Her mother turned back to her. “Elissa, no! How could you believe that of us? Of course we wanted to talk to you, have you come home. Do you know what we went through? Do you know how hard it was? How horrible?” She stood and faced her son. “Bobby, why? You saw. How could you have kept this from me?”

She took a step, then gasped and sank back in the chair. Kevin was at her side in an instant.

“Leslie?”

“I’m fine.”

Elissa half rose, then sat down. “Mom, are you all right?”

Her mother gave her a shaky smile. “Of course. This brings back so much. Don’t worry about me.”

The words said all the right things, but the darkness in her eyes told another story. Her leaving had changed everything, Elissa thought unhappily, and not for the better.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry I ran away. I should have called.”

“You should have come home,” her father snapped.

Elissa stiffened.

“She tried,” Bobby said. “Don’t blame her, blame me.”

His willingness to take all the responsibility surprised her. “It wasn’t just that,” she told her brother. “I shouldn’t have left in the first place.”

“I’m better, Kevin. I’m all right,” her mother said, then patted her husband’s hand. “It was that boy, wasn’t it? The one you were dating.”

“Mitch,” Elissa said. “Yeah, he’s the one I ran away with. We ended up in L.A.”

“I knew it,” her mother said, fighting tears. “I just knew it.”

“We looked in Los Angeles,” her father said. “There were too many kids down there. On the streets, in shelters.”

Elissa hated thinking what they must have gone through. “I wasn’t in either place. I lived with Mitch for a few months. Then we broke up and I got a job with another band.” She decided to gloss over the more sordid aspects of her earlier life. “It turns out I had a great knack for finding cheap accommodations and making other travel arrangements, so that’s what I did. I was paid in cash and usually rented a room in an apartment with a bunch of girls, so there’s no way you could have traced me.”

There was that look again, between her parents. What were they thinking? That she was nothing but a disappointment? That they’d expected no more of her?

“I can’t believe you thought we wouldn’t want to talk to you,” her mother said. “I loved you, Elissa. You were my daughter.”

Elissa did her best not to read too much into the past tense of the words. “I know, Mom. I was young and stupid and…” She almost said scared, but quickly changed it. “Confused. I felt a lot of guilt and what Bobby told me actually made sense at the time. Looking back, I know I should have asked more questions.”

Her mother pointed to the empty chair. “Sit down, Bobby. What you did was wrong, but we’ll talk about it later.”

Her brother did as requested, but he looked as if he wished he could disappear. For the first time since hearing his story, Elissa felt compassion for him. What he’d gone through couldn’t have been easy.

“I screwed up big-time,” she said honestly. “I’m so sorry. If I could change what I did, I would.”

Her mother attempted a smile. “It’s all right. You’re home. That’s enough, isn’t it, Kevin?”

Her father nodded slowly, as if he would need more convincing.

Elissa’s throat tightened. Somehow she’d expected open arms and unconditional acceptance. Not questions and a messy past.

Her mother drew in a breath and squared her shoulders. “So, what brought you back to Seattle?”

Interesting question, Elissa thought, not sure how much she wanted to tell her parents. “I got pregnant,” she said, knowing there was no point in hiding that. “That’s why I called home. I was scared…anyway, it all worked out.”

Her mother paled. “You have a baby? I have a grandchild?”

Elissa nodded. “Her name is Zoe. She’s five and about to start kindergarten. She’s wonderful, Mom. Smart and funny and curious about everything.”

“A grandchild? Oh, Kevin.” The tears started again.

“You named her Zoe?” her father asked, his voice a little warmer now.

“After Grandma Zoe.”

“She would have liked that,” he said gruffly.

“Who’s the father?” her mother asked. “I take it you two aren’t together anymore?”

“He’s dead,” she said, knowing there was no point in trying to explain the Neil portion of her life. Sometimes she still didn’t understand it herself.

“But he was a rock singer?” Her father asked the question in the same tone of voice he would use to ask if she recently picked up head lice.

“And a songwriter.” She drew in a deep breath. “I know I made a lot of mistakes. Everyone does—mine just had permanent consequences. But I survived. I have a good life. Zoe and I are happy together. I made it and I guess I owe a lot of that to what you taught me when I was growing up.”

“If you’d respected what we’d taught you—” her father said, but her mother cut him off with a shake of her head.

“What made you come back now?” her mother asked.

Elissa looked her brother. “Bobby hired a private detective to find me. He wanted me to know what he’d done and try to make things right. Once I knew you hadn’t turned your back on me, I wanted to get in touch.”

“Of course we wouldn’t turn our backs on you,” her mother said. “Elissa, you’re our daughter and we love you. We’ll always love you. No matter what.”

Would they? Did they? Then why had the detective who found her been hired by her brother rather than her parents? In L.A. she’d been living off the grid, but in Seattle she had a job, an apartment, credit cards. She wouldn’t have been that hard to track down. Neil did it on a regular basis. But they hadn’t.

She knew in her heart that if something had happened to Zoe, she would never have stopped looking, no matter what. So what had made that different for her parents?

ELISSA SPENT THE REST of the afternoon working on her jewelry and thinking about the meeting with her family. While they’d said all the right things and had expressed interest in meeting Zoe, she couldn’t help feeling that something was off.

Maybe it was her. Maybe her fantasy of the homecoming was so based in perfect television families that she couldn’t deal with reality. Maybe she was wishing for the moon.

Needing someone else’s counsel, Elissa waited until Zoe was asleep, then walked up to Walker’s apartment.

