“I Knew I Loved You before I Met You.”

She tried to pull away.

“Did you do this?” she asked.

He looked as horrified as she must. “No. God, Molly, no. I would never . . .”

But she’d already fled the dance floor, hurrying her way out of the ballroom, needing to get as far away from that song, away from the memories, as she could.

She went outside, the cool night air settling around her like an icy blanket. Chilled, she wrapped her arms around herself and started walking, not even caring where she was going. She only knew she had to get away from the past, from that damn song and the bitter memories it represented.

“Molly.”

She shook her head as Carter came up beside her. “Go away.”

“Molly, stop.”

She kept walking. Only there was no place to go. They were surrounded by nothing but deserted road for miles on end. Still, she kept walking, until Carter put his hand on her shoulders.

“Stop. Stop running.”

“I’m not running,” she said as she turned to face him.

“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing for twelve goddamn years? Running? From me, from what happened?”

“No. I’ve been living my life. Perfectly happy, without you.”

She was shaking. It was cold out here. She needed to get back inside. But she just . . . couldn’t.

He took off his jacket and flung it around her shoulders. She wanted to shrug it off, but she was freezing. She might be angry, might be confused and irritated, the past a hazy cloud in her mind right now, but she wasn’t stupid. She slid her arms into it, his body warmth and his scent surrounding her, only adding to her confusion.

“Leave me alone, Carter.”

“I’ve done that. For twelve years. Now we need to talk.” He dug keys out of his pocket and led her to the parking lot, to one of the cars.

“This isn’t your car.”

“No, it’s Bash’s. I borrowed his keys. Slide in.”

She got in and he closed the door, then came around to the other side.

Grateful to be inside the vehicle where it was warmer, she snuggled into his jacket, his scent making her even more miserable.

When he turned to her, she stared out the window.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

He’d said those same words twelve years ago. They mattered even less now than they had then. The damage had been done. Words wouldn’t help.

“Molly. Talk to me.”

She shifted to face him, the anger and hurt she’d held inside boiling to the surface. “About what, Carter? About how you and I messed up so badly all those years ago? How I got pregnant, and then we decided we were so in love we’d go ahead and get married and plan a future together? How I lost our baby, the one we both wanted so much we’d already begun to pick out names? And then you decided that maybe me miscarrying hadn’t been such a bad thing, because it meant you could go ahead and go to college?”

He took a deep breath. “That’s not what I said, and you know goddamn well that’s never what I meant.”

“Wasn’t it? I lost our child, Carter, the baby you and I made together. I was crushed, while all you felt was relief, because your plans for the future wouldn’t be waylaid. You got exactly what you wanted, which was your freedom. And you know why? Because you never loved me. You wanted out of the relationship my pregnancy trapped you in. Damn good thing I lost our baby, wasn’t it?”

He looked crushed. She wasn’t buying it.

“You know that’s not how I felt.”

He reached out for her but she backed away, pushing herself into the corner of the seat.

“It’s exactly how you felt. Because you went to college and you never once looked back. I was nothing but a distant memory.”

She stared straight ahead, shaking from the fury she’d unleashed.

“Feel better now that you got that off your chest?”

She shot him a look. “No. I’ll never feel better about what happened. And that’s the part you’ll never be able to understand.”

She shrugged out of his jacket and left it on the seat, then shoved open the door and got out, desperate to get away from him, away from the raw, painful memories she’d kept buried.

Now she’d dredged them up again. Now she had to face the nightmare and the pain all over again.

“Damn you Carter,” she whispered into the night as she made her way back to the ballroom.

She didn’t even have her car. She couldn’t escape, so she was stuck at the reception until the end.

She should have never come home.

CARTER SAT OUT in the parking lot, catching his breath long after Molly went inside. He figured the less she saw of him, the happier she’d be.

Though he doubted she was going to be happy no matter what.

He had no idea she still held so much resentment toward him. He might just sit in Bash’s car the rest of the night and think about how fucked up this situation was.

At least Molly would be leaving soon. Not that he wanted her to go, but there were obvious reasons the two of them shouldn’t occupy the same space.

He’d made a lot of mistakes when he was younger, and nothing he said was going to make up for them, so he should just stop trying. It was only making things worse.

Now he knew why she’d spent all these years away from Hope.

She’d wanted to stay far away from him, which only made him feel shittier than he’d felt twelve years ago when he’d found out Molly had left town.

He wished there was something he could say, something he could do. Talking to her now only seemed to make it worse.

Although he’d buried his own pain, now even thinking about what happened hurt. He’d been stupid to think they needed to dredge it all up again.

For what reason? To relive that pain again?

It was best to leave the past alone. Molly had run from it, and he’d done his best to forget it. They obviously both had coping mechanisms that worked, and the sooner they were hundreds of miles away from each other, the better.

He finally got out of the car and locked it, then headed back toward the ballroom, intending to stay far away from Molly. But this was Luke’s night, and he was going to celebrate it and leave his relationship with Molly out of it.

Taking a deep breath, he put on a smile and opened the door.

Chapter 7

MOLLY HAD STAYED the night at Luke and Emma’s watching the dogs, because the newlyweds spent the night at a penthouse suite at one of Tulsa’s premiere hotels. She’d gotten up early this morning and driven over to her parents’ house so she could help her mom decorate for the brunch. Everything with her mother had to be thematic, and in this case, it was going to be a Hawaiian bon-voyage-slash-luau theme to reflect Emma and Luke’s upcoming island honeymoon.