Aunt Rosa.”
“Oh, your aunt and I fought a lot in the beginning. I think it was only our religion that kept us together for some of those early, volatile years. Even with our profound belief, we talked about separating more than once in the first six years of our marriage.”
She felt her eyes go wide. “What did you do?”
He chuckled. “Your aunt wasn’t a saint. She instigated many of our fights. You only knew us when we were solid. And your parents were a terrible example of a good marriage. I worry that you were caught between what seemed to be a perfect marriage and your parents web of lies and neglect. I wish I’d been able to advise you when you and Beckett were having trouble. Do you know what turned your aunt and I around?”
“What?” Kim asked.
Her uncle leaned closer. “We learned how to talk to each other. I know it sounds odd, but women and men speak different languages.”
She wished it was that simple. “It was more than that.”
“And I worry it still is. I worry you’ll spend the rest of your life alone because no one will ever move you the way he did.”
“You should talk,” she replied pointedly. “You took actual vows of celibacy, uncle.”
“I did that because I won’t ever love another woman. I’ll be true to my wife until I die, and the vows show both my love for her and my love for God,” he explained. “It’s the same for Ezra, though he didn’t have an earthly love. Some men and women don’t, and there’s nothing wrong with that if they’re fulfilled by something else.”
“I’m happy with my son. He’s the love of my life.”
“Then why do you dream of his father at night? Why do you call out for him?”
She felt her skin flush. “I do not.” Except she knew she dreamed about Beck. Almost every night. “I’m sorry. It’s a subconscious thing. It doesn’t mean I’m still hung up on Beck.”
“All right.”
She could practically feel the disappointment coming off her uncle, and she hated it. Had he and Ezra decided to push her? She stood again, grabbing the crossover bag and slinging it over her torso. “I should go. I’ll try to be back before dinner. There’s chicken salad in the fridge in case I’m late.”
She strode away because her uncle could be stubborn.
He wasn’t right any more than Ezra was right.
What was she going to tell Roman when he asked about his dad? She made quick work of the walk from the residence to the battlement, passing from the cool confines of the garden into the open sun and tourists who stopped and stared as though trying to figure out why she’d come out of the highly secured area. Most simply shrugged and figured she was some kind of curator, but she’d had a few pushy tourists question her and try to get a tour of the area.
She breezed past them, not even giving them a chance to ask. She didn’t want to pretend today.
Her uncle’s questions were making her restless. Seven years before she’d decided to live in the now, to let the future take care of itself.
How long could she do that? It had been easy when Roman was a baby. She’d spent the first few years of his life doing nothing more than taking care of him, hiding away from the tumult of the world outside. When the world had started to heal, she’d stayed here, playing with her son and making him the center of the world.
That was fine for her, but Roman would want more.
He would want to see more of the world than this tiny island, and she wasn’t sure how he would do it. She couldn’t go with him unless she truly believed they weren’t at risk. Was she safe now that Levi was marrying into a powerful family?
McKay-Taggart could help with that. They could talk about ways to neutralize her as a threat to Levi and maybe work out a deal where she could come out of hiding and give her son a more free life.
But then she would have to admit that her son existed, and she would finally know what Beck thought.
She moved past the unmarked guva that had served for years as Fort Saint Angelo’s prison. It looked like nothing more than an ancient manhole, and likely most tourists thought it was access to some kind of system, but she knew it for what it was. It was