“You stopped writing.”

“I did,” he admitted. “I used to sit on a dune and watch the sun set, thinking about you…writing half of what I wanted. That was my nightly routine for a long time.”

“My postman has some explaining to do.”

“I only sent a few of them. I was in love with you for a long time, Nina.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying the swal ow the lump that had formed in my throat. It was pointless to apologize after what I had done to him, but the words fel out of my mouth.

“Why? I’m not the first guy to go war after my heart got broken. Half of my buddies wrote home to girls that didn’t love them back. Some of them had girls that quit waiting. I was one of the lucky ones, even though your smile haunted me for a long time.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I said, wrinkling my nose.

“No,” he said, matter-of-factly. “After leaving, going half-way across the world, I stil missed you. I didn’t think it would ever go away. But something changed, Nina.”

“Oh?”

Ryan smiled. “I quit loving you.”

I nodded, my feelings conflicted. A smal part of me was hurt, and maybe a bit jealous that he had final y gotten over me. The rest of me was overjoyed. “That’s…good? I guess?”

“No, that’s wrong. I stil love you. I wil always love you as my friend. But I’m in love with someone else.”

A grin streaked across my face for a fleeting moment. “That’s exciting. Do I know her?”

“Actual y…I think you do. And I need your help.”

“Anything. I sort of owe you, don’t I?”

Ryan sighed, nodding. “That’s where I was going with this.” He paused for a moment. “You ever get the feeling you’re never alone? I mean, even when you are.”

His words spoke to every moment of my life, but I remained quiet.

Ryan ignored my silence. “Do you remember the night Jared came into the bar? And the last night we were together?”

My heart began to pound. I didn’t know what direction the conversation had taken, but I felt instantly uncomfortable. “What about it?”

“I remember three things about both of those nights: Jared’s sister, how strong she was, and those crazy blue eyes. Everyone else says I’m crazy, Nina…but you…you I know wil understand.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I said, feigning bewilderment.

Ryan huffed, frustrated. “The night in your father’s office. You said I couldn’t tel anyone about our plan because Jared would find out. I thought he was in the F.B.I. or something, but it’s bigger than that, isn’t it?”

I touched his arm. “You’re seeing someone professional, right? About what happened to you over there?” The words had to be said to protect those I loved, but the guilt was overwhelming. Ryan didn’t deserve that from me—he had come to me for a reason: because he trusted me to believe him. If the consequences were different, I would have been the friend he’d always been to me, but my choice was clear.

He paused. Anger made the skin around his eye twitch. “What makes you think anything happened to me over there?”

“I uh…,” I swal owed. “I real y should be going,” I said, reaching for the door handle.

Ryan grabbed my arm. “I saw her eyes. The day she saved my life, I saw her. No one has eyes like her, and no woman that size could have carried me out of there. Tel me where Claire is, Nina.”

My door flew open, and Jared pul ed me to my feet. Ryan scrambled out of his cruiser, desperate. “I just want to talk to her,” he yel ed over the rain. “I don’t need to know how she did it. I just…need to see her again.”

Jared glanced at me, and then back to Ryan. “Unless you’re charging us with something, we’re leaving. Good to see you again, Ryan.”

“I’m not crazy!” Ryan said, desperate. The rain was more of a downpour, but he was unfazed.

My steps were smal and quick, trying to keep up with Jared as he led me by the arm to the Escalade. Once inside, I turned around, holding the seat with both hands as I watched the stand off between the two men I loved in such opposite ways. Ryan, in his puffy, standard-issue policeman’s coat simply watched Jared glower at him. It was a new side of him, as I half-expected a nasty exchange of words.

Jared slammed the car door behind him before shoving the shifter into gear. The speedometer passed the point of speeding before we were out of Ryan’s radar range, as if Jared dared him to stop us again.

“Okay. Jared? Jared!” I said, fumbling with my seat belt.

“He knows.”

“It certainly seems that way,” I said, bracing myself as Jared weaved through the traffic. “Claire wil lay low for a while like you said to. It wil be fine.”

“You heard him, Nina. He’s been holding onto this for months. He’s not going to let it go.”

“Okay…so we figure it out. It’s not the worst thing that could happen right now. You told me, and the world didn’t come to an end.”

“Yours did.”

I winced. Jared feeling that way had never occurred to me. “That’s not true,” I said, shaking my head. I rested my hand on his. “Everything before that night was make-believe. This is what’s real.”

Jared pul ed into the drive of my parent’s home, and then waited for the garage door to open. “You don’t work for the police department, Nina.

The same one that Claire meticulously picked off a year ago.”

“He just wants to know why he saw her in the desert, Jared. It has nothing to do with Graham.”

Jared closed his eyes, exasperated. “Maybe not to Ryan, but for someone that can’t pass his psych eval and is stil in physical therapy, he was accepted into the the Providence P.D. without a hitch. It wouldn’t be hard for someone to connect Ryan to you, and anyone who could pose a problem knows you are a direct connection to me, and Claire…and Graham. This is not an innocent oops, Nina. This is a potential threat.”

“Everything is a potential threat to you people,” I grumbled.

“You people? Since when are we not on the same side?” Jared said, taken aback. He shook his head, and then headed to the house without waiting.

I fol owed in silence, cursing myself. An hour before, we had set the date of our wedding. Now I was getting the cold shoulder.

Bex sat the top of the stairs, cleaning his fingernails with a large knife, nodding to us as we passed. He was less of the boy I knew, and more like his older sister. Even Lil ian’s unparal eled goodness couldn’t prevent Bex from losing his innocence.

Jared rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll er…I’ll see you in the morning. I’ve got some things to do.”

“You’re going to find Claire?”

“We need to talk.”

