“What do you mean?” Of course I want to fix it. I’m responsible for this, dammit. Without this marriage, none of this would have happened.I need a drink.“D’you like bourbon?”
“Not really.” She frowns. “You go ahead. I’ll meet you in the… what’s the name of the room at the front?”
“The parlor.”
She giggles and leaves with a finger wave, sashaying with exaggeration. “I’ll meet you in the parlor,dahling.”
My gaze goes to her ass—where else?— and my mood improves incrementally. When I join her, there’s a fire roaring and little lamps lit here and there. I haven’t been in this room in forever—I’m glad chimney sweeps are scheduled on the regular. “Where’d you find the firewood?” I ask as I set both our drinks on a side table.
“Oh, there was an old chair that worked out just fine,” she answers, making me startle. But my gaze darts to a neat woodpile on the side of the fireplace.
“I brought this in this morning. That’s okay, right?”
“You’re the lady of the house,” I say, my dick slightly twitching at the words—and what the fuck is that about? I hand her the whiskey sour I made for her. “Let me know what you think.” I hope she likes it. Bourbon has a way of mellowing you; it’s a shame for her to miss out on that.
She takes a sip. “It’s really good, thank you.” Then she lets out an airy laugh. “Look at us, all proper, sipping whiskey in front of a fire in the—the what now? Theparlor?”
I nod, liking the way the flames dance on her skin and make her hair look ablaze. “We look like we’ve been married fifteen years.”
“Dahling, Nanny said Noah the third threw a tantrum. Whatever shall we do?” she says in a mock British accent.
I nearly choke on my drink. “Noah the third?”
“Obviously,” she says, swinging her foot, looking at the fire. “Your father was Noah, right, although everyone called him Mac?” Her voice is soft, as if she needs to be careful.
I take a long gulp of bourbon. “How d’you know that?”
She lifts an eyebrow. “We’re married, remember? I did my homework.”
Shit. I should do mine.
“That’s not true. It was in his obituary,” she says even softer. “D’you miss him a lot?”
A vise tightens around my stomach, memories flashing, bitter snippets in my soul. Dad becoming a different person after Mom died. Dad losing interest in us, in his businesses, in Emerald Creek. And then meeting Gail. “I missed him a lot after our mother died. He… he checked out. His passing was a shock but… we’d already lost him. He wasn’t even living here anymore, in the end.”
“That must have been so tough,” she says softly. A ball forms in my throat. How nice would it be, to have someone to share the burden with?
Eager to change the conversation, I ask, “So—what happened back there?”
eighteen
Willow
Iraise my gaze to Noah, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by his concern. This should not be happening right now. I shouldn’t be opening up to him.
Not if I’m to protect my heart. Keep myself from falling harder.
“Willow,” he insists softly, his hand reaching for mine, then quickly retracting as if he remembers at the last minute that this marriage is fake.
His concern for me isn’t.
The heat of the drink he made for me fills my lungs as I take a sip. “We don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things and she needs…” I take a deep breath. Understanding of what’s going on with Mom is crystallizing as I talk to Noah. “She can’t help the way she is. Sometimes it seems that she just needs to bring me down. And other times, it’s like she’s trying to replace all the times we didn’t have together, but…” I turn my eyes to him and find his gaze on me, deep and understanding “…it’s too late now.”
He frowns. “It’s never too late to repair a relationship,” he says quickly. “She’s sick and…” His words hang in the air as he struggles to finish his sentence. I know what he means. That he wishes he had more time with both his parents.
“Mom was not… she was not a model parent like yours.” Understatement of the year. I still remember hoping she’d never visit me in Emerald Creek, so I didn’t have to face the other kids’ curious stares.
“It doesn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt just as much to lose her.”
