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CLIVE MUST HAVE SAT in his truck outside that damned diner for hours. In the heat. People stared at him like he was a fool, but he didn’t give a damn.
None of it mattered. None of it.
He’d lost Jay. And after that shit with that doctor’s window, he’d lost Maria. She’d stayed with him for the funeral, but Clive knew the truth.
The only person in this world he gave two shits for anymore wanted nothing else to do with him.
The way Maria had looked at him. With disgust and mistrust.
He’d disappointed her. He hadn’t known how she’d felt mattered quite that much to him.
Nothing. He had nothing. Just how empty and cold his future was going to be yawned in front of him.
People walked behind his tailgate.
He noticed the red hair first.
It took him a moment to figure out which one she was.
Her twin wasn’t seen much in town, except in the company of that vet husband of hers.
Perci was right there. Right there. Again. Laughing. Holding that child as if she was the most precious gift in the world. Right there. Almost within spitting distance.
Clive forced himself to breathe. To not do something completely stupid.
Perci passed the child to Masterson’s mother, then leaned down to put her shopping bags in the trunk of that damned red car of hers.
When she turned, the setting sun caught in her hair and highlighted the red. Made her skin glow.
She looked so damned beautiful, happy, and alive.
He could see why Jay had been captivated by the woman who looked just like her.
Alive. She was so damned alive.
He wanted to feel that life. Just for a moment.
Clive opened the door and stepped out of the truck.
His suit clung to him, sweat-drenched and bunched. He didn’t give a damn. He needed that life.
To see something that was real, something other than the sight of his only son in a damned box about to be lowered into the Wyoming ground forever. He had to get that image out of his head.
There had to be something about this girl that it made sense that she’d lived and his son hadn’t. There had to be some reason.
He stepped out from behind the bed of his truck and right into her path. “Perci.”