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Coming Home For Christmas
RaeAnne Thayne


Can Christmas heal the past and present a new beginning? Elizabeth Hamilton has been lost. Trapped in a tangle of postpartum depression and grief after the death of her beloved parents, she couldn’t quite see the way back to her husband, Luke and their two beautiful children…until a car accident stole away her memories and changed her life. But now, seven years later, Luke finds her in a nearby town and brings Elizabeth back home to the family she loves, just in time for Christmas. Being reunited with Luke and her children is better than anything Elizabeth could have imagined. As they all prepare for Christmas, Elizabeth and Luke are drawn ever closer. Can the hurt of the past seven years be healed over the course of one Christmas and bring the Hamiltons the gift of a new beginning? • • • Readers love Coming Home for Christmas love forgiveness and second chances. True Christmas Spirit Compelling, emotional, and sure to touch your heart, Coming Home for Christmas is a must-read this Christmas I don't think I've ever read anything quite like this. Unputdownable!!







Hearts are lighter and wishes burn a little brighter at Christmas...

Elizabeth Hamilton has been lost. Trapped in a tangle of postpartum depression and grief after the death of her beloved parents, she couldn’t quite see the way back to her husband and their two beautiful kids...until a car accident stole away her memories and changed her life. And when she finally remembered the sound of little Cassie’s laugh, the baby powder smell of Bridger and the feel of her husband’s hand in hers, Elizabeth worried that they’d moved on without her. That she’d missed too much. That perhaps she wasn’t the right mother for her kids or wife for Luke, no matter how much she loved them.

But now, seven years later, Luke finds her in a nearby town and brings Elizabeth back home to the family she loves, just in time for Christmas. And being reunited with Luke and her children is better than anything Elizabeth could have imagined. As they all trim the tree and bake cookies, making new holiday memories, Elizabeth and Luke are drawn ever closer. Can the hurt of the past seven years be healed over the course of one Christmas season and bring the Hamiltons the gift of a new beginning?


Also available from RaeAnne Thayne (#u6f2a8054-74a2-5c8b-854c-89d0406f3f48)

Snow Angel Cove

Redemption Bay


Coming Home for Christmas

RaeAnne Thayne







Copyright (#u6f2a8054-74a2-5c8b-854c-89d0406f3f48)






An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright В© RaeAnne Thayne 2019

RaeAnne Thayne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition В© August 2019 ISBN: 9781474099004




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Praise for New York Times bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne

“[Thayne] is a rising star in the romance world. Her books are wonderfully romantic, feel-good reads that end with me sighing over the last pages.”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

“Entertaining, heart-wrenching, and totally involving, this multithreaded story overflows with characters readers will adore.”

—Library Journal on Evergreen Springs

“RaeAnne Thayne is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.... Once you start reading, you aren’t going to be able to stop.”

—Fresh Fiction

“Thayne’s realistic characterization grounds the hope of falling in love with the trials and tribulations that so often come with it.”

—BookPage on Serenity Harbor

“RaeAnne has a knack for capturing those emotions that come from the heart.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Her engaging storytelling...will draw readers in from the very first page.”

—RT Book Reviews on Riverbend Road

“Tiny Haven Point springs to vivid life in Thayne’s capable hands as she spins another sweet, heartfelt story.”

—Library Journal on Redemption Bay


To all the amazing readers who have contacted me asking for

Luke and Elizabeth’s story.

Also, to all who have suffered traumatic brain injuries and the

family members and caregivers who love them.


Contents

Cover (#ud2147330-803a-575f-a3ce-3be7a8268e71)

Back Cover Text (#u6ce516f1-71ef-542e-8b78-707647dc1cea)

Booklist (#u2c226f90-7f6b-55d4-8965-6a5ebd061bc5)

Title Page (#u16f963f0-3faa-5d18-bbf6-b758143e397a)

Copyright (#u11b264f1-182e-5a3a-b384-db7f025c0b17)

Note to Readers (#u7df013d2-52d9-58e3-aab2-b28635475da7)

Praise (#ufc93d3b1-ac02-546e-b292-31146e944f6e)

Dedication (#u24654ab2-1979-59f7-b57a-869a7b5eef1f)

Chapter One (#ud0db42e6-d333-509f-a896-6ef4721d4a44)

Chapter Two (#u17202691-6d82-5bfa-b378-a961baed4832)

Chapter Three (#u7db310ef-06ea-53bc-b893-e402024352f4)

Chapter Four (#uadbd2cd4-7a79-505f-80cf-a6ed0a69ae0a)

Chapter Five (#u98836825-851e-51a7-a097-82eda32796ea)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




Chapter One (#u6f2a8054-74a2-5c8b-854c-89d0406f3f48)


This was it.

Luke Hamilton waited outside the big, rambling Victorian house in a little coastal town in Oregon, hands shoved into the pockets of his coat against the wet slap of air and nerves churning through him.

Elizabeth was here. After all the years when he had been certain she was dead—that she had wandered into the mountains somewhere that cold day seven years earlier or she had somehow walked into the deep, unforgiving waters of Lake Haven—he was going to see her again.

Though he had been given months to wrap his head around the idea that his wife wasn’t dead, that she was indeed living under another name in this town by the sea, it still didn’t seem real.

How was he supposed to feel in this moment? He had no idea. He only knew he was filled with a crazy mix of anticipation, fear and the low fury that had been simmering inside him for months, since the moment FBI agent Elliot Bailey had produced a piece of paper with a name and an address.

Luke still couldn’t quite believe she was in there, the wife he had not seen in seven years. The wife who had disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving plenty of people to speculate that he had somehow hurt her, even killed her.

For all those days and months and years, he had lived with the ghost of Elizabeth Sinclair and the love they had once shared.

He was never nervous, damn it. So why did his skin itch and his stomach seethe and his hands grip the cold metal of the porch railing as if his suddenly weak knees would give way and make him topple over if he let go?

A moment later, he sensed movement inside the foyer of the house. The woman he had spoken with when he had first pulled up to this address, the woman who had been hanging Christmas lights around the big, charming home and who had looked at him with such suspicion and had not invited him to wait inside, opened the door. One hand was thrust into her coat pocket around a questionable-looking bulge.

She was concealing either a handgun or a Taser or pepper spray. Since he had never met the woman before, Luke couldn’t begin to guess which. Her features had lost none of that alert wariness that told him she would do whatever necessary to protect Elizabeth.

He wanted to tell her he would never hurt his wife, but it was a refrain he had grown tired of repeating. Over the years, he had become inured to people’s opinions on the matter. Let them think what the hell they wanted. He knew the truth.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

There was a long pause, like some tension-filled moment just before the gunfight in Old West movies. He wouldn’t have been surprised if tumbleweeds suddenly blew down the street.

