“You look great,” Amy told her honestly, trying to work up enthusiasm for the visit that would have made her happy any other time. But with the events of the day before still leaving her raw, she had to work at theconversation all the more. “West Coast life must agree with you.”
“Getting my head on straight agreed with me is more like it. And it took a long time—I can tell you that much.” She gave Amy a crooked smile and smoothed her long, fine blond hair—the same hair that had been the envy of their whole class at Crestwood.
Gabby was a lovely woman, but delicate in the way of fine china or a Victorian painting. She’d always had that kind of beauty—ethereal and otherworldly, her lashes so blond they were almost colorless. But Amy found after a decadelong struggle with her own self-esteem that she didn’t envy that brand of beauty so much anymore. She was okay with her blunt-cut copper hair and her average, ordinary features.
She had other qualities that made her stand out.
“Cheers to that.” Amy understood the sentiment perfectly. “It took me a while to get myself together, too, and I’m the happier for it.”
Or she would be, once her heart understood that Sam had a life apart from her.
“So you must think it’s strange of me to be in such a hurry to see you after all these years.” Gabriella played with a stack of bangles around one thin wrist, letting them clank gently against the new countertop. “But the truth is I would have visited sooner if I’d known where to find you.”
“We both pulled a disappearing act, didn’t we?” Amy stood to retrieve mugs from the cabinet, glad she’d stocked the revamped kitchen with at least a few basics before going to bed the night before. The house was still in a state of dust and disrepair, but the kitchen and the new upstairs rooms were in good shape.
“Yes. And I need to apologize for mine since I took Samwith me.” Gabriella stared at her across the kitchen. Did that unflinching gaze see how much just his name hurt her today?
“Um.” Amy took her time pouring the coffee into two gray stoneware mugs. “That’s certainly nothing you need to apologize for. And it was years ago.”
“I always felt bad about it, though. He adored you, and he dropped his whole life to rescue me and help Zach—to keep me safe.” She licked her pale lips. “I took a self-help seminar recently that demanded we own up to people we’d wronged, and I just— I wanted to say I’m sorry for that.”
Any other day, Gabby’s words would have been easy to shrug off. But today she was having a hard time talking about Sam when she’d have to leave him soon. Again. She carried over the drinks and set them down in front of the stools.
“Then I accept your apology, Gabriella, but I assure you it’s not necessary. Sam made his own choices.” The last few words stuck in her throat, but that had more to do with the present than the past.
“But I had a crush on him.” Gabriella slid aside her coffee and turned to face Amy. Woman-to-woman. “Or at least I told myself I did in order to forget about someone else. Because Sam was the guy who saved me, so he was safe for me to crush on because I knew—my God, I always knew—you were the one he really cared about.”
The open refrigerator door smacked Amy in the butt as she stood there with the creamer in her hand, confused. None of this even mattered now, did it? Except Gabriella seemed determined to get it off her chest. And Amy couldn’t help but be interested. It’d been years since she’d let herself think about that long-ago summer, and now—inthe last two weeks—she’d seen it from so many new angles it made her head spin.
“Sam and I have talked about that summer. I hope you don’t mind, but he told me what happened to you, Gabby.” The old nickname rolled off her lips without thought, but the conversation had definitely ventured into highly personal terrain. “What happened wasn’t your fault. You can’t feel guilty about something that you didn’t do.”
Listen to her. Doctor, heal thyself, right?
She’d been giving herself the same pep talk for years.
“But I don’t—” The other woman cut herself off. Straightened. “You’re right. I know you’re right. I’ve dealt with a lot of the facets of what happened that summer—my father went to jail, I tried to kill myself, I got attacked, we ran away...” She shook her head. “It was all such huge stuff, and I’ve battled it. But now it’s the smaller things that come back to bite me. Like the fact that I took your guy out of town and I really freaked anytime him or Zach mentioned calling anyone from home.”
“You were scared.” Amy poured sugar in her coffee and passed the plastic container to Gabriella, surprised how much easier it was to talk to her about huge life-and-death events than it was to talk to regular people about little things. But Gabby was a survivor, like her. She understood how that felt. “Sometimes being scared is what keeps you safe. And that’s not a bad thing.”
“Yes. Yes. And hell yes.” Gabby added sugar to her own drink and stirred.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Amy tipped her head sideways to reassess the delicate blonde, seeing the strength beneath that pretty exterior.
“Anything. You made a weird and difficult confessioneasy on me, so I owe you a freebie.” She lifted her mug to her lips, her stack of bangles tinkling.
“Who were you trying to forget about when you talked yourself into a crush on Sam?” She was curious. They’d gone to school together. Maybe she knew the guy.
“He hadn’t lived here long when I left, so maybe you wouldn’t remember the boy who moved into the Hasting house after Sam. Clayton Travers?”
Amy’s mug slipped in her grip, sloshing coffee forward before she got a better hold on it.
“Has Zach mentioned to you Clayton is in town?” Amy tried to remember what Sam had told her about him.
Gabriella’s expression froze. She looked like a photo image of herself, unmoving.
“Gabby? He’s not a bad guy, is he? He’s working for your brother, at least until the trial. Zach hired him to be my sister Heather’s bodyguard.” Amy hadn’t met him, but Heather liked him well enough. “He’s a PI in Memphis, but he came back for a reunion of the Hasting foster kids.”
“Clayton?” Gabriella’s voice sounded off. “Travers?”
