Mark’s text is more sobering. He’s waiting for her. He can’t wait to see her. He can’t wait to make love with her.

Joy swallows her guilt and brings up Mark’s address. She launches the directions to his place—their place—and buckles her seat belt, giving the belt two sharp tugs to ensure it’s latched. She shifts the car into gear the same moment the officer loudly raps his knuckles on her window.

“Move on, lady!”

Joy does, merging into the airport traffic, resisting the urge to look back. Because what she might want, or who, doesn’t matter. It hasn’t mattered for years.

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

BEFORE

Joy

Ludlow, California

A tall drink of water.

Joy never contemplated the meaning behind that idiom. She never considered using it to describe a guy. The expression was archaic. Something her grandmother would have said. Or Judy, given that it was dated slang and her older sister had loved everything retro, specifically anything circa 1950s. But then Joy saw him. Now she couldn’t think of a better way to describe the man she’d been watching through the window.

She felt parched, her mouth dry. It could very well be from ogling the gorgeous guy with the heather-gray, sweat-drenched T-shirt and stonewashed jeans that fit him way too well as he bent over the engine of his beat-up Pontiac Bonneville rather than the triple-digit dry heat baking the asphalt and everything alive outside Rob’s Diner, where Joy had stopped for a cheeseburger and fries. Food Judy would have ordered if she’d had the chance to take this trip.

Her sister had loved cheeseburgers, and she and Joy had eaten their share at In-N-Out Burger. Joy missed those weekly outings when Judy would buy their meals. They’d eat them outside on the white tables with red chairs under a duo of palm trees, the sun setting over SoCal suburbia.

Joy sucked her Cherry Coke through a red-striped plastic straw and watched the man outside. He straightened, wiped his forearm across his glistening forehead, and looked east down the sprawling stretch of Route 66. She didn’t know how he could stand the desert heat. August in Ludlow was brutal, and tall-drink-of-water guy had been tinkering under the hood of his Pontiac for well over forty minutes. He’d arrived right after Joy had been seated at a window booth.