s showing off.
‘Quit it,’ I snap, standing on autopilot as she approaches our table. My stomach loops with something like a protective pang for her, because she looks so dang nervous, like she could turn and run at any point, like that mustang we once had that never could be broken, no matter what.
‘Just a friendly greeting,’ Beau contradicts, echoing my gesture and standing. ‘Ma’am.’ He grins at Beth, taking it one step further and moving closer to her so he can hold back a chair. I ignore the unmistakable looping of disappointment that I didn’t get there first.