The driver slowed when Owen raised a hand.
“Stop here,” he said quietly.
When the vehicle eased to the curb, Owen leaned closer to the window. His breath stalled in his chest before he could even exhale.
It was her. Tess Morgan, the woman he had once known intimately for a single night ten years ago, a night he had never forgotten no matter how fiercely he tried. Her hair clung to her face, soaked with rain. Her clothes were thin, worn, unfit for the cold air that swept through Denver that evening. Next to her stood two children, both shivering, both trying to protect themselves from the storm with nothing but their small bodies pressed together.
Owen felt his heartbeat crash against his ribs. Memories rose with a speed that left him dizzy. The warmth of Tess’s laughter in that old lake house. The way she spoke of books she wanted to read someday. The tenderness of a touch he had not expected. He had thought she would remain a beautiful, haunting fragment from a summer he believed had ended cleanly.
He rolled down the window a few inches, allowing the rain scented wind to rush inside.
“Tess,” he murmured.