“I was, but that was before. We don’t want to end up on the national news with the entire country laughing at us.”

Jo was quiet, her brow furrowed in thought. She turned back to Cleo. “You wouldn’t skip town, would you?” It was apparent that her confidence in Cleo was slipping fast. Her question was more of a plea. She was begging Cleo to say no. “You wouldn’t run out like that-would you?”

Cleo swallowed, her gaze going from Jo to Daniel. She could see in his eyes that if she didn’t tell Jo, he would. “Actually,” she said, not looking at anyone, drawing small nervous circles on the arm of the green paisley-print chair, “I already skipped town once.” Her voice dropped. “Daniel came after me and brought me back.”

“Oh.”

With that one word Jo managed to convey just how crushed she was.

Cleo felt horrible. How could she have done such a thing to such an open, trusting person?

“Was anything that happened here real?” Jo asked.

“The barn. I did see a barn. I swear.”

“Well,” Jo said, still obviously trying to take in the extent of Cleo’s deception, “I guess that’s something.”

Cleo couldn’t stay there any longer. She pushed herself out of the chair. Without looking to the left or right, she aimed herself in the direction of the door. People fell away, letting her through. Without stopping to get her belongings, she headed for the door, shoving it open, stepping out into the bright sun, the smothering heat. She hurried down the steps, then turned left on the sidewalk, knowing Beau and Daniel lived over there somewhere. She would leave. How, she wasn’t sure. She had approximately thirty-five cents to her name, give or take a few pennies. She didn’t like to hitchhike-it was dangerous and degrading-but she would do it.

She’d gone perhaps two blocks when she heard a car pull up beside her. She didn’t look to see who it was. Instead she kept walking, her eyes focused straight ahead. The car slowed, keeping pace with her. Daniel. She felt sure it was Daniel.

He honked. Ass.

She kept walking.

The car stopped. She heard a door slam, then Daniel was running to catch up. He jumped in front of her, walking backward as she continued to walk forward.

“Hold up,” he said, a little out of breath.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to put up a tent and open a palm-reading shop on Main Street.” She had to get Premonition. She needed Premonition. How could she have ever thought of leaving him? She must have been temporarily insane. “I’m going to your house to get my dog, and then I’m leaving.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Jo doesn’t want you to leave.”

She stopped.

He stopped.

“She wants you to stay. She wants you to try it again.”

“That’s ridiculous.” She shoved her way past him to continue walking. He fell into step beside her.

He pulled out his billfold, extracted two twenty-dollar bills, and handed them to her. “Tomorrow. She wants to try it again tomorrow. In the meantime-” He held the money in front of her. “Take it.” He shook it, but she still refused. “You have to eat.”

Truer words were never spoken. She snatched the money and stuffed it into the front pocket of her jeans.

“I want to get my dog.” She’d left him behind once. She couldn’t do it a second time.

The sun was so bright that stepping under a shade tree plunged them into cool darkness.

“Let me give you a ride back to the motel, then I’ll pick you up later to get your dog.”

“What’s wrong with now?”

“Beau’s not home. He should be there when you get the dog. I don’t want him to come home and find him gone.”

She could understand that. What she didn’t understand was why Jo wanted her to stay after everything that had happened.

“I don’t get it,” she said, looking up at him. “Why does she want me to come back?”

“That’s the way Jo is. She believes in giving people second chances.”

“Unlike you.”

“That’s right. Unlike me.”

Chapter Thirteen

Cleo sat on the edge of the bed staring at the stained wall with its greasy handprints. She tried to make sense of her feelings, but like so many things in her life, it was too hard, too complex. She found herself thinking back to a time she didn’t like to remember, to a past that hadn’t been photo-album perfect…

People said they were the ideal family. A mother, a father, two children-a boy and a girl. They went to church as a family. They went to Bible school and the county fair as a family. They were involved. But it was all a carefully constructed front.

Cleo’s father, Ben Tyler, had been born into wealth, coming from an impressive lineage of town founders, state politicians, and businessmen. But unlike his outgoing father and grandfather, Ben Tyler had possessed a crippling shyness, making him a perfect target for Cleo’s mother, Ruth Dixon.

The Dixons were the most undesirable of the undesirables in the tightly knit community of Norfolk, Indiana. None of the Dixon men worked. They were too busy lying and cheating and drinking.

Marrying Ben Tyler and old money gave Ruth the respect and the community status she craved. And while she worked to continually upgrade herself, Ben dissolved into the background to become the shadow Cleo always thought of as her father.

Ruth’s standing in the community became an obsession, a driving force behind everything the woman did and thought. So when Cleo came home from college that first Christmas with a boyfriend who wasn’t from that shining inner circle, who wasn’t even from the community of Norfolk at all, things got ugly. Her mother turned on her, and on poor unsuspecting Jordan. Jordan, who made Cleo laugh, who was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

Ruth pulled her daughter aside and told her Jordan wouldn’t do at all.

The longer Cleo lived, the more she came to realize that everybody had an agenda, some more self-serving than others. At the moment when Ruth had taken Cleo aside, a fog lifted and Cleo finally understood her mother-and was horrified by what she saw. Ruth Tyler’s agenda had always been for her children to make her look good to her friends and the people in the community. Her children existed for the purpose of upgrading her social standing. And of course, dating someone from beyond the community did nothing toward that end, because in a small town, outsiders didn’t get you any points.

“That’s too bad,” Cleo had answered when her mother told her Jordan wouldn’t do. “Because we’re moving in together.”

“B-But-” Ruth stammered, indignant, disbelieving. “I forbid it. You have to do what I say. I’m your mother. I’ve done everything for you. Everything!”

It was true. As children, Cleo and her brother had been embarrassingly pampered. Later, Cleo’s shrink had explained that spoiling was her mother’s way of keeping her children dependent, making them feel incapable of taking care of themselves. While Ruth had loved and doted on the children Cleo and Adrian had been, the adults they became were beyond her grasp. Ruth Tyler seemed to resent the grown-ups who had taken her children’s place.

“It’s Jordan or me,” Ruth had announced, confident of her rank.

For Cleo, the choice was easy.

Cleo walked out of her parents’ home that day and didn’t return until a year and a half later when her father slipped out of the world as quietly as he’d lived in it. After the funeral, Ruth tried to talk Cleo into moving back home, going through the usual guilt manipulations, but they no longer worked.

The funeral would have been easier to bear if only Adrian had been there. He would have come if Cleo had begged him, but the last thing she wanted was to make him do something out of guilt. He’d had enough of that in his life. They both had.

“I’m not going, Cleo,” Adrian had told her when she’d called with the news of their father’s death. “She’ll think I’m going for her. You know, I used to resent the way Dad wouldn’t stand up to her, but now I realize he couldn’t. He wasn’t that kind of person.” The conversation drifted back to the funeral. “No, it’s just between me and Dad. And that’s the way I want to keep it.”