She was silent so long that I looked at her. Her face wore yearning, though I didn’t know whether it was for Ben the man, or simply for unburdening herself of secrets that had chafed in her veins for too long—and, omigod, did I know how unburdening felt. Discussing the accident and Lily and loss with Edward these past few weeks, breaking down with him the other night, even broaching the forbidden with my mother—tears came to my eyes just thinking about it.
And here was Edward now, reassuring Grace. “We’ll hold him to it. But he’s right about containing this. We can’t do that if we don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
We. I loved him a little more each time he said that word, but my fear also grew. In hosting this meeting, he would be implicated if things went wrong. My shit would become his, again. I had never wanted that.
Seeing my tears, he shot me a silvery stare. Daring me to question his loyalty? Punishing me for the mess?
Unable to decide which, I refocused on Grace, who was going from face to face, bewildered, outnumbered, overpowered. My eyes cleared; I slid an arm through hers. I knew what it was like to be alone in a crowd of people with your life upended and no one at your back. In that instant, I didn’t care about Shanahan. Being a friend in time of need was what I wanted the new me to be.
“I can’t go back,” she whispered, begging me to understand. “He’ll kill me. As soon as he became a somebody, he wanted me gone, so my leaving with Chris meant nothing to him. He already had a new family.Thatstarted while we were still married. Smearing me was to justify his own infidelity. And the custody battle? It was just a power thing. That’s what it’s all about with him—power and ego.”
“The problem,” I whispered back, although the three men were close enough to hear, “is that you can’t keep denying it, Grace. You’ve been found.”
Her eyes darkened with momentary resolve. “I’ll disappear again.”
I remembered our discussion of places to go if not Devon, and understood now why she preferred to stay east of the Mississippi. She had most liked the idea of New York, where she might easily get lost. But starting over now wasn’t so easy. Totally aside from his legal issues, her son was no longer two.
“Is that what you want for Chris?” I asked, and for an instant, she seemed to stop breathing.
“Low blow,” she finally said. She looked crushed.
“I know. I’m sorry.” But I wasn’t.I can’t go back,she had just said. Butif she didn’t go back, if she didn’t finally tell someone the truth of the past, she could never be whole.
She?
Me.
I was barely grasping that—when her eyes flew back to mine. Her face was the color of chalk. She clamped a hand over her mouth, and her upper body convulsed.
“Bathroom,” I murmured for the sake of the others, but when I put an arm around her shoulder and started to steer her there, firm hands eased me aside and took over.
***
I’m not sure what Ben said to Grace after she was done being sick. When they came out, her skin was newly washed, makeup nearly gone, and the soft brown hair around her face was damp. She remained pale but seemed marginally composed.
Composure was an act, of course. Grace was good at acting. You had to be, when you were in your thirties and restarting life with a new identity. By the time thirteen years, or four, had passed, you were a pro. You looked poised; you looked calm. You looked like you knew exactly where you were and what you were doing, like you had reached this point in a perfectly natural progression, even though inside you were terrified.
Grace had to be beyond terrified. I could see it in the way she went straight to the large leather sofa and sank into its corner as her legs gave out. Oh, I knew the corner gambit, too. A corner meant you were shielded on two sides—three, if you sat with your back to the seam, as Grace did, so that the only exposed side was your front.
Edward produced bottles of water from a low cabinet. He gave her one and put the rest on the long, low table.
Jay crouched beside the sofa, his fingers curled on its leather arm. “You don’t have to do this,” he told her quietly.
She nodded, but when she looked back at me, her eyes said she did. That look also held an apology, regret for what she had to say, fear that itwould change everything, and it might. She might lose her son, her name, her job, her home. But not our friendship. Shanahan or not, that wasn’t in play. Needing her to know it, I joined her on the sofa, sitting close with a leg folded under me so that I faced her.
“Tell us,” I urged, and for a minute, seeing a last flash of panic in those copper eyes, I feared she might throw up again. But she stayed where she was, swallowed, and began.
She had met Carter Brandt eighteen years before. She was his massage therapist at a spa in Sedona, and the attraction was immediate. Later, when his dark side proved so dark that she wondered how she could have missed it, she blamed Sedona’s heady vibe of red rocks, pine forests, and spirituality. Carter snowed her. She thought they had a special connection. He was good-looking and charismatic, turning heads wherever he went. What woman wouldn’t be flattered that he chose her? she asked the men before returning helpless eyes to me.
“They wouldn’t understand,” I said softly and jiggled her wrist. “Go on.”
She took a quick drink, tucked the bottle between her hip and the sofa, and folded her hands in her lap. He liked her spark, she said. He liked her independence. Within the year, she had moved from Arizona to New Mexico to marry him, and, soon after, was pregnant. She hadn’t thought it would happen so soon, but his parents had been after him to have kids. Their business was a family one, and they needed promise of a next generation.
The Brandt family owned the largest car dealership consortium in the southwest. Despite being intimately involved with that, Carter built a separate source of power in politics. When he and Grace met, he was already a city councilor, although he kept a scrupulous finger in the automotive till. The dealerships he personally ran were the most productive; he used that fact to build connections beyond those of his family. This meant nights out, lots of nights out. Sometimes Grace was with him. Increasingly, she was not.
Soon after Chris was born, Carter was elected to the New Mexico House of Representatives. He had run as a successful businessman dedicated to honesty and transparency, buzzwords he knew resonated with voters, and he won by a healthy margin. Grace was at his side when he needed her, though she was starting to chafe at being “the little woman.” She wanted to go back to work. The spa ambiance offered a warmth and serenity she didn’t have at home. And Santa Fe was known for its spas.
Carter refused. He argued that she was the wife of a state representative, not to mention now belonging to one of the state’s most prominent families. Touching men’s bodies all day wouldn’t look good.
