“And as her financial advisor and the man she’s backing to become our new state senator, you’re required to panic whenever she does,” I remind Landry. “Although considering you have your own things to worry about with your upcoming election, she shouldn’t lean on you so much.”
Landry chuckles, giving our joined hands a squeeze. “Your mother let me stick around after your father died and helped me make all of the contacts I needed to make a bid for the senate. If I win this thing, it will be because of her. Whatever Georgia wants, Georgia gets.”
I paste a smile on my face at his words instead of rolling my eyes sarcastically. Landry kisses my cheek and I watch him leave the room, wishing I had something left to give him. Wishing I wasn’t a liar and a fraud. Wishing I could magically glue the broken pieces of my heart back together and give them to him, because I know he would cherish it. He’s a good man, even if he is one of the sheep in my mother’s flock and I was coerced into dating him.
Sitting down on the edge of my bed, I grab the remote from my nightstand and power on the television hanging on the wall across from me, using my free hand to rub the pain from my aching leg. I know I’ll be briefed immediately on whatever major crisis my mother is having a conniption over so I won’t say the wrong thing if I’m questioned by reporters at her charity event this evening, but since I have nothing else to do while I wait, I might as well get the scoop ahead of time.
When I get to CNN, the reporter’s voice fills my quiet room. I’m barely paying attention to what she’s saying, busy smoothing down the front of my dress and checking for stray pieces of lint. Every word she speaks runs together in a blur of background noise, until she says a name I recognize. A name I haven’t heard or spoken in years, but couldn’t stop thinking about every second of every day. A name that makes my heart beat faster and my hands start to shake. My head whips up to stare at the television with wide, unbelieving eyes, and my heart drops into my stomach. They flash a picture of him on the screen from Marine Corps graduation day, but the sight of him in his dress blues isn’t what makes my world tilt on its axis. It’s the sound of his name coming from a stranger’s lips in the quiet room that steals the breath from my lungs, making it impossible to do anything but stare at the television as my hand flies up to cover my mouth and hold back the sobs.
“In a top secret mission yesterday evening, a team of Navy SEALs were sent into the small Afghanistan village of Sangin to rescue Commander Stephen Whitfeld, who was taken hostage earlier this month. We have just been informed that during this rescue mission, several United States Marines who were presumed dead have been found alive. Five years ago, only days away from the end of his year-long deployment, Lieutenant Elijah James was involved in an IED explosion that killed several members of his team and only left behind the men’s dog tags as identification. There were rumors that a traitor existed on the team who was working with the Afghan army. But those rumors were quickly put to rest just days after the explosion. Now that Lieutenant James has been found alive, we can only hope no truth will come from those rumors.”
The rapid thump of my heart sounds like a drum in my ears, making it impossible for me to hear anything else the reporter says. A wave of nausea rushes through me and I press a shaking hand to my stomach as I stand on unsteady legs while a memory from so many years ago rushes through my mind. Even though I want nothing more than to forget about that moment and the day I signed my fate, I’m unable to stop my eyes from closing as I relive it.
“It’s a lie. He would never betray his country. You have to fix this, please!” I begged my mother as I stood in her office with my broken heart clutched tightly in my hands.
She scoffed at me. She didn’t care about my pain, the tears streaming down my cheeks, or my conviction that he would never do something like that.
“You don’t know anything about him. He used you and then threw you away like a piece of trash,” she replied as she stuck the knife deeper into my chest.
I didn’t need to be reminded of what he’d done. It had been slowly chipping away my confidence and pieces of my heart every day since he’d left, but unlike my mother, I could separate the man who broke me from the man who fought for his country. The soldier I knew would never do something this appalling.
“He’s not a traitor. He doesn’t deserve this and neither does his family. Please, Mother, I’m begging you.”
She stared at me for a few quiet moments, studying me as I angrily swiped the tears from my cheeks and lifted my chin in the air to show her I wasn’t backing down. I would do whatever it took to clear his name.
“I could call in a few favors, but it’s going to cost you. Nothing in this life is free, Shelby.”
Her words sent a chill down my spine, wondering just how much she would demand as payment, but knowing I would agree to anything in that moment.
“I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care about anything but making sure he’s remembered as a hero. I’ll do anything if you just make this go away. Please, I’ll do whatever you ask.”
The conversation I had with my mother five years ago plays on a loop until I can’t stop the voices in my head and I have to grab and tug at fistfuls of hair just to stop myself from screaming.
He’s alive.
I promised to do whatever she asked when I feared he’d be remembered as a traitor instead of a hero, and she took everything I had to give as payment. Once she had me under her thumb, it quickly became a slippery slope filled with reminders and threats to keep me in line until I’d fallen so far down the rabbit hole I didn’t know how to find my way out.
He’s alive.
