Lanie. Of course.

“Go away,” she moaned miserably. “Please. I know you want to.”

“Actually . . .” Lanie pulled River’s loose, sweat-dampened hair back from her face and fastened it with something. “I’d like to. But I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re . . .”

River arched a brow, daring her to say crazy.

Lanie wisely said nothing and helped her up.

Together they stood at the sink and stared at their reflection. Lanie’s hair was loose and a little wild. She’d clearly given River her own hair tie. River wasn’t pale as a ghost. She was positively green.

But there was something else, something River had never noticed before. They actually looked a bit alike. In fact, they could’ve been sisters. At this thought, her eyes filled again because she’d had many daydreams that they were sisters. That they were a real family.

But that wasn’t ever going to happen. She’d screwed that up, and even worse than that, she and the baby were an everyday reminder to Lanie of how badly Kyle had hurt her. Lanie had paid enough, and as for River’s own problems, well, they were just that—her own problems. It was time, past time, to finally, once and for all, learn to stand on her own two feet.

“Think you can make it back to the car?” Lanie asked. “Or do you need a few minutes?”

She needed more than a few minutes. She needed about a year to hole up and process all of this, but she didn’t have a year. Given the way her body felt, she had a day or two at most to prove to herself and everyone else she was a grown-up.

“River?”

God help her, but she was going to lie to Lanie one more time. “I need a few minutes,” she said. “Alone.”

Lanie stared at her for a beat and then nodded. “I’ll be at the bar. You need a lemonade or a Coke, something with some sugar in it. I’ll get each of us a drink to go and wait for you.”

River nodded.

When Lanie left, River straightened and eyeballed herself in the mirror. “You’re doing the right thing,” she whispered.

And hoped it was true.

She sneaked out of the bathroom, but instead of going right down the hall to the bar, she went left and out the back door.

LANIE SAT AT the bar for ten minutes nursing her lemonade and watching the ice melt in River’s. Something was wrong. She could feel it and went back to the bathroom.

The empty bathroom.

“Dammit!”

Five minutes later she was at the train station, standing next to the tracks watching the Amtrak take off.

She’d run inside to find out where the train was going and if anyone had sold a ticket to a pregnant woman in the last ten minutes. The train was heading north to San Francisco with many stops along the route, Wildstone being one of them.

And yes, a pregnant woman had boarded.

Lanie had missed River by a minute, tops. Pissed, she went back to her car and followed the damn train.

It turned out the train was a lot slower than a car. Lanie followed it to make sure that River didn’t get off before Wildstone. The return trip took six hours instead of two and a half, and it was dark as sin and near midnight by the time Lanie got out of her car to watch the passengers unload at the Wildstone station.

There was only one.

Lanie blew out a relieved sigh and stepped forward.

Chapter 27

I can be spontaneous, but first I must carefully plan everything and imagine all that could go wrong.

At the sight of Lanie waiting for her, River sighed as she got off the train. She was exhausted, nauseous, starving, and still all kinds of crazy. “What are you doing here?”

“Are you kidding me?” Lanie asked. “You deserted me in a dive bar, sneaked onto a damn train when you’re sick as a dog, and you want to know what I’m doing here? Trying to look after your ungrateful ass, that’s what I’m doing here!”

River felt her eyes fill at that. “You think I’m ungrateful?”

Lanie tossed up her hands. “What else would you call making me climb out the bathroom window of that bar to follow your footsteps?”

River blinked. “You climbed out the bathroom window?”

Lanie dropped her arms and blinked. “You didn’t?”

“Hell, no. Do I look like I’d fit out that window? I could barely fit onto the train. I went out the back exit.”

Lanie stared at her for a beat and then let out a long breath. “Yeah. That would’ve been easier . . .” She sighed. “Why did you do it?”

“Because you deserve better than to be saddled with me,” River said.

“I’m not saddled with you. I chose to go on this trip, remember? But I can’t keep doing this, this see-saw thing we have going. I didn’t want to like you and then I did. And then you weren’t who you said you were and I didn’t like you again. And now . . .”

“You’re confused,” River said softly.

“Yeah, and honestly it was a lot easier to just hate you.”

“I get that,” River said. “I’d hate me too.”

“See?” Lanie asked. “But then you say stuff like that and I feel like Cruella de Vil kicking puppies.”

“Who?”

“Hell,” Lanie said with a grimace. “How is it that I’m only thirty and feel old?”

“Do I have to answer that?” River asked and then broke off with a startled groan as a pain ripped through her lower back.

“Maybe you should sit down,” Lanie said.

She’d been in damn pain all day, and it’d made her cranky as hell. River shook her head. “Just stop being nice to me.”

“Fine, then. Sit the fuck down before you fall down,” Lanie snapped. “See? That’s me being not nice, but bitchy as hell.”

River felt the tears coming and sniffled. “Well, you’re the nicest bitchy person I ever met,” she said soggily, swiping her nose on her sleeve.

“Just get in the damn car, River. Please.”

So River got in the car. Lanie had to help her. It was humiliating. Her body had become as cumbersome as navigating a wide load on a busy freeway, and she felt like she had an alien in her belly. But worse, far worse, was the silence between her and Lanie.

Lanie parked and turned off the engine. She turned to River in the dark interior of the car. “He didn’t deserve either of us,” she said quietly.

“No,” River agreed. “What are you going to do with his things?”

“I don’t want the box. It’s yours. That’s why I put it in the trunk.”

“If you give it to me, I’ll burn everything,” River said grimly, shifting her weight in the seat, trying to get comfortable. Which was impossible. “I’ll make a bonfire, toss his things in it, and then roast marshmallows over the remnants of his life. I’d go tap-dance on his grave if I didn’t weigh as much as a house.”

Lanie opened her door. “Come on.”

The night was warm and balmy. Lanie brought River through the winery and out the back door to the deck there. There was a fire pit and chairs. Beyond that was a hidden lake that River hadn’t ventured out to.

“Wait here,” Lanie said.