I only half recognized her, the way you might recall someone you’d seen at the grocery store or pumping gas at one of the town’s two filling stations. She was no one I knew. I didn’t know if that made it better or worse.

I pulled the front door open wide, and the woman shrieked.

Cicadas descended on the car in a swarm.

As the woman closed her knees, Nate got caught in her tartan skirt. Once he’d managed to untangle himself, he turned to look at me with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. His hair stuck out at odd angles.

“Irene?”

He made his way out of the car. When he took a step toward me, I held up a hand.

“I thought you loved me.” I choked on the words.

“I do.” He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth, and I grimaced. “This was a mistake.”

The woman in the car leaned forward. “A mistake?”

I almost felt bad for her.

Almost.

Nate looked back at her. “I’m marrying Irene Haywood,” he said.

“You’re…” the woman started, then shook her head as she pushed the passenger seat forward and jumped out of the car, skirt askew. “So, this past year meant nothing to you?”

The words rattled around in my head as the cicadas’ song reached a crescendo.

“I’ve done everything for you.” My voice was a whisper. “I’ve ruined my relationship with my mother. For you.”

I should’ve known better.

It was a rare person in Yarrow who had anything but good to say about the family who owned the town’s world-famous bourbon distillery. But not the Haywoods. You had to be careful around a Bonner. One word and they’ll have you eating out of their hand. All the things my mother had told me were true.

I’d ignored her. I let a friendship bloom into something more and—

“I just don’t know how you couldn’t have seen he was going to be one of those guys,” Addison interrupted.

Irene pressed her lips together. When she tried to think of her friendship with Nate before they got together, even that felt tainted. Like it had all been a dream. Hazy, but not completely blank like the rest of the summer that had changed the course of her life forever—she ended up pregnant, her brother was dead, and no one in town remembered a thing.

I stepped closer to Nate until he stumbled back against the car, and we were face-to-face. I could smell the pungent scent of marigolds that was all him—mixed with sweat and bourbon and god knew what else.

“Why don’t we forget about all this?” he said.

I pulled back my hand, and the world moved in slow motion. My fist collided with his nose. Cartilage cracked and it felt good. Blood spilled from his nostrils, down his face, and onto his white button-up.