Then, from behind the first woman, another figure stepped out onto the porch, slim and blonde and...shockingly familiar.

He stared, stunned to his bones. It was her. Not Elizabeth. Her. He had seen this woman around his small Idaho town of Haven Point several times over the last few years, fleeting glimpses only out of the corner of his gaze at a baseball game or a school program.

The mystery woman.

He assumed she had been there to watch one of the other children. Maybe an aunt from out of town, someone he didn’t know.

Luke had noticed her...and had hated the tiny little glow of attraction that had sparked to life.

He hadn’t wanted to be aware of any other woman. What was the point? For years, he thought his heart had died when Elizabeth walked away. He figured everything good and right inside him had shriveled up and he had nothing left to give another woman.

Despite his anger at himself for the unwilling attraction to a woman he could never have, he had come to look forward to those random glimpses of the beautiful mystery woman who wore sunglasses and floppy hats, whose hair was a similar color to his wife’s but whose features were very different.

For the first time since he had pulled up to Brambleberry House, he began to wonder if he had been wrong. If Elliot had been wrong, if his investigation had somehow gone horribly off track.

What if this wasn’t Elizabeth? What if it was all some terrible mistake?

He didn’t know what to say, suddenly. Did he tell them both he had erred, make some excuse and disappear? He was about to do just that when he saw her eyes, a clear, startling blue with a dark, almost black, ring around the irises.

He knew those eyes. It was her.

There was nervousness in them, yes, but no surprise, almost as if she had been expecting him.

“Elizabeth.”

She flinched a little at the name. “No one has...called me that in a very long time.”

Her voice was the second confirmation, the same husky alto that had haunted his dreams every single night for seven years.

The other woman stared at her. “Sonia. What is going on? Who is this man? Why is he calling you Elizabeth?”

“It is...a really long story, Rosa.”

“He says he is your husband.”

“He was. A long time ago.”

The anger simmered hotter, flaring up like a controlled burn that was trying to jump the ditch. He did his best to tamp it down. He would not become his father, no matter the provocation.

“I’m still your husband. Nothing has changed. Until we divorce or you are declared dead, we are very much still married in the eyes of the law.”

Her mouth opened again, eyes shocked as if she had never considered the possibility. Maybe as far as she was concerned, her act of walking away without a word had terminated their marriage.

It had in every way except the official one.

“I...guess that’s probably true.”

“That’s why I’m here. I need you to come back to Haven Point so we can end this thing once and for all.” He was unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “It shouldn’t be that hard for you. You know the way. Apparently you’ve been back to town plenty of times. You just never bothered to stop and say hello to me or your two children.”

Her skin, already pale in the weak December afternoon light, seemed to turn ashen, and Luke was immediately ashamed at his cruelty. He tried to be better than that, to take the higher ground in most situations. He was uncomfortably aware that this unwanted reunion with his long-missing wife would likely bring out the worst in him.

The other woman looked shocked. “You have children? I don’t understand any of this, Sonia.”

She winced. “It’s so complicated, Rosa. I don’t know...where to start. I... My name isn’t Sonia, as you’ve obviously...figured out. He is right. It is Elizabeth Hamilton, and this...this is my husband, Lucas.”

The other woman was slow to absorb the information, but after a shocked moment, her gaze narrowed and she moved imperceptibly in front of Elizabeth, as if her slight frame could protect her friend.

It was a familiar motion, one that intensified his shame. How many times had he done the same thing, throwing his body in front of his mother and then his stepmother? By the time he was big enough and tough enough to make a difference, his father was dead and no longer a threat.

“Are you afraid of this man?” Rosa demanded. “Has he hurt you? I can call Chief Townsend. He would be here in a moment.”

Elizabeth put a hand on the other woman’s arm. It was clear they were close friends. The wild pendulum of Luke’s emotions right now swung back to anger. Somehow she had managed to form friendships with other people, to completely move on with her life, while he had been suffocating for seven years under the weight of rumor and suspicion.

“It is fine, Rosa. Thank you. Please don’t worry about me. I...I need to speak with...with my husband. We have...much to discuss. Go on inside. I’ll talk to you later and...and try to explain.”

Rosa was clearly reluctant to leave. She hovered on the porch, sending him mistrustful looks. He wanted to tell her not to waste her energy. He’d spent years developing a thick skin when it came to people suspecting him of being a monster.

“I’m here,” she said firmly. “I’ll wait inside. You only have to call out. And Melissa is in her apartment as well. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Nothing is going to happen to me,” Elizabeth assured her. “Luke won’t hurt me.”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” he muttered, though it was a lie. Some might think him a monster but he suspected Elizabeth knew he could never lay a hand on her.

First of all, it wasn’t in his nature. Second, he had spent his entire life working toward self-mastery and iron control—doing whatever necessary to avoid becoming his father.

After another moment, Rosa turned around and slipped through the carved front door, reluctance apparent in every line of her body. On some level, Luke supposed he should be grateful Elizabeth had people willing to stand up and protect her.

“How did you...? How did you find me?”

He still didn’t know everything Elliot had gone through to locate her. He knew the FBI agent had spent long hours tracking down leads after a truck driver came forward years later to say that on the night Elizabeth disappeared, the trucker thought she gave a woman resembling Elizabeth’s description a ride to a truck stop in central Oregon.

Somehow from that slim piece of information, Elliot had undergone an impressive investigation on his own time and managed to put the pieces of the puzzle together. If not for Elliot, Luke wouldn’t be here in front of this big oceanfront Victorian in Cannon Beach and this familiar but not familiar woman.

Thinking about Elliot Bailey always left him conflicted, too. He was grateful to the man but still found it weird to think of his former best friend with Megan, Luke’s younger sister. After several months, he was almost used to the idea of them being together.

“I didn’t.” He jerked his attention back to the moment. “Elliot Bailey did. That’s not really important, is it? The point is, now I know where you are. But then, I guess you were never really lost, were you? We only thought you were. You’ve certainly been back to Haven Point in your little disguise plenty of times over the years.”

It 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, as he had always been honest with her—she had to return to Haven Point or he would be arrested. She couldn’t let that happen. She had already put him and their children through so very much.

She owed him. This was the least she could do.

Accused of her murder! How was that even possible? Luke had never raised a hand to her, and she hated that there were apparently people in Lake Haven County who didn’t know him well enough to understand that.

“Hurry up.” Her husband’s voice was resolute. “You can take your return flight once we’re done with the legalities or you can rent a car in Boise and drive back.”

