Aubrey MacLean hadn’t believed she would truly return to Indiana until her feet touched Henderson’s broken sidewalk. The Greyhound bus trundled off, leaving her on an unmarked street corner halfway between farmland and civilization.
She breathed deep. To a stranger, the late-September evening might have seemed serene—cricket-song wafted on the air while clouds as fuzzy and soft as ripe peaches drifted overhead. But to Aubrey, menace lurked within the quiet.
This place had nearly broken her. She’d never wanted to return.
But here she was anyway, with a single purpose, and it didn’t involve standing around feeling sorry for herself.
She set off with her suitcase, her stiletto heels finding wobbly purchase on the buckled cement. In the distance, the steel mill exhaled gray steam, and she wondered who worked there, these days. Probably most of the people she’d gone to high school with.
At the thought, her heart rattled out a few gunfire beats. While boarding the bus in New York, she’d vowed not to dwell on Nick, but now questions crept in. Was he still living here in Henderson? Raising the child he’d had with Tansy? What did he even look like, after all these years?
She told herself it didn’t matter. But the darkened windows of the passing row homes roused memories of familiar black eyes, and the tangled shadows edging the sidewalk looked for all the world like tousled, night-dark curls.
She gritted her teeth and focused on the staccato tap of her heels.Click,clack, click, clack. One, two, three, four.
After a minute or two or twenty, the ironclad perfection of numbers repelled the onslaught of memories. Nick Thacker might have had power over her once, but no longer. He probably didn’t live here anymore, anyway. Like her, he’d never wanted to stay.
The thought loosened a knot within her.
In town, her passing met with curious stares. The men all wore the dark, utilitarian coveralls of steelworkers, while the women enjoyed sweatshirts and messy buns. Meanwhile, Aubrey sported a shoulder-length red bob, dangly earrings, and a tailored boyfriend blazer.
She tugged at her clothes. She probably shouldn’t have donned her corporate armor, but old habits died hard. Without meaning to, she’d dressed for proving herself. For holding her own in a male-dominated industry. Which she just about had, right before she’d gotten booted out the door.
One sky-high heel caught a ridge in the sidewalk, and she stumbled, pain knifing through her ankle. She caught herself, barely, and lowered herself to the curb with a whimper.
A massage of her ankle revealed a joint already ballooning beneath her fingers. “Shit,” she muttered.
Cars rumbled past. When she tried to stand, a hot spear of agony rewarded her, so she sank back down, wondering how she would possibly get her luggage across town to her old house now.
She was still pondering when a car pulled off on the street’s far side—something meteor-gray and fancy, every bit as out ofplace here as she was. A tinted window rolled down, revealing an undeniably handsome face.
“Hi, miss. Do you need help?” The man’s teeth gleamed in the gathering dusk, somehow familiar. A heartbeat later, recognition hit Aubrey like a tidal wave.
“Gallant?” she breathed. “Gallant Nobel? Is that you?” God, she hadn’t thought about him in ages. She’d nearly forgotten he existed.
His brow furrowed. “Uh, hi. Have we met?”
“We grew up together. It’s me, Aubrey MacLean.”
Gallant’s expression slackened. He blinked once, then again. “Aubrey?The cheerleader?”
She offered a half-smile. “Yep.”
Within moments, he was out of the car, crossing the road with long strides. “My god. What’re you doing back? Are you okay? Where’s your car?”
She gave a weary laugh. “I live in New York. I don’t have a car.”
He grasped her outstretched hands and helped her to her feet. “Do you need a ride?”
“Actually, that’d be great.” She gestured at the offending frost heave. “I’ve been back for all of twenty minutes and already managed to sprain my ankle.”
He nodded. “These sidewalks’ll get you, if you let them.”
“Right. I’d forgotten.” Apparently, her prolonged absence had taken an eraser tosomememories. Just not the ones she wanted.
Gallant squeezed her fingers and perused her up and down. “Wow,” he said. “You look... different.”
Aubrey inspected him right back. For the most part, he looked the same, still blessed with the sort of face that graced clothing ads and served as an example of perfect human symmetry. Seventeen years hadn’t dulled the rich bronze hue of hishair or the crystalline blue of his eyes. But therewassomething subtly different. An aura of confidence, maybe. An easiness.
