Two

Leigh must have told the story dozens of times to the police, the lawyers, the jury, the press, her grandfather, her friends. A man had died: Dale Tucker, one of the horse trainers who worked on her grandfather’s farm. It happened in the barn late one night when she and Jake had gone out to check on a sick horse. They met after dark and slipped into the barn quietly. They left the lights off. Later they would tell the police they didn’t want to alarm Leigh’s grandfather or the gelding, a skittish creature under the best of circumstances, while they checked to see if he was still favoring his injured leg.

After midnight, after it became clear the gelding was doing all right under the circumstances, they heard a sound in one of the stalls farther down the barn, a sound of shuffling footsteps and a stall door sliding open. In the dark they couldn’t see him clearly, but they knew someone was sneaking out with a horse on a lead. The man was a horse thief, they thought—had to be. No one should have been there at that hour. Jake went to get her grandfather’s .357 revolver, the one Gene always kept locked up in the tack room. They warned the intruder to stay where he was, that they were going to call the police. Instead the man lunged for Jake and tried to wrestle the gun away from him. Jake shot once and missed. The intruder had Jake down on the ground, his hands around his throat. Jake didn’t hesitate: he fired her grandfather’s revolver one more time, hitting the intruder full in the chest, killing him instantly.

By the time they realized it was one of the horse trainers, by the time they realized the man was unarmed, it was too late. A misunderstanding, everyone said. Could have happened to anyone.

But still a man was dead, and still someone would have to pay. At the trial Jake had pleaded self-defense, but his lawyer had not been able to convince the jury. Jake had been sentenced to ten years all told. A lifetime, it felt like then, and still did, sometimes. Jake had told her to forget about him, to go to Harvard and move on with her life. And in most ways, she had.

Except that wasn’t the real story, not even close. She’d tried to tell the real story once, but no one had believed her. Not the prosecutors or the police. Not her grandfather or even Chloe. She’d tried to tell the truth, and instead everyone had believed the lie.

It was an understatement when she told Chloe she was sick of thinking about it. For a decade she’d been replaying the events of that night in her head over and over late at night, on the subway, at work, wondering what if? What if we hadn’t gone to the barn? What if there had been no gun? What would have happened then?

So much had been spoiled by that one night—her family, her friendships. Everything she used to plan for, everything she used to think she wanted. It was all changed, all damaged by that single rash act, the pulling of a trigger, and even now, sitting in the bar with Chloe, she could close her eyes and hear the shot, hear the gurgling noise the man made as he died, his lungs filling up with blood. She could see the shock in his face, the shock of knowing he was dying. She’d been hearing the noise in her head all these years.

Now Chloe was saying Jake’s sentence was up. He’d served all of his ten years, no time off for good behavior. It was the talk of the town, apparently—people around Burnside couldn’t believe he was out, that he’d come back to the scene of the crime. That he dared to show his face in town.

Jake was out, he’d been released. And he hadn’t let her know.

Now Leigh realized she was holding her breath. She let it out slowly, looking for the exits, mapping a route for escape. But there wasn’t one, not this time. She’d come back of her own accord, and now she was going to have to deal with the problem instead of running away.

She said, “How do you know he’s back?”

“He knocked over a liquor store. How do you think?” Chloe polished off the last of her beer and set the bottle back on the table. “I saw him. He was eating supper at Dot’s one night when I drove by. He was sitting in the window, drinking a beer, eating some chili, regular as you please.”

Leigh was starting to feel a little sick. She could picture the spot, in a little wooden A-frame building near the highway, picture Jake as he was in high school, tanned and dark-haired, lean as a greyhound, picture herself sitting across from him drinking a root-beer float. The part of her that was still eighteen wanted to weep. “When?”

“About three days ago. Went home to Burnside to see my ma, and there he was, big as life. His hair’s shorter and he looked a little bigger, like he’s put on twenty pounds of muscle, but it was the same Jake, all right.”

Leigh resisted the urge to order a shot of tequila and asked, “Was he alone?”

