He took her hands and held them firmly. “I think your uncle came at you with that letter opener and you struggled with him. I think your fear gave you enough strength to protect yourself and our baby. I think that during the struggle, the letter opener got turned on him or he fell on it, I’m not sure which. I think it was an accident or self-defense.”
She pulled her hands away and backed up. “You think I killed my uncle?”
Brow furrowing, he nodded. “Yes. Of course I do.”
“And then allowed you to take the blame for me?”
“Well—”
She felt all the blood drain out of her face.
“Liz—”
“I didn’t kill him,” she cried, hurt beyond bearing that he could think she would betray him.
He looked as pale and stunned as she felt. He swore under his breath and stared at her.
“I didn’t kill him,” she repeated.
Chapter Two
Alex swallowed so hard she could see his throat work. His eyes narrowed dangerously. Their stares stretched on and on until Liz finally sat down on the ottoman. “I don’t understand. You confessed. Now you’re telling me you didn’t murder my uncle?”
“I didn’t murder your uncle.”
“But you thought I did?”
“Yes, I did,” he said, and closed his eyes. She could only imagine what he was thinking and feeling.
“I went to tell Devon he could give his blasted money to a flea circus for all I cared,” he added, opening his eyes and searching her face. “I wanted him to leave us alone. Don’t you think I know how hard it’s been for you to keep peace with him, to do things his way, how impossible it’s been? But telling you to divorce me, to ‘get rid’ of our baby if you ever wanted to see a dime of his money—when he said those things, he burned his bridges as far as I was concerned and I wanted him to know it.
“He was in the den, crumpled on the floor in front of his desk, your scarf tangled in his fingers. He was warm. My EMT training kicked in and I felt for a pulse, I thought maybe—but he was already dead.”
“Oh, Alex.”
“And then Sheriff Kapp showed up. He’d received a telephone tip that something was going down at Devon Hiller’s house. He asked me to come in with him, to answer questions. I still wasn’t saying much of anything, just that I’d found Devon like that but I had his blood on my sleeve and apparently I even touched the handle of the letter opener because they found my prints on it. The sheriff started insinuating things about you and all I could think about was the murder scene. I’d found the scarf but had I missed something else you left? I confessed there’d been a struggle and he’d fallen. The sheriff was anxious to wrap it all up in record time and he was absolutely sure he had his man.”
“You wouldn’t let me help you.”
“I wanted the investigation to begin and end with me. I thought you would understand what I was doing, why I had to do it. Your silence confirmed you did.”
“My silence?” Liz said, angry now. “What choice did you give me but silence?”
He shook his head again.
“You didn’t give me a chance to explain.”
“Explain what? How mad you were? How mad we both were? You and I were prime suspects. Everyone at the house that night heard you threaten your uncle, heard you tell him you’d had enough, that you weren’t going to take it anymore.”
“I meant I was going to quit my job and stop subjecting myself to his manipulations.”
“Dozens of bystanders only heard a threat. You were pregnant. You’d had a miscarriage a few months before and I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”
“So you told them you did it.”
“For once, my family history came in handy. Nobody ever really expected a Chase man to stay out of trouble for long. I don’t think it strained anyone’s imagination to picture me as a killer. Logic said it had to be one of us.”
“But, Alex, it wasn’t one of us.”
He stared at her. “No, it wasn’t.”
Liz felt her heart thump wildly. Alex reached out and took her hand, kissed her palm, and folded her hand in his. His fingers flicked over her bare finger, absent of her thick gold wedding band. “No,” he repeated, “it wasn’t.”
“You’re innocent.”
“So are you.” His relief was palpable and for the first time she understood the depth of the burden he’d been carrying. He’d thought she’d killed her uncle, he knew he hadn’t. He’d given up his freedom and his chance to know his child—all for her. He’d thought she’d been willing to repay this sacrifice by leaving him to suffer the consequences alone. And then she’d asked him for a divorce.
She felt herself lean toward him, she felt him leaning toward her. What came now, a kiss, reconciliation, everything back to the way it was? She pulled away.
His eyes demanded an explanation but she didn’t have one to offer. What he’d done was protect her and she felt humbled. But he hadn’t trusted her. She’d thought they were a team, but Alex hadn’t included her in a decision that would forever change the course of both of their lives—and that of their unborn child. Quite the opposite, he’d gone out of his way to exclude her.
His distrust of the sheriff was old news. It reminded her that Alex had learned, within the boundaries of his highly dysfunctional family, to go it alone. A stint in the army and the years at the fire station had tempered his fierce independent streak so that he’d become comfortable working as part of a team with men he respected. She’d assumed that quality would extend into their marriage, but he’d jumped to a terrible and wrong conclusion this time and he hadn’t trusted her when it counted.
That hurt.
More to the heart of the matter, he’d also implicated himself so thoroughly that it might never be made right because Alex was correct—the whole community had reacted to his arrest with a knowing shake of their collective head.
Another Chase man gone wrong.
Only this one hadn’t.
Alex stood, and extending a hand, helped Liz to her feet. “Are you okay now?” he asked softly. “Is the baby all right?”
“We’re both fine.”
“You must know I love you—”
This time she held up a hand to silence him. Her feelings were like tumbleweeds, roaming here and there and everywhere, rootless and brittle. “I can’t talk anymore tonight,” she mumbled.
“You’re exhausted,” he said, his voice filled with concern. Taking her hand, he looked at her with eyes so deep and midnight blue she yearned to get lost in them the way she had in the past, lost and found at the same time. He whispered, “You go to bed.”
“What about you?”
He glanced around the room then back at her. “I need to think.”
She felt a consuming shudder rack her body from the inside out and knew she needed time alone to absorb all this startling new information. For six months she’d thought him a murderer. And worse in some ways, she’d thought he had stopped loving her, stopped needing her. These feelings had never seemed, well, right, but for six months, she’d told herself that her feelings, especially when it came to Alex, were unreliable. All that didn’t change in an instant.
She picked