Even though the sun had buried itself beneath the clouds, he wore dark glasses. He was clean-shaven, but his hair had grown wilder in the eleven days since she’d last seen him. It seemed like months. The knowledge she worked so hard to suppress struggled toward the surface. She shoved it back into the darkest recesses inside her where it could do no harm. While her own heart raced, he ambled toward her as casually as a tourist out for an evening stroll.

If he was mad at her for running out on him, it didn’t show. He nodded and took in her shorter hair, no longer quite as dark but still not back to her natural light brown color. She wasn’t wearing makeup, her fingernails were a wreck, and she hadn’t shaved her legs in a couple of days, but she didn’t let herself tuck them under her hips.

They gazed at each other, maybe only a few seconds, but longer than she could bear. She pretended to examine a trio of ladybugs crawling along a piece of driftwood. “Come to say good-bye?”

He stuffed a hand in the pocket of his shorts. “I’m leaving in the morning.” He gazed out at the water, as if he couldn’t stand looking at her longer than he needed to. “I’m starting a new job in a week.”

“Great.”

Another uncomfortable silence fell between them. At the water’s edge, the beach-walker tossed a stick into the lake, and his dog went after it. Whether she wanted to or not, there were things she needed to say before he left. “I hope you understand why I had to move out.”

He sat in the sand next to her and pulled a knee up, leaving a wide space between them. “Temple explained it to me. She said it was because I was an asshole.”

“Not true. If it hadn’t been for you that night—” She dug her toes into the sand. “I don’t like to think about it.”

He picked up a beach stone and rolled it in his palm. The dune grasses bent toward him as if they wanted to stroke his hair. She looked away. “Thanks for what you did.”

“I don’t need any more thanks,” he said gruffly.

She rubbed her arm, her skin gritty beneath her fingers. “I’m glad you told me about your brother.”

“I wanted to take your mind off what happened, that’s all.”

She pushed her feet deeper into the sand. “I think you should tell Bree about Curtis before you leave.”

He dropped the beach stone. “That her old man had no conscience? Not going to happen.”

“She’s a big girl. She knows he screwed around on her mother, and she needs to know about this. Let her decide whether or not to tell her brothers.”