“Of course I care, Samantha.” He put the car in gear and eased his foot off the clutch as the light turned green. “I consider you a friend. How many times do I have to tell you that before you start believing me?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted guilelessly. “It’s hard for me to imagine someone like you being friends with someone like me.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to be friends with a bright, beautiful young woman?”

“I’m a cocktail waitress.”

“That’s what you do, not who you are. Never confuse the two, Samantha. That kind of thinking only limits you.”

They turned onto Jackson Street and he pulled the Camero up to the curb in front of her house. The car’s engine grumbled on for a moment after he turned the ignition off, like a stomach with indigestion. Bryce ignored it and turned sideways on the vinyl bucket seat to face her. In the pale glow of the streetlight his expression seemed earnest. He reached out with one hand and brushed the tips of his fingers against her cheek, pushing a stray strand of black hair back behind her ear.

“You should have no limits but the sky, Samantha,” he said softly. “Don’t let anything in your life hold you back.”

The Mercedes pulled in behind them and the glare of the headlights gave Samantha an excuse to look away. He didn’t understand her life. He didn’t know where she had come from or what kinds of obstacles that life had built into it. He was rich and powerful. He was like a being from another world, a world she had no access to, a world she could only look at and wish for in the most frivolous of her fantasies.

“I once had a job cleaning grease, dirt, and dead cockroaches out of a diner in Hell’s Kitchen,” he said. “I owned one pair of shoes and washed my underwear in the sink of the communal bathroom in a rooming house I shared with drug addicts and transients.

“We aren’t always born to it, Samantha. Sometimes we have to have the courage to take a leap into the life we want.”

He handed her the keys and climbed out, coming around to open her door for her. Samantha unfolded herself from the low-slung Camero. She kept her head down, pretending to be concerned about which purse compartment her keys went into. Bryce’s words rolled around in her head like marbles, tumbling through a wash of conflicting feelings that had been building inside her for days-loneliness and dissatisfaction and longing and hunger for something more than she had. What did she have? A junker car. A rented house that looked forlorn even by moonlight. A puppy. A husband who ignored her. She thought of the party. The air of excitement. The important people who had spoken with her. The sense of, if not belonging, being included in something special.

Bryce went into the house ahead of her to check for intruders. It took him all of three minutes to see every shabby room and look in every closet. Embarrassment burned Samantha’s cheeks. She left most of the lights off, hoping he wouldn’t notice her blush or the fact that everything she owned was second-hand.

“Are there locks on these doors?” he asked as they stepped back out onto the front porch.

She nodded, crossing her arms against the cool breeze and the onslaught of loneliness. Rascal rubbed up against her legs like an overgrown cat, then dropped at her feet and began gnawing on her shoestrings.

“Good. Use them. If only to give me an hour’s sleep.”

“I will. Thanks for seeing me home.”

He gave her a look. “I’m glad to do it. Someone should be looking out for you.”

That the someone should be Will didn’t need to be spoken. The censure was there in Bryce’s voice. Samantha felt guilt on Will’s behalf, then wondered if Will ever felt a shred of it himself. If she were attacked, as Marilee Jennings had been, would he feel the least bit responsible for abandoning her?

“Call me if you need anything,” Bryce said. “Even if you just get tired of playing it brave.”

“Thanks,” she whispered, fighting the threat of tears. “You’re a good friend.”

He nodded and hummed a note of agreement, but his mind was elsewhere. He had a look about him as though he were considering whether or not to tell her something important. In the end he just sighed, leaned forward, and kissed her cheek. His hand lingered on her shoulder, and he squeezed gently as he stepped back.

“Good night, sweetheart. Think about what I said.”

Rascal dove off the porch and gave chase halfway across the yard as Bryce headed for the Mercedes. Samantha called the dog back, patting a hand against her thigh. The puppy wheeled around, charged back up the steps and flung himself against his mistress as she lowered herself to sit on the edge of the porch. Samantha cradled the wiggling dog against her and stroked his head absently, avoiding his eager tongue by tipping her head back to look up at the stars.

You should have no limits but the sky. It was a million miles away. She could see it but never touch it. She tried to imagine what it might be like to cut loose all the bonds that held her to this spot on earth and soar up there among the stars. How free she would feel. How special. The only times she had ever felt special in her life had been with Will, when she believed that he loved her, when she believed they could have a life and a family together. Small dreams. Sweet dreams. Dreams that now seemed as distant as the diamond points of light in the sky. Broken dreams that tied her to a life of emptiness.

Will sat in the cab of his pickup half a block down Third Avenue from the corner of Jackson. He had a clear view of his house. There was enough light from the streetlamp to see Sam sitting on the edge of the porch with Rascal in her arms.

He’d been sitting there a long while. Long enough to put away the better half of a pint of Jack and chase it down with half a dozen cans of Coors. The cans lay discarded at his feet, rattling merrily every time he shifted position. The sound reminded him of the cowbells on the bucking bulls at the rodeo. Appropriate. He had asked Sam to marry him at the rodeo in Gardiner… or was it Big Sky? The detail was lost in the murky slop that clouded his mind like pond water.

Crystal clear was the memory of Sam looking up at him after he’d asked her. That memory was sharp as a Polaroid. Painfully bright. She looked like a princess, radiant in the firelight. Dark, exotic eyes widening, those soft, full lips parting slightly in surprise. Hair hanging over one shoulder in a thick plait of black silk. He remembered clearly what was in her eyes. Hope. Deliverance. Love. Excitement. She had looked at him like a poor child finding Santa Claus. Like he was a hero. He’d never felt so important in his life.

What a fraud you are, Willie-boy. That was all he had ever been, an impostor, a con man. Prince Will, pretender to the throne of Rafferty. Nobody’s hero. Nobody’s husband. He didn’t do commitment. He specialized in meaningless charm. The man with no substance. Style, guile, and a pretty smile.

He had fooled her into loving him. Married her without a hint of conscience. Hurt her with selfish intent, dealt heartache with a lavish hand. Why would she ever take him back? Any woman in her right mind would sooner cut his black heart out with a rusty knife and feed it to the coyotes.

Seeing Bryce kiss her had nearly spared her the trouble. He had been as faithless as a tomcat, remorseless and smug. But seeing that one kiss had turned it all right around on him and plunged the blade straight into his chest.

What did you expect, Willie-boy?

Had he thought she would wait forever? Had he expected her to pine away for him the way his father had done over his mother’s betrayal? What had he thought?

That the trouble of his marriage would just go away so he wouldn’t have to deal with it or take the blame or face the consequences.