burned him, knowing he hadn’t recognized his own wife. When he looked closer now, knowing what he did, he could see more hints of the woman he had loved. The brows were the same, arched and delicate, and her lips were still full and lush. But her face was more narrow, her nose completely different and her cheekbones higher and more defined.
Why had she undergone so much plastic surgery? It was one more mystery amid dozens.
“What do you want, Luke?”
“I told you. I need you to come home. At this moment, the Lake Haven County district attorney’s office is preparing to file charges against me related to your disappearance and apparent murder.”
“My what?”
“Elliot has tried to convince the woman you’re still very much alive. He hasn’t had much luck, especially considering he’s all but a member of the family and will be marrying my sister in a few months. The DA plans to move forward and arrest me in hopes of forcing me to tell them where I hid your body.”
“Wait—what? Elliot and Megan are together? When did that happen?”
He barely refrained from grinding his teeth. “Not really the point, is it? This has gone on long enough. I’m going to be arrested, Elizabeth. Before the holidays, if my sources are right. The district attorney is determined to send a message that men in her jurisdiction can’t get away with making their wives disappear. I’m going to go to jail, at least for a while. Our children have already spent enough Christmases without one parent. Do you want them to lose the other one?”
“Of course not.”
He didn’t know whether to believe her or not. How could he? He didn’t even know this woman, despite the fact that she had once been closer to him than anyone else on earth.
“Then grab your things and let’s go.”
Her eyes looked huge in her face as she stared at him, making him more angry at himself for not recognizing her. He should have known her. Yes, she had worn sunglasses and hats, but he somehow still should have sensed Elizabeth looking back at him.
Once, those eyes had looked at him with passion, with hunger, with a love that made him ache. Now they were filled with fear and reluctance. “I... You want to leave right this minute?”
No. If he had any choice, he would keep her out of his life and the lives of Cassie and Bridger forever. Circumstances and a zealous district attorney had made that impossible.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“I can’t just...just leave.”
“Why? Seems to me you’re really good at leaving.”
She gripped her hands tightly together. “I have a life here in Cannon Beach. Responsibilities.”
“What’s the problem? You have a husband and two kids here that you don’t want to walk away from?”
Though he told himself this wasn’t the way to accomplish what he needed from her, he couldn’t seem to stop his cruel words.
He was so damn angry. It didn’t matter how many times he told himself he needed to stay in control. She had ripped apart the entire fabric of his life seven years ago, destroyed everything they had tried to create together.
He had thought she was dead. He had grieved, filled with raw guilt and wrenching pain that he hadn’t been able to help her. For seven years, he had imagined the worst.
He had said earlier that she had never been lost, but both of them knew that wasn’t strictly true. Seven years ago, the wife he had cherished with all his heart had been lost to him, trapped in a deep, dark place, a tangle of postpartum depression and grief over the accidental deaths of her parents.
He hadn’t been able to reach her. Nor had any of the professionals he had taken her to or any of the therapies they had tried.
For seven years, until Elliot Bailey took up the search and found Sonia Davis, he thought his beloved Elizabeth had surrendered to that vast chasm of depression and taken her own life.
He had never imagined that she had simply moved away, changed her appearance and her name and started a life without him and their children.
He let out a breath, pushing away the deep betrayal. “We have to go.”
“I...I was planning to go to Haven Point next week. I have a plane ticket and everything.”
“Not good enough. Sources tell me charges are being filed this week. The DA’s office won’t listen to reason, but I figure she’ll have to listen when the supposed victim herself shows up. We have to get back to town before then. This storm is only going to intensify and I would like to beat it. Grab your things and let’s go.”
He wouldn’t let her slip away this time. His children depended on it.
Luke was here.
After all these years, he was here, standing on the porch of Brambleberry House.
She couldn’t quite believe this was really happening. Her day had started out so normally. She took her dozen different medications, meditated, went through the routine of exercises she used to keep her battered body from seizing up. She had gone to the greenhouse for a few hours. Her hands still smelled like the pine branches she had woven together for evergreen wreaths.
All in all, it had been a routine day. She never expected that before the day was out, she would be here talking to her husband, the man she had loved since she was eighteen years old.
She had imagined this day so many times, had dreamed of the chance to see him again, to explain the choices she had made and the terrible consequences that had resulted from those choices.
Now that he was here, she felt tongue-tied, constrained by all the years and miles and choices between them.
What could she say? No words would ever make up for what she had done.
Of course she couldn’t go with him. She had a job here. She worked at the garden center and was busy this time of year selling Christmas trees and wreaths, working on floral arrangements, planning ahead for the growing season.
She was also responsible for the gardens here at Brambleberry House—though admittedly, that wasn’t a very good excuse this time of year. She had already supervised the Christmas decorating in the garden and wouldn’t have anything to do until spring began its slow return to this part of the Oregon Coast.
Returning to Haven Point didn’t terrify her. As he pointed out, she had been back a dozen times over the last several years.
It was the idea of returning to Haven Point with Lucas Hamilton that made her blood run cold.
Her stomach twisted into knots. He wanted her to drive there with him. It was eight hours from here. Eight hours in a car with a man who had every reason to despise her. She couldn’t possibly do it.
But what choice did she have? If she could believe him—and she had no reason to think he was lying,
