“I got into UCLA, but I didn’t go.” She’d said this proudly, she realized. She was proud to share it with him. “And we thought it would be a better place to raise a kid than where we’re from.”

Ever watched her for a moment, as if debating something in his mind. Then he said, “Emma didn’t want kids. Later she told me it was because she’d ‘intuited’—that was the word she used.” He stopped. “That she wasn’t going to be…that she’d get sick.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “So, you wanted children?”

“Yes.” He looked away, folded his hands together, his fingers locking into a perfect puzzle, and stretched his arms in front of him. “Moving feels like it makes sense, when things are hard where you are.”

She nodded, drew breath.

Then she said, “You remind me of him. Physically I mean. It’s almost uncanny.”

“That might not be a good thing,” he said. “But. You remind me of Emma.” He leaned closer, and she smelled mint and cedar wood on his skin—coolness and warmth, both at once.

That was when she wanted to grab him, claw at him. Tear off his clothes to see his tattoos. Roses. Serpent. Panther. Falcon. Skull. Her name.

No, no, that was not what she would find. Cyrus was gone. He had left. He had left her.

But Ever was solidly here.

And she was here. Somehow the betrayal hadn’t killed her the way she had thought it would.

She looked up at him.

It was decided, then, between them.

“Remember you said you’d carry me home?” Izzy asked.

“I’m not sure I actually said that.”

“I believe the exact words were, ‘Only if you want to carry me home.’”

He leaned in. “I believe those were your exact words.”

“Exactly. But you answered by bringing me another beer.”

“True. True,” he said. Neither of them mentioned that she hadn’t even had a sip.

“Do you live around here?” She laughed out loud, but it sounded more like a gasp of hurt. “Listen to me.”

“Yes, I do,” he said. “And I am. In that order.”

“I’m so confused.”

“Apparently we have karma to clear,” he said, smiling.

“And we’ve created an attachment,” said Izzy.

“I have a cat, though. Does your therapy dog like cats?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Well, I guess we will find out. Come on.”

They walked out together, with Dog, through the house, out the front door. Ever’s black Ram truck was parked near Plata. Even his truck is similar. Izzy thought of the missing persons flyers still in her bag. In the picture, Cyrus’s eyes looked pixilated, hundreds of tiny dark dots. Were those eyes watching her from inside the bag, watching her get into her truck and follow a stranger home? Part of her hoped Cyrus’s eyes were watching.

◆◆◆

Ever signaled for a long time, alerting her, before he turned off the highway. The two black trucks passed a handwritten sign that read, “Dark Road,” and Izzy wondered if the name bothered Ever. Probably not. She could see his smile in her mind like the distant lights at the end of the dirt road.