They Ran Me Dry in the Desert, So We Came Back for the Whole Rim novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Her Door

Ximena's POV

I did not forgive him that afternoon, and I did not pretend to.

I told him I needed the evening alone, and he said yes before I finished the sentence.

I drove up to the Upper Spring and sat on a rock by the water with my boots in the cold.

The spring ran clear over its stones, the way Tammy had promised in April.

Twice, I thought.

He had watched me die twice, and he had spent a third life trying to be a man I could stand beside.

He had also kept it from me for three months, and I was still furious about that.

Both of those were true, and neither one cancelled the other.

I thought about the girl in the first life who put a whistle in a stranger's hand.

She had been kind to him, and nobody had ever told her.

I wanted to be that girl again, on purpose, with my eyes open.

It was nine o'clock when I parked behind the Payson feed store.

The owner rented the room over the loading dock to Ramiro by the month.

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