Two weeks passed in a blur of routine. Valentina threw herself into her job at the bookstore, took over the tiny community garden plot behind her trailer, and slowly, deliberately, built a life that was entirely hers.
She saw Duke occasionally—at Rosie’s, at the grocery store, once at Ruby’s when she went for drinks with Patty and Sandy. Each time, he was polite, distant, respecting the boundaries she’d set. Each time, it took everything in her not to cross the distance between them, to tell him she’d made a mistake.
But she hadn’t. The time alone was clarifying, necessary. For perhaps the first time in her adult life, Valentina was making choices based solely on what she wanted, not what someone else expected.
She started riding again, borrowing Sandy’s ancient Yamaha to practice the s
