“Making conversation.” Stephen reached for an apple slice, then opened the caramel cup and dipped in his slice.
“He lives in New York and I live here.”
Stephen slipped a quick blue gaze past her. “I know this business between us is not pleasant, Corina.”
“Not pleasant?” She rammed the knife through another crisp apple. Not pleasant was a speck in her rearview. “Not pleasant is a toothache, a paper cut, losing your iPhone. This between us is horrid. I wanted to hate you, you know. By the way, whoever sent the roses, shouldn’t have. Gigi Beaumont hovered over my desk like a hungry hawk all morning, wondering who sent them.”
“Tell her they’re from your ole chap.”
“I’m not going to lie to her. And I’m not going to give her one tiny wink into my life. Who do you think sent them?”
“I’ve no idea. But believe me, I’ll inquire when I return home. It could’ve only been one of a very few people.”
“When do you leave?”
“Sunday.”
His answer hung between them.
“My condition still stands,” she said.
“As does my answer. I don’t understand why you can’t see reason—”
“Reason? Nothing in the past five and a half years has made a lick of sense. Not you leaving me, not my parents falling apart. In some ways, Carlos’s death is the only thing that does make sense. He went to war and men die in war. But how he died? That doesn’t make sense. Why the secrecy? And this dealie between you and me? It’s my only bargaining chip. The only way to understand why I found myself so very alone.”
He swallowed and turned away, saying nothing.
“Someday I want to drive home to Marietta and say, ‘Mama, Daddy, your son didn’t die in vain.’ ” Corina stared at the bowl of apples, her eyes welling up, the moaning wind driving the storm’s first raindrops against the windows.
They’d never eat all of these slices. She tugged open a drawer and took out a baggie.
Stephen pointed to his foot. “I should elevate my ankle.”
“Do you need ice?”
“No, thanks. Just elevation.”
She pointed to one of the recliners. “Help yourself.”
“Corina,” he said slowly, hesitating, debating his thoughts. “Your brother died a hero.”
She peered at Stephen for a long moment, choosing her words, ready to demand more details, insisting he knew more than he claimed. She felt in her gut that he did. But instead of demanding more, a confession rose from her heart. “Do you know what I think about?”
He shook his head, still standing between the kitchen and living room, his dark hair flying all over, his eyes set, his jaw taut.
“Did I love him well?”
“Love him well?” Stephen said. “What do you mean? I never knew two more devoted, adoring siblings. I’d say you loved him well.”
The conversation stirred Corina’s hidden, deeper emotions. “But did I really?”
The notion of loving well first came to Corina as she wept on the floor of an old chapel outside Marietta, right after Carlos’s funeral, right after she’d called Stephen for the umpteenth time with no answer and her shattered heart feared she’d lost him too.
Lord, how can I live without them?
“There was a night, right before he shipped out,” she began, intentional, weighing her words, barely opening the door of her heart to the prince. “Carlos came by my apartment. You were at the base, doing something. We weren’t married yet, of course, but in love.” She cleared her throat, breathed back the tears. “I was dying to tell him about us, that we’d gotten serious. Carlos and I never kept secrets from each other. Plus, you two were friends, so I thought, why not bring him in on it? You were my first real love.
“But it seemed he had something on his mind, so I made some tea, put out biscuits, and waited for him to get to his point. Oh, that boy could take forever to get it out, you know? So I started doing laundry, cleaning up dishes, answering a text from another freelance reporter . . .
