“I don’t care what people think.”

“You have to. You’re head of that whole company. You are the Sutton Distillery Corporation. I mean, maybe it wouldn’t be quite so bad if you weren’t selling your own name, if you were an arm’s length businessperson, but you’re not. Plus you need stability in your life. You deserve someone who’s going to hold you at night and be there on holidays and stand by your side at your civic things. Don’t lie to yourself, Sutton. You know I’m right.”

She took another sip of the lemonade. “Why did you make love to me the day before yesterday?”

“Because I’m a weak asshole. And sometimes we do things we feel like we need to even if they’re not really right.”

“Ah.”

“I won’t ever forget you, Sutton. Ever.”

“You make it sound like Ogden County is on the other side of the world.”

Then again, it wasn’t geographical distance that was the problem. “If you want to hate me,” he said roughly, “I won’t blame you.”

“I don’t want to do that.” She went across and focused on the trophies because she didn’t want him to see her eyes. “Tell me something.”

“What?”

“When I see you, you know, out and about—”

“You won’t.”

Abruptly, she imagined him avoiding her at the Derby by running and jumping behind support columns and bathroom doors.

“You won’t see me, Sutton.”

“So you’re really closing me off, huh.” She turned back around and indicated her glass. “Do you mind if I put this down somewhere? I’m not really thirsty.”

“I’ll take it.”

Lifting her chin, she walked over and put the glass in his hand. It seemed appropriate that thunder shook the cottage as she stepped back.

“Do me a favor?” she said hoarsely.

“What?”

“Don’t try to walk me to my car, or suggest I stay in here a minute longer. Let me leave with some pride, okay?”

His eyes, those fucking eyes, stared up at her with such intensity that she felt like he was taking a long-exposure photograph.

He nodded once.

Blinking hard, she whispered, “Good-bye, Edward.”

“Good-bye, Sutton.”

Out of the cottage. Into the storm.

The dumping rain was cold, and she lifted her face to the sky as she went for her Mercedes, thinking it was the third damned time she’d gone through the rain because of him. And after she got behind the wheel and slammed the door, she gripped the steering wheel as hail marched over the metal and glass that sheltered her like a tiny army that had countless little boots.

Unlike the first time she’d taken the C63 out here alone, she now knew how to work the gearshift. No more hunting for reverse … so that a prostitute who looked just like her had to tell her what to do.

As she headed out to the rural route that would take her back where she belonged, she took so many deep breaths that she got to be light-headed.

Goddamn it, she could still taste that lemonade in her mouth.

As Edward heard Sutton’s car pull out and speed off, he exhaled long and slow. Then he looked at the two glasses in his hands.

Pouring all of his into what had been hers, he put the empty glass aside and drank what her grandmother had taught her to make on hot Kentucky afternoons: One dozen lemons. Cut in half on a wood board with a stout knife. Fresh Kentucky water that carried the kiss of limestone in it.

Sugar. Whole cane sugar. But not too much.

You put the ice in the glasses, not the pitcher. You kept the pitcher in the refrigerator with a tinfoil seal on it so whatever you also had in there didn’t season it by exposure.

You shared it with the people you loved.

Closing his eyes, he saw images of her from the past, like back when she was twelve and he had chased her at Charlemont Country Day because she was one of the first class of girls they’d let in. Or when she was sixteen and that asshole had stood her up for prom … and he’d punched the SOB in the face. And then even later, at twenty-one, as she’d graduated and come back for the summer, looking like a full-blown woman for the first time.

And then he remembered the stories about Sutton’s grandmother, a woman who hadn’t been “classy.” In fact, her grandfather had gone out West as a young buck and cattle ranched against his fancy family’s wishes—and there he had met a beautiful young woman who rode better than he did, shot better than he did, and wrangled better than he did.

When he’d brought her home, she had made that fancy family bend to her will. It hadn’t been the other way around. And it had been, as Sutton had always said, a grand romance for the ages.

The love remained alive in the lemonade he was drinking now. When the door to the cottage opened, he knew it wasn’t Sutton. She wasn’t coming back now, or ever, and though his heart hurt, that was the right answer to their equation.

Shelby shut the heavy weight and brushed wet tendrils of hair out of her face.

He cleared his throat. “Neb okay?”

“Yeah, he’s doing good. Joey’s with him.”

“Thanks for coming to tell me.”

“That’s not why I’m here.” There was a pause. “That your woman?” When he didn’t answer, Shelby whistled softly. “She sure is beautiful. I mean, she almost didn’t look real. I don’t see people like her very often. Outside of magazines maybe.”

“Oh, she’s real.”

“Where’d she go?”

“Home.”

“Why? Why you let her go?”

Edward took a sip from Sutton’s glass. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Is that the lemonade you spent all morning makin’? You make it for her?”

“No, I didn’t know she was coming.” He looked at it. “I made it because I had to have it.”

One last time.

“You letting Joey take you out?” he asked without glancing up. There was a pause. “Yeah.”

Edward smiled. “I can hear the blush in your voice.”

“I ain’t blushin’.”

“Bullshit.”

As she huffed up, he winked at her. “Come on, I needed to make sure you were paying attention. And there wasn’t a ‘God’ in that one anywhere.”