“Are you out of your mind? Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“I’m willing to lie because it’s best for Tony, but all the lies got us into this mess.” Gut-sucking tragedy, she meant. “Wouldn’t you have divorced Faith and been civil if she and Will had told us the truth?”
“After Tony came?” He started up the deck stairs. “I’d have killed her and buried her in the cellar, because I’d never have seen Tony again. And neither she nor Will would have believed they were denying me anything.”
“Stop.” If she hadn’t known him better than she knew even her own parents, she might have believed in his threats. She grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. “I know you. Don’t talk like that. You are not that kind of man.”
“I want to be.” Unshed tears weighted his voice. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, refusing to believe in the bad man he was trying to become.
He held her off for a moment, and then his arms came around her, almost too tight. Neither of them spoke, and she listened to his rough breathing. She’d been as angry as he was. It felt like sporting a cement foundation on your chest.
“Nothing hurts as much now that we’re together,” she said.
“I’m not so sure.”
“Because I didn’t tell you? If I could have asked you if you wanted to know, maybe I would have gone straight to you, instead of to Middleburg. I doubt it though. Will seemed surprised I was so hurt. Faith tried to call me a couple of times, but I never gave her a chance to speak. I kept hoping they’d realize how wrong they were, and they’d break off their affair. You’d never have to know.”
He looked down at her with his stranger’s face. “Do you believe that?”
She tried. If she could make herself believe, maybe she could convince him. But she was done with being an idiot, and he’d never let anyone past his suspicions.
“No.” She stepped away from him. “And I’m cold.”
“We don’t have to pretend with each other,” he said.
“They pretended to love us for years. That’s why I hate the lies. I was blind to Will, and I don’t want to be the same as he was.”
“He must have loved you once.”
“Because Faith loved you?”
He took her hand, but she’d bet it was an unconscious response. “Maybe she only used me to get close to Will. You were already engaged by the time she and I met.”
“Hold on.” Alarm bells rang in her head. “We can’t let them make us think we’re not worth loving, and I won’t turn into one of those women who refuses to trust because one man cheated on me.” Another lie. She hadn’t fully trusted Will since he’d first strayed. She tugged her hand out of Ben’s, more interested in standing on her own two feet.
Ben let her go. “I’m more worried about being so angry I make Tony forget how to be happy.”
“You’re a good dad. You won’t do that.”
“Thanks, Isabel.” He took the first two stairs in one stride. “I needed that.”
He seemed to feel better, but she noticed the beginnings of a headache and a thick coating of ice in her shoes. Too many moral questions to ponder around here.
“What are you going to do in the morning?” he asked.
“Start on the house.” A labor that would have unmanned Hercules. “I have to sort our things.”
“Let me help. Make a list of what you want to keep and we’ll go through the rest.”
“You don’t owe me, Ben.” She caught up on numb feet. “The ghosts in that house are mine to face.”
Ghosts of Will doing his finest imitation of a loving husband. Faith—with whom she’d played dolls and dress-up, made Christmas and birthday presents for their parents, shared secrets and fights— Faith, taking her place.
Isabel fought an urge to wrap her arms around Ben and bury her face in his shoulder. She needed courage to face the home that had no doubt become her sister’s over the past three months.
CHAPTER THREE
ISABEL WOKE, groggy from lack of sleep. Tony’s crying pulled her to her feet, but then she heard Ben’s comforting voice, and Tony laughed. Isabel sank back, dragging a pillow over her face.
It all came back. Her sister and her husband had found the love Will had apparently never been able to feel for her. They’d had Tony together. They’d run away, only Tony surviving in the wreckage they’d left behind.
Tony. Her nephew. Her husband’s child. Leaving would be so easy.
Except she loved Tony with a mother’s heart. None of this was his fault, and Will had already ruined enough of her life. She might never learn to forgive Faith, but Will’s falseness wasn’t about to destroy her love for Tony.
She tossed the pillow toward the headboard and climbed out of bed. First, a shower that felt more like baptism into a crazy, borrowed existence. Then she put on jeans and a snug green sweater and began to unpack the bag she’d left in the middle of the floor last night. Thank goodness, she’d brought enough clothing to take her through selling her house.
She was hanging her things in the closet when Ben knocked on the door. “You awake?” he asked softly from outside.
“Come on in.” She looked for Tony, but Ben came alone.
He held out her cell phone. “Leah.”
Great. One free breath would have been nice before she had to face her former mother-in-law. “How’d you explain my staying here? She doesn’t know—”
He put his hand over the phone. “She knows you were separated. Why would you stay in that house? And why are you trying to protect Will?”
“He was still her son.”
Ben looked disgusted as he passed the cell.
Isabel replaced his hand with hers, blocking their voices again. “What did you say?”
“Hello, and that I’d find you.”
Maybe she was overreacting, but she wasn’t used to this angrier version of Ben. “I’m sorry. She— I know she can be awful, but she loved Will.”
“As long as he stayed in line.”
“She loved him as much as she can love anyone.” She brought the phone toward her ear.
“Wait.” Ben held out his hand. “Tony’s downstairs. He must have seen you last night because he keeps calling for you.”
“I’ll come down.” Armed with her last ounce of nerve.
“Thanks. He’ll feel better after he knows you’re here.”
She hoped Ben was right. They might be setting Tony up for another loss, because she had to find her own life soon. She couldn’t linger forever on the edges of Ben and Tony’s.
She spoke into the phone. “Leah?”
“I thought you’d hung up. What took so long?”
“Ben and I were talking about Tony. How do you feel now?”
“Exhausted. I know people are going to talk because I didn’t show up, but I can’t manage to get out of bed yet. Are you going to visit me, Isabel? I’d like to hear about my son’s service.”
Leah must be delirious. “You want me?” Despite her claims to be Isabel’s second mother, Leah had treated her as if Will had married the hired