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needed to remember.
    He’d said they were in the same boat, but really, they weren’t.
    She’d lost Adam years ago. The fact that she’d even gotten pregnant with Ava was a miracle. She and Adam had pounced on each other one time that trip. Hormones had raged, sex had happened, then the fights started and he’d left.
    But Clayton still wore his ring.
    Their situation was nothing alike.
    “ I’m going to do your dishes because I’m a little emotional right now. I need to occupy myself and you could use some help.”
    “ I don’t need help,” he said, but when she looked at him, he was smiling again.
    “ Let me. I’m going to explode if I don’t do this.”
    His eyes were locked on hers and he moved to her. “I know how you feel.”
    “ You do?”
    He rested his hand on her arm and turned her to face him directly. Then both hands were on her arms and she was gazing up into his still moist, reddened eyes.
    “ How did Adam die?”
    Really? He was standing two inches from her, holding her arms like that and he wanted to know about Adam?
    “ Landmine,” she choked out the words. “He saved Brock then led them out of harm and into a mine field.”
    Clayton nodded. “Brave man.”
    The tears were back and her body just wanted to fall to the floor and curl up in a ball.
    “ Yes. He was brave.”
    A tear rolled over her cheek and Clayton raised his hand to brush it away with his thumb.
    He bit down on his lip, slid his hands down her arms until their hands clasped together. His eyes locked in again with hers.
    “ Fourteen year old boy was distraught by his parents’ divorce. He’d begun acting up in class, but Linda took him under her wing. She helped him with homework and talked to him for hours about how he felt about what was happening at home. She’d had Charlotte in May, took off the last month of school and went back to work in September. It had given the boy all summer to stew over this crush he had on his teacher. On Linda.”
    Vivian’s hands began to clench around Clayton’s. He wasn’t looking into her eyes anymore. He was looking down between them at their hands clasped together as if they were both holding on for dear life.
    “ October second he decided that he was mad enough that he took a gun to school.”
    Vivian held her breath.
    “ He shot the secretary who stopped him from going into the school because he’d been expelled due to threats. She survived. He shot a girl who happened to be kissing a boy in the corner because it angered him. She survived. The boy went after him, he shot him. The boy died.”
    Vivian gasped for breath and held it too.
    “ Linda had her class locked in the room. He was prepared for that. Somehow he’d broken the lock to her room prior to his entering that day. All it took was a kick with his foot. Linda stepped in front of her students to protect them. He shot her, then shot himself.”
    The breath came now and so did the tears. They rolled down her cheeks and straight to the floor. Their hands stayed firmly clasped together, her fingers numb, but not letting go.
    “ He survived. She died.”

Chapter Six
     
    Never had Clayton told that story to someone. Either people knew it or they didn’t. And never did he want to tell it again.
    His heart was racing so fast he thought he’d better sit down and breathe, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t let go of Vivian’s hands.
    Her tears rolled off her cheeks and had puddled between them on the floor. The beautiful lips that would smile at him were swollen and red, and so was the tip of her nose.
    “ I moved here to separate the girls from it. He was a juvenile. He won’t be in prison forever.”
    “ You seem so strong. How are you so strong?”
    Clayton shook his head. “I’m not. Strong would be staying in Seattle where our families were. Strong would be visiting her grave every day. I ran. I ran to escape it so I didn’t have to see it every day when I drove down the street. I ran so no one would look at me