I can’t stop the tears from falling. I can’t force back the sobs of relief that something like this is actually happening. How many people lose someone they love, knowing they’ll never see them again, never touch them again, never hear their voice again, only to find out it was all a mistake? How many people wish they could turn back the clock for just one more moment, just a few seconds in time so they could look into their loved one’s eyes, run their hands down the side of their loved one’s face, and hear them speak? It’s a dream that everyone who’s lost someone has. A dream that slowly turns into a nightmare you feel like you’ll never wake up from. Something you know is impossible, but you can’t stop obsessing about. I’ve prayed and I’ve screamed and I’ve cried, wanting the impossible, and now, I have it.
He’s alive.
I gave up everything to protect him and to save his sister from a controversy that would ruin her in this town. They’d already suffered enough after their parents died—the rumors, the whispers, the finger-pointing and judgment following them everywhere they went…they didn’t need anything else marring their fragile reputation. Especially something so completely absurd as Eli being a traitor to his country.
Every dream I let slip through my fingers, every decision I handed over for someone else to make for me, and every piece of myself I’ve lost in the last five years was for him. No matter how badly he shattered my heart, nothing could erase the good memories he left behind. I’ve wished on over a thousand stars for over a thousand days for closure and to finally have an answer why. My heart never healed and I could never let go because I just wanted to know why.
Why he lied.
Why he used me.
Why he left the way he did.
The hardest thing I’ve ever done was get out of bed the morning after news hit that he was gone and live through the pain of knowing he’d never smile again, never laugh again, never speak again, never exist again. It was the hardest thing until now.
He’s alive.
I could try and pretend this news will finally set me free, but that would just be a waste of time. I know my mother will find a way to make sure I don’t stray from the path she’s forced me to take.
The hardest thing I’ll have to do is face him again and let him see what I’ve become, knowing I’ll never be able to tell him the truth without repercussions. I’ll finally get the
closure I need, but I know it will cost me. Nothing in this life is free.
“Oh, good, you turned on the news. Can you believe this?”
Landry rushes toward me and takes the remote from my hand, changing the channel to another news outlet. His preoccupation gives me time to push back my feelings, take control of my mind and my heart, wipe the tears from my cheeks, and remove all traces of the hope and fear and desperation that I know are written all over my face. I stare at Landry’s profile and watch a muscle tick in his jaw as he listens to the news. A jaw I’ve run my fingers over and kissed. My eyes move down to his hand clutching tightly to the remote as he switches back and forth between channels. A hand that I’ve held tightly in my own and felt roaming all over my body. Seeing him standing here next to me is like a bucket of cold water dumped over my head, bringing me back to reality, reminding me of the promises I made and what my life is now.
He’s alive.
“Your mother is losing her mind because a reporter did some digging and called her with this crazy story that you had an affair with that Elijah guy they found and they want her to make a statement,” Landry says with a laugh. “Didn’t he used to work here on the plantation as a stable boy? Shelby Eubanks, the heiress of the Eubanks empire and daughter of the Queen of Charleston, dating a stable boy! The things these people will come up with to make headlines…”
His voice sounds far away and echoes in my ear like he’s speaking inside a tunnel instead of right in front of me, pointing the remote at the television and flipping from one channel to the next, while he drones on and on about the impossibility that I would ever lower myself to have an affair with the hired help.
“Lieutenant Elijah James has been found alive…”
“Presumed dead, Lieutenant Elijah James…”
“Elijah James…”
“Elijah James…”
“Elijah James…”
The name I never thought I’d hear again feels like the stab of a knife into my chest each time another newsperson utters it until my vision starts to blur and my shaking legs finally give out. My body crumbles and I stare up at Landry as he drops the remote and quickly turns when he hears me hit the floor. He looks like he’s standing in front of a strobe light, his worried face vanishing and then quickly reappearing as my eyes blink rapidly.
I’ve spent the last five years compartmentalizing things into before and after. There’s a secret place in my head where I’ve hidden all of my memories of before Eli died. I keep those memories buried and refuse to think about them. I refuse to remember that time in my life when I was young and stupid and so foolishly in love and full of dreams. When my leg wasn’t made up of shattered bones with pins holding them together. When dancing, and the love I had for a man who was so different from me, were going to be my ticket away from this town and out of this life.
After Eli died, after my dreams died…that’s who I am now. Moving through life like a robot and locking the door to before is the only way I know how to keep moving, keep breathing, and keep waking up each morning.
I never thought before and after would collide. I never thought I’d have to unlock that door and be forced to brace myself for the explosion of memories, covering my head and shielding my heart from the pain I know it will bring.
I hear Landry shout for help from far away and I close my eyes, letting the darkness take me away from the name that continues to whisper through my ears.
Elijah James.
He’s alive.
And it will cost me.
Chapter 2
Eli
I find myself standing in front of the locked door, in a place I remember like the back of my hand.
