on his face stopped her. He’d just absolved himself from a burden of guilt he never should have taken up. What if she told him about her miscarriage and instead of being sad, he got angry with himself all over again?
She swallowed, as repressed memories of the days before she left him popped up in her brain. All these years, she’d thought she’d kept her secret to protect herself. Now, she remembered that she’d also kept it to protect him. He had a talent for absorbing blame that wasn’t really his.
If she told him now, with the conversation about his brother still lingering in the air, he could tumble right back to the place he’d just escaped. Surely he deserved a few days of peace? And surely in those days she could think of a way to tell him that would help him to accept, as she had, that there was no one to blame.
“We’re just about finished here.” She ambled to the dining room table again and brought back salt-and-pepper shakers. “I’ll wash the tablecloth and wait for the dishwasher, but you don’t have to hang around. I brought a book to read while I wait. Why don’t you go do whatever you’d normally do?”
“I should pack the contracts we signed tonight in my briefcase.”
“Okay. You go do that.” She smiled at him. “I’ll see you Friday morning.”
He turned in the doorway. “I’m not supposed to be here when you come to the house, remember?”
She held his gaze. “I could come early enough to get a cup of coffee.”
Surprise flitted across his face. “Really?” Then he grimaced. “I’m leaving town tomorrow morning. I won’t be back until Friday night. But I’ll see you on Saturday.”
Another weekend of working with him without being able to tell him might be for the best. A little distance between tonight’s acceptance that he couldn’t take blame for his brother’s accident and the revelation of a tragedy he didn’t even know had happened wouldn’t be a bad thing.
“Okay.”
He turned to leave again then paused, as if he didn’t want to leave her, and she realized she’d given him the wrong impression when she’d suggested they have coffee Friday morning. She’d suggested it to give herself a chance to tell him her secret, not because she wanted to spend time with him. But he didn’t know that.
She turned away, a silent encouragement for him to move on. When she turned around again, he was gone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY, Cain was on the roof of Amanda’s house with a small crew of his best, most discreet workers. Even before Cain arrived, Liz had taken Amanda and her children to breakfast, then shopping, then to the beach. If he didn’t know how well-timed this roof event had to be, he might have thought she was avoiding him.
Regret surged through him as he climbed down the ladder. He’d been so caught up in the fact that their talk had allowed him to pierce through the layer of guilt that had held him captive, that he’d nearly forgotten what she’d told him about her dad.
She’d been abused. She’d been raised in poverty. She’d run away, gotten herself educated in spite of her humble beginnings, and then she’d met him.
Their relationship could have gone one of two ways. He could have brought her into his world, shown her his lifestyle and gradually helped her acclimate. Instead, he’d fallen victim to the grief of his brother’s death and missed the obvious.
He wanted to be angry with himself, but he couldn’t. Just as he couldn’t bear the burden of guilt over his brother’s death, he couldn’t blame himself for having missed the obvious. Blaming himself for things he couldn’t change was over. But so was the chance to “fix” their marriage.
Somehow or another, that conversation over his dirty dishes had shown him that he and Liz weren’t destined for a second chance. He could say that without the typical sadness over the loss of what might have been because he’d decided they hadn’t known each other well enough the first time around to have anything to fix. What they really needed to do was start over.
He went through the back door into Amanda’s kitchen, got a drink of water and then headed upstairs to assess what was left to be done, still thinking about him and Liz. The question was…what did start over mean? Start over to become friends? Or start over to become lovers? A couple? A married couple?
He’d been considering them coworkers, learning to get along as friends for the sake of their project. But after the way she’d led him out of his guilt on Wednesday night, his feelings for her had shifted in an unexpected way. He supposed this was the emotion a man experienced when he found a woman who understood him, one he’d consider making his wife. The first time around his idea of a wife had been shallow. He’d wanted a beautiful hostess and someone to warm his bed. He’d never thought he’d need a confidante and friend more.
Now he knew just how wrong he’d been.
And now he saw just how right Liz would have been for him, if they’d only opened up to each other the first time around.
So should he expand his idea from experimenting with getting to know each other in order to become friends, to experimenting with getting to know each other to see if they actually were compatible? Not in the shallow ways, but in the real ways that counted.
Just the thought sent his head reeling. He didn’t want to go back to what they’d had before…but a whole new relationship? The very idea filled him with a funny, fuzzy feeling. Though he didn’t have a lot of experience with this particular emotion…he thought it just might be hope.
They couldn’t fix their past. But what if they could have a future?
Shaking his head at the wonder of it all, Cain ducked into the first bedroom, the room with the most ceiling damage. He pulled a small notebook and pen from his shirt pocket and began making notes of things he would do the next day, Sunday. His crew would have the new roof far enough along that he could fix this ceiling and then the room could be painted. Because Amanda couldn’t be there when any work crew was on site—to keep her identity safe—Liz would paint this room herself. The following weekend he and Billy could get to work on the baseboards and trim.
Proud of himself, Cain left the first room and walked into the second. This room still needed the works: ceiling, paint job, trim. He ducked out and into the bathroom, which was old-fashioned, but in good repair because he had fixed both the commode and shower the first week he’d been here. He dipped out and headed for the biggest bedroom, the one Amanda was using.
He stepped inside, only to find Liz stuffing a pillow into a bright red pillowcase.
“What are you doing here?”
Hand to her heart, she whipped around. “What are you doing down here! You’re supposed to be on the roof.”
“I’m making a list of things that need to be done tomorrow and next weekend.”
“I’m surprising Amanda. I dropped her and her kids off at the beach, telling them I’d be back around six.”
He leaned against the doorjamb. This room hadn’t sustained any damage because of the bad roof. At some point during the week, Liz and Amanda had already painted the ceiling and walls. At the bottom of the bed were packages of new sheets and a red print comforter.
