But so few people.

Her chest hurt.

Nobody turned to look at her as she walked in, everyone lost in the somberness of the occasion.

She spotted the backs of four heads, all in a row, all familiar. Lucy bit her lip, realizing belatedly that she should have told them that she was coming.

Not that they’d be unhappy to see her, but this was no time or place for surprises.

It wasn’t like she’d meant to make a grand entrance or anything, it’s just…her family hadn’t even asked if she was coming. Like it hadn’t occurred to them that she would make the time.

The realization was more jarring than she wanted to admit, even to herself. Then again, it’s not like she’d given them reason to think otherwise.

She certainly hadn’t given him reason to think otherwise.

Lucy came even with the row of chairs where her family was sitting. Her dad was on the end, glancing up at her distractedly, then doing a double take when he recognized her.

Her mom and siblings did the same, smiles mingling with the sadness in their eyes.

She touched her dad’s shoulder, intending to scoot past him to go sit in the empty seat by Brandi, but even as she started to move in that direction, her eyes scanned the room for the reason she’d come.

He was all by himself.

Why wasn’t anyone with him?

Reece sat by himself in the front row, empty seats on either side of him. An older couple sat behind him—his aunt and uncle, if she was remembering correctly—but she’d never seen someone so utterly alone.

Lucy’s mom read her thoughts. “He wanted some space,” she whispered quietly.

Bullshit, Lucy thought.

Not that she’d say it to her mother. But why did everyone insist on believing Reece when he put on his brave face?

Why did nobody see that I want to be alone was his code for letting everyone off the hook? Why did nobody understand that he didn’t want to be alone, he just expected it?

He wouldn’t want to see her. She knew that.

Heck, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see him. Not after everything that had gone down between them.

The last time they’d spoken was over a year ago at a dreadful Thanksgiving dinner where they’d both put on a painful show for her family, pretending they hadn’t broken each other’s hearts.

No, scratch that. It was her heart that was broken. She wasn’t sure he had one where she was concerned.

But that didn’t change the fact that Reece’s father had just died, and he was all by himself.

Before she could think better of it, she moved toward him, scanning the room as she did so.

There were fewer than thirty people in attendance for Jeff Sullivan’s funeral.

Not surprising, perhaps, given that the man had isolated himself for years even before the cancer had taken its toll.

What was surprising was that his own daughter hadn’t showed yet.

Or maybe not. Trish Sullivan hadn’t looked back when she’d skipped out on her family a decade ago. Lucy wasn’t all that shocked that apparently even funerals weren’t worth her while.

She didn’t blame Trish for needing some distance when her mom had died and her dad had turned into a zombie. Lucy did blame her for leaving her much younger brother to fend for himself.

No matter. This wasn’t about Trish.

This was about Reece.

Lucy swallowed as she reached the front row, and before she could lose her nerve, walked straight to him, sitting in the chair directly to his left.

He glanced down at her in shock.

Reece opened his mouth, and she braced for him to tell her to get the hell out of here, but before he could speak, there was a throat-clearing from the front of the room, and a pastor stepped up to the small podium beside Jeff Sullivan’s casket and started his somber opening remarks.

“Just until it’s over,” Lucy said under her breath. “Then you’ll never have to see me again.”

Reece fiddled with a wrinkled piece of paper in his hands. It looked like it had been folded and unfolded a million times.

A eulogy, she realized.

Her eyes watered. Poor Reece.

He didn’t move the entire time. Not until he briefly left his seat to stand and give a short, wooden-sounding eulogy about his late father.

When he returned to his seat, Lucy briefly searched his face. There was no trace of tears, and that somehow made it all the sadder.

Without thinking, she slipped her hand into his. The first time she’d touched him in six years.

He stiffened, and she braced for him to shake her off.

Instead, his fingers very slowly spread apart until they were palm to palm. Then he linked his fingers with hers, and squeezed hard. Lucy’s eyes watered, and she wasn’t sure if it was from the pressure of his grip, or from the pain she felt coming off him in waves.

Reece had no one now.

Once, he might have had her, but that ship had sailed in the most heartbreaking way possible.

True to her promise, she’d left after the funeral was over.

All without Reece Sullivan saying a single word to the woman who’d once loved him with all her heart.

Chapter 10

Reece

The motel that Lucy directs us to is as crappy as I expected given the price. The “swimming pool” looks like a wannabe sewer, and the roof is one tropical storm away from caving in.

But she tells me it’s “near the river,” whatever that means.

I pull into the parking lot and turn off the ignition, the silence the first respite we’ve had in hours of an ongoing radio war. Nudging the volume up every time we changed the station wasn’t exactly mature, but damn if it didn’t feel kind of good.