“I understand that we have an undefined relationship and that we both agree that we’re not getting involved,” she said when he’d opened his door. “But I like to think we’re friends, and right now I need someone to talk to, so you’re going to have to suck it up and be that person. Do you have a problem with that?”

He stared at her for a couple of seconds, grinned, then asked, “Do you want me to bring liquor?”

“Sure. If you have it.”

“I’ll be right down.”

He appeared at her front door less than a minute later. She sighed in appreciation at the bottles of vodka and tonic he brought nearly as much as the way he looked in worn jeans and a loose T-shirt. There was something to be said for a winning combination of potentially mind-numbing booze and male eye-candy.

“You have ice?” he asked.

“Always. I even have a lime.”

She led the way into the kitchen where she got out her ice tray, then collected two glasses. Her lime was a na**d little thing, huddling in the fruit basket.

“I used the zest earlier,” she said as she sliced it into eighths. “We had Caribbean tacos for dinner. Lots of citrus.”

He poured, she squeezed, then they silently toasted each other. She took a drink, then sighed as the cold, tart drink settled in her stomach.

“Perfect.”

He led the way into the living room. When they were both settled on the sofa, he asked, “What happened?”

She took another drink. “I went to see my parents today. It was weird. Like being in a time warp. Everything was nearly the same, but it wasn’t. I felt uncomfortable and angry and confused. My mom is different. More emotionally frail. My dad was critical. I wanted a big party to celebrate my homecoming and all they had were questions.”

“In some ways it’s easier not to have to answer to anyone. Now you’re back in their lives. There are going to be explanations and misunderstandings. None of you are the same.”

“I get that. Time has passed. But I feel like everything is my fault. I’m the one who left and set this all in motion.”

“You’re only responsible for yourself.”

“Am I?” She clutched her drink in both hands. “I think my mom had a breakdown or something. That’s my fault.”

“No, it’s not. Her reaction to the situation is her responsibility.”

“Isn’t that like saying if I hit someone with my car, their injuries are their fault because they weren’t fast enough to get out of the way?”

“Not the same at all. Yes, you ran away and there were consequences. But you can only be blamed for some of them. If she lost it because you ran away, then she wasn’t strong in the first place.”

“That’s a little too tidy for me. What I did pushed her over the edge.”

“Why do you feel it necessary to take on all the pain?”

Good question. “Habit, maybe. I’m always the one responsible.”

“With you and Zoe, sure. But not anywhere else. I’m not saying you were right to run away. It was a dumbass teenage response to whatever was going on. But you made it and without a lot of outside help. That’s good. Yes, your parents suffered and you’re the reason. But you didn’t make your mother have a breakdown. There was something already in her that caused that.”

“I hope you’re right. My guilt card is pretty full.” She sipped her drink. “Family stuff is never easy.”

“I know.”

“You never talk about your parents. Just Gloria and the siblings.”

“Sounds like a rock band,” he said. “No parents. They died a long time ago. They weren’t very close. I guess they’d been in love once, but by the time I was aware of their relationship, they were just going through the motions. My dad drank a lot. I think it was to escape from his mother. My mom was quiet—sad, I guess. Gloria made her life hell in more ways than we’ll ever know.”

She hated thinking Walker hadn’t had a wonderful childhood. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I had my brothers and Dani. We were there for each other.”

“That’s something. I can picture the four of you banding together against the evil queen.”

He smiled. “No one ever called her a queen, but there were plenty of other names.”

“I won’t ask.”

“I stayed away from her as much as I could. So did Reid. Cal and Dani tried to make it work with her. Cal even went into the family business out of college. He lasted longer than I would have. Dani got her master’s and came back home, prepared to run the empire. Gloria stuck her in Burger Heaven and never let her out.”

“Why? Dani’s great. Please don’t tell me it’s a woman thing. That only men can run the company.”

Walker hesitated, then said, “Dani’s not a Buchanan. Our mother had an affair with some guy. Dani is the result. We knew, but Dani didn’t. Gloria couldn’t forgive her for not being a Buchanan. It’s the ultimate sin.”

“I’d never have guessed,” Elissa said, shocked by the revelation. “I won’t say anything, of course.”

“I appreciate that. The truth is coming out, but Dani’s still dealing with it herself.”

“Isn’t it funny how one moment in time changes everything? If I’d only come home after Mitch and I broke up. If one of my parents had answered the phone instead of Bobby.”

“If Ben hadn’t pushed me aside and taken that bullet.”

She looked at Walker and saw he hadn’t meant to say that aloud.

“How much do you think about that?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It should have been me.”

“Why? Why do you think it was your time and not his?”

“Ben had something to live for.”

“Don’t you?”

Is that what caused Walker to hold back? He didn’t think he was worthy? She supposed it was possible, but why would he believe that? What had happened to put him on that path?

“I get by,” he said at last.

“You do more than that.”

He shrugged. “I’m running out of Ashleys. What if I don’t find her? I owe him that.”

“You’re trying. He would understand the effort.”

Walker finished his drink, then looked at her. “Ben was like a puppy. He was always sniffing around, wanting to be friends. He wanted to hang out together, do things.”

She read the truth in his eyes. “You didn’t.”

“He was a kid. We had nothing in common.”

“You feel guilty.”

“Maybe,” he admitted.

“Is finding Ashley going to make up for what you didn’t do while he was alive?”

“No,” he said simply, “but it might let me sleep at night.”