Page 41 of The Lost Book of First Loves

“So, Beckett Hunter,” she said after they had walked a few dozen more yards. “What brought you out here to Wyoming?”

“How do you know I’m not a local?”

She sent him a sidelong look in the pale evening. “Because I know who you are. My first job out of Cal Poly, while we were still trying to get Move Inc off the ground, was at a start-up in San Jose. You were kind of a big deal there.”

“Ah.” He didn’t know what else to say as memories crowded his mind.

“Last I knew, you were an up-and-coming prosecutor going after all the bad guys. Now you’re wearing jeans with holes in the knees and making artistic furniture. What brought you here?”

He hated when his past rose up in front of him like that moon over the mountains, inexorable and inescapable.

“Circumstances change. People change with them.”

“They do. Which doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“I moved here five years ago. My place was originally owned by a friend of my father’s. I came here to visit and fell in love with the area and the property.”

“And you decided to stay.”

“I decided to stay. I bought it a short time later.”

There was so much more to it than that. He had been lost, grieving, battered by circumstances beyond his control. Much like June herself, he realized.

“You must have really loved Bridger Peak to give up everything in California.”

“What’s not to love?” He gestured around to the mountains, the pines, the expanse of darkening sky.

“True. But you were a big deal in San Jose, as I remember. There was even talk in the media of you running for a state-wide office.”

He gazed ahead, wishing they could talk about something else. Anything else. “I prosecuted a few high-profile cases. And plenty of others that didn’t make headlines.”

One of those quiet, low-key, under-the-radar cases had completely changed the course of his life.

“You and your office chosenotto prosecute plenty more.”

He had years of experience with depositions and courtroom testimony, trained to pick up the nuances in someone’s tone. Not that he needed any particular insight here. June Connelly made no effort to hide her bitterness.

“Did we have some kind of professional interaction in San Jose? Is that why you seemed to instantly dislike me?”

She was quiet as they walked through the trees toward the cabin. He thought for a moment she wasn’t going to answer him, but she finally spoke in a low voice. “You and I didn’t have any interaction before I came here.”

“But?”

“But a good friend of mine was a victim of a horrific sexual assault. You and your office decided her case wasn’t strong enough to go to court.”

Ah. He couldn’t say he was surprised. Sexual assault cases could be the hardest to prosecute, though he had tried his damnedest.

“I’m sorry. If it had been up to me, I would have given every single victim their day in court. I hated having to tell someone that I couldn’t see a path to conviction in their case.”

“How can you possibly make that proclamation when you weren’t even willing to try?”

He chose his words carefully. “I was a prosecutor for years, working hundreds of cases. You get a sense for it. Sometimesthe evidence isn’t there. Sometimes the victim won’t testify. Sometimes the police don’t feel confident in the case they’ve brought us and sometimes we didn’t feel they had enough evidence. I can’t say which was the reason, in your friend’s case. What was her name?”

“Robin Sanchez. We were college roommates.”

He had memory flash of a tall, elegant, traumatized woman who had told her story with quiet dignity and unmistakable sincerity.

“I remember that case. He was an acquaintance, if I recall.”

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