LITMIR.BIZ

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letters. And then he forgot to read them. He told himself he was too busy studying for exams, but the truth was that he’d been too busy cramming as much life as he could into his existence. It was as if he’d felt compelled to make up for lost time.

       He had still studied hard, but every weekend saw him partying equally hard, each time with a different girl. That way it couldn’t be construed as anything serious and the tiny part of him that still had a conscience argued that he wasn’t being unfaithful to Alma.

       Cash told himself that he was just becoming a more rounded person. He was socializing and making connections that would help his future once he became a lawyer.

       Instead, it made him, Cash now realized, as incredibly shallow as the people with whom he socialized.

       It had been a hell of a ride, though. Somehow, despite all his frantic partying, he wound up graduating near the top of his class. Offers came in from major law firms to intern with them. He made up his mind quickly. He picked the firm with the highest profile, one that dealt in criminal defense cases.

       Once on board, he dedicated himself to becoming the best damn intern Jeffers, Wells, Baumann & Fields had ever had in their one-hundred-and-three-year history. He achieved his goal, rising through the ranks faster than any of the partners who had come before him and were now firmly entrenched in the organization.

       And all through his rise, there’d been victories and accolades. And women. Many, many women whose names and faces now seemed to run together.

       Somewhere along the line, he didn’t know just when, he’d managed to lose his soul without realizing it. It hadn’t really bothered him very much.

       Until that horrible day when everything just blew apart.

       All this went through his head in a nanosecond as he stood, looking at Alma, too hollow to even ache. “So how are you, Alma?” he asked quietly.

       It almost didn’t sound like Cash. Had she ever known this man? Or had she just imagined it all?

       “I’m fine,” she answered politely. Then, because the silence felt awkward, she added, “Your grandfather mentioned you were coming, but I didn’t expect to see you until just before the wedding.”

       She didn’t tell him that Harry had gone out of his way to tell her—to prepare her—and that she’d dropped the glass she’d been holding, breaking it on the diner’s counter when she was given the news.

       Cash had initially toyed with the idea of waiting until just before the big day, but he knew that if he waited until then, he might not be able to come at all. By then, the despair that held him captive, that ate away at him daily, might have grown too large for him to handle.

       But all this was darkness he wasn’t about to share. It was his cross to bear, no one else’s.

       So instead, he shrugged in response to her words and said, “I had a little extra vacation time coming to me. I thought I might just come early and catch up on things I’ve let slip away.”

      Just like that, huh? You come sashaying back and we’re all supposed to put on some kind of show for you, is that it?

       “Good luck with that,” she heard herself saying. With that, she walked past him, deliberately avoiding making contact with his eyes.

       His voice followed her. Surrounded her. “My grandfather told me you became a deputy sheriff.”

       She turned around. Considering that she was wearing the same khaki shirt and pants that the three men in the office had on, it would have been hard to make any other conclusion.

       “I did.”

       He laughed softly, but there was no humor in the sound. “Guess I had to see it for myself.”

       She glanced down at her uniform, then back at him. “Well, you did.”

       Even as the words came out of her mouth, Alma almost winced. Could either of them have sounded any more stilted, any more awkward, than they did?

       That last summer, before Cash went away to college, leaving promises in his wake, they had talked about everything under the sun and the stars. There wasn’t a topic they hadn’t touched on.

       More than talk, there had been trust. She’d trusted him the way she had never trusted anyone else, not even her brothers. And he had opened up to her, sharing his thoughts, his dreams for a future together with her. When he spoke, he’d created vivid pictures with his words. It had been exciting just to listen to him.

       Together, they were going to change the world.

       He’d even, at the last minute, she recalled with a pang, urged her to come with him.

       But that was one of the impossible dreams.

       “I don’t have any money saved,” she’d protested. Just as it had been with her brothers, every penny she’d earned had gone to help pay off her mother’s astronomical medical bills.

       It was either that, or stand by and watch her father lose the ranch in order to be able to settle the outstanding account. She couldn’t allow that to happen just because she wanted to follow Cash to California.

       “The money doesn’t matter,” Cash had told her with the conviction of the very young. “We’ll find a way.”

       She’d wanted to believe him. Wanted, in the worst way, to go with him.

       But her sense of honor, her sense of responsibility, had prevented her from impetuously leaving everything behind and following Cash. She just couldn’t bring herself to turn her back on her father at a time like that, even though she knew that he would urge her to follow her heart and tell her that he understood.

       It didn’t matter if her father understood. She wouldn’t have been able to live with herself.

       And so, she’d had to learn how to live without Cash.

       The last night they were together, Cash had watched her solemnly and she remembered thinking that she had never seen such sadness in a person’s eyes. He’d promised her that he would be back for her.

       He’d sworn that he would come back for her.

       He’d told her that once he had his law degree and was working for a firm, she could stop working and go to school to get her own degree. He’d told her he would pay for it.

       She’d hardly heard him. Her heart was aching so badly at the thought of living a single day without him, she could barely stand it. When she couldn’t stop the flow of tears, he’d tried to comfort her. And, as sometimes happens, one thing had led to another.

       That was the first time they made love.

       He’d left her, with great reluctance, the next morning, promising to be back, to make her proud of him and to love her forever.

       Watching him go, his secondhand car growing smaller and smaller against the horizon, Alma had been certain that her heart would break right there and that she would die where she stood.

       But she didn’t die.

       And her heart only felt broken.

       Somehow, she’d found a way to continue. She wrote him every day. What kept her going in the beginning was waiting for his letters.

       The wait grew longer, the letters grew fewer. And shorter. Until they stopped coming altogether.

       She remembered that now, remembered how she had felt when she finally made herself admit that he wasn’t coming back, not to the town, not to her.

       Alma squared her shoulders. “Well, I’ve got work to do,” she told Cash stiffly. “So if you’ll excuse me—”

       They sounded like two strangers who didn’t know how to end an awkward conversation, he thought. And that, too, was his fault.

       Just like the Douglas murders were his fault.

       “Sure.

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