She wished that were possible, but the simple act of driving a vehicle was one of the abilities she had lost.

Wild tendrils of panic made her palms sweat and her stomach roll. She wanted to go back to her second-floor apartment and curl up in her bed with the covers over her head.

“I...I need time to make arrangements.” She tried one more time. “I can’t just leave town without a word.”

His raised eyebrow made her all too aware of the irony of what she just said. That was exactly what she had done seven years ago when she had walked away from him and their children and the life she had destroyed.

“One hour. You have one hour and then I’m 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.




Chapter Two (#u6f2a8054-74a2-5c8b-854c-89d0406f3f48)


She didn’t take an hour to pack. She already had most of her travel things ready, preparing for the trip she had planned to take in a few days to Haven Point.

By now, she had a routine whenever she returned to the area. She stayed in the nearby community of Shelter Springs at the same hotel every time, an inexpensive, impersonal chain affair just off the highway to Boise.

The hotel was on the bus route to Haven Point, which made it easier for her to get to the neighboring town. She ate the continental breakfast offered by the hotel early enough to avoid most business travelers and either made her own lunch in her hotel room with cold cuts or cups of soup or chose the same busy fast-food restaurants where no one would pay any attention to her.

When her visit was done, she loaded up her bag, caught the shuttle back to the airport and flew home.

Alone, as always.

The system was elaborate and clunky, designed specifically so that she did not run the risk of bumping into someone who might have known her back then.

She probably stressed unnecessarily. Who would recognize her? She wasn’t the same person. She did not look the same and certainly did not feel the same. All that she had survived had changed her in fundamental ways.

She carefully packed her medicine and the collapsible cane she hated but sometimes needed, then grabbed chargers for her electronic devices, the things she always tended to leave behind.

After one last check of the packing list she kept on her phone for her frequent trips, she zipped the suitcase, then sat on the edge of the bed.

While she had something to do, her attention focused on preparing to leave, she could shove down the wild turmoil of her emotions at seeing her husband again. Now that her bag was packed, she felt them pressing in on her again, a mixture of apprehension and fear blended with an undeniable relief.

He couldn’t possibly believe her but she had planned to tell him her identity when she returned to Haven Point next week. It was time to come forward. Beyond time. She could no longer hide from the past.

She sat for several moments longer, breathing in and breathing out, trying to find whatever small measure of peace she could in this creaky, quirky old house. Finally, she released one more heavy breath, then rose unsteadily from the bed, extended the handle on her rolling suitcase and walked out the door of her apartment, locking it behind her.

She wasn’t at all surprised to find Rosa and Melissa waiting for her in the small furnished landing outside of her apartment. Melissa’s daughter, Skye, and Rosa’s dog, Fiona, a beautiful Irish setter, waited, too. Her own little makeshift family.

“Are you sure about this?” Melissa asked, her tone as worried as her expression. “I have to tell you, I don’t think you should just take off with some man we’ve never seen before—someone who just shows up out of the blue and expects you to drop everything and leave town with him.”

She wasn’t surprised at their objections. For some reason, Melissa and Rosa thought it was their job to take care of her, whether that was helping her with her laundry, giving her rides to the grocery store or taking her to doctor appointments.

She had found no small degree of comfort from their concern, but she needed to stand on her own.

“I have to. Please don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

“Will you be back for Christmas?” Skye asked, worry knitting lines across the girl’s forehead.

Her heart ached but she managed to muster a smile for the girl. “I should only be gone a few days. Maybe a week.”

“You promised you would help me put out carrots for the reindeer on Christmas Eve.”

“I won’t forget, sweetheart.”

She had done her best to steel her emotions against Skye, to protect herself from the hurt of seeing this girl growing up happy and strong under her mother’s loving care.

Her own daughter was only a few years older than Skye. For the past seven years, Cassie and her brother had been without their mother. Elizabeth knew she couldn’t make it right, all the hurt she had caused by her disastrous decisions, but she could at least give Luke and their children a little closure.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” she told them all.

“Are you very sure?” Rosa asked one last time.

When she nodded, her friend sighed but took the handle of the suitcase and headed for the stairs to the ground floor.

When they all reached the entryway, Elizabeth felt tongue-tied with all she wanted to say. She didn’t have time for any explanations. Luke would be waiting.

She hugged her friends and saved her biggest hug for Skye. “You watch over my garden for me, will you?”

“You bet,” Skye said. “And Fiona will help.”

“I know. She’s a great dog.”

She petted the dog’s head, filled with intense longing for slow summer evenings when she could sit on a bench in the garden with Fiona curled up at her feet while the ocean murmured its endless song.

Finally, she couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to face her husband.

She straightened, gripped the handle of her suitcase and walked out to the wide wraparound porch.

He was waiting for her. No surprise there. Her husband was a man of his word. When Luke said he would be somewhere in an hour, he meant an hour.

She thought she saw that flare of awareness in his eyes again, but he quickly blinked it away before she could be sure. His mouth tightened. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to come in and drag you out.”

She didn’t bother with a response. For all his hard talk, she knew he wouldn’t go that far. Or, she corrected, at least the man she had left seven years ago would never behave like a caveman. She wasn’t entirely sure about this version of Luke Hamilton, with the unsmiling mouth and the hard light in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, even during the worst days of their marriage.

“I’m ready,” she said.

“Let’s go, then. We’ve got a long drive.”

Without waiting for her to respond, he grabbed her suitcase and marched toward his vehicle through the lightly falling snow. He threw it into the back of the pickup, which at least had a covered bed to keep out the elements.

Her bones ached as she walked down the steps and limped toward the pickup truck. She did her best to ignore the pain, as she usually did. The low pressure system from storms always seemed to make the pain worse. She had already taken the maximum dosage of over-the-counter pain medicine but it wasn’t quite taking the edge off. She didn’t trust herself with anything stronger.

At the door of the vehicle, she hovered uncertainly, struck with the humiliating realization that she was stuck. She couldn’t step up into the vehicle. It simply was too high. She couldn’t move her bad leg that far and didn’t have the upper body strength to pull herself up.

“We’ve got to move,” he growled. “Storm’s going to get stronger.”

How could she possibly tell him she needed help? She closed her eyes, shame as cold as the wind blowing off the water.

She could do this. Somehow. Over the last years, she had discovered stores of strength she never would have guessed she had inside her. She gripped the metal bar beside the door—the sissy handle, her dad used to call it—and tried to step up at the same time, but her foot slipped off the running board.

Luke made a sound from the other side of the truck but came around quickly.

“You should have said something,” he said gruffly.

Like what? Sorry, but I have the muscle tone of a baby bird?

