After Natalie made Elena promise that she’d come to the protest, Elena jumped in the shower, dressed, and met the nurse downstairs to explain what was going on with her mother. The nurse was accustomed to all things Alzheimer’s and nodded, giving a vague look of apology and empathy. “She’ll be all right,” she promised. “I’ll be here when she wakes up.”
As Elena left the house, jangling her keys, her phone rang with a call from James. She leaped into the driver’s seat, answered, and said, “Are you going?”
He laughed that good-natured laugh of his, a laugh that seemed to live in Elena’s heart, and said, “I was going to ask you to pick me up.”
“I’m on my way.” Elena knew that James didn’t like to drive very much, not after what had happened to his son. This brought more meaning to how they’d first met, when James had offered to drive Elena to the hospital. His kindness had outrivaled his fear.
Elena drove the few blocks to James’s but got out when he popped out of his house so that she could kiss and hug him properly. His heart pounded behind his Carhartt coat. He was prepared for a chilly afternoon at the cove. The fight had been going on for decades, but they were ready to join in. And it had all begun with Elena’s article.
When they pulled up to the cove, they found more than 100 protestors gathered along the water, lining up near the forest, and staggering out across the sidewalk and road. Many people had signs, demanding that the cove remain public, that it remain “ours.” Elena parked her mother’s car, got out, and hurried over just as a scientist in environmental protection concluded his speech about the importance of the Cranberry Cove ecosystem and what would be lost if they let “another useless country club” be built there. “We can’t let the wealthy walk all over us,” he said. The crowd before him cheered.
Elena’s heart skipped a beat. Peering out beyond the little makeshift stage, she thought she spotted Henrietta and Judge Baxter Drury, staring at them from their awful houses, their faces etched with anger. Their anger was proof that something they were doing was working, at least. Maybe the mayor had gotten cold feet. Perhaps the construction crew had pointed to the town’s anger and said they couldn’t lose the money they’d earn from the greater county. We’d be hated, they might have said. We’d lose so much more than what you’re offering us.
Corruption could only talk as far as the money went, Elena knew.
Soon, Natalie of all people took the stage and made an impassioned speech about Cranberry Cove, its surrounding beauty, and her fear that the country would be given over to people who don’t care “about those of us who live our ordinary lives in a community like Millbrook.” Her eyes glinted with powerful tears. She met Elena’s gaze in the audience and raisedher fist to prove her power. Several other Millbrook residents raised theirs in solidarity.
It wasn’t for another ten minutes that Elena realized James wasn’t beside her any longer. She felt a jolt of fear and hurried out of the crowd, scanning faces, looking for him. Finally, she spotted him off to the side, near the forest, his hands on his hips, his face reflecting shock. He was in conversation with a woman Elena had never seen before —a woman in her forties who looked worn-out, sorrowful, and angry, so angry. She spoke as if she and James had known each other for a long time. Elena thought immediately,This is his ex-wife. Elena was overwhelmed with the desire to help him, to protect him. But did she have the right?
Curiosity got the better of her. Drawing around the crowd, she got as close as she could, then caught James’s eye. James stitched his brows together, just as his ex-wife said, “Don’t ask me questions you don’t want to know the answer to.” Elena couldn’t fathom ever speaking to James like that. She wondered if this was a result of all they’d been through, all the horror they’d seen. Suddenly, the ex-wife threw up her hands and left James behind, returning up the hill to one of the houses of Cranberry Cove.
James looked hollowed out. Elena hurried over, wrapped her arms around him, and asked, “Are you all right?”
James shook violently for thirty seconds, unable to speak. Elena slid her hand up and down his back and listened to his heart, urging it to calm. Beside them, the protestors continued to cry out. But Elena felt the urge to guide James back to her mother’s car, to tuck him into bed and tell him it was all going to be fine. It would be. It had to be.
“I think she was cheating on me,” James said finally. “With Sam.”
Elena ducked her head back to look at him.
“There was so much distance between us,” he said. “After the accident. We separated, in a way, even before we discussed separating. I can’t blame her for finding love somewhere else.”
Elena couldn’t believe how kindhearted this man was. He couldn’t even blame his ex-wife for cheating on him.
Elena didn’t know what to say.
“But it means she’s been ‘with’ Sam for a few years now,” James continued, his eyes furtive. He turned to follow Bethany’s track back to the mansions at Cranberry Cove. “I can’t help but think she might know something about the corruption at the heart of this. I can’t help but think she owes me an explanation.”
Elena squeezed his hands. “You’d do that?”
James looked formidable, like a man who’d been through hell and back. “It’s not just for you, and it’s not just for Millbrook. I need to know, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was the weekend before Christmas that Bethany came home for the first time since she left. James had cleaned the house front to back, mopping, dusting, reorganizing, and he’d made a lasagna, one of her favorite foods. He wasn’t doing it because he wanted her to fall back in love with him. He knew that the bridge had collapsed long ago. But—despite the corruption, despite Sam, despite the way she’d broken his heart—this had once been Bethany’s home. They’d picked out the house together twelve years ago. They’d helped their young son decorate his room upstairs. It mattered, even if it didn’t matter to anyone else.
When Bethany rang the bell, James hurried to the foyer, cleared his throat, and unlocked the door. It felt bizarre to unlock the door for his wife. She carried a bottle of red—a brand he’d always liked. She remembered. He wondered where Sam thought she was tonight.
“Hi,” Bethany said tentatively. “Thanks for letting me come over.”
“It’s a pleasure to have you,” James said, stepping back.
“I smell lasagna.” She bit her lip as tears formed in her eyes, tears she quickly blinked away. “Sorry. I’m going to keep it together. I just haven’t been here since…”
“I know.” James took the bottle of wine and led her to the kitchen, which he’d had refurbished and redecorated the winter after she’d left.
“Wow,” she said, impressed. “Did, um, a woman help you decorate this?”
James laughed as he filled the glasses. “No!”
