Page 16 of Ranger's Wildflower
A man stood near the bar with dark hair and a half-finished beer in his hand. Mid-thirties maybe. Broad shoulders.
Familiar.
Too familiar.
Recognition spread across his face first.
Then satisfaction.
“Well,” he drawled. “I’ll be damned.”
My stomach dropped so fast it hurt.
Not here.
Please not here.
“Tessa Bloom.”
The room kept moving around us.
Chairs scraped.
Someone laughed near the kitchen.
But it all sounded far away suddenly.
My fingers dug into the flower stems hard enough to bend them.
“Do I know you?” I asked evenly.
Too evenly.
His smile widened like he heard the strain underneath it anyway.
“I know prison didn’t erase me from your memory after six years.”
My pulse stumbled.
I took one careful step backward.
“I think you’ve mistaken me for somebody else.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” His voice rose slightly. Loud enough now. “You look exactly like the girl who killed her best friend.”
The words sliced straight through me.
My lungs locked.
Somewhere, glass clinked against wood behind the bar.
Nobody talked.
Not anymore.
“She confessed to it too,” he continued, glancing around the tavern like he had an audience now. “Wrapped a car around a tree. Killed the girl beside her. Whole town knew about it.”
Every eye in the room turned toward me.