Without a word, he put his hands at her waist and lifted her into the pickup as if she weighed nothing, less than a feather from that baby bird.

It was the first time he’d touched her in seven years. The first time any man had touched her, except medical professionals.

The contact, fleeting and awkward, still was enough to fill her with an intense ache.

She had craved his touch once, had lived for those moments they could be together. She had loved everything about his big, rangy body, from the curve of his shoulders to the hardness of his chest to the line of dark hair that dipped to points lower.

The memories seemed to roll across her mind, faster and faster. His mouth on hers, his hands in her hair, falling asleep with his warm skin against her.

Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how very much she missed a man’s touch. Not just any man. This man.

She gave a shaky breath as he closed the vehicle door. Then she settled into her seat and pulled her seat belt across with hands that trembled.

She couldn’t do this. Eight hours alone in a vehicle with Luke Hamilton. How could she survive it?

He climbed in and fastened his seat belt, then pulled away from Brambleberry House. As she watched her refuge disappear in the rearview window, she told herself it was only a drive. She could endure it.

She had lived through much worse over the past seven years.






Luke drove at a steady pace through the falling snow, heading east on the winding road toward Portland. On summer Sunday evenings, Elizabeth knew, this road would be packed with tired, sunburned beachgoers heading back to Portland for the week ahead. Now, on a Sunday evening in December, they encountered very little traffic going in either direction.

He said nothing, the silence in the vehicle oppressive and heavy. With each mile marker they passed, she felt as if the weight of the past pressed down harder.

“How did Elliot find me?” she finally had to ask again.

He sent her a sideways look before jerking his gaze back to the road. “You will have to ask him. I don’t know all the details.”

“I’m still having a hard time believing he and...Megan are together. Last I knew, she was still grieving Wyatt Bailey. Now...you tell me she’s marrying his brother.”

“She grieved for Wyatt for a long time. But I guess people tend to move on eventually.”

He said the words in an even tone but guilt still burned through her. She had earned his fury through her choices.

“What is Megan up to? Is she...still running the inn?”

He didn’t answer her for a full moment, focused on driving through a tight series of curves. Finally, he glanced over. “Don’t expect that we’re going to chat the entire drive to Haven Point.” His jaw was firm, his hands tight on the steering wheel. “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want anything to do with you. In fact, I’m going to pretend you’re not here, which isn’t that hard since you haven’t been for seven years.”

She folded her hands in her lap, telling herself she couldn’t let his words wound her. “You don’t want to know...what happened or why I left?”

“I especially don’t want to hear that. I don’t give a damn, Elizabeth. After all these years, I can honestly say that. You can spill all your secrets, spin all your explanations, to the district attorney.”

She wanted to argue but knew it would be pointless. Her words would tangle and she wouldn’t be able to get them out anyway. “Fine. But I’m not going to...sit here in silence.”

She turned on the radio, which was set to the classic rock she knew he enjoyed. She was half tempted to turn the dial to something she knew would annoy him—Christmas music, maybe—but she didn’t want to push.

After several more moments of tense silence, the leaden weight of everything still unsaid between them, she settled into the corner and closed her eyes. She intended only to escape the awkwardness for a moment, but the day’s events and the adrenaline crash after the shock of seeing him again seemed to catch up with her.

She would never have expected it, but somehow she slept.






Elizabeth.

Here.

Sleeping next to him. Or at least pretending to—he couldn’t be sure. Her eyes were closed, her breathing even and measured, but he couldn’t tell if she was genuinely asleep or simply avoiding conversation. He couldn’t really blame her for that, since he’d shut her down hard when she tried to talk to him.

She was close enough he could touch her if he wanted—which he absolutely didn’t.

His hands tightened again on the steering wheel. At this rate, his fingers would stiffen into claws by the time they reached home.

Since the moment Elliot had handed him that piece of paper with a single name and an address, he had imagined this moment, when he would see her again.

His whole world had been rocked by the revelation that she wasn’t dead. Months later he still hadn’t recovered. He had done his best to put it aside, figuring if she wanted him to know where she was, she would have told him herself.

After finding out about the district attorney’s plans the day before, that choice had been taken out of his hands.

He had to retrieve her and take her back to Idaho so he could clear his name. He had been so focused on the task at hand, though, that he hadn’t given the rest of it much thought.

The grim reality was sinking in now. He would have to spend several hours trapped in a vehicle with the wife who had walked out on him and their children without a backward look.

Or had she looked back? He had to wonder. If she hadn’t looked back, why would she continue returning to Haven Point to check up on her children?

He thought of her the last time he had seen the mystery woman, at a play Cassie’s school had performed for Halloween. Cassie and a couple of her friends had played a trio of witches trying to prove they weren’t as bad as everyone thought. He remembered seeing the intriguing stranger—how again hadn’t he guessed she was Elizabeth in disguise?—sitting in the back row, clapping enthusiastically.

That jarring information seemed again to twist everything he thought he knew about her.

He cringed, remembering he’d actually had the wild idea at the play that the next time he saw her, he should strike up a conversation to at least ask her name and what child she was there to support.

What if he’d done it, walked up to her and tried to talk to her without knowing she was his own freaking wife?

He felt like a fool.

He released a breath, fighting down the resurgence of anger.

How was he supposed to endure several more hours of this proximity with her?

He could handle it. For the sake of his children, he had no choice. He had to clear his name. A cloud of suspicion followed him everywhere he went in Haven Point and it was long past time he shed it.

He knew Cassie and Bridger heard the whispers. While he had his undeniable supporters, with his sister and her friends chief among them, plenty of people in Haven Point still believed he had murdered his wife and dropped her body down an abandoned mine shaft or carried it up into the mountains where it had never been found.

Hell, the new Lake Haven district attorney was so convinced Luke had done just that, she was willing to press charges above the protests of nearly everyone in local law enforcement.

He had to move on. He had known where Elizabeth was for months. He could have hauled her back to town long ago and this whole thing would have been done, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to face her.

He hadn’t been ready, he supposed, and had needed time to absorb the new reality that she hadn’t taken her own life—she had only chosen to walk away from the one they had created together.

The winds began to blow harder as he left Portland, swirling sleet and snow against the windshield. It was taking most of his concentration to keep the vehicle on the road, yet Elizabeth slept on soundly, face tucked against the leather seat as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

Once, she had been the best thing in his life, the one who made him laugh and see the joy and beauty around him. Sometimes he felt as if he had loved her forever, but it hadn’t been until the summer after her junior year of college that he’d really known her as anything more than one of his younger sister’s friends.

They had been at a party, some Fourth of July thing at the lake. He hadn’t wanted to go, too busy working construction and studying for the tests he needed for his general contractor license to take the time, but a friend had dragged him along.

