She watched a teenage couple climb out of a pickup truck, laughing and playfully poking at each other before exchanging a sloppy kiss and entering the store. Next came the man in the Sooners T-shirt, then a petite woman with two small children who were begging her in loud voices to buy them each a sugary frozen drink. Ordinary people with ordinary lives. She envied them. They had a place to go home at night. No one chasing them, wanting to hurt them. Or did they?
She knew that, to outsiders, she probably looked like the normal one. Appearances meant nothing. Just like wild animals, people learned to hide their vulnerabilities, their wounded hearts.
As she cranked her engine, preparing to get back on the road, a billboard across the road advertising the local rodeo snagged her attention. The ad featured pictures of both a cowboy and a cowgirl competing, and her thoughts flashed to a friend from high school who’d been a rodeo champion—until a car accident had left her severely injured and relearning how to walk. For years, she and Nina had stayed in touch. Carrie had visited Nina several times through her rehabilitation and cheered the progress of Nina’s recovery. How long had it been since she’d heard from her old friend? Two years? Three? Since she’d broken ties with so many of her old friends, deleted her Facebook and Twitter accounts, and essentially erased her past connections—to protect them from Joseph.
A sharp pang for her former life, for her dear high school and college friends, for days when her biggest worry was whether the Taylor Swift concert would sell out before she and her gal pals could land tickets. Carrie huffed a sigh of resentment toward Joseph and all the ways he’d wrecked her life. Taylor Swift concerts being the least of those ways. He’d stolen her freedom, her happiness, her peace of mind.
Blinking back tears, she continued to stare at the rodeo billboard, remembering how inspirational Nina’s attitude and determination to heal from her setback had been. Nina had stayed so positive. She buoyed those around her as much as her friends had encouraged and comforted her. Carrie missed that mettle. Missed Nina.
Her heart beat faster as an idea tickled. Last she’d heard, Nina was in Colorado. Colorado was within a day’s drive of here. Joseph didn’t know Nina. Not well, anyway. She’d talked to him about her friend’s remarkable accident recovery, but she’d given him few details.
She’d give almost anything to spend a few days with Nina and pretend for a short while that she was eighteen and carefree again. Too risky. The warning whispered in her head, while a desperate longing and nostalgia wrenched in her chest.
She dug her burner cell out of her bag and stared at it while she debated. Could she maybe just call Nina, hear her voice, receive the sort of pep talk Nina did so well? Before she could talk herself out of it, she was looking up the number for Zoe’s Diner in Boyd Valley, the eatery that Nina’s mother owned. Zoe would know how to reach Nina.
“Zoe’s Diner, how can I help you?”
A smile spread across Carrie’s face as the familiar maternal voice filled her ear—and her heart. She passed the next few minutes with generalized small talk with Zoe before getting Nina’s phone number.
She stared at the number she’d inked on the palm of her hand but only debated for a moment before calling her friend. One phone call on a burner cell couldn’t hurt. Could it? She prayed it wouldn’t. Nina answered on the third ring, her voice sounding dubious—and who doesn’t sound wary when they take a call from an unfamiliar phone number?
“Nina, it’s Carrie French. Your mom gave me your number. How are you?”
“Carrie! Oh my gosh! It’s so great to hear from you! How the heck are you? Where are you? Please tell me you are in town and can come by for a visit. We have so much to catch up on!”
“Well, I’m not in town. I just saw a rodeo billboard that made me think of you, and...” She paused for a deep breath before her voice could crack. “I wanted to hear your voice. See how you were.”
“I’m good. Well, great, actually. I have a new job working at a ranch in Boyd Valley, and...wait for it...I’m getting married in six weeks!” Nina’s happiness filled her voice and lifted Carrie’s spirits.
“Married?” A double-edged pang slashed through her. Joy for her friend along with grief for her own lost dream of marital bliss. “Wow, that’s fantastic! Who? How? I want details.”
Nina explained how she’d been buried in her car by an avalanche just before Christmas a year and a half ago. Something special had sparked between her and the emergency operator who’d stayed on the line with her until she was rescued, and they’d been dating ever since.
“Buried by an avalanche?” Carrie shook her head. “You have the worst luck in cars!”
“Oh, I don’t consider the accidents bad luck. Between the two, they brought me to Steve. I wouldn’t change that for all the world.” Nina paused, then said, “Gosh, I wish you were in town. I’d love for you to meet him.”
“I’d like that, too. I hope someday I will.”
“What about you? I’m not sure we’ve talked since your wedding. How’s married life treating you?”
“Oh, uh...” Carrie opened her mouth to give the routine lie, the false cheer to hide her misery. But something made her stop. Nina had been too good of a friend in the past to feed her the fake sunshine and roses.
“Uh-oh,” Nina said.
“What?”
“You hesitated. If things were hunky-dory, you wouldn’t have needed time to consider how to answer.”
“I, um...”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. I didn’t mean to pry if—”
“I left him. We’ll be divorced soon, but I...”
When Carrie let her sentence trail off, Nina murmured, “I’m so sorry, Carrie.”
As much as it hurt to admit the truth of her failed marriage, admitting the truth for a change instead of perpetuating the myth of an ideal marriage to Joseph felt good—lifting a little of the weight of secrets and lies she’d been carrying for too long.
Nina changed the subject to her new job as a hand for the Double M Ranch. “The owners, the McCalls, hired me, even knowing there were a few jobs I couldn’t do as well as the other hands because of my injuries from the old car wreck. But I’m in the saddle again, and I’m working with great people and...well, I just love it here!”
“That’s so great, Nina. To think how far you’ve come in recent years—” Carrie sighed “—it gives me hope.”
“Never give up hope.” Nina’s tone was kind but firm. “I learned that through all my trials, if nothing else. Good things can come from the most unexpected places and change your life. Like Steve did for me. And the McCalls. Good things are coming for you, too. I know they are.”