Page 52 of Echoes of You

It sure as hell was for Caden. I didn’t think he’d ever truly let anyone close after his little sister, Clara, died. Losing someone like that, at such an impressionable age, marked a person. And watching them wither away on top of it? It changed you forever.

“It’s best if we stay friends.”

Caden’s gaze narrowed on me. “Why? That’s always the thing I haven’t understood.”

“I’ll do something to screw it up. I’m not going to risk losing her altogether by making that leap. I promised Maddie I’d always be there for her, and this is how I know I can do that.”

Caden leaned back on his stool. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

He shrugged. “Relationships end in disaster more often than they work out, so I get it.”

I felt no relief at Caden not pushing me. No relief at him thinking I was making the right choice. Because the truth was, I wanted Maddie more than my next breath. But I wanted her safe and whole most of all.

17

MADDIE

I pulledon my softest sweats. I needed the warmth and comfort because Nash’s disappearing act had left me way too cold. A kind of chill I wasn’t sure you could ever get warm from.

Tugging the throw blanket over myself, I burrowed under it as if that could somehow protect me. It was nothing but fluff, but it was all I had.

The deep ache in my chest reminded me why I’d fled Cedar Ridge in the first place. Because hoping over and over again that things were changing between Nash and me left me devastated every time. People didn’t realize what a dangerous emotion hope could be. How brutal.

Each time it smashed at my feet, it took a little piece of my heart with it. I’d started to fear that I’d eventually lose it all and wouldn’t have even a single shard left to give to someone who might want it. Hope would have destroyed them all.

It wasn’t Nash’s fault. He hadn’t promised me a danged thing. Hadn’t ever kissed me in the way I yearned for. Hadn’t told me he wanted me as anything but a friend. But, sometimes, I caught him looking at me, his gaze tracing my lips or the curve of my hips, and that damned hope flared to life again.

But it was always cut down. Nash would pull away or take someone on a date. Or I’d hear some woman in town talking about how she’d had him in her bed. Each time, I died a little inside. It happened through high school, as we commuted to our local college, and in the years after. But I paid the price for each tiny wound of disappointment.

I would’ve given anything to turn it off and stop feeling this way about my best friend—the one who had always been there for me no matter what. But nothing I tried ever worked. And my last endeavor had almost gotten me killed.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand, and I reached over for it, my traitorous heart hoping it was Nash.

Unknown Number

You were nothing before me. Trash. I rescued you out of hell, and this is how you repay me?

A shiver ran down my spine as I stared at the phone.

Unknown Number

You better not have let any man touch you. I’ll know. And you know the punishment for whores.

Tears pooled in my eyes as memories battered at the walls of my mind.

I leaned back in the armchair, and a laugh bubbled out of me as I scanned the text message.

Nash

Incoming photo. Charlie after he got into Drew’s art supplies.

The photo was of Lawson’s three-year-old son covered from head to toe in paint of just about every color.

Nash

We’ll be scrubbing paint out of the carpet for years to come.

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