Chloe smirked. “Do you think he’s been out meeting girls? The man’s been in prison.”

“For ten years. That’s right.” She had a picture of him in her mind: the faded brown Stetson he’d always worn, wrapped with a rattlesnake band, the tattoo of a bat on the back on his left triceps, barely visible under the sleeve of a clean white T-shirt. A girl—someone young and pretty, someone local—sitting across from him.

“Ten years is a long time.”

Some of Chloe’s pink hair fell into her eyes, and she pushed it back with one rough motion. “I didn’t see him with anyone, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone. Seriously, he’s been in prison since he was twenty. He’s trying to get back on his feet. Girls are probably the last thing on his mind.”

“Or the first.”

“Jesus, what’s with you? Are you mad that he didn’t call to tell you he was getting out or something? I thought you’d be happy.”

“I am. I am happy.”

Chloe cut her eyes at Leigh sideways, like she was judging a horse show. Leigh knew that look. “No, you’re not. You’re pissed off.”

“I’m not. He shouldn’t have been in prison in the first place. It was all a big mistake. A misunderstanding.”

“A man died, Leigh.”

“Yes, a man who should have known better than to sneak around my grandfather’s barn in the middle of the night. Don’t tell me you feel sorry for Dale Tucker now.”

“I don’t. But I don’t think he deserved to die either.”

Leigh sighed. “Me neither. But it was a mistake. Just a stupid accident.” She rubbed her temples; she was starting to get a headache. In a few minutes it would be full-blown, and she’d be ill, unable to see straight. She didn’t know if she was angrier at Jake for not telling her he was getting out or at Chloe for waiting until Leigh was actually in Texas before springing the news on her. But it was too late—she was stuck, committed to the conference and the trip. She couldn’t leave without embarrassing herself and causing a scandal. And if there was one thing Leigh Merrill was good at, it was avoiding a scandal. It was her greatest talent.

The music changed over to James Taylor, singing “How Sweet It Is (to Be Loved by You),” and Leigh nearly groaned. Not now. She sat back in her chair and stared down at the half-eaten food on the table. “I always figured that when it was time for Jake to get out, I’d be the first person he called. I never thought he’d just show up back in town without a word to me.”

“You think he’s going to be angry about Joseph? Is that it?”

“No. I mean—maybe. But there’s more to it than that.”

“You’re thinking he blames you. That if you hadn’t gone to the barn that night, none of it would have happened.”

“Something like that,” she said.

Chloe was watching her carefully. “Have you really been beating yourself up over it all this time? Leigh, you’re not the one who went to get the gun. You’re not the one who pulled the trigger.”

Leigh pushed away the rest of her food. Suddenly she was a kid again, scared of everything, on the verge of losing control. She was standing at the edge of her grandfather’s grave, watching the old man’s coffin lowering into the ground—her only real family, her last tie to home—and feeling like she might pitch forward and follow him down and down, into the darkness. Like every tie she’d ever felt to the world had been cut, leaving her alone and drifting on a wide black sea. She hated that feeling. It had taken her years of running to get away from it, but here it was again, cold and smothering as a wet blanket. She shivered.

“All those years, and Jake would never agree to let me visit him in prison,” Leigh said. “I wanted to, you know. I wrote to him a bunch of times when he first went away, but he never answered my letters. He couldn’t bear to see me.”

“He didn’t want you to see him, you mean. He didn’t want you to think of him as a criminal. He wanted you to remember him the way he was before any of it happened.”

“He never answered me. Not even once, Chloe. I wrote him for four years straight, and he never answered me—not a letter, not a postcard, nothing. What was I supposed to think about that?”

“That Jake’s always been a stubborn ass. Not much more to it than that, really.”

Leigh felt tears starting in her eyes, the shame she’d always felt over what happened threatening to overwhelm her. “He hates me. I’m sure of it.”

Chloe reached across the table and squeezed Leigh’s hand. “None of it was your fault, Leigh. Jake knows that. End of story.”

