Second Chance at the Riverview Inn (Riverview Inn)

“So?” she said, a twinkle in her eye. “Did I just watch a hit song get written?”

“You watched something get written, hard to say what it is yet.”

“Wow.” She glanced over at him, smiling. “That was…that was really cool.”

“Glad I could entertain you.”

“Now, White Plains?” she asked and then yawned so big her jaw practically cracked.

“How about I drive?” he asked, and she jerked her head to look at him so fast he wondered if he’d accidentally said “How about I fuck you in the backseat.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I mean…maybe. I don’t…”

He was making her nervous and he didn’t know what he’d said or done, but it was obviously an issue with the car.

“I can drive,” he said. “I have a license. And it’s valid.”

“No. I mean, I’m sure you can. It’s just… “ She closed her eyes and blew out a long breath. “I have a control thing. Around cars.”

“In that you like them to be controlled?”

She laughed a little, which was the point.

“You gonna tell me about it?” he asked.

She looked out over the steering wheel. It was going to be a gray day, too many clouds. He knew, of course, why she didn’t like driving. Or he could guess—it didn’t take a genius to figure it out. But he didn’t want to tell her that he knew. That instinct in the diner to come clean was gone. And now he wanted her to trust him with the information.

Let me in, Helen. The way I let you in.

Chapter Ten

“I used to drive all the time. I loved it. I still love it.” She gave him a shy smile and he tried to control his breathing. “But my fiancé was killed in a car accident.”

She made a sound like a laugh, but wasn’t a laugh. Not at all. She clapped her hand over her mouth.

“Hey. I’m sorry,” he said with sincerity. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

“It’s okay. It’s just…” She pulled in a breath and held it. Held it for far too long. He touched her shoulder and she let her breath go with a giant exhale. “I don’t talk about him. You know. I don’t… “ She pressed her lips together. “I live with people who know what happened and they never talk about him. So, I don’t. That’s weird, isn’t it?”

She looked at him like she wanted confirmation on the weirdness of all of it.

“You can talk about him if you want,” he said. “Or not. No pressure from me.”

“I was pregnant with Bea. And it was Christmas three years ago. And he was killed in a car accident.”

“Were you with him?” His heart spiked at the thought.

“No. He was hit by a tractor trailer that lost control in a storm. He died right away. Which you know is one of those truly horrific things that is also a blessing.”

“Yeah.” He’d had a few of those things in his life, too.

“The police found the driver hadn’t had any real bad weather training. She didn’t pull over when she should have. And it was one thing when he died in this terrible accident, but suddenly it wasn’t just an accident, and the driver of the truck was going to jail and I was supposed to sue the trucking company.”

“You didn’t.”

He knew all this. And he wanted her to trust him, but now he felt like the world’s biggest asshole. Pretending not to know, basically lying, while she bared her soul to him.

He’d read her story and it had changed him, and now he could never say that.

The problem with lies. Even lies by omission. They were always a trap.

Fuck.

“No,” she said. “By the time the trial had rolled around, I had a newborn and I just wanted to move on and…I don’t know. Try and protect myself.” She shrugged. “I might have gone a little too far with that idea.” She gave him a self-deprecating smile.

“What did you do?” he asked, though he knew.

“The trial was over Zoom, and I read a victim’s statement and I basically forgave her. Putting her in jail or suing the company wouldn’t bring back Evan. It couldn’t make me feel better and it couldn’t make her feel worse. She was…I mean, she was in so much pain, and I just saw it and wanted to make it better in a way. So that’s what I did.”

“Did you mean it?”

She gave him a slightly startled look. “No one ever asks me that.”

He thought of her question about why it was easier to fight than offer up some part of his music and he felt the fizz and pop of their chemistry again. The way she saw him, and he saw her, wasn’t the way the world saw them. It was special.

“You don’t have to answer.”

“I’ve been thinking lately that maybe I didn’t.” She sounded so pained and he couldn’t stand it. He put his hand on her shoulder again, cupping the muscle and bone with his palm. She was warm and strong. “Or that maybe forgiveness is something I have to choose every day. Practice. Every day. Because…she writes me. From jail.”