Annajane smiled to herself in the dark, turning away from Mason so he couldn’t see her reaction.

“I won’t get mad if you mean that as some kind of twisted compliment.”

“I do!” Mason said. “Of course it’s a compliment. You act like I never say anything nice to you.”

“Do you?” She swiveled around on the leather seat to face him.

He sighed. “Don’t I?”

“No,” she said decisively. “You haven’t said anything, well, nice to me, in a personal way, in a really long time. You say things at work like, ‘good job’ or ‘great idea.’ Sometimes you copy me on an e-mail with a thumbs-up emoticon. But that’s not really a compliment, Mason.”

He nodded slowly and took a deep breath. “Okay. Maybe I’m just thinking the compliments. And I got out of the habit of saying them out loud.” He paused. “Or maybe I got worried about what other people would say if I, you know, paid you special attention.”

“People? Or Celia?”

“Celia,” he said.

“Why would Celia care if you’re nice to me? I’m certainly no threat to her.”

Mason rolled his eyes. “That’s not what she thinks.”

Annajane had to think about that for a minute.

“Jeez,” Mason said. “This is getting pretty heavy here. I think I could use a drink.” He pointed at the dashboard in front of her. “See if my flask is still in there, would you?”

How like him, she thought, to want to distract her once things got uncomfortably personal. She thumbed the latch of the glove box, and its contents slid onto the floorboard. She rooted around in the heap: some gas station receipts, a messily folded map, some old cassette tapes, and, finally, a handsome chased-silver flask with its characteristic inverted shape molded to fit in a gentleman’s hip pocket.

“Here it is,” she said, holding it up. She unscrewed the cap and sniffed.

“You still drink Maker’s Mark?” she asked, referring to the brand of whiskey he’d favored during their marriage.

“It’s Blanton’s these days,” Mason said. “Celia introduced me to it. Try it out.”

She took a deep drink of the warm whiskey, letting it glide slowly down her throat.

“Pretty good,” she said reluctantly, before handing it over.

Mason sipped, nodded, and then drank deeply, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You and Celia were thick as thieves when she first came to Passcoe. But something happened. You really just don’t like her now, do you?”

Instead of answering, Annajane took the flask and helped herself to another gulp of the amber liquid.

“Not much,” she said, grateful for the courage the whiskey afforded. “But be fair. What do you think she thinks of me?”

“Pass that back,” Mason instructed. He drank again.

“She thinks it’s pretty weird that you’d hang around and work for me, for Quixie, that is, after we split up.”

Annajane laid her head back against the cool leather of the headrest. “I guess a lot of people would agree with her. It certainly has inspired a lot of discussion around Passcoe.”

“Who cares?” Mason asked. “Why can’t people mind their own business? You’re great at what you do. You’re a huge asset to the company. In fact, I still can’t quite figure out why you’re leaving. You know, aside from the Shane thing.”

She reached over and took the flask and drained it in one long swallow. She put the empty flask on the floor and picked up one of the cassette tapes, squinting to see what it was. In the moonlight, she thought the handwriting on the white plastic case looked familiar. It was her own.

Surprised, Annajane held it up for him to see. “Is this what I think it is?”

“What? It’s just an old tape. I forgot it was in there.”

But you don’t keep it with the other tapes. You keep it hidden in the glove box.

Silently, she reached past him and turned the key in the ignition. The headlights winked on, and she slotted the cassette into the tape deck. He switched the headlights off.

Journey’s “Faithfully” floated out of the speakers.

She turned to him in surprise. “This is the mix tape I made you all those years ago.”

He shrugged it off. “It was a good tape.”

She listened to the song and felt the whiskey warm in her belly, and she was aware of a sort of bittersweet longing, only dimly remembered, but now, achingly awful in its power.

Annajane turned up the volume. The song drowned out the cicadas, and the chorus of spring peepers coming from a nearby farm pond, and even the bass line of the invisible barn owl, floating from the treetop.

“You really can’t figure out why I’m leaving, Mason? Are you that dense?” She turned in the seat to face him, to see if she could tell what he was thinking.

He bristled. “You’re leaving because of Celia? Look, I know you’ve been unhappy with some of her decisions. And maybe Davis did let her undercut your position in marketing. You know Davis. He can be a bulldozer. But if you’d just come to me, and told me you were unhappy with the way things were going…”

His voice trailed off. His arm slid down, and his fingertips rested rightly on her shoulder.

She felt her breath catch. Just the barest brush of a touch and she was already dizzy with the sensation.

“I didn’t think it would make a difference,” Annajane said quietly. “Clearly, you two were getting … involved.”

“Were we?”

“You came about five minutes away from getting married to her yesterday,” Annajane pointed out.

“Yeah,” his voice trailed off and he looked out into the darkness. “I’m really not sure exactly how that happened, to tell you the truth.”

“You’re telling me it was all Celia’s idea—to get married?”

“No,” Mason said. “I wouldn’t exactly say that.”

“What would you say? Exactly. Come on, Mason. Tell me what’s going on here. Give me a clue, can you?”

His hand brushed her cheek. “I’d say I must have been out of my friggin’ mind to let things get that far. Yesterday? It all seems so surreal now. I was standing there on the altar, and I saw Sophie walking towards me, and it was like I was in some kind of fog. Then that harp music started to play, and all of a sudden, here comes Celia in that damned white dress. I knew I should have been thinking about her, and how great she looked, and how glad I was. All that stuff. But then I saw you sitting in the pew, right beside Pokey. In your green dress. All I could think was—how did Annajane get in that pew? Why isn’t she walking up the aisle, toward me? What happened? What the hell happened to us?”

Mason cupped his hand around her chin and stroked her cheek with his thumb.

She was barely aware of the small voice in her head, like an insistent, blinking red warning signal. Turn back. Turn back.

But she couldn’t have turned back if she wanted to. She was as drawn to Mason Bayless now as she had been as a teenager all those years ago. The red blinking faded in the dark and she was only aware of his nearness and her need.

“My God, Annajane,” he whispered. “What’s going on? Why can’t I let go of you?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, which was good, because there was no answer. He leaned in. His whiskey-scented breath tickled her ear. His lips brushed her cheek.

What was she doing? She didn’t care. Don’t overthink. It all feels right.

Just like that, they kissed. So sweet, so slow. Her body had never forgotten his. Her arms went around his neck, his fingers twined naturally through her hair, and she felt a roaring in her ears. Mason pulled her closer, and she willingly went.

His kisses were hot, urgent, relentless. His hands slid down her back, and beneath the fabric of the baseball jersey. His lucky jersey. Effortlessly, he worked his fingers under the band of her bra, finding her breasts, caressing them. His head bent, and he effortlessly pulled the shirt over her head.

The night air came as a thrilling shock to her bare skin. Mason pulled her onto his lap, and she started to giggle at the sense memory of the steering wheel pressing against her back, but the giggle was supplanted by a gasp when his lips found her right nipple.