Too Fast to Fall (Jackson Hole 1.10)

Their house was only two streets away. When her mom had been sober, they’d walked to school together every morning, even on the coldest days.

Jenny felt a tickle on her cheek and found hot tears when she touched her skin.

She’d needed this. She’d needed to remember. To come back.

But she stopped short of her house. She could see it from the corner. This was close enough.

It looked the same. Still neat. Still perfect from the outside.

Her father had been the gardener in the family, and the lawn had been his escape. He must still need a good reason to escape, because from this side of the block, the grass looked perfect enough to be Astroturf.

Time had gone on without her. Had anything changed at all?

But Jenny knew the answer to that. She’d changed. She wasn’t running. Not anymore.

She picked up the phone and called Grace.

“Jenny, where the hell are you? We’ve been worried sick! Rayleen tried calling the sheriff, but you’re an adult, and they wouldn’t… Sweetie, where are you?”

Jenny smiled at the sound of Grace calling her sweetie. Grace, who’d likely never used that word once when she’d lived in L.A. “I just…needed to get away.”

“Thank God. But when you didn’t show up last night—”

“Oh, shit. The saloon! I didn’t even think about it. Am I fired?”

“Of course you’re not fired.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m awful. I’ve never done that before. I have to call Rayleen!”

“Oh, screw Rayleen. She’s fine. You can apologize when you get here. If… You are coming back, right?”

Jenny stared down the street and swallowed hard, overwhelmed with a thousand memories of this view as she’d walked home from school.

“Jenny?” Grace whispered. “Don’t be like me, okay? I didn’t know I belonged here, but you know you do. You know that. Don’t you?”

Jenny let her gaze fall to the sad little bag she’d packed. She’d spent five years in Jackson and this was all she’d grabbed on her way out the door. No pictures. No memories of the life she’d built. Just this small bag and the clothes on her back. Not because she was leaving everything behind, but because she knew she’d be back.

If there were bad things waiting—if Nate hated her, and Ellis kept hanging around, and things didn’t go smooth and easy—she could handle it. “I know where I belong,” she said. “I do. I’m coming back.”

“Thank God! When?”

“Now,” Jenny said, feeling the awful tension leave her shoulders. “I’m coming home right now.”

She hung up the phone and watched a flock of birds rise from the tree in front of the house she’d spent so many years in. Her family was still there. And her past. And that was okay. She could face it. Maybe she’d call her sister soon. Maybe she’d even come back and visit, knowing she had a better place to return to. But not today. Today was part of the future she’d built in Jackson, not this past she’d left behind.

Jenny put the car in gear and drove.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

NATE SAT BEHIND the wheel of his truck like a hunter watching for game. Eyes narrowed, he stared at the road, noting each vehicle that came over the distant rise.

She had to come this way. Rayleen had called to say they’d tracked her down in Idaho and she was coming back. She’d be at the saloon that night, working the bar like normal.

Jesus, when he’d walked in the night before, he hadn’t been terrified yet, only worried. But then Old Rayleen had looked up with a vicious scowl and barked, “It’s about time. That little shit said you weren’t coming.”

“What? Who?”

“The piece of crap I talked to at the sheriff’s department. He said Jenny was an adult and I couldn’t report her missing.”