weren’t nearly as handsome or strong. They didn’t make her feel feminine simply by standing near her.
Nor did they make her heart race.
She loved him and she would probably always love him.
In the past five years the longing for him had grown so fierce that she was certain her heart was being torn in two.
Gordon had always been there for her, and suddenly he wasn’t. There was no one to turn to when Harrison was being incorrigible. No one to explain how much she missed her mother. No one to hold her or kiss her or tell her that their futures would be brighter than their pasts had been.
What if he didn’t care? What if he’d fallen in love with someone else? She didn’t think she could bear it. Or maybe she would learn to endure his betrayal until she grew to hate him. Hating Gordon might be easier than loving him for the rest of her life.
After a little while she realized that he might be remaining at the cottage tonight. She should go back to the Hall and see him first thing in the morning.
As she turned to leave, however, the door opened.
Jennifer could hear his voice but not the words. A moment later he ducked his head beneath the frame and closed the door behind him.
Chapter Nine
Jennifer waited until Gordon was nearly upon her before stepping out of the shadows. Without giving him a chance to speak, she stepped up to him and poked his chest with her finger.
“How dare you come back here and not explain yourself.”
The moonlight revealed his frown. She didn’t care. She’d gone too long without an explanation. The time had come for him to tell her why he’d left. She refused to go to bed confused, uncertain, and heartsick.
“At least you’re speaking to me,” he said.
She stepped back. “Why, Gordon? Why did you leave five years ago?”
“You know why I left, Jennifer.”
“No, I don’t. No one would tell me. Not Sean, not Harrison. Not even Mr. McBain. All I know is that you were there one moment and gone the next. Without a word.”
“Why should I leave you a note, Jennifer, when you were just going to give it to McBain?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know all those notes I left for you, the ones you thought were so precious? McBain showed them to me, proof that you wanted me gone.”
“I wanted you gone? How could you think such a thing?”
“What was I to think? You’d left for Edinburgh without a word to me.”
“I gave Betty a letter for you.”
They stared at each other.
Her world had been destroyed on that spring night when Gordon left. She could still remember what it had been like upon her return from Edinburgh to wait for him right here, only for him never to appear. She’d tapped on his window in the gardener’s cottage, but he hadn’t opened it and whispered, “Hush, Jen, my mother’s in a mood.”
Betty had always been in a mood. She was a disagreeable person, but she hadn’t changed overmuch when Gordon disappeared. Jennifer had never seen her cry about her missing son.
“Your notes disappeared from my desk,” she said. “Harrison said he destroyed them.”
“Betty never gave me your letter.”
It had been a concerted effort to separate them. McBain, Harrison, and Sean had all lied. They had simply rearranged her life and Gordon’s without any thought to how they would feel.
“I didn’t know,” Jennifer said. “I didn’t understand when I returned and you were gone. Mr. McBain said that you’d wanted to make your way in the world.” She didn’t tell him what else the advocate had said, that Gordon had probably become bored with his life here at Adaire Hall.
“Why didn’t you answer any of my letters?” she asked.
“I only got two,” he said. “Only that first one and the one about Sean.”
“I wrote you every year on your birthday and Christmas.” She’d probably been too open in those letters, pouring out her heart, hoping to remind Gordon of what they’d shared for years.
“You never once wrote back.”
“I never got them, Jennifer. I’m sorry.”
He offered her his hand. As if they’d been transported back in time, they began to follow the path to the loch, the same one they’d taken for years. They didn’t speak as they topped the hill.
Moonlight made the surface of the loch appear like molten silver. Farther to the east was a dock and a rowboat they used from time to time. On this side of the loch,