Page 109 of Guilty as Sin

“Yeah. And not what you’re thinking, so get your mind back.”

“Mate. I didn’t say anything. That was all you. Where are you? There’s an echo.”

“Some big-box store. There’s an echo because it’s the bowels of Hell. Too many decisions.”

“Moving in with somebody? Some twin?”

“Just exactly not.”

Rafe sighed. “This would be easier if you’d just tell me instead of my having to dig it out of you. Easier on me as well. I’ve been on location six bloody weeks. I’m tired.”

“Right. There’s somebody I like a lot. She’s leaving in an hour or so. Flying back to San Francisco. I’m going to miss her. There you are. My inner life revealed.”

“Flying back this morning, you’ll miss her, and you’re not taking her to the airport? Because you already broke up, as that’s more efficient?”

“You think it’s me,” Jace said. “It’s not me.”

“Suppose you tell me, then.”

“I don’t want to tell you. It feels like shit.” There. He’d said it.

“Then,” Rafe said, “maybe you should do something about it.”

Paige tried to talk on the way to Kalispell, but she couldn’t manage it. She looked out the window instead, at foothills covered with evergreens, at the creek that ran briskly beside the highway, the water high now with the snowmelt, tumbling over granite boulders. A deer bounded away from the side of the road as they passed, and Lily slowed the car.

“Where there’s one,” she said, “there’s more than one. They like to stick together. There she goes. Right across the road.”

“Deer don’t like being alone?” Paige asked.

“No. But then, who does?”

“You. Me.”

Lily hesitated a moment, then said, “I don’t think so. When you left after high school, I missed you so much. And you missed me. I miss you every day, if you want to know.”

“That’s us, though. I mean, missing each other. That’s not missing other people.”

“Oh,” Lily said. “Then maybe it’s just me. There’s nothing lonelier than being with the wrong person. But I think, maybe… there’s nothing more comforting than being with the right one.”

“I thought you weren’t romantic.”

Lily glanced at her, then turned her attention back to the road. “I’m not. I’m realistic. Just because I don’t have it, just because I won’t settle for ‘close enough’ anymore, let alone ‘nowhere close,’ just because I’ve more or less given up, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take it if I found it.”

“So you think I should… what? Stay here? Lily. He’s neveraskedme. Hewouldn’task me. That would be crazy. And anyway, I likemyjob. Being a country cop, a small-town cop? Not the same. I’m not a small-town girl. I never have been. It wouldn’t work.”

“All right,” Lily said. “It’s just that it hurts my heart to see you hurting so much. I want to make it better for you, and I can’t.”

“Don’t worry,” Paige said. “I’ll get over it.” Maybe. Right now, her face still burned and itched, and her broken finger throbbed. All that was nothing, though, to the ache in her heart.

“But will Jace?” Lily asked quietly.

“What? Jace? He’s… yes, of course he will. He’s tough.”

“He’s in love.”

Paige’s chest tightened so much, she’d swear it actually hurt. “He’s…” She tried to say something, and couldn’t.

“I think,” Lily went on, “that a man like that doesn’t love often. I think that when he does, he loves deep. I think his love might be worth having. And I wonder if hurting him this much is worth it.”