“Will you try and reach out to her when you’re released?”
“I imagine so. I don’t want to do anything to steer her off track, but if she wants to see me, then she’ll see me.”
“That’s great. I think it would do you both some good to reconnect.”
“Yeah, that would do me good ... that and a night with you in my bed.”
“Dalton,” she scolded. “I’ve already told you! You can’t say that sort of thing.”
“I don’t see why not. It’s the truth.”
“Because I’m your therapist. There are lines that can’t be crossed.”
“Don’t see why that matters.” A rational man would know it was crazy to think a woman like Sophie—intelligent, educated, and undeniably beautiful, would ever be interested in me—a man who’d spent the past three years behind bars, but I wasn’t a rational man. Besides, I’d seen the way she looked at me and heard the inflection in her voice whenever our conversations got off track, but rational or not, I wasn’t a complete idiot. I knew nothing could ever become of us, but I didn’t see the harm in giving her a hard time. “Not like you’ll be my shrink for much longer, especially if I get out of here soon, so the way I see it, there’s no reason not to cross a few lines.”
“Dalton.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll leave it. For now.”
“You are quite a handful, Mr. Hughes.”
“Oh, I’m more than a handful, baby.” I told her I’d stop fucking with her, but damn, she’d walked right into that one. When I saw the flustered look on her face, I held my hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was just fucking around.”
“Mm-hmm.” She rolled her eyes with a huff, then glanced down at her notes. I could almost feel the tension radiating from her body as she looked back up at me and asked, “Have you thought any more about Sadie?”
“What about her?”
“Are you planning to go see her if you’re released?”
Over the past few months, Sophie had done what she could to help me reflect on the choices I’d made—or at least she’d tried to. There were some that were harder to explain than others.
One of those being Sadie—the girl I’d been seeing up until I got put away. There was a time when I loved Sadie. I mean, really loved her. I thought she was the one.
I actually thought she’d become my ol’ lady.
Thought we’d have a couple of kids and grow old together.
But that all changed when I got locked up.
There was a look in her eye when she saw me behind bars—part pity, part disgust—and I knew what we had was over.
I didn’t blame her. She didn’t sign up for this bullshit, and I had no right to hold her to the promises we’d made. So, I did the only thing I could. I ended things with her and told her to move on with her life.
I’d tried explaining to Sophie that I had no regrets about breaking things off with Sadie, but she wasn’t buying it. I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. “I have no reason to see her.”
“What?” Her brows furrowed with astonishment. “This woman meant something to you.”
“Yeah, and?”
“Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to try and reconnect with her? Possibly see if there’s anything left between the two of you?”
“There’s nothing left between us, Doc. She’s moved on, and I’m good with that.” As a favor to me, Menace had been keeping an eye on Sadie and was doing what he could to make sure she was making it okay. Like Sophie, he’d pushed me to touch base with her, but after hearing she was now happily pregnant and had moved in with Colton—a plant safety manager at one of the larger paper-mills in the area, I knew I was right in persuading her to live her own life. My eyes never left Sophie’s. “Hell, I’m the one who told her to do it.”
“But did you genuinely mean it?”
“Wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t fucking mean it.” I leaned forward, holding her gaze as I lowered my voice, “Just to be clear, there’s only one woman I wanna see when I get out of this place, and she’s the one sitting in front of me.”
TWO
SOPHIE
“I can’t believe you’re already decorating for Christmas.” Margo, my younger sister, rolled her eyes as she looked down at the box of lights and fussed, “It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.”
“What can I say?” I plugged in my tree and smiled when all the white bulbs illuminated the room. “I’m a sucker for the holidays.”
“People like you are the reason why Walmart starts putting Christmas crap out in September.”
“Well then, I guess I’m not the only one who likes to decorate early.”
I had always loved decorating for the holidays, but over the past few years, I’d started earlier and earlier.