Joy walked to the Wagon Wheel, a dive bar three blocks from the roadside motel they’d checked into. Dylan hadn’t invited her to watch him play; he hadn’t even told her where he was playing. She hadn’t asked either, nor did she take offense, not after what he’d told her earlier in the car. He had some sort of obligation. Knowing that, she felt more empathetic, but it didn’t stop her from following him when he left the motel.

Dylan had been quiet during the last leg of their drive to Amarillo. He clearly felt awful about how he’d acted. He’d look at her when he thought she wouldn’t notice. He also didn’t argue over the music. In fact, he put on Connie Francis without any prompting from her. He listened to the entire Connie’s Greatest Hits album without one complaint.

But Dylan wasn’t the only one brooding.

Joy hadn’t been in the mood to strike up conversation either, treading through her own murky puddle of thoughts. Dylan’s accusation about her reluctance to discuss Mark with him had hurt because he’d been right. She’d been in Dylan’s company for over forty-eight hours and she’d hardly breathed a word about her fiancé to him.

Why was that?

Simple: guilt.

An emotion she was all too familiar with. Only this time it had nothing to do with Judy and everything to do with Mark.

Dylan was here. Mark wasn’t.

There was also one more thing that rubbed raw. Dylan was right, too, about Mark not knowing her the way he should. The engagement ring? By golly, it was obnoxious. She’d never admit it to Dylan, but Joy had wanted to tell Mark after he proposed that the ring was over the top. A solitaire mounted on a gold band would have sufficed. Minimalist was more her style. But Judy would have gushed over the setting, and Mark seemed so pleased to see it on her finger. Joy kept the ring on and her thoughts guarded.

The ring sparkled in the beam of the bouncer’s flashlight as he checked Joy’s ID and she paid him the cover charge. The bouncer noticed the glitter, too.

“You alone tonight?” he asked in a gruff voice. Interest glimmered in his ink-black eyes.

“My fiancé’s inside.” Lie. She twisted the ring around her finger to hide the two-carat diamond. It always caught when she styled her hair, and it snagged on her clothes when she dressed. It also attracted unwanted attention. She should have left it in the room after she’d checked in. But the motel didn’t have a safe and Mark would never forgive her if someone stole the ring or she misplaced it.