Tomorrow's Sun (Lost Sanctuary) - By Becky Melby Page 0,93
women. The word was as neutral as Switzerland. The tone of delivery meant everything. It didn’t take a genius to break this one. Maybe the fan was okay, but nothing else was. And it was his fault.
He climbed down, wiped his hands on his jeans, and touched her elbow. She pulled away. He stuffed his hands in his back pockets. “I’m sorry about dinner the other night. Lexi—”
“I understand.”
He waited, watching as her lips pressed against each other and her blinking increased. It was hard not to smile. He’d seen the exact same look on Lexi’s face just hours ago. “I don’t.”
She looked at him. Probably involuntarily. Tiny ridges raised between her eyebrows.
“If you’re not mad about me cancelling out of dinner, I don’t understand what’s changed since Saturday. If I said something or didn’t say something, if I did something to upset you I—”
“I know about Heidi.” Narrowed eyes turned on him.
Jake swallowed hard. What did she know? And why did it matter now anyway? Only one person knew the things he wished no one knew, the things he’d confessed and repented and tried to forget. “Topher told you, didn’t he?”
Her chin drew back. “No?” She said it as a question.
“Then how—”
She sighed with so much force he felt it on his neck. “It doesn’t matter.”
Doesn’t matter how you heard or doesn’t matter what kind of a relationship I had with Heidi?
“I need to talk to you about the finishing work.”
No way was she going to throw a smoke bomb and then stand there as if she hadn’t just clouded everything between them. “I can understand why my relationship with Heidi might bother you, but considering what you told me at the cemetery, I don’t think you’re in any position—”
“What?” Her eyes blazed. Her hands flew to her hips. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Because I made mistakes in my past I’m supposed to be perfectly cool with you asking me out the night after you’re lovin’ on some—”
“Whoa! Stop. What in the world are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you and Heidi and disgusting love letters and—”
“Disgusting? Since when do you think the letters are disgusting and what does Heidi have to do with anything?”
“Not those letters, the ones under your—” Her mouth gaped. She spun around and headed for the stairs.
“Emily! Wait. You’re not making sense. I haven’t seen or talked to Heidi in over a year.”
She stopped, teetered, and grabbed the railing. “You haven’t?” She didn’t turn around.
“I broke up with her before Abby died. What’s this all about?”
A faint gasp echoed in the stairway. Her shoulders dropped and she sat down. “Jake?” Her voice was tight and hushed.
He walked down and sat one step below her.
“Did Heidi write you letters? Really mushy letters?”
He shrugged. “A few cards, I guess. She worked in our office. I saw her every day. Not much need for letters.”
Her eyes closed. The slightest smile curved one side of her mouth. “I think I’ve been had.”
“That’s cruel.” Emily couldn’t quite mask the smile Jake’s suggestion spawned. She reached overhead for the railing and pulled herself off the step. “You have to be sensitive to her feelings.”
“You dare accuse me of not being sensitive?” Jake clapped one hand to his chest. “Look at it this way—Lexi needs a graceful way out. If we treat it like we thought it was a practical joke, she can laugh her way back into my good graces. Either that, or I kill her.”
“Okay. I’m in. As long as you promise that after we get her, you have a heart-to-heart and convince her no one could ever take her place in your life.”
“I promise.”
This wasn’t going the way she’d planned. “Heidi’s” letters had steeled her with the strength she’d needed to march over here and tell Jake she was leaving. Yet here she stood, looking down at his perfectly disheveled hair, close enough to breathe in his earthy scent, laughing and conniving as if she weren’t ready to say good-bye.
October 23, 1852
Sweat dripped from Big Jim’s forehead. One foot tapped on a massive pumpkin as his fiddle rested on the knee of his breeches. Hands that seemed too large for such an instrument raised the bow again and coaxed the first few notes of “Miss McLeod’s Reel” from the strings. Music filled the barn and Hannah’s soul.
Across the room, Liam’s gaze swept the crowd and found her. He wore what appeared to be a new white shirt. Had his mother stitched it just for this night? His smile