Something Wilder
Hope was a dangerous drug, and Lily was standing at the precipice between two worlds: one that promised everything she ever wanted in life, and another where she’d have to figure out how to make the life she had into the life she wanted.
She squinted into the tinted glass. “What if they’re not open yet?”
“They opened at eight thirty,” he said.
He took a step closer behind her, wrapping his arms around her middle. He could feel the way her body fought every breath, forcing the air back out as soon as she inhaled. There was no room inside her for anything except this tension.
“Even if there’s nothing in there for you,” he said, lips pressed to the soft skin below her ear, “you don’t have to ever go back to the way it was before.”
She nodded, quickly, absently.
“I’m here now. You aren’t alone.”
She exhaled a little more and was finally able to pull in a deeper breath. “I know.”
“I love you. I’m not ever going to leave you.”
Lily leaned back into him. “Say it again.”
“I’m not leaving.” He kissed her neck again. “And I’ll stand here with you for a week if that’s what you need, but if you’re ready, all you have to do is open the door and walk inside.”
She reached forward, wrapping her hand around the brass bar and swinging the heavy glass door open. Refrigerated air hit them in a blast, a refreshing wall of cold. They both needed a bath and a square meal; Leo hadn’t realized the true depth of his dishevelment until he stood in the gleaming lobby in the same torn clothes he’d worn out of the hospital only nineteen hours ago.
And there was no covert entrance to be made: a Monday, and with the internet in everyone’s palm, the bank was quiet inside. It made it easy to spot the moment a man stood from a desk just beyond the bay of tellers, staring directly at them as he smoothed his tie down the front of his shirt.
He walked over leisurely, wearing a mysterious smile; the heel-toe click-clack of his dress shoes seemed to echo from all sides of the wide lobby.
In Leo’s grip, Lily’s hand grew sweaty, her fingers tightening around his, and he squeezed back reassuringly. “It’s okay,” he said under his breath.
“Well, all right.” The man—tall, narrow, with a receding hairline and a forehead that shone like the marble tile he’d just crossed to reach them—smiled wider, revealing a set of oversize teeth. With his gaze fixed only on Lily, he said, “I could hazard a guess, but just to be sure, I think you’d better tell me your name.”
Leo turned to take in her reaction, wondering whether she could see the answer to all of her worries unfolding right this second. With her brows cinched close in mistrustful surprise, her chin set defensively tight, Leo saw the way she strangled that hope down with a tight fist.
“Lily Wilder,” she said. “And you are?”
“Ed Tottenham.” He reached out a hand for Lily to shake. “Christ on a cracker, Lily Wilder, I was beginning to think you might never show up.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Laramie, Wyoming
Two months later
THE FOUR FLUTES pressed together in a celebratory clink, but Nicole’s glass came in hot, sloshing and spilling champagne down her hand.
“Fuck.” Unfazed, she bent, licking a long streak from her wrist and up along the back of her thumb.
Walter tracked this with his eyes before meeting Lily’s gaze, had a brief but visible internal meltdown, and then tossed back his full glass.
Lily brought her own flute to her lips, closing her eyes as the fizzy drink tickled her nose and popped tart and bright across her tongue. She’d never liked champagne—to be fair, she’d rarely had an opportunity to try it—but Leo had driven into town to shop specifically for that night’s dinner and brought home a case of what he promised to be good bubbles. She was determined to understand what everyone else tasted.
As usual, Nic voiced what Lily was already thinking: “Tastes like carbonated cough syrup.” Nic smacked her tongue to the roof of her mouth, frowning. “Blech.”
Leo grinned at them, charmed and uncomplaining. “I’ll have yours,” he said, starting to reach for it.
Nic ducked away, tilting her glass back and draining it. “I never said I had a problem with cough syrup.”
Laughing, Leo stood and moved to the kitchen to grab a fresh bottle. He had happily spent five hundred dollars on a case of champagne that his girlfriend and her best friend wouldn’t appreciate. Most nights it was just the two of them. Leo cooked while Lily wrapped up the evening chores in the stables, and they clinked the necks of their beer bottles together over the long knobby table in the expansive dining room, curling up with books or a movie after all the work was done. No matter what their bank statements now said, Leo had fully—and blissfully—embraced the simple life.