They air high-fived each other on the screen.
Laine had married the quarterback, who was a good guy, and now she had everything she wanted, which was a nice family and a cozy home.
Britt had been the hard-core straight-A student, a cheerleader, and competitive to afault, and she’d thrown herself wholeheartedly into everything she did, whether it was the SATs or sneaking into the football stadium over the back fence. She’d very nearly had everything she’d wanted, too.
It hadn’t quite worked out the same way for her.
“Nah, I still just have the two jobs, the Misty Cat and Gold Nugget Property Management, but it kind offeelslike twenty, so I’ll let you have that one on a technicality. Mrs.Morrison just told me she saw a coyote with a half a cat in its mouth. So I guess that’s new.”
“Neighborly of her,” her sister said dryly.
For some reason Britt didn’t want to mention the presence of a movie star in town. Not yet. Not until she’d at least thoroughly Googled him.
“Hey, Lainie?” Britt ventured.
“Yeah?”
She hesitated. “Did you ever watchBlood Brothers?”
“Daaaaaaamn, Britt, everyone watched that show. That’s kind of a long time ago now, though. Where the heck were you?”
Laine started her days with TMZ and CNN. She was always in the know.
“I must have actually beenstudyingwhen it was on,” she said wonderingly. “But why did you say it like that?”
“Daaaaaamn? That’s the thing he says.”
“What ‘thing’? Which ‘he’?”
Her sister rolled her eyes. “Google it. Read TMZ once in a while. Live a little.”
“I was just ab... all right.”
And then Laine went quiet.
Long enough for a little uneasiness to creep into Britt’s light mood.
“Listen, Britt I have to tell you something.”
Britt froze. She knew that tone. Her sister only ever cushioned words when it came to one person.
And just like that, fear was like a little icepick in her gut.
Even now. After all these years.
“Jeff’s mom came by. She was looking for you. She had your wedding band. It was with his... effects. She thought you might want it.”
For a millisecond Britt couldn’t speak. His name brought with it an atavistic sweep of fear that froze her like a rabbit before a wolf.
The fear swept out again. It always did, and faster each time.
It left her feeling ever-so-slightly weaker.
She wondered if it would ever fully leave her.
“I don’t want it,” she said instantly and a little too abruptly. “Don’t tell her where I am.”
She wanted nothing of his. He’d left her with one permanent reminder of her time with him, and a few years ago, right before she arrived in Hellcat Canyon, she’d finally turned it into something she could live with. Something beautiful.