With my arms folded, the toe of my scuffed and dirty cowboy boot taps against the cement floor in irritation.
I know I saw her head down this hallway a half hour ago, and it’s the only place she could have gone. I didn’t even know there was a room hidden here in the back of the stables, until I caught her strawberry blond hair disappearing around the corner when I was pretending like I hadn’t been keeping an eye out for her ever since I heard she was back in town.
I’ve been working these stables since I was sixteen years old and thought I knew every nook and cranny of the sprawling barn, multiple tack rooms, practice arenas, and offices. I don’t like finding a door I can’t get into any more than I like how my heart started beating faster when I caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye.
Shelby Eubanks has been a thorn in my side since she was twelve years old, following me around like a puppy dog, batting her eyelashes and staring up at me with those big green eyes. Flirting with me every chance she got, probably thinking it would be fun to fool around with the hired help and a way to piss off her bitchy mother. I laughed her off and shot her down up until the day she turned eighteen and left for college. The little bird finally flew the coop and here I am, standing around in front of a fucking locked door just to get a glimpse at her for the first time in four years.
“Why are you standing here staring at a door? Jasmine and Belle need to be cooled down.”
I ignore my friend and coworker Rylan and try the door handle once more, stupidly thinking it will magically open this time.
“Why is this door locked?” I mutter.
“Who cares? Get your ass back to work so I don’t have to pick up your slack,” he complains.
“Did you know this room was down here?” I question, looking at him over my shoulder.
He removes the dusty cowboy hat from his head to wipe the sweat from his forehead with his arm.
“I don’t know, probably,” he shrugs, slapping the hat back on his head. “It’s probably just an unused tack room.”
Why in the hell would Shelby have locked herself in an empty tack room? And why the fuck do I care?
“Jesus, she’s in there, isn’t she? One of the guys said he saw her come into the stables a little while ago and we should keep our swearing to a minimum since the princess was in the building,” Rylan laughs. “She’s off limits, and above your pay grade, even if she is legal and hot as fuck now that she’s all grown up.”
I turn my body and glare at him. Rylan has been busting my balls for two weeks, ever since he got a glimpse of her stepping out of the black limo her mother had sent to the airport to fetch her after her college graduation when she moved back home. For fourteen days I’ve had to listen to him talk about her tits and ass and make tactless comments about her long legs wrapped around his waist.
No, I’m not jealous he got to see her and I didn’t. I’m not green with envy that she came out to the stables on my day off and talked to him. She used to race out here every day after school just to annoy the shit out of me. She used to follow me around, asking a million questions about my life and my job. She used to spend every minute of her free time out in these stables whenever she knew I was working, and now I don’t even get so much as a wave or a “screw you.” I get her sneaking into the barn without a word and locking herself behind this damn door. I don’t even know why the hell any of this bothers me. Maybe it’s because I thought we were friends. Sort of. In a weird, “I know she has a crush on me, but she’s too young and too damn out of my league to even go there” type of way, before I screwed everything up the night of her high school graduation. It’s been four damn years, for God’s sakes. There’s no way she’s still holding a grudge because of that one stupid night.
“All right, well, good luck with that. I’m going back to work.”
Rylan gives me a pat on the back and disappears down the hallway, whistling as he goes. When his whistles fade into the distance, I curse under my breath and pull the small rasp out of my back pocket that I’d been using to file Ariel’s hooves earlier, jamming the sharp, pointed end into the hole in the middle of the door handle. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but I can’t stop myself from doing it. I tell myself I’m only breaking into this damn room to make sure she’s okay, but I know that’s a lie. I wa
nt to see her. I want to talk to her. I want to know everything about the last four years and I’m pissed off she’s been ignoring me. If breaking into this room is the only way to get her to acknowledge me, then so be it.
Ten seconds later, the lock pops and I smile to myself as I shove the tool back into my pocket and open the door. My ears are immediately assaulted with the thumping bass of loud music as I step inside and into another long hallway. Closing the door behind me, I wonder why the hell I couldn’t hear the music from outside. Glancing around as I move down the dark hallway to where the music is coming from, I notice soundproof padding attached to the walls and the back of the door I just walked through.
The music gets louder as I move, not having any idea what the fuck this place is or why no one seems to know it was here in the back of the stables. I come to an abrupt halt when I get to an open doorway, my eyes widening and my jaw dropping open when I see what’s inside.
The room at the end of the hallway is roughly 1,000 square feet in size, with shiny hardwood floors, floor-to-ceiling mirrors all along one wall, and no windows. The pristine condition of the room that is nothing like any of the other dusty, shit-smelling rooms in the stables isn’t what keeps my feet glued to the floor in the doorway and my eyes bugging out of my head. It’s also not the reason my dick is stirring to life in my pants and my palms are starting to sweat.