CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The next morning, Saturday, Leah attempted to sleep off her misery hangover. The thought of Sebastian, Tess, and Rudy being deleted from her life all at the same time?
Unconscionable.
Sadly, life dictated that when you wanted to sleep to avoid reality, you could not. She woke at 6:02 and couldn’t fall back to sleep.
Burrowing under her covers, she tried to escape into Han Solo’s world by watching movies on her laptop.
It didn’t work.
Eventually she talked herself into making breakfast, though she wasn’t hungry. Then she talked herself into showering and dressing to go hiking, though hiking didn’t appeal, either.
Around eleven, she finished blow-drying her hair and padded to Dylan’s bedroom door. “You awake?”
He answered with a grunt.
“Blueberry muffins are on the counter,” she told him. “But if your tastes tend more toward the savory on this fine morning, we also have enough chicken noodle soup to soothe a thousand head colds.”
“I’ll eat the muffins.”
“Okay. Fair warning—we’re out of orange juice.”
As she was crossing the living room, her peripheral vision registered movement through her front window. She glanced toward it just in time to see Sebastian come to a solemn stop on her walkway.
Their eyes met and a crescendo of need, love, caution, joy, andpain exploded inside. Why had he come? To make amends? To say good-bye?
She loved him. However, her elation warred with practicality.Don’t get your hopes up, she told herself.You are a woman of logic and reason.Stay logical. Stayreasonable.
She pulled on a pink athletic jacket, stepped outside, and gestured for Sebastian to follow her. They came to a stop on the patch of driveway in front of the closed mouth of the garage. This position would give them at least partial privacy from Dylan, should he rouse himself from his room.
Sebastian wore a severe black wool coat over an untucked white business shirt and dark jeans. The hue of the coat matched the hue of his hair. His bruise had turned purple.
Behind him, the sky widened, hazy and pewter. The ice-tipped breeze paled his unsmiling face. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Obviously, the observant doctor could tell that she was off her game. “Physically, I’m fine. My bruise was less severe than yours, because it’s almost gone. Emotionally, though, I’m as unhappy as I’ve ever been. I’ve hardly slept the last two nights.”
“Why?”
“The state of our relationship. But also because I discovered the identity of Bonnie O’Reilly.”
“And?”
“She’s my friend Tess. They’re ... one and the same.”
“What?”
She described how she’d come to realize Bonnie was Tess. “A woman I’ve trusted for years switched me at birth. She took Jonathan Brookside’s baby—me—and gave me to Erica and Todd Montgomery. Which was a terrible thing to do. Yet, she did it for reasons I can somewhat understand. In summation, I don’t know what to think—”
“Leah.” Sebastian nodded toward the corner of the garage.
She swung in the direction he’d indicated and saw Dylan standing there.
Dylan. Had heard her.
Undiluted horror washed through her.
Dylan’s face leached white. His car keys dangled from his hand. “I was going to get orange juice.”