“Okay,” I nodded, wrapping my arms around him. He shifted, uncomfortable in my arms. “I didn’t mean it. I suppose I’m just surprised at your reaction. He’s not in love with me, anymore. I thought you’d be relieved.”

I gripped his t-shirt in my fists, bracing for him to pul away. Instead, he paused in thought, considering my words. “That means Ryan being Claire’s Taleh means something else, and we don’t know what that is.”

I sighed, irritated at his negativity. “Maybe it just means that they are supposed to be together. Like us.”

Several emotions scrol ed across Jared’s face, final y settling on a mixture of relief and delight. He tightened his arms around my back. “You think so?”

“What other explanation is there?”

A wide grin spread across Jared’s face. “It doesn’t matter. I like that one.”

Chapter Twelve

The One

“No way.”

“Way.”

“A cop?” Beth said, her voice raised an octave.

“One of Providence’s finest,” I replied.

She took a sip of coffee, and then shook her head. “I don’t believe it. Chad hasn’t said a word.”

“Ryan hasn’t told anyone.”

“He told you.”

My eyebrows shot up. An explanation consisting of Claire, explosions, and the ice blue eyes in Ryan’s memory would take the conversation to an unfavorable end, so I kept it simple.“Touché.”

The bel above the coffee ship door chimed, and we both looked up, waiting for Kim.

“Where is she?” Beth asked, disappointed.

“Late.” I knew she was with Jared, but I couldn’t exactly share that with Beth. She was the last bit of normal I had left, and I wasn’t going to share her with the crazy part of my life—even if that meant lying.

“Was Jared just pissed beyond belief?”

“Um…kind of. I guess. But not about that.”

“What about, then?”

“That he pul ed us over for no reason, I suppose.” I lied again. For a moment I silently counted how many non-truths I had told her in the span of just a few minutes, and wondered how many more I would have to tel . Beth was my best friend, but it was for her own good. If there was a lesson to be learned in the chaos of my life, ignorance was bliss.

Beth and I chatted about upcoming papers to write, meetings at work, the upcoming Christmas party that Sasha had been obsessing over, and of course, Ryan.

“We’d better get going,” Beth said, glancing at her watch.

“The wind is terrible today,” I said, pul ing on my coat, hat and scarf. The snow was fal ing in large chunks, and the street had already turned into a gray, slushy mess.

“I know, it sucks,” Beth said. “Fal is non-existent here.”

“Oh. Right. You don’t get much snow in Oklahoma, do you?”

Beth laughed once in disbelief. “Yes we get snow. Sometimes a foot or so. It’s just on top of an inch of ice.”

“But…it’s a southern state.”

“So?” Beth said, waiting for more crazy to come out of my mouth.

“Never mind.”

We walked to the Beemer together, trying to navigate the patches of snow that hadn’t been cleared.

“Hi,” a deep voice said, greeting us.

“Ryan!” Beth said, throwing her arms around our friend.

He was in plain clothes, leaning against my car nonchalantly. He didn’t seem nervous or out of place at al , until Beth smacked him, hard, on the back of the head.

“Hey!” Ryan said, defending his head with his hands from another blow.

“What is wrong with you? Taking off on al of us like that, going off to war, and not letting us know you’re okay, or that you’re back in town? We’ve all been worried sick! Chad is gonna be pissed!

“Okay, okay!” Ryan said, bracing for another assault. “I’m sorry.”

Beth relaxed. “If you haven’t call ed him by the time I get home tonight, I’m tel ing him. And you are so going to get it.”

“I’ll call him. I’ll call everyone, I’ve just been kinda…I don’t know what to say.”

“Say, ‘I’m home.’” Beth crossed her arms, unimpressed with his wounded expression.

“Take it easy, Beth,” I said. “He just needed to come back on his own terms.”

“Exactly,” Ryan nodded, thankful for my explanation. “I came to ask you to dinner. We have some talking to do.”

“O…Okay,” I said, surprised.

“Jared’s not going to like that,” Beth lilted.

“Where do I pick you up? Jared’s place?”

“It sort of burned down,” I said, shifting.

Ryan didn’t flinch. “Okay, so where, then?”

“We’re at Cynthia’s for now.”

Ryan’s eyes were always the windows to his thoughts. That was one thing that his experiences hadn’t taken away from him. He was planning something.

“Seven o’clock?” he asked.

“How about I meet you there?”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Wherever you’re wanting to eat.”

“I haven’t decided, yet. I’ll just pick you up.”

I sighed in frustration. “See you at seven, then.”

Ryan walked away like a robot accepting a command. He offered no smile, or any other expression, too preoccupied with his next move.

“That was weird,” Beth said, pul ing on the handle. “Open up, already, it’s freaking freezing!”

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” I said, rol ing my eyes and clicking the keyless entry.

Throughout the day, I waited for Jared’s call . He hadn’t come home that morning, passing on the message via Bex that he and Kim were in Woonsocket, just south of the Massachusetts line. Bex assured me that it was to speak with the priests of St. Anne’s, and he wouldn’t be engaging the enemy.

At lunch, I call ed Bex. “Why hasn’t he call ed?”

“He’ll call ,” Bex said, bored.

“Why did Kim go if they’re just going to a church?”

“It’s just a guess, but maybe she knows the contact their questioning.”

I blew my bangs from my face, frustrated. “You two are being very secretive these days.”

Bex sighed. “Go be a co-ed, Nina. I’ll talk to you later when you call to ask if Jared’s call ed again.”

I looked to Beth. “That little…he hung up on me.”

“He’s a teenager. You remember being a teenager?”

“Vaguely.”

“He’s got al these feelings, and emotions…and didn’t you say he was home-schooled?”

“Yeah, but he’s only thirteen. He’s barely a teenager.”

Beth stared at me. “You’re joking, right?”