Except it wasn’t the end of the story. The truth was something Jake said they should keep, always, between the two of them. Even Leigh’s grandfather had never known the whole of what had happened that night in the barn. So many times Leigh had wanted to blurt out the truth to Chloe, to her friends in New York, even to Joseph. But she couldn’t. She was too ashamed. How could she admit the truth to them now, after all this time?

The silence stretched out between them, long and thin and airless. Chloe was looking her full in the face now, all joking aside, and Leigh squirmed under the full weight of her best friend’s gaze, her total and completely serious attention. “There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?” Chloe asked. She sat back in her chair and blew out a long, low breath. “Well, let’s hear it, then.”

Leigh flagged down the waitress and ordered them both a couple of fingers of bourbon on the rocks.

“Damn,” Chloe said moments later, watching the waitress put down their drinks. “That bad, huh?”

“Yes,” Leigh said. She gulped the bourbon as fast as she could. It burned pleasantly going down, spreading through her throat and into her belly, but it couldn’t get rid of the cold pit of fear that lived at the bottom of her. That always lived at the bottom of her. “I can’t right now. I have to get ready for my talk tomorrow. I still have some notes to jot down. Maybe soon. But not today, Chloe, okay?”

Chloe looked at Leigh sideways, as if she’d never seen her friend before, as if she were seeing everything new. “All right,” she said, rubbing her hand over her hair again, the tactful gesture, “but only because I love you. Otherwise I’d strangle it out of you right now.”

“I know. Can you drop me off at the conference? All I can manage right now is a hot bath. I just need to be alone for a little while. A little rest. We can go out again later, have a real night out if you want one.”

“Of course I want one,” Chloe said. “But this discussion isn’t over.”

“I would be surprised if it were.”

The Austin Writers’ Conference was located on a vineyard just outside the city limits, a stunning old Texas estate in the Hill Country dotted with tiny stone guest cottages, a dining pavilion, and an enormous stone-and-timber mansion that would serve for the next week as the conference center. As the guest of honor, Leigh had a little cottage to herself on a hillside with the view of the valley below, the miles of green vineyards and rolling hills. A cozy place with a single room dominated by a large canopy bed, a fieldstone fireplace, and a river-stone bathroom, it was too large for Leigh, but she’d nearly cried at the beauty of the 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 in her 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.

“There 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 door to Jenks & Hall Publishing. “Are you at Keens?” she asked.

“How could you know that over the phone?”

She smiled. “Tell Randall I said hello.”

Joseph relayed her message to his dinner companion. As if from underwater, Leigh could hear the voice of her boss answering back, could barely make out her friend and mentor saying, “Tell Leigh to hurry up and come home already. All your moping is making me bored, Joseph, honestly.”

Leigh smiled. “I miss you, too, Randy,” she said. She didn’t tell him she was home. To Randall Jenks, one of the most brilliant minds in publishing, anything west of Manhattan might as well have been the moon. The thought of his protégée, Leigh, growing up on the Colorado, swimming naked in Lake Lyndon Johnson, riding horses on hot afternoons, would have filled him with horror. All he knew was that Leigh had graduated from Harvard, and that was enough for him.

It was business she turned to for comfort now. “Are you talking about the fall list?” she asked. Another voice at the table: deeper, a rich baritone with a musical Scottish lilt. “Is that Marty?” Martin Hall was Randall’s partner. The two of them had forged the most prestigious boutique publishing house in New York once upon a time, but Marty had been in ill health recently. He rarely came to the office anymore, much less went out for lunch. She felt a sudden cold fear spread through her belly. Were they selling the business? Shutting everything down now because of Marty’s cancer? There’d been some talk about it around the office, but nothing she’d taken seriously, not until now. “What’s going on?” she asked, nearly breathless. “Joseph, I can hear Marty there. What’s happening?”

“We were halfway into our salads when they sprang it on me.”

“Please tell me you’re talking about a promotion.”

“Better. Leigh, they want to make me a full partner. Name above the door and everything.”

