coming to get you, wherever you are. You’re going back to Haven Point, even if I have to tie you up and toss you into the bed of my pickup. Don’t think I won’t.”
He was so cold, hard as tungsten. This version of Lucas Hamilton was very different from the one who had been all sweet tenderness during their dating years and the first glorious months of their marriage.
She had created this version. She had forced the joy out of him, not only because she left but during those troubled years in between.
It was time to make things right. She had to do her best to fix what she had destroyed.
“All right,” she finally said, trying hard to keep the trembling out of her voice. “I can be ready in one hour. What will you do in that time? Do you...? Do you want to come in?”
She did not want him in her home, her sanctuary. Brambleberry House had become her refuge over the past few years. She wouldn’t say she had completely healed here, but this was at least where she had started the process.
“No. I’m fine.”
“There are several nice...restaurants in town, if you need to grab a...bite to eat.”
Did he notice the way she stammered now, the awkward pauses she hated? Of all the things she had lost, tangible and intangible, fluent speech was one of the gifts she missed the most. She hated scrambling around for words, having them right there on the tip of her tongue but not being able to find them.
“I have a sandwich in the truck. I’ll eat there. To be honest, Elizabeth, I don’t want to leave this spot. If I go anywhere, who knows if you would still be here when I come back?”
She nodded, hating his contempt but knowing that she deserved every bit of it. “I’ll...try to be quick.”
Her hands were shaking. Everything was shaking. She felt nauseous, and her head hurt. Oh, sweet heaven. She did not want to have a seizure today. They were mostly controlled these days but tended to sneak up on her when her reserves were low.
She slipped back into the house. As she had expected, Rosa was waiting inside the entryway, along with Melissa Fielding, the tenant of the first-floor apartment.
“What is going on?” the nurse asked, eyes filled with worry. “Rosa tells me that man says he is your husband and that your name is not Sonia Davis but Elizabeth something-or-other.”
She sighed. “Rosa is right. Both of those things are...true. I’m...I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It is a very long and painful story. A past I...thought I had put behind me.”
It was a lie. She hadn’t put the past behind her. She lived with it every single day, haunting her every waking moment. Luke. Cassie. Bridger. They were etched on her heart.
The only bright spot about Luke bursting back into her life was the possibility that she might see her children beyond random glimpses from a distance. She might be able to talk to them. Hug them. Perhaps try to explain, if she could find the words.
“What does he want?” Melissa trailed after her up the stairs, Rosa behind her.
“He wants to...take me back to the place where I lived with...with him. Haven Point, Idaho.”
“I hope you told him no way in hell,” Melissa said. “You don’t need to go anywhere with him. He might be your husband, but that doesn’t make him your lord and master. He can’t just show up out of the blue and drag you off like some caveman.”
“Luke is not like that,” she protested. “He is a good man. That is...that is why I have to go with him.”
She paused outside her apartment door, desperate to be alone—to breathe, to think, to recover—but also well aware she needed to convince her friends not to call local law enforcement on her behalf. They were so concerned about her, she wouldn’t put it past either of them.
“Look, I know you’re...worried about me. I am grateful for that. More grateful than I can say.”
She reached for their hands, these two women who had taken her into their generous hearts and befriended her. She had lied to them. She had deceived them about her identity, about her past, about everything.
It was yet one more thing to feel guilty about, though small compared to all she had done to her family.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to explain everything. I can tell you only that I made a...a terrible mistake once, many years ago. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time but...nothing turned out the way I planned. Now my...my husband needs me to go with him so that I can begin to try to make amends. I have to, for his sake and for our...for our children.”
Rosa and Melissa gazed at her, wearing identical expressions of concern. “Are you certain this man, he means you no harm?” Rosa asked, her Spanish accent more pronounced than usual.
She was not certain of anything right now, except that. Despite his fury, Luke wouldn’t hurt her. She knew that without one fiber of doubt.
“I will be fine. Thank you both for worrying about me. I should only be gone a...a few days. When I return, I can tell you...everything. All the things I should have said a long time ago. But now I really do have to go and pack a bag.”
She could see the worry in their frowns. Rosa looked as if she wanted to argue more. She might be small, but she was fierce. Elizabeth had long sensed that Rosa herself had walked a dark and difficult road, though her friend never talked about it. Elizabeth had never pried. How could she, when she had so many secrets she couldn’t share?
Melissa reached out and hugged her first. “If you’re sure—and you seem as if you are—I don’t know what else we can do but wish you luck.”
“Thank you.” Her throat was tight with a complex mix of emotions as she returned the hug.
Rosa hugged her next. “Be careful, my dear.”
“Of course.”
“You have our numbers,” Rosa said. “If you are at all worried about anything, you call us. Right away. No matter what, one of us will come to get you.”
Those emotions threatened to spill over. “I will. Thank you. Thank you both.”
“Now. What can we do to help you pack?” Rosa asked.
Everyone deserved friends like these, people to count on during life’s inevitable storms. She had once had similar friends back in Haven Point and had turned her back on everyone who tried to help her.
She would not make that mistake again.
“I have a suitcase in my room, already...half filled. Can you find that while I...grab my medicine?”
“You got it.”
She deliberately focused her attention on the tasks required to pack, not on the panic that made her feel light-headed.
After all this time, she was going back to Haven Point. As herself, this time, not as the woman she had become seven years ago when she walked away.