She had worn a light blue swimming suit with stars on it, he remembered, and her smile had been brighter than the hot summer sun glinting off the lake.

He had fallen hard, right then and there.

He had dated plenty of women. He’d been twenty-five, not an innocent, but none of them had been as funny or as smart or as openhearted as Elizabeth Sinclair. Somehow that night while fireworks exploded over the lake, he had tumbled in love with her. To his everlasting astonishment, she had fallen right back.

They had married a year later, after she graduated, and he still remembered the magic of their first months of wedded bliss. They thought they could do anything, could conquer the whole world. She was working as a secretary/receptionist at an insurance office in Shelter Springs while he had continued working construction. Before they married, they had saved up for a down payment on a house and made an offer on the little house on Riverbend Road in need of serious repairs.

Together, they had started fixing up the place, and everything had been exciting and wonderful. For the first time in his life, he felt as if fate had dealt him a pretty good hand. They had even started working toward having a family. Neither of them wanted to wait.

Then her parents had been killed in a tragic boating accident on Lake Haven, her mother falling out of a fishing boat and her father drowning while he tried to rescue her.

Everything had changed.

Elizabeth had gone from happy and loving and generous to lost and grieving and withdrawn in a blink.

She had been dealing with hard things. He understood that. The deaths of her parents had hit her hard, knocking the legs out from under her. The Sinclairs had adored their only daughter and she had loved them back. They had been a warm and loving family, one of the first things that had drawn him to her.

He had tried to support her, to say all the things he thought she needed to hear, to simply hold her when she needed it. None of it had been enough. Instead of turning toward him, she had turned away.

A month after her parents died, she found out she was two months pregnant with Cassie. She had burst into tears when she told him, not happy tears but grief-stricken that she could no longer share the joyous news with her parents, two people she loved so dearly.

Though he knew she tried to be happy about the pregnancy, to compartmentalize her pain over losing her parents and focus instead on the impending birth, he sensed she was only going through the motions. Her smiles had been too bright, her enthusiasm not quite genuine.

He thought the birth of their daughter would jolt her out of the sadness she couldn’t shake. Instead, what he understood now was postpartum depression had hit her hard.

Treatment and therapy had helped, but Elizabeth never quite returned to the woman she’d been the first year of their marriage.

Time would heal, the therapists said, and he held on to that, praying they could find each other again once things returned to normal.

When she told him she wanted to have another baby, he resisted hard, but eventually she had worn him down and convinced him things would be different this time, that it would be the best thing for their marriage.

It hadn’t been. The next two years were hell. This time the postpartum hit with harsh ferocity. After Bridger was born, she had days when she couldn’t get out of bed. She lost weight and lost interest in all the things she usually enjoyed.

They went to round after round of specialists, but none of their therapies seemed to make a difference. By the time she disappeared, when Cassie was almost three and Bridger less than a year, he couldn’t leave her alone with the children. He hired someone to stay with them through the day and took care of them all night.

He had lost his wife long before she actually disappeared.

Anger and misery were a twisted coil in his chest as he drove east through the increasing snow along the Columbia River.

He wanted those early days back, that heady flush of love they had shared, with an ache that bordered on desperation. Right now they didn’t even seem real, like a home movie he had watched of somebody else’s life.

He couldn’t have them back. All he could do now was move forward: clear his name, get the divorce and let her walk away for good this time.

It was what he wanted and what his children needed.

For their sake and his own, he couldn’t let this unexpected attraction he felt for Elizabeth 2.0 get in the way.




Chapter Three (#u6f2a8054-74a2-5c8b-854c-89d0406f3f48)


Sleep had become her sanctuary over the past seven years.

Here, in dreams, Elizabeth could escape into the life she ached to recapture. She was free of the pain that had become her constant silent companion, the grinding headaches that could hit out of the blue, the muscle spasms that left her in tears. Especially the terrifying seizures that she had to fight off with every ounce of her strength.

She could be with her family again. Cassie, Bridger. Luke. While she was sleeping, she could become the best version of herself, the mother she had wanted to be. She sat on the floor and played with her children; she held them in her lap and rocked them to sleep; she could read to them for hours on end.

Though she did have the occasional nightmare, for the most part, sleep was just about the best thing in the world, and she loved sliding into her bed in her room by the big windows at Brambleberry House, pulling the soft blankets up around her shoulders and escaping into the heavenly fantasy.

Alas, morning always came. While she might have liked to hibernate, nestled under the covers for months where her mind could live in that joyful fantasy world, her body had pesky physical needs, like food and drink and medication. Plus, she unfortunately had to go outside of the house and work at a job that could provide enough income to pay for those necessities.

The transition was never easy. Her subconscious fought the return to reality, trying to squeeze out as much REM as possible. She always awoke slowly, reluctantly. This time, the journey to consciousness seemed harder than usual.

Her eyes fluttered open. For a few seconds, she couldn’t remember where she was or why she had this vague sense of dread surrounding her. She sensed movement but didn’t know where she was going. It was dark. She was a passenger in a moving vehicle. Outside the darkened windows, she saw the gleam of snow in headlights.

Panic, thick and hard, hit her then, and she suddenly couldn’t breathe. Another night. Another storm. Searing, devastating pain.

Sometimes the idyllic refuge of her dreams could shift to a nightmare in an instant.

A cry escaped her and the sound of her own voice dragged her further to the other side of sleep.

“Easy. It’s okay.”

Odd. What was Luke’s voice doing in her nightmare? It was a discordant, jarring note in the otherwise familiar setting. He hadn’t been there that night. She had left him and their children.

Reality hit her like a fist punching through the windshield. She opened her eyes the rest of the way, turned in her seat and found him through the darkness, hard and unforgiving as he drove through the storm.

“Luke.”

He shifted his eyes briefly from the road. “Were you expecting someone else when you woke up? Hoping you could open your eyes and find out I was just a bad dream?”

He was a good dream. Always the best dream.

“No. Sorry.” She sat up, trying to ignore a wicked cramp in her leg.

“Where are we?”

“About a hundred or so miles past Portland. You slept a few hours. I need to pull off at the next town for gas.”

He was driving slowly through the storm, she could tell by the trees inching past the window. She could see few other cars on the road.

“Something’s wrong,” she said, panic surging again. “There’s no...traffic coming from the other direction.”

“I know.” He kept his gaze focused on the road. Now she noticed his knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Was that from her presence or from the storm? Or both?

“Maybe...maybe it’s an accident or something else has closed the freeway.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t think so.”

“Don’t know. I’ve been trying to get news on the radio but can’t find any local stations.”

