could she possibly tell him she needed help? She closed her eyes, shame as cold as the wind blowing off the water.
She could do this. Somehow. Over the last years, she had discovered stores of strength she never would have guessed she had inside her. She gripped the metal bar beside the door—the sissy handle, her dad used to call it—and tried to step up at the same time, but her foot slipped off the running board.
Luke made a sound from the other side of the truck but came around quickly.
“You should have said something,” he said gruffly.
Like what? Sorry, but I have the muscle tone of a baby bird?
Without a word, he put his hands at her waist and lifted her into the pickup as if she weighed nothing, less than a feather from that baby bird.
It was the first time he’d touched her in seven years. The first time any man had touched her, except medical professionals.
The contact, fleeting and awkward, still was enough to fill her with an intense ache.
She had craved his touch once, had lived for those moments they could be together. She had loved everything about his big, rangy body, from the curve of his shoulders to the hardness of his chest to the line of dark hair that dipped to points lower.
The memories seemed to roll across her mind, faster and faster. His mouth on hers, his hands in her hair, falling asleep with his warm skin against her.
Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how very much she missed a man’s touch. Not just any man. This man.
She gave a shaky breath as he closed the vehicle door. Then she settled into her seat and pulled her seat belt across with hands that trembled.
She couldn’t do this. Eight hours alone in a vehicle with Luke Hamilton. How could she survive it?
He climbed in and fastened his seat belt, then pulled away from Brambleberry House. As she watched her refuge disappear in the rearview window, she told herself it was only a drive. She could endure it.
She had lived through much worse over the past seven years.
Luke drove at a steady pace through the falling snow, heading east on the winding road toward Portland. On summer Sunday evenings, Elizabeth knew, this road would be packed with tired, sunburned beachgoers heading back to Portland for the week ahead. Now, on a Sunday evening in December, they encountered very little traffic going in either direction.
He said nothing, the silence in the vehicle oppressive and heavy. With each mile marker they passed, she felt as if the weight of the past pressed down harder.
“How did Elliot find me?” she finally had to ask again.
He sent her a sideways look before jerking his gaze back to the road. “You will have to ask him. I don’t know all the details.”
“I’m still having a hard time believing he and...Megan are together. Last I knew, she was still grieving Wyatt Bailey. Now...you tell me she’s marrying his brother.”
“She grieved for Wyatt for a long time. But I guess people tend to move on eventually.”
He said the words in an even tone but guilt still burned through her. She had earned his fury through her choices.
“What is Megan up to? Is she...still running the inn?”
He didn’t answer her for a full moment, focused on driving through a tight series of curves. Finally, he glanced over. “Don’t expect that we’re going to chat the entire drive to Haven Point.” His jaw was firm, his hands tight on the steering wheel. “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want anything to do with you. In fact, I’m going to pretend you’re not here, which isn’t that hard since you haven’t been for seven years.”
She folded her hands in her lap, telling herself she couldn’t let his words wound her. “You don’t want to know...what happened or why I left?”
“I especially don’t want to hear that. I don’t give a damn, Elizabeth. After all these years, I can honestly say that. You can spill all your secrets, spin all your explanations, to the district attorney.”
She wanted to argue but knew it would be pointless. Her words would tangle and she wouldn’t be able to get them out anyway. “Fine. But I’m not going to...sit here in silence.”
She turned on the radio, which was set to the classic rock she knew he enjoyed. She was half tempted to turn the dial to something she knew would annoy him—Christmas music, maybe—but she didn’t want to push.
After several more moments of tense silence, the leaden weight of everything still unsaid between them, she settled into the corner and closed her eyes. She intended only to escape the awkwardness for a moment, but the day’s events and the adrenaline crash after the shock of seeing him again seemed to catch up with her.
She would never have expected it, but somehow she slept.
Elizabeth.
Here.
Sleeping next to him. Or at least pretending to—he couldn’t be sure. Her eyes were closed, her breathing even and measured, but he couldn’t tell if she was genuinely asleep or simply avoiding conversation. He couldn’t really blame her for that, since he’d shut her down hard when she tried to talk to him.
She was close enough he could touch her if he wanted—which he absolutely didn’t.
His hands tightened again on the steering wheel. At this rate, his fingers would stiffen into claws by the time they reached home.
Since the moment Elliot had handed him that piece of paper with a single name and an address, he had imagined this moment, when he would see her again.
His whole world had been rocked by the revelation that she wasn’t dead. Months later he still hadn’t recovered. He had done his best to put it aside, figuring if she wanted him to know where she was, she would have told him herself.
After finding out about the district attorney’s plans the day before, that choice had been taken out of his hands.
He had to retrieve her and take her back to Idaho so he could clear his name. He had been so focused on the task at hand, though, that he hadn’t given the rest of it much thought.
The grim reality was sinking in now. He would have to spend several hours trapped in a vehicle with the wife who had walked out on him and their children without a backward look.
Or had she looked back? He had to wonder. If she hadn’t looked back, why would she continue returning to Haven Point to check up on her children?
He thought of her the last time he had seen the mystery woman, at a play Cassie’s school had performed for Halloween. Cassie and a couple of her friends had played a trio of witches trying to prove they weren’t as bad as everyone thought. He remembered seeing the intriguing stranger—how
