LITMIR.BIZ

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is big time, L. I read an article online that says he’s moving up in that fancy firm he stepped into right out of college. A few years from now, I wouldn’t be surprised if he runs for office or becomes a judge or a senator or something. He wouldn’t drop everything and come back home to maybe help a kid he’s probably never met. We might have all been friends years ago, but those days are long gone.”

      Lauren closed her eyes, fighting back tears. The Lucas she once knew would come, but the Lucas who worked in Houston now hadn’t called once to check on her since she graduated college. That Lucas, if he came home at all, didn’t call friends from the past when he was in town.

      She’d never told anyone, not even Tim, how much she’d loved the young Lucas, the one full of dreams.

      Tim would only be hurt if he knew another had been in her heart since she was fifteen. It was better that he didn’t know about what had happened between her and Lucas, the promises they’d whispered once, the few stolen moments they’d shared. As her best friend, Tim would be surprised she’d never told him. As her lover, he’d be crushed that she’d held someone else in her dreams all this time.

      Lauren stood and walked to the window. Had anything really happened between her and Lucas? she wondered. Had she simply cobbled together a romance from a few kisses and wishes? At fifteen she’d been crazy about the boy who’d saved her from an accident. At eighteen she’d thought they’d be together through college, but he’d pulled away. At twenty-one they’d shared a passionate kiss that had gone nowhere. Maybe the Lucas she knew was more in her imagination than real.

      Stick to the facts, she almost whispered aloud. How she felt about Lucas Reyes didn’t matter. Thatcher needed help, and Lucas was the most powerful lawyer she knew.

      Lauren held her hand out toward Thatcher. “I need to borrow my phone back.”

      He said a quick goodbye and handed over her cell. “No problem. We were into reruns of the argument anyway.”

      Lauren felt sorry for him. “Everything all right with you and Kristi?”

      Thatcher shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. She talked for a while and then got real mad because I asked her for the summary. I told her I was too tired to listen much longer.”

      He dropped onto his cot, which was padded with several blankets. “I swear I don’t understand her. Every time I think I know where I stand with her, the world shifts and I lose my marker.”

      Lauren knew how he felt.

      Walking out into the hallway, she sat on the first step. All the offices were closed now, and the wooden steps descended into darkness below. Pushing the number that had been Lucas Reyes’s cell in college, she waited. If he’d changed his number, she had no way of reaching him. If he said no, she could think of nowhere else to turn.

      One ring. Two, three.

      She shouldn’t have called. Not this late. Not without having thought about what she’d say.

      Four, five, six.

      “Hello,” a deep, sleepy voice said.

      “Lucas?” She couldn’t believe he was on the line. It had been so long. A thousand days, a million dreams.

      “Lauren,” he whispered.

      For a few moments, they just breathed as if they weren’t hundreds of miles apart.

      “Is something wrong?” he asked. “Is there some emergency?”

      She could hear his voice hardening, becoming more formal, putting a distance between them that couldn’t be simply measured in miles. He’d whispered once when they stared up at the stars that she was his sky. Did he remember?

      Lauren followed his lead. Talk about the problem at hand, not her own feelings. “I need some legal advice.”

      “Are you in trouble?”

      “No. It’s a friend. A kid in Crossroads. I was hoping you could come help.” She realized she wasn’t the right one to talk to a lawyer about Thatcher’s case. He obviously didn’t even want help, and her father might be mad that she hadn’t waited to see if he could figure things out.

      She heard paper shuffling and a click like a lamp being turned on.

      The voice that finally came back was cold, a stranger. “Give me the facts.”

      She suddenly wished she hadn’t called. “It’s really only an assault charge. I thought you might be able to do something. I shouldn’t have bothered you. I’m sorry I woke you.”

      “Give me the facts, Lauren.”

      “I shouldn’t have called.” It dawned on her how Lucas probably made sure their paths never crossed. He’d never called. Never texted. She knew he was still on the other end of the phone waiting for her to make sense.

      “Goodbye,” she whispered, as she fought not to cry.

      Just before she ended the call she heard him say, “I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

      The phone went dead before she could say no.

CHAPTER FIVE

      Tuesday night

      THATCHER JONES WALKED to the barred window in his cell and looked out at the snowy streets three flights below. Most folks thought of Crossroads as a wide spot in the road and had little reason to slow down as they passed, but he’d always viewed the tiny place as grand. When you’d grown up out in the Breaks where folk hunted their own meat and some did without electricity, the town felt like big time.

      Few people who lived between the city-limit signs knew what it was like to check the house for snakes before you turned in at night, or wash your clothes on a board and hang them out to dry. They’d never had to eat a potato or a can of beans and call it supper. Or to grow up, not only without cell phones and computers, but without TV or microwaves or heat in more than one room.

      He’d known that life and felt lucky for it, but Thatcher didn’t want to go back. He loved living in his own little place on the Lone Heart Ranch. He’d walk over to the main house for meals, or to work with Charley, or help Lillie, Charley’s daughter, with her homework, then the rest of his time was his. Thatcher heard someone say once that the measure of wealth was being in control of time. If so, he was a rich man at eighteen.

      Or he had been, before he ended up here in jail.

      He knew some of the people on the two floors below worried about how he was surviving being locked up. They didn’t understand this was a five-star hotel to him compared to living in the Breaks when he was younger. Great meals, company sitting up with him and being toasty warm. If he hadn’t had to give up freedom for the place, he might ask if he could stay awhile.

      Crossroads might not have a movie theater or a Starbucks, but the town had stores and a clinic and churches, and, unfortunately, a jail with locked doors. Kristi told him she was ashamed of him because the whole town knew he was there. He guessed she was right. The window’s light reflected out on the crossing of the two main highways, so anyone who looked up could see him.

      Staring out over the sleeping town, the porch lights shining like tiny stars and the shadow of a half-finished bandstand right in the middle of it all, he tried to figure out where his life had taken a wrong turn. All he was trying to do was help out, and somehow it ended him up here.

      He’d seen a frightened little girl no bigger than Lillie, Charley’s daughter, had been when he’d met her. The girl had on an old red coat that was way too large for her and was trying her best to lug a big backpack along the muddy side of the road.

      “Who wouldn’t help?” he murmured to himself. But somehow it had all turned bad, and he couldn’t figure out how to get out of trouble without bringing harm to the little red riding hood.

      Lauren

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