He pointed to a sign on the shoulder indicating an exit two miles ahead with services. “Maybe we can find out more when we fill up.”

A lifetime crawled by in the time it took him to cover those few miles. He drove silently, the only sounds in the vehicle the hum of the heater and the beat of the wipers. By the time he took the exit, she felt wrung dry from the tension. The gas station was part of a cluster of rural houses, maybe six or seven. She was struck by the Christmas lights gleaming a welcome through the snow. Elizabeth had almost forgotten Christmas was only a week away.

Luke drove up to a gas pump, then finally shifted toward her. “Do you need to go in?”

Mostly, she wanted a minute away from him and this tension. If nothing else, moving might help ease the muscle cramp in her leg.

“Yes. I’ll only be...a moment.”

Blowing snow hit her as she opened the vehicle door. She shivered but gripped the door frame and lowered herself out gingerly. For one horrifying moment, she was afraid her leg would not support her weight, but she willed all the strength she had into it and was able to make her painstaking way inside the convenience store.

“Hello,” the clerk greeted her.

Elizabeth forced a smile and made her way straight to the restroom. There, she looked at herself in the mirror, struck as she always was when she looked at her reflection by the woman there who was her but wasn’t her.

When she emerged from the restroom, she found Luke walking through the empty snack aisle with a basket over his arm. He had a deli sandwich, a bag of chips, a couple of protein bars and a banana that looked a few days past its prime.

“Would you like anything?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’m good.”

“You need to eat. Grab something. This is dinner.”

She wanted to argue that she wasn’t hungry and wasn’t sure she could eat as long as she was with him, but that would simply be foolish. She had to eat to maintain her strength, something she was quite certain she would need over the next few days.

She grabbed a bag of nuts and some dried apple slices. Luke gave her a look and deliberately picked up a second premade sandwich and added it to his collection.

The cashier set down her magazine when they approached the checkout. She was in her sixties, her skin weathered, and she sported red hair in a shade that couldn’t possibly be natural. “Where you folks heading?”

“A town east of Boise. Haven Point.”

She squinted at them. “Haven’t you been listening to the weather report? It’s nasty out there. This storm is hitting hard. They’re telling people to stay off the freeway tonight.”

“It’s never as bad as they say it will be,” Luke said.

“Usually I’d agree with you but this one is a doozy. About an hour east of here, you’re going to be fighting black ice and blizzard conditions. There was a big pileup that’s closed all traffic coming this direction.”

“That’s why we didn’t see anyone,” Elizabeth exclaimed, her stomach muscles clenching.

“We’ll be fine. I’m in a big truck with four-wheel drive.”

“It’s always the guys with four-wheel drive who think they can get through anything and end up off the road,” the cashier said. “That won’t do you diddly if it’s icy. Four-wheel-drive vehicles slide off just as easy as front-wheel.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Luke said. “But we’ve got to keep going. Family emergency.”

“Well, good luck to you, then,” she said, shaking her head in a pitying sort of way.

Luke paid for their supplies and the gas, and they walked back outside. Just in the short time they’d been inside, the wind had picked up. Now those snowflakes felt like tiny ice-cold missiles, and visibility had dropped to only a few hundred feet.

Elizabeth tried to fight down her panic, remembering another night, another storm.

She did not want to be out in this. She wanted to be safe at home next to her fireplace at Brambleberry House with a mug of hot cocoa and a mystery novel.

Luke was a good driver, she reminded herself as he helped her inside the truck again and she fastened her seat belt. He always had been.

He would keep her safe.

She repeated that mantra for the next half hour, with Luke driving no more than twenty miles per hour. Neither of them said anything, focused only on the increasing fury of the storm.

After what seemed a lifetime, he released a frustrated sigh.

“We’re not going to make it any farther tonight. Might as well catch a few hours of sleep while the storm blows over and then take off again in the morning when the roads are clear. Look online and see if you can find us a couple of rooms in the next town.”

This sparsely populated and remote part of Oregon wasn’t exactly overflowing with towns that boasted four-star hotels. Add in the storm that was basically crippling transportation and she wasn’t optimistic about their chances. Still, she was grateful she still had cell service and something to do to take her mind off the weather conditions and the fear that hovered just on the edge of her mind.

Sure enough, she searched on her phone for hotels in the next town and found only two. When she called, neither had vacancies. Not so much as a broom closet.

She had more luck with the town after that, about ten more miles along the interstate.

“Looks like there’s one room with two beds in a motel in the next town,” she said, looking at the hotel app she used to book her trips to Haven Point.

“Call them and book it. I’m afraid it might take us a half an hour or more to get there and I would hate for it to be sold out when we show up. You can take a credit card out of my wallet.”

He lifted a hip to pull it out, then handed it over, still warm from being in his pocket.

She took it quickly so he could return both hands to the wheel. Using the light from her phone, she opened it and started to search for a credit card. Before she could find one, she stopped on a snapshot inside the wallet, in a little pocket with a clear cover.

Their children.

Cassie and Bridger were hugging each other, faces turned to the camera with matching smiles.

Next to them was another picture. Older. This one was of a much younger Luke with his arm around a woman with blond hair and blue eyes. They looked at each other with a love that was as plain as if hearts and flowers suddenly floated off the image.

She felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the vehicle, as if her lungs couldn’t expand enough to take in the necessary air.

She missed them, this couple who had been so in love. She missed the evenings they would spend snuggled together, sharing secrets and dreams; she missed the pure contentment she felt in his arms; she missed the serenity of knowing someone loved her completely.

She missed that woman, too.

It had been seven years since she’d seen a picture of herself the way she used to be.

She had forgotten. The angle of her nose and the little bump where she had broken it in second grade trying to ice-skate down the slide at the playground. The mouth that looked like the mother she had never forgotten, even during the time she considered the blank years.

Luke looked so young. Not at all like the hard, forbidding man who sat beside her. He had been closed off when they married, his spirit bruised by a cruel, abusive father, yet there had been a softness to him then. A sweetness. She had always attributed that to Megan’s mother, Sharon, his stepmother from the age of about six, who had loved and nurtured the lost little boy he had been.

She fought the urge now to rub her finger on that familiar, beloved face, as if she could absorb him through her skin and somehow resurrect some of that sweetness and joy.

“Well? Did you find a credit card?”

She jerked her gaze from the picture to the man beside her. “Sorry. Just a minute.” She dug out a card and flashed it to him. “Will this work?”

“That’s fine.”

With great reluctance, she closed the wallet on that picture and dialed the number to the hotel, then pushed the required sequence of numbers to connect with an operator.

The line rang at least ten times before a woman answered, sounding flustered.

