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view, at her first taste of home in a decade. The hills were purple with bluebonnets, and as she’d stood at the window watching the sunset turn pink and gold, she couldn’t remember why on earth she’d ever thought to leave.
    Now, standing under the running water of the shower, Leigh kept her eyes closed and focused on those lovely childhood memories,breathing in and out as her skin burned red and nearly raw. The trepidation she’d felt for the past month—ever since she committed to the conference, to coming home to Texas—had exploded into full-bore anxiety. If she stayed in the shower as long as possible—if she didn’t turn off the water and dry off—she wouldn’t have to deal with any of the emotions waiting for her on the other side of the shower curtain, any of the dread, the longing, the loneliness. The guilt.
    Jake was back. Jake had been released from prison, and he hadn’t told her he was coming home. It was clear now that he really didn’t want to see her. It had all changed between them, even though she’d promised, she’d sworn to him, that it wouldn’t. I’ll wait for you, she’d said that day in court, when the guards were getting ready to take him away. It will all be like it was before. I swear.
    Don’t wait. Move on with your life, Leigh, he’d whispered to her. Forget about me. I’m no good for you.
    She hadn’t meant to move on. She’d tried to wait. She’d tried to forgive him when he didn’t write to her, because God knows he had reasons to be angry. But ten years was a long time to be on your own, in strange cities, far from home, and Leigh was only human, after all.
    They would both have changed. He might not even recognize her now—they could pass each other on the street, maybe, and never even know it. She’d been foolish to think they could pick up where they left off after he got out, as if nothing had happened. Ten years did a lot of damage to a person. And what Jake had suffered in prison, Leigh couldn’t imagine. Prison was nothing you could dismiss with a wave of your hand. Whatever Jake did or didn’t feel toward her, whatever he blamed her for, he had every right to be angry.
    The water turned lukewarm, then cool, then cold, but Leigh stayed under the tap until she started to shiver, sliding down the wall to the floor of the tub. She couldn’t get up. She couldn’t do it, not after everything. She wanted to go back to New York so badly she could taste it inher mouth—the air full of exhaust and damp, the smell of Chinese food and hot-dog vendors. New York was her hideout, her haven, her fortress of solitude. And she couldn’t get to it for a whole week. Maybe she’d made a terrible mistake not accepting Joseph’s proposal. She should have said, Yes, of course I’ll marry you, Joseph, of course I love you, I want to make a life with you. That’s what any sane person would have done.
    Maybe it wasn’t too late.
    It was the ringing phone that finally got her to her feet. Somewhere in her hotel room, her cell phone was ringing. She wrapped a towel around herself and sprinted from the shower soaking wet, but she couldn’t find the damn thing. She looked in the bedside table, the closet, her purse, before she finally found it lying underneath the bed, buzzing angrily. She picked it up and looked at the caller. It was Joseph.
    â€œThere you are,” he said. “I was starting to think you’d run away with the circus.”
    Leigh sat on the bed, her hair dripping onto the phone, onto the bedspread. “Not yet. You’re not that lucky.”
    She was making a puddle on the floor, but it was so good to hear his voice, so good to hear something safe and normal. Even across time zones, she could hear the murmur of voices in the background, the clink of scotch glasses, the voice of the little waiter at the old-fashioned steakhouse next