her, night and day. “It’s just that I— Oh, I can’t explain…but it’s not you,” she finished lamely.
“I see.” His face twisted. “That’s why you keep moving away from me like I’m a monster.”
The pain in his eyes found an echo in her soul. Mitch, oh, Mitch, I wish it didn’t have to be like this!
She owed him the truth. She knew what his life had been before they met, how few people he cared for or trusted since living through the foster system. But he trusted her.
“I learned a long time ago not to believe in everything Tim said or did,” she said, giving him what truth she could. “I never wanted him to say those things to you. I didn’t want you to go out of our lives like that. I’m glad you’re here now. The boys have missed you so much.”
“Thanks for that.” He nodded, as if thinking of something else. “What time does Tim come home from work?” His voice was slow, thoughtful.
“I—” She blinked. “What did you say?”
His brow lifted. “It’s a simple question, Lissa. What time does your husband come home from work?”
Without warning everything shifted focus. She felt dizzy, disoriented, as though she’d stepped back in time to a strange new world where only one truth made sense.
Mitch didn’t know.
Blinking to clear her mind of the unexpected turmoil, she tried to speak, but it came out a harsh croak. “Tim left me six years ago.”
Mitch staggered back, as if she’d decked him. “What?”
She shrugged, seeing no need to repeat herself.
“You’re divorced?” He watched her with an intense gaze, as if trying to make sense of a simple fact. Waiting for her to deny what he’d just heard. “You’re free?”
Lissa flinched. Oh, how she hated the word divorce. It was a word unheard of in the Miller family—until Tim walked out, left her for— “Yes.”
Obviously, he’d seen her expression. He’d been looking at her with all his brooding intensity. “Do you ever see him now?”
“Of course,” she answered, relieved at the change in subject. “He comes to see Jenny, our daughter. She’s five.”
“Did he leave you for someone else?” The question was as grim as the look in his eyes.
She dragged in a breath. At least she could answer that question honestly. “Yes.”
“He left when you were pregnant with his child.”
Unable to look at him, she nodded. If he knew the truth—
“Damn it. I’m going to kill him.”
She blurted without thinking, “How is it any different from you? It’s exactly what you did to Matt and Luke’s mother—except you didn’t even bother to marry her before you did your runner!” She clapped a hand to her mouth, horrified by the burst of anger she hadn’t even seen coming, destructive fury born of twisted jealousy. “I-I’m sorry, Mitch. It’s none of my business.”
Another short, uncomfortable silence, the words he didn’t say hanging in the air between them. “I could do with a coffee, if that’s all right.”
“O-of course.” She led the way into the old weatherboard farmhouse, shaking so bad she could barely use her hands to hang her hat and gloves on a hook on the verandah.
Mitch walked in without waiting for an invitation—but then, he knew he didn’t need one. The Miller farm had been his only real home in all his life. Her parents had become like his own, and he, their son.
For a little while. Until Tim stepped in and she’d ruined it all by giving in to a girl’s temptation to have a boyfriend—any boyfriend. Fool!
“The place has changed a bit.” He surveyed the big, open country kitchen, soft and mellow, honey and gold toned beneath the flooding sunshine of the skylight. “It was darker before.”
“When my parents retired three years ago I bought them out. I sold four hundred acres to the Brownells, keeping just the fifty around the house to grow fruit and vegetables. Mum and Dad live in a cottage by the ocean. They’re in Europe at the moment; Dad wanted to see the Formula One. Anyway, since it’s my place now, I did up the parts I didn’t like. I felt oppressed by the dark floor and bench tops.” She filled the filter with coffee.
“I like natural floorboards. I did something similar to my place in Bondi before I sold it. It was too gloomy.”
“Where do you live now?”
A second’s hesitation, then he said slowly, “I live here.”
The jug of water slipped in her hands, spilling over the bench. “Here?”
“Yes, here in Breckerville. I’m buying a place. Let me help you.” He stepped forward, grabbing a towel to dry the mess.
He’d always been like that. Always wanting to help her, always close to her. Just never close enough. Always the best friend she’d ever had, never the lover she craved.
Tears of helpless confusion filled her eyes. “I can do it.” She snatched the towel from him, hiding her face.
Again she felt his gaze on her, sensing her quiet despair. Gentle as a whispering breeze he touched her cheek, turning her face to his. “Don’t be sorry about what you said, Lissa. Don’t ever be scared to speak your mind to me.”
Unable to stop herself, she drank in the dark, rebellious face whose memory still walked the land outside her window, whose essence still haunted her dreams inside the windows of her soul. “But I am sorry,” she whispered, lowering her gaze.
Though she couldn’t see him, she could feel the warmth of his gaze on her. “Liss, you know how I feel about my father walking out on my mother when she was pregnant with me, her dumping me at the church steps because she had nowhere to go. Can you honestly see me walking out on a woman having my kids, like I didn’t care that she, or they, might have the life I had before I met you?”
Shamed, appalled by her unthinking judgment, she whispered, “Tim did.”
“No, baby,” he answered gently. “No man who knows you at all would ever think you could abandon your child, like my mother did to me. But he hurt you. You loved him, trusted him, and he hurt you. He left you when you needed him the most.”
His voice was so warm, so tender. He cared for her, and she was answering him with half-truths. But how could she tell him the truth about her marriage? “Yes. Yes, he did.” Well, that much was truth. Tim had left her, the only time she’d needed him.
“Where does he live now?”
Hearing the note of grim promise, she felt seventeen again. Mitch had always pounded Tim when he thought his friend wasn’t treating her right. “Not for my sake, Mitch,” she said with a shy, half-hidden smile. “He’s Jenny’s father.”
Quietly
