“I have never once told anyone your secret. Not to my parents, not to my brother, not even to Beau, so don’t even start.”

She wipes away a tear. “I’m sorry. Talk in the town has already started. The bar was full tonight. On a Wednesday,” she says. When she gave birth, she bought the town bar and vamped it up. I never asked her how she got the money or what she had to do for it. I don’t want to know. All I need to know is that she is the best mother there is, and Ethan thrives with both of his parents.

“Give it a couple of days,” I say. “Something else will happen, and then it’ll be old news.”

“It’s taken seven years for people to be nice to me.” She sits down on the couch. “Seven years for me to finally walk into the grocery store without being pointed at as the ‘harlot’ who stole you away from the town’s princess.”

“The only thing that matters is that the town loves Ethan,” I remind her. “How they feel about me or you is not an issue.”

She puts her head back. “Yeah, I know. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page,” she says, getting up. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

She walks to me. “He has a spelling test tomorrow. Just go over the words in the car.”

“Will do,” I say, and she leans up to kiss my cheek.

“Thank you,” she says and walks out of the house. I walk out the door and watch her drive away. Stopping in the middle of my porch, I sit down and look at the sky.

“What the hell are you doing back in town, Kallie?” I ask the universe, and I expect to get an answer, but instead, all I hear is the silence. It’s always the silence that greets me.

Chapter Six

Kallie

I toss and turn in bed even though I’m exhausted and fell asleep five minutes after getting out of my shower. I wake suddenly and just lie here, my heartbeat going through the motions, just as it has been for the past eight years.