“Riverside Inn.”

“Hi. I was...wondering about booking a room tonight. We are...traveling and stranded by the storm.”

She hated her hesitant, faltering voice and hated most of all that Luke heard it. So far she had been able to conceal the way her mind tangled sometimes over the right words. At other times, the right ones slipped away completely.

“You and everyone else, honey.”

“Your...your website said you had availability.”

“I’ve got one room left. How long will it take you to make it here?”

“I...don’t know. But I was...hoping I could reserve it with a credit card.”

“That works. Good thing you called. That’s probably the last available room in a hundred miles. Let me open up a reservation.”

After they went through the particulars of booking the room on Luke’s card, Elizabeth thanked the woman.

“I hear it’s ugly out there. Be safe, Mrs. Hamilton.”

No one had called her that in so many years. “I... Thank you.”

She disconnected the call and carefully slid Luke’s credit card back into the pocket of his wallet, fighting the urge to flip through the pictures again and stare at all of them. He probably had more of the children, maybe when they were younger.

“All set?”

She nodded and carefully closed the wallet again. “It was the last room. You were right about booking it over the phone. Here’s your wallet.”

“I can’t put it back in my pocket while I’m driving. Just set it on the console,” he said before turning his attention back to the road and the snow blowing across.

Now that she had nothing to do but focus on the storm, her anxiety increased. Even closing her eyes didn’t keep it at bay because she could still hear the wipers on high and the tires churning through the snowy conditions.

“I don’t know how to get to the motel,” he said as the next exit loomed ahead of them. “Can you find directions?”

Did he sense she could cope better when she had a task? “Of course,” she answered, and punched in the coordinates of the inn to her phone, then recited the turn-by-turn instructions to him. It seemed like forever but was probably only a few more moments before he found the building with the neon sign out front that read Riverside Inn.

He pulled into a parking space, one of the few remaining. “Took a while but we made it. You okay?”

Sure. She was going to be spending the night in a little hotel room with the only man she’d ever loved—a man who happened to hate her with every fiber of his being. Why wouldn’t she be okay?

“Fine,” she answered, quite certain he knew it was a lie.

The hotel’s website hadn’t exaggerated its charm, as websites often did. It was actually quite lovely. Red and green Christmas lights ran along the eaves and a brightly lit Christmas tree twinkled a cheery welcome through the blowing snow.

“You need help getting out?” he asked.

“No. Grab the bags,” she answered.

He nodded and went to the bed of the pickup truck to collect their luggage.

She opened her door and slid down into ankle-deep snow. Sometimes she could be so stupid and stubborn. She should have accepted his help. She could have used her cane but it was back with her suitcase. Stupid her.

The prospect of walking the twenty feet from the pickup truck to the front door of the inn through the snow was as daunting as climbing Mount Hood. Her balance wasn’t the greatest under the best of circumstances. Throw in icy conditions and she seemed predestined for a fall.

Still, she started out after him and had only made it a few faltering steps when he returned without the luggage.

He thrust out his arm. “Here. Grab hold. I should have thought to help you first before taking the bags.”

His words weren’t quite an apology but close to it. She was torn between embarrassment that she needed his help and gratitude that he saw the need and stepped forward so that she didn’t have to ask.

“Sorry. I’m not very...stable on ice.”

In her fleeting glance at his features, she saw questions in his eyes, but his mouth tightened and he remained silent. She turned her attention back to the sidewalk. He had to wonder about her physical condition and the obvious speech issues that were new since she had left him, but he didn’t ask.

Luke dropped her arm as soon as they walked through the outside door into the welcome warmth of the inn’s lobby. She told herself she had no right to be hurt by his obvious unwillingness to touch her, but it still stung.

A half dozen people stood in line, either looking for rooms or waiting to check in.

“I’m sorry but we don’t have anything left,” the flustered clerk was saying to a desperate-looking couple. “I understand an emergency shelter has been set up for stranded travelers at the elementary school, which is two blocks to the east.”

Oh dear. The situation was worse than she’d thought. She wasn’t looking forward to spending the night in a hotel room with Luke, but at least they had a room with beds and wouldn’t have to sleep on a cot in a classroom somewhere.

“Take a seat and I’ll check us in,” Luke said, gesturing to the only open spot in the lobby, next to a very pregnant woman who was trying to entertain a toddler on her lap with her cell phone.

Elizabeth made her way to the seating area, surrounding a river rock fireplace where a gas blaze cheerfully burned.

The woman with the toddler smiled at Elizabeth. “This is crazy, isn’t it? I thought we were taking a simple trip to visit my folks in Boise before the holidays. It’s my dad’s seventy-fifth birthday tomorrow. This blizzard came out of nowhere. When we checked the weather, they said it would only be a few inches, so we thought we were fine.”

Poor thing. Traveling with little ones had to be tough enough without road emergencies. “Do you have a room?” she asked, with some vague, crazy idea of giving her theirs. Elizabeth wouldn’t want to sleep at the elementary school, but it would be better than having to live with the guilt at knowing she sent this pregnant woman and darling little girl back out into that storm.

“We do. We called ahead and were fortunate enough to book one of the last two rooms in town.”

“I think we got the other one.”

The woman smiled at her. “Yay us.” She nodded to the line at the reception desk. “Is that your husband in line behind mine?”

She wanted to say Luke wasn’t her husband, but it seemed foolish to protest. He was, anyway. She just hadn’t been any sort of wife to him for the last seven years.

Instead, she simply nodded.

“Lucky you,” the woman said with a grin. “I’m Lindsey Lowell, and this is my little girl, Aubrey.”

“Hi, Aubrey. Hi, Lindsey. I’m...Sonia Davis.”

She caught a little on the name that had been given to her seven years ago. Even after a few hours, she was already back to being Elizabeth in her head.

“Hi,” Aubrey said. “I’m this many.”

She held up two fingers and Elizabeth smiled. “That’s big. What are you playing?”

“Balloons. I share.” The girl held out the phone for Elizabeth.

“Um. Thanks.” She wasn’t quite sure what to say or do.

“I show you.” Without waiting for permission, Aubrey climbed from her mother’s lap to Elizabeth’s, demonstrating how to pop the balloons on the phone app.

“Aubrey. Honey. Come back.”

“No. It’s fine,” Elizabeth said. She didn’t have the chance to interact with an adorable little girl very often. If nothing else, it would give the pregnant mom a break for a moment.

A few moments later, she was engrossed in the girl, who delighted in showing her how to blow the balloons up bigger and make them float across the screen, then how to pop them rather violently with a finger.

It was actually calming in a zen sort of way, a little like playing with Bubble Wrap.

