Evidence of Life - By Barbara Taylor Sissel Page 0,107

light was out Nick had reached for her. He’d pressed his face into the hollow of her shoulder and whispered against her neck, “I’m sorry I’m such a bastard. You deserve better.”

She’d traced the line of his brow when he’d lifted his head. “You know you can talk to me?”

“Yes, but not now,” he’d said, and he’d lowered his mouth to hers, and his kiss had been long and slow and full of need. He’d teased a trail of kisses from her lips up to the corners of her eyes, down to her chin, from there to her collarbone. Levering up on one elbow, his gaze never moving from her face, he’d unbuttoned her oxford shirt, an old one of his that she wore. He’d slid her panties from her and Abby had opened herself to him, moaning softly from sheer relief and desire.

He’d been fully present with her then, the earlier tension between them forgotten, and they’d been together in that hot, sweet way they had always shared. We should talk about this. She remembered thinking that in a corner of her mind. She remembered thinking they couldn’t let the stuff of life, their work, finances, the children, get in the way of their commitment to each other.

We are the heart of the family, she had thought that night. Our love for each other is the heart.

Abby remembered wanting to say this to him, but she hadn’t. Instead, when he’d released her, when their breath had slowed, she had been so drowsy and content that she’d turned her back and curled into his embrace, settling herself into the cup of his lap.

After a long moment, he had said her name: “Abby?” and he had inflected it with such wistfulness and doubt, and when she’d answered, “Hmm?” he’d said, “Nothing,” and “I love you,” and she had thought it was enough.

She would have to live with that now. The memory of his wistfulness, his seeming regret, and her failure to pursue it, to find out the source of what was troubling him. She would have to learn to live with all of this. Live the mystery, the questions, and somehow it would have to be okay. But not all at once, that’s what her mother said.

And it was true, Abby thought, because tonight it was enough that she could lie here in her own bed and remember, and the pain wasn’t quite so awful.

Chapter 24

Toward noon one Sunday in March, she took the broom and went out onto the porch. The air had a dancing effervescence, as if it were thrilled with itself. A light rain before dawn had left behind beads of moisture. They glimmered like opals scattered among pale green shoots of spring grass. Abby imagined she could hear it growing and felt her heart ease inside her chest. Winter would give way, she thought. It always did.

She poked the broom into the porch corners, swept the accumulation of leaf trash and dust toward the steps. Soon she grew warm enough to take off her sweater. When she heard the car coming up the drive, she stopped what she was doing and shaded her eyes. She didn’t recognize the car, but she recognized Dennis Henderson when he parked and got out. He waited, looking at her over the car’s roof, and she had the feeling he was asking permission. She lifted her hand, a half wave.

He came to the bottom of the wide concrete steps. “Is it okay?” he asked, and she knew he didn’t mean because of her sweeping.

“I was about to make lunch,” she said. “Would you like a sandwich?”

He nodded and joined her. He was wearing a faded blue windbreaker over a T-shirt, jeans and work boots. Even out of uniform, he had an air of stillness, of immovability and strength, that was as compelling as it was reassuring.

He took off his sunglasses, held up a book. “For Jake,” he said.

“What is it?”

“It’s about law enforcement, the different fields. He said he was interested.”

“He is.”

“From what I hear, he’s definitely got the nerves for it, a cool head under pressure.”

“He does. I might not be here if it weren’t for him, but I’m not sure I like the idea of him making a career out of encounters like the one we went through.”

“Maybe you’d rather I didn’t leave this for him, then.”

Abby shook her head. “He’s grown up. It’s his decision.”

She glanced into the near distance. What would Nick think of this man bringing their