When she returned to the living room, she brought the invalid a fresh glass of water and a warm washcloth to wipe his hands, then knelt at the hearth. Once the fire was tended, she fully intended to sink into a nightlong coma. The blaze was going strong, but she needed to poke the fattest logs, tidying up the bed of ashes, add on two more slow-burning logs.

“The way you talked to the sheriff, you seemed to know him.” Teague, darn him, sounded wide awake.

“George Webster? I went to school with him.” She hung up the poker and turned around. “He followed me around my whole senior year with his tongue hanging out.”

There, she’d won a grin. His eyes tracked her as she pushed off her shoes and shook out a blanket. “I’ll bet a lot of boys followed you with their tongues hanging out,” he said wryly.

“A few,” she admitted. “What kills me now is realizing how immature I was. I wanted the guys to like me. I wanted a reputation for being wild and fun. And whether that was dumb or not, I had two younger sisters, both of whom looked up to me. I should have been thinking about being a role model for them, and instead…”

“Instead what?”

“Instead…” She curled up in the overstuffed recliner and wrapped the blanket around her. God knew why she was talking. Probably because she was too darn tired to think straight. “Instead there was only one thing in my head in high school. Getting out. I couldn’t wait to grow up and leave White Hills and do something exciting. I was never in real trouble-not like trouble with the police. But someone was always calling my mom on me. My skirt was too short. My makeup was too ‘artsy.’ I’d skip English to hang out in the Art Room. I never did anything big wrong, but I can see now it was all just symbolic little stuff to show how trapped I felt in a small town and how much I wanted to leave.”

“Yet now you’re back.”

“Only for a short time. I just need a few weeks to catch my breath before moving on again.” Even though her eyes were drooping, she could hear the ardent tone in her voice. She so definitely wasn’t staying. A few hours back in White Hills, and already she’d been caught up in a blizzard and a guy problem. It was a sign. She should never have tried coming home. Even for a month. Even knowing she’d been pretty darn desperate.