saw her eyes brim with tears. She touched the photo, too. "She—your Jennifer—would have adored Shelly."
Adam opened his mouth to say and Rose, but he couldn’t. Jenny had been so quick, so impatient, he thought Rose might have driven her crazy.
Lynn swiped at her tears with the back of her hand. Her voice sounded just a little hoarse. "Why tonight?"
"What?"
Now she did look at him, her gaze bravely holding his. "Why did you come down to look at her pictures tonight?"
He wanted to evade, but he could see that she wouldn’t let him.
"I’m forgetting her. I swore I wouldn’t do that."
"She’s dead."
Anger flashed through him. "Do you think I don’t know that?"
Her eyes were too clear, too all-seeing. "Sometimes, I’m not sure."
"What does that mean?"
“She’s been dead for almost four years. Shelly’s lifetime. And you’re still grieving as though it was only four months ago."
"Would you want to be forgotten that quickly?"
Lynn answered without hesitation. "I would not want to linger here, if some wisp of my presence crippled the people I’d loved."
He got to his feet, dumping the photo album, not looking at where it lay sprawled on the hardwood floor. "Crippled? Rose didn’t know her to mourn. And look at me. I’ve remarried, I enjoy being close to my wife. How is that crippled?"
Unblinking, she stared at him for the longest time. Anxiety clenched his stomach and knotted his hands at his side.
Whatever he expected, it wasn’t what came.
"I love you," she said quietly.
He expelled all the air in his lungs as if a fist had driven it out.
"You love me," he said stupidly.
She loved him, Adam exulted. Her strange mood tonight meant nothing.
"Do you love me?" she asked, equally quietly.
He hadn’t caught his breath yet. Not a single word presented itself. She loves me, tangled in his mind with one last seeking cry, Jenny.
Jenny was gone. Lynn was here, and his heart swelled with the startling awareness that he wouldn’t want it any other way.
"See?" Lynn spoke gently. "You can’t say it, can you? Or anything close."
His mouth worked.
She laughed, but sadly. "I shouldn’t have even put you on the spot, should I? Love wasn’t part of our deal. You warned me. I thought that wouldn’t matter. I just didn’t know that I was already falling in love with you."
"I...care." Even he knew that was inadequate.
"I know you do," she said with that same terrifying gentleness. "You’re such a good, loving father, and you’ve been so kind to me. So...caring. Reading books I liked. And listening to me. I appreciate that. Really I do."
He had never felt so lumpish, even with Jennifer. He knew he needed to find the right thing to say, but he kept shying away from the obvious—I love you. Did he love her? Was that what he’d been feeling? Was that why he needed the words from her, the reassurance? Why he thought about her constantly, missed her when she was on the coast? Why he’d begun imagining what a child who was his and hers together would be like?
Panic made his heart pound so hard he could hear the beats. Think! he told himself, his customary caution coming to his rescue. Be sure. Don’t spout off at the mouth and then be sorry.
Lynn squeezed her hands together in front of her, looking uncomfortably as if she were praying. "I thought I could live with you and be your wife, even if you were still mourning for Jennifer. But I can’t. No." She stopped him before he could speak. "It’s not her. It’s the fact that you don’t love me. Someday you’ll get over her, and you’ll be ready to love again. You won’t want to be married to me."
“I will never not want to be married to you." This much he knew, with unshakable certainty.
Her tiny, grateful smile ripped at his heart. "You say things like that, and it weakens my resolve. But the truth is, we’re married only because I wouldn’t move from Otter Beach. Well, I’ve decided. I’ll sell the store and get a job and an apartment in this area. We can do some kind of joint custody thing. Maybe they can spend a week with me and then a week with you. Or if I can get days off during the week, I can have them then and you can have them on weekends. Or something. We’ll make it work. But we will not be married just because it’s the most convenient way to each have both girls."
"We