Page 37 of Rio's Release

“I knew it had to be you. There was no one else.”

I frown. “Really? No family? No friends?”

He shakes his head. “Thanks for doing that. It helped more than you know. I’d like to pay you back.” When he reaches for his wallet, my hand flings up.

“Don’t. Please.”

His eyes burn into mine. “I’m having a real hard time reading you, Shelby. One minute I think we really had something, and the next it feels as if it was nothing to you.”

“It wasn’t nothing.”

“Glad to hear that, because it was everything to me. Your letters. Those visits. They’re what kept me going all those years. Even after they stopped, I still had the memory of them to hang onto.”

Every word from his mouth tears my heart out, and my eyes sting. I scoot my chair back.

“I need to use the ladies' room.”

He rises from his chair, but I wave him off and hurry along a corridor toward the restrooms.

I pause at the sink, my hand on my stomach. The pain of what could have been, and what can no longer ever be, washes over me.

Jenny enters right behind me.

“Are you okay?”

I put my hand to my mouth and shake my head, my eyes filling.

She immediately embraces me. “Aw, honey. What is it?”

“It’s so sad,” I whisper. “I really liked him. He wants to know why I stopped writing to him.”

“Maybe you should tell him.”

“I can’t. No one can know. Not even him.”

“But why? Maybe he could—”

“Don’t. Don’t say it, Jenny. Don’t even think it.”

“But—”

“He’d react. You know he would. A man like him? He wouldn’t just let it go. And then what? He’d be sent back to prison. I couldn’t bear to be the cause of that. No way.”

“Okay, okay. Calm down. Do you want to sneak out the side door to the car and leave?”

I wipe the tears from my cheek. “No. He doesn’t deserve that. I’m going to go back and eat lunch with him. I’m sure it’ll be the last time I see him.”

She studies my eyes. “Oh, honey. I hate this for you. You care about him. I know you do. But really, you know nothing about him, except that he told your father off, then robbed your bank and almost got you killed in the process.”

“But he didn’t. He saved me.”

“And that sounds romantic, but he’s an ex-con, Shelby. And you said yourself he gave you no information about himself when you went to prison to visit him.”

“He said he couldn’t talk freely. Not in there.”

She folds her arms and cocks her head. “Okay, then. So, now’s your chance. Go back to the table and ask him. Like you said, it’s probably the last time you’re going to see him. See how much he’ll share.”

“What about you? I’m sorry I stuck you with his friend.”

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