A Time for Us - By Amy Knupp Page 0,96

understand that there’s a loyalty to my twin sister? We shared a womb, Cale. I knew her before I knew how to breathe.”

“You’ve worked through so much. But you’re just going to give up now? This isn’t worth fighting for?”

“It’s not a fight I can win,” she said quietly. “I wish I could.”

Cale swore crudely and squatted down as if the pain had knocked him over. He stayed that way, his head bowed, eyes closed, looking every bit as miserable as she felt.

Rachel needed to get out of there before she broke in two inside. “I’m gonna go. There’s a bus due in...” She glanced at her watch, as if she had a clue what the bus schedule was. “Any minute,” she lied, fully intending to walk home but knowing he would insist on driving her if he knew. “Goodbye, Cale.”

As her sadness threatened to swallow her up whole, she turned and walked away.

* * *

CALE KEPT HIS HEAD down, fighting the need to watch her walk away. He didn’t want that image burned in his mind.

Shit-fire, he’d never felt so powerless in his life. So close and yet so completely denied what he wanted, what was right, dammit. The sense of loss, yeah, he knew that like an age-old enemy, but his helplessness to convince Rachel she had nothing to feel guilty about...that was going to eat him alive.

The torment in her eyes would haunt him for the rest of his life.

That was when it hit him—she would never get on a city bus or any other kind of public transportation looking and feeling like she did. She was intensely private and would avoid it at all costs. When he finally looked up and squinted into the darkness in the direction of the nearest bus stop, which was two blocks straight over, she was nowhere. He was sure she was walking home alone in the dark even though the Culver house was a good distance southeast of here, probably close to two miles.

Leaving his truck, he jogged a block to the east. When he got to the corner, he looked to his right. Sure enough, a couple hundred yards away, Rachel headed along the sidewalk toward home and not the bus stop. He followed her, sticking to the opposite side of the street and keeping the same distance between them. There was nothing else he could say to her to change her mind, but he could at least ensure that she got home safely.

Then, after that, he could fall apart.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

MAYBE RACHEL HAD finally done it.

Sawyer, who’d been hanging around more than usual the past two weeks, ever since the concert and the last time she’d seen Cale, come to think of it, swore she was going to work herself to delirium. As she stirred from her postwork nap, she wondered if she’d succeeded at last—and if so, what was so bad about it.

The dream about Noelle had been so realistic that if she believed in spirits and visits from the dead, she’d suspect her sister had been in the room with her. However, practical, levelheaded girl that she was, Rachel knew better.

The fact that she’d moved back into her room was likely the cause, but not because Noelle’s spirit was visiting it, simply because she was surrounded by so many memories of her sister in spite of the changes she’d made to the room.

After the concert, after walking away from Cale, Rachel had been determined to move forward with her life. It felt as if the months she’d been home had been spent either spinning her wheels and getting nowhere or churning over the past. Necessary steps, she realized, but she couldn’t stay there forever. So her first action had been to have a discussion with her supervisor, once again, to plead with him to let her work more shifts. During the weeks before the benefit concert, he’d gradually tapered her number of shifts down to what he considered “normal,” and she’d been so wrapped up in handling her grief she’d barely noticed. He’d agreed to give her the maximum amount of hours each week, but it had taken no small sales job on her part.

The second step she’d taken was to change up the bedroom she and Noelle had shared enough to make it possible to walk in without being bombarded by the past. She and Sawyer had gotten rid of Noelle’s bed and her vanity, and then Rachel had rearranged the remaining furniture to make the