My heart began to thump at the base of my throat and I swallowed, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. What the hell was he doing here? Was he posing as my mom’s newest guest? Cold panic rose up from my tight stomach. How on earth could I hide this reaction from my mom? The blood was draining from my face—I knew that much. Was he here to torment me with regret for the things I had said to him? Was he here to try and make amends?

I didn’t know what to feel. So many emotions swirled inside me. I was loath to admit that one of them was a complete heart-charging thrill at seeing him again. Another was a dread, a fear. Would he expose me to my mom? Tell her about the auction—about what a terrible, bitter, child-person I was?

Mom’s voice cut through my buzzing thoughts. “Here she is—this is my daughter, Mia.”

Adam’s gaze shot to mine like a bolt of lightning and I suddenly felt myself starting to sweat. A heat built inside me so quickly, it felt like I would combust from the inside out.

“Hi, Mia,” Adam said. And I was at least thankful he didn’t carry out a ruse that we didn’t know each other. No false “nice to meet you.” I jerked my eyes from his, which speared me, and dropped them to the ground in front of my feet.

Mom continued, completely oblivious to the tension thickening the air. “This is Mr. Drake. He’ll be with us for the next week. He’s preparing to hike a segment of the Pacific Crest Trail from here to Yosemite. Sometime soon.”

The Pacific Crest Trail stretched from the Mexican border to Canada, tracing the crests of all the mountain ranges of the three states in between: California, Oregon and Washington. The hearty people who hiked it were either “thru-hikers,” doing the entire run in seven or so months straight, or “segment-hikers” who pieced up the trail into bits and did it a little at a time, sometimes over the span of many years.

So this was the story that Adam had given my mother. He was going to do a segment hike of the PCT? What a load of bullshit. My eyes flicked back to Adam, whose smile had faded but whose face bore a certain grim self-satisfaction.

The breath I’d just drawn flew right out of me again. I shifted, putting my hands on my hips because I had no idea what else to do with them.

“Hey, Mr. Drake,” I croaked out. “Welcome.” My mom frowned. She’d finally noticed my weird reaction and there would be questions later, no doubt. But I feared being alone with her much less than being alone with him so I resolved to stick near my mom’s side all night—and probably find lots of excuses to drive into Anza proper or even down the mountain for the next few days.

“Dinner is in two hours and I’ve asked Mr. Drake to join us,” Mom said, throwing a pointed look at my grubby clothes.

I only nodded. I had no other words. I didn’t look at Adam again—didn’t have the courage for it. And as he followed my mom out of the barn, he darted one last glance my way before turning out of my view.

As soon as he was out of sight, I fell against the nearest stall door, my back sliding against it until I sat on the ground. My heart hammered like I’d run a marathon and I shook—a deep-freeze hardening my soul. The nearest horse, Whiskey, poked his head out and nudged against me. I was utterly floored by this new development.

I had just begun to move past this whole thing—or so I’d thought. But now I felt just as shivery and vulnerable as the girl who’d rushed out of the Draco Multimedia complex while sobbing the month before.

A splinter of pain passed through me as I remembered the circumstances behind that last time I’d seen him, with his arm wrapped around his former lover. Maybe Lindsay was going to come up to meet him here? Maybe he’d arranged this on purpose so he could flaunt her in my face, because that day at his office wasn’t enough? Would I be able to suffer though seeing them here, together?

If it weren’t for the fact that mom needed my help so much for this next week, I might have been tempted to call Heath and ask him if I could go crash on his couch until Adam left. It was inevitable that we’d have to interact with one another, but I resolved that I would try my hardest to avoid the confrontation he sought. With this tangle of unwanted emotion inside of me, I went on the rest of my poop hunt with a vengeance.

Chapter Seventeen

It took me an hour to recover from the shock of seeing him again so suddenly—and here of all places. It was obvious he was here to see me, and, after checking the reservation book my mom kept at her desk, I was reassured that he would be here alone. The only reason he’d leave his girlfriend behind to come up here would be to confront me. But why? What more was there to say between us that hadn’t already been said?