A partner. Well, there was probably no better person in New York than Joseph Middlebury to turn to if the old guard was looking to make a change. He had a terrific track record, even when the market was bad. Also he had his own money, family money, to invest in the company. It made sense that they’d make him a partner, a man who’d overseen the company’s transition to e-books, who’d pioneered book-club chats all over the country, who’d seen what Internet sales had to offer before anyone else. Randall and Marty weren’t going to shut down the company, they were going to step back and let the next generation take over. “That’s amazing. I’m so proud of you. Jenks, Hall, and Middlebury. I like the way that sounds.”

“That’s not all, Leigh. We’re talking about giving you your own imprint.”

“What?”

“Leigh Merrill Books. For real.”

She sat unsteadily on the bed, feeling a strange floating sensation, as if she were being picked up and carried on a huge wave, higher and higher, cresting above her head, the dark blue water below. Her own imprint, at twenty-nine years old. It was more than she ever dared to imagine. “That’s—I don’t even know what to say. Thank you.”

“I told him you’d be thrilled. It shows a real commitment to you, Leigh. To keeping you at the company.” She could almost hear what he wasn’t saying: And to keep you near me.

“I am. I’m thrilled. I’m a bit flabbergasted, too. I mean, that’s a lot of pressure. I was figuring in ten years, maybe . . .”

“It’s a great opportunity, Leigh. Your own imprint. You can shape the whole literary discussion in this country.”

“I know.”

“Develop your own list, your own authors. It’s every editor’s dream.”

“Yes,” she said, switching the phone to her other hand, “I know. I’m very happy.”

“You don’t sound happy.”

Breathe. Just breathe.

“I am,” she said, keeping her voice even. “It’s just unexpected.” She was keeping a lid on her fear, but barely. “I am. I’m thrilled, like I said,” she told him, “but I just got out of the shower. A bunch of people from the conference are going out for a drink tonight, and I said I’d meet up with them—”

“Sure, okay,” he said. “I need to go, too. Lots to talk about.”

“But call me later, okay?” she said. “I want to hear everything Randall says.”

“Tell Chloe I said hi.”

“I will,” she said. “I know you’re going to make a great publisher. He’s had his eye on you for a long time.”

“I won’t let him down.”

“I know you won’t.”

“Don’t have too much fun.”

“It’s Texas,” she said. “They put fun in the water here. Like fluoride.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, feeling a tic of irritation. “I know how to handle myself.”

She was about to hang up the phone when he said, “I miss you. New York isn’t the same without you here.”

Her momentary irritation melted away—here he was again, the man who fit her like a pair of comfortable shoes, the one who seemed so sane, so safe. This was the man who’d taken her to hear her first symphony at Lincoln Center, who’d surprised her with a picnic in Central Park on her last birthday, who’d taken her to his family’s house in the Hamptons every weekend in the summer, who rubbed her neck at the end of a long day, who knew how she took her coffee, who listened to her ideas and took them seriously. He was a partner, in every sense of the word. He was everything she’d always said she wanted.

For a minute she could picture herself marrying him—the gorgeous wedding they’d have, the long white dress she’d wear, the church full of their friends, the celebrity guests, the reception at the Waldorf, the honeymoon in the Seychelle Islands, the pied-à-terre they’d buy on the Upper West Side, the country house in Westchester. She could see them picking out china patterns, squabbling gently over the furniture for the living room. For a minute she pictured herself saying her wedding vows to him: I, Leigh, take you, Joseph, until death do us part. How happy it would make him if she would say yes. It made her feel warm all over to think of herself giving so much happiness to someone she cared about so much. Yes didn’t seem so difficult all of a sudden. Maybe she could marry him. Maybe it was exactly what she should do.

“I miss you, too,” she said. “I’m sorry about last night. I’ll make it up to you when I get home, I promise.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I think I was scared. Maybe I needed to let go of some old ghosts. But we’ll talk more later, okay?”

“I like the sound of that.”