“I don’t make a habit of anonymous sex,” he said. “And it’s March.”
“Which one?”
“Amy.” The quiet reproach in his voice shamed me.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t... Not now. You don’t need this now.”
“I care about you,” he said. “I’ve always cared. About you.”
He did care. And I loved him. Had always loved him.
“What can I do?” I whispered.
Trey took my hand. “You’re doing it. You’re here. That means a lot.”
My heart dissolved. “We’ll always be here for you.”I’ll always be here for you.
He smiled. “The March sisters’ motto. ‘Whatever happens, we have each other’—Jo says that.”
Her ghost rose between us. “It wouldn’t bother me,” she’d said. He’s like our brother, she said.
Who did he have to comfort him and care for him? Besides his grandfather. Besides us.
His thumb rubbed a circle on the back of my hand.
“You should call your grandmother,” I said. “The one in Florida.”
“I have a better idea.” He set down his coffee. Smiled. “Call it a plan.”
He tugged lightly on my hand.Mistake, my mind screamed as he drew me closer. But I didn’t move.
His mouth brushed slowly over mine. His hand cupped my jaw with exquisite care. I knew he was using me for comfort. For distraction. And I didn’t mind. Our lips tasted, tested, clung, finding the perfect fit.
I was older now and wiser. As long as I didn’t expect anything more, I could give him this. I could have him, this much of him, for at least a little while.
I pulled back and smiled. “So, tell me. What’s the rest of your plan?”
CHAPTER 15
Abby
I was eight years old when my sister Elizabeth died, drowned in the river that ran along the bottom of our property.
Not that I realized it at the time. For two days, all my parents would tell me was that Bitsy had “gone to the hospital.” I learned later that her body had been put on life support until the doctors finally, mercifully, convinced my mother to pull the plug. All I knew then was that my sister never came home. I lost a playmate I could never replace, a part of me I would never recover.
I learned early on not to bother my already-devastated parents. “Don’t fuss,” my mother would say when I cried or acted out, and I did my best to be a good girl. To make up, somehow, for the loss of my sister. My parents’ grief, after all, was worse than mine.
But I never got over hating the hospital—that place of no return. When I had my babies, when I had surgery on my spine, even visiting poor James Laurence after his stroke, I had to steel myself to overcome my childish fear.
It was a relief to get home.
The security lights flicked on as we drove up.
“I’m going to check on the goats,” I said to Beth as we got out of the truck. “Do you want to make us some tea?”
Beth—named for my dead sister—hesitated. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go straight to bed.”
I studied her thin face in the floodlights. Bethie, my Sensitive Child. I’d never known how to comfort her. “You did good today.”
