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I closed the journal and gathered up the photos with hands that wanted to shake but refused to let them. Somewhere inLondon, Daphne was probably feeling justified in her anger, convinced that I was the betrayer while she was the victim. Maybe she'd even convinced herself that using me as cover was somehow less wrong than me falling in love with her brother.
Maybe we'd both gotten exactly what we deserved. Nothing.
The knock on our front door came just as I was helping Mama with the supper dishes, and I looked through the screen to see Rob Walsh standing on our porch with a mason jar full of wildflowers and that easy smile that had been breaking hearts in our county since he'd hit puberty.
"Well, hey there, Lili," he said when I pushed open the screen door. "Heard you were back home for a while."
"News travels faster than gossip in a beauty parlor around here." I dried my hands on the dish towel, hyperaware of how different this felt from opening a door to find Edward standing there in his perfectly tailored suits.
No electric shock, no feeling like the ground might give way beneath my feet. Just... comfort. Safety. The kind of easy familiarity that came from growing up three streets apart and knowing each other's middle names and childhood embarrassments.
"Thought you might like these." He held out the flowers—black-eyed Susans and Indian paintbrush and Queen Anne's lace, the kind that grew wild along the county roads and didn't need anyone's permission to be beautiful. "Picked them from that field behind my place. Remember how you used to make me stop the truck so you could pick bouquets for your Mama?"
I did remember. Long summer drives when we were eighteen and the whole world felt like it was waiting for us to claim it, Rob's old Chevy kicking up dust clouds behind us while the radio played songs about small towns and big dreams.
Before I'd learned that some dreams were too big for girls like me, and some worlds didn't want to be claimed by peoplewho pronounced "herbs" without the h and got excited about compost spreaders.
"They're beautiful, Rob. Thank you kindly." I took the jar, our fingers brushing for just a moment.
Nothing. No spark, no breathless anticipation, no feeling that the world might end if he stopped touching me. Just warm skin and callused hands and the comfortable knowledge that he'd never hurt me, never lie to me, never come with centuries of baggage and a Mother who considered me a threat to the natural order of things.
"Come sit on the porch? Mama made tea sweet enough to put you in a diabetic coma."
We settled into the old porch swing, the chains creaking their familiar song while the sun painted everything gold and lazy.
Rob's courtship in the next couple weeks had been gentle as a summer rain, patient as Job himself. Offers to fix the squeaky step, strawberries from his garden, conversations about everything and nothing without hidden meanings or political implications lurking beneath every word like land mines waiting to explode.
"You seem different," he said, studying my profile in the fading light. "Not bad different, just... like you've seen things. Been places that changed you."
"I have seen things." I traced a pattern on the swing's armrest, trying to find words for experiences that had no translation in small-town Texas. "Rob, what we had before I left—"
"I know." His voice was quiet, understanding, like he'd been expecting this conversation since the day I'd come home. "I know you're not the same girl who left here chasing dreams bigger than this town could hold. Hell, I'm not the same man who let you go without a fight. But maybe that's okay. Maybe we're both better for the growing we've done."
When he reached for my hand, I let him take it.
His palm was rough from honest work, warm and solid and completely uncomplicated. Rob would never hurt me, never choose family loyalty over love, never come with aristocratic baggage and a trust fund older than America. He would never lie to me or use me as a pawn in someone else's power game.
But he also would never make me feel like I was flying when he kissed me.
It was the difference between a warm bath and a lightning storm, between a steady campfire and a house burning down. Rob offered me a life without the kind of pain that had driven me back to Texas, but also without the kind of joy that made pain seem like a fair trade for feeling truly alive.
"I care about you, Rob. I always have and I always will. But I can't—"
"I know," he said again, squeezing my hand gently before letting it go. "I see it in your eyes, the way you look when you think nobody's watching. He really got to you, didn't he? This English fellow."
I nodded, not trusting my voice to come out steady.
"Well," Rob said, standing up and brushing off his jeans, "when you're ready to settle for someone who'll love you without all the drama and heartbreak, you know where to find me. I'll be right here, same as always."
After he left, I sat on the porch until the stars came out, holding his wildflowers and wondering if choosing safety over passion made me wise or just scared. The flowers smelled like home, like simplicity, like a life where love didn't have to conquer anything because there were no battles to fight and no empires to threaten.
Maybe that was what I needed. Maybe lightning storms were overrated when you'd been struck once and lived to tell about it.
But sitting there in the Texas darkness, listening to the cicadas sing their ancient songs and watching fireflies dance in Mama's garden, I knew I was lying to myself. Because I'd rather burn than settle, rather hurt than feel nothing, rather fight for something extraordinary than accept something merely good.
Rob was offering me a life without Edward Grosvenor's particular brand of beautiful destruction.
The question was—whether I was brave enough to want more than survival, whether I was strong enough to go back and fight for the love that had nearly destroyed me the first time around.