Page 70 of Running to You

Who would tell her that? Especially if it wasn’t true?

“You’re saying you didn’t marry her?” Eliza asked. “Or…was there somebody else?”

He rounded the island and shoved his empty plate in the dishwasher. Then he looked up to meet her eyes. “There was only one woman I ever considered marrying.” His voice was low, not filled with anger but pain. “Bought the ring and everything. But she dumped me and disappeared for five years.”

Eliza’s breath caught.

He’d bought a ring?

And she’d left him? Why?

Unless… What had she said?

It was Kylee, wasn’t it?

His response… You remembered.

And then she did.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The dryer buzzed in another room, and Sam wasn’t sorry for the excuse to walk out. He gathered the warm clothes in a basket and carried them to the dining room table.

Eliza was staring off into space, maybe trying to make sense of everything they’d talked about.

She wasn’t rubbing her temples, though. So that was something. Whether it was something good or bad, he didn’t know.

He pulled out the ugly plaid button-down she’d been wearing when she got to his house Friday night and draped it over the back of a chair so it wouldn’t wrinkle, then dug through the clothes for his items. She could fold her own.

“I remember.”

He froze, then resumed folding his T-shirt.

He’d known it was coming. It was just a matter of time.

“I saw you with her. At the restaurant that day.”

He’d been with Kylee when Eliza had walked in and…caught them. As if he’d been doing something wrong. Which, okay, he had been.

They’d been shoulder to shoulder, laughing over something she’d said.

He remembered in exquisite detail the look on Eliza’s face when she spotted them. Horror and heartbreak—an instant before she swiveled and ran.

“You lied to me.”

His gaze flicked up. “Did I?”

“You were seeing her.” She stood from the barstool, her voice tremulous.

“I wasn’t.”

“Right. So I just imagined the whole thing? Is that what you’re saying? That she wasn’t there with you?”

He lowered the pants he’d grabbed. Her pants.

She crossed the space and took them out of his hand. “Well?”

“I’m not saying you imagined it. I’m saying I wasn’t seeing her.”