“Pretty,” Aubrey exclaimed, clapping her hands when Elizabeth inflated a purple balloon until it filled the whole screen. The girl pointed her chubby little index finger at the phone and popped it with a relish that made Elizabeth smile.

She was so busy playing with the girl, she didn’t notice Luke return until she suddenly sensed his presence. She looked up in time to see something dark flash across his expression.

She had rarely played with their own children like this. She had wanted to, had ached to be the mother they needed, but the dark emptiness had been overwhelming.

We would all be better off without you.

The memory of those words coming from his mouth was as crystal clear as if he had said them moments earlier.

How funny that she still had many gaps in her memory but that one was so distinct. She could see the pain in his eyes, hear the frustration in his voice as he said them.

She had goaded him into it during one of her terrible days, had begged him over and over again to admit it.

He hadn’t wanted to but she had finally worn him down. Fine. You want me to say it? Right now it’s true. We would all be better off without you.

She hadn’t been able to be the wife he needed during those four years or a mother for their children.

There had been good days during that time; she was certain of it. Before she got pregnant with Bridger, she had tried so hard to be a good mother to Cassie, but she knew the bad times had far outnumbered the good.

“Our room is ready,” he said gruffly.

She didn’t want to go with him. She wanted to stay here in this lobby, surrounded by noise and chaos and children.

“Goodbye, Lindsey. It was...nice to meet you. Safe travels to you and...good luck with your little one.”

“Thank you. Goodbye, Sonia.”

Luke’s mouth tightened at the name. He looked at the woman and the bags surrounding her. “Do you need help carrying your things to your room?”

“No. We didn’t bring much and my husband can carry what we have. Thank you, though.”

Elizabeth rose and followed Luke across the lobby to an elevator in an alcove next to the fireplace.

“You’re back to Sonia again?” he asked after pushing the button for their floor.

She didn’t like feeling defensive. She hadn’t chosen to use a different name. Circumstances had been thrust upon her without her knowledge or consent. “It’s been my name for seven years. Elizabeth... She seems like a different person.”

He didn’t say anything more as he led the way to the third floor and down the hall to their room.

He unlocked the door and held it open for her. It was a comfortable space, far more so than she had feared they would end up sharing. The furniture looked new, two queen beds made out of honey-colored pine and covered in lodge-look comforters. There was even space for a small sitting area with a sofa and easy chair.

As far as hotel rooms went, this one was fairly large. Still, unless it was the size of a ballroom, any place would still be too small for her to be comfortable spending several hours alone with Luke in it.

He set their luggage down. “Do you need something to eat or will the sandwiches we bought earlier do? The front desk clerk said they have vending machines and there’s a restaurant still open next door.”

“I’m not hungry,” she answered. “But if I need something, a sandwich is fine.”

He stood for a moment, big and rangy and obviously as unenthusiastic as she was about being trapped in this hotel room together.

“I left my phone in the truck. I’m going to grab it and maybe make a few calls down in the lobby. I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

Before she could answer, he turned around and headed out of the hotel room, leaving her alone once more.




Chapter Four (#u6f2a8054-74a2-5c8b-854c-89d0406f3f48)


He closed the door outside the hotel room, aware he had just blatantly lied to his wife. His phone wasn’t in the truck; it was in his pocket. He had used the phone only as an excuse so he wouldn’t have to sit in that hotel room with Elizabeth either in silence or in stilted, awkward conversation.

He wanted to spend as little time as possible with her. It was bad enough that he had been trapped with her for the last four hours. He needed a little distance to get his head back on straight.

He headed down to the lobby, which was still chaotic but not quite as frenzied as it had been when they arrived. While he was tempted to go to the restaurant next door and see if they had a bar attached, he knew that wouldn’t solve anything.

He didn’t drink much, his answer to growing up with an abusive alcoholic for a father. Sometimes he longed for the oblivion, but he feared what would happen once he started down that road.

Instead, he managed to find a relatively quiet corner and sat for a minute checking his email and messages. Nothing was urgent, only a few scheduling conflicts with subcontractors on a couple of the houses he was building in Shelter Springs. He could deal with them after he returned to town.

That done, he finally checked the time and saw it was 8:00 p.m., not too late to talk to the kids.

His sister had called him three times that day and he had sent each to voice mail, not up to the battle he knew would ensue, but she needed to know he wouldn’t be back that night.

Megan answered on the second ring. “Luke. It is about time you called. I’ve been worried sick! What is going on? Where are you?”

“Stuck in central Oregon. We ran into a storm and won’t be back until morning.”

“We?”

He sighed. “Elizabeth. I told you I was coming to get her.”

“Wrong. You told me nothing. Less than nothing. I’ve had just about enough of men and their cryptic explanations today.”

That must mean Elliot Bailey was still busy with his latest undercover investigation for the FBI. He’d been gone three weeks and Megan wasn’t happy about the situation, especially when they were supposed to marry in less than a month.

“You can’t just drop the kids off and announce you’re going after Elizabeth, then walk out the door before I can ask any questions,” she said.

He hadn’t been fair to his sister. He had known that as soon as he drove away. His only excuse had been that he’d reacted out of anger and frustration after Cade Emmett called him early that morning, what seemed a lifetime and hundreds of miles ago. The Haven Point police chief called to warn him the new county district attorney, a temporary appointment until the next election, was preparing to file charges against him in the disappearance and presumed murder of his wife.

The wife he had known for months was alive and well and living on the Oregon Coast.

His reaction had been visceral, with not much thought behind it, though he’d had plenty of time to think on the eight-hour drive from Boise to the coast.

“The morning was crazy,” he answered. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking after Cade called. Thanks for taking the kids, by the way.”

“Of course. You know they’re always welcome here. I guess you won’t be back tonight, then.”

“No. A big storm has traffic at a standstill. I’m hoping we can get an early start first thing in the morning.”

“The kids are fine. Since Elliot still isn’t back, I might just take them back to your place so they can sleep in their own beds.”

“No problem. Thanks. I owe you.”

He knew this was only one tiny drop of debt in the vast ocean he owed his sister.

“So. You have Elizabeth with you?”

“Not at this particular moment in time. She’s up in the room. But yes. She’s coming back with me to clear things up once and for all.”

“That will be a relief,” Megan said. “Are you...okay?”

He squirmed at the concern in his sister’s voice. He knew what she was asking. How was he handling seeing her again?

He didn’t know how to answer. He was stuck in a hotel room with a woman he had once loved with all his heart, had grieved for deeply when he thought she was dead and had come to despise now that he knew she had chosen to walk away from the life they were building.

Yeah, he’d had better days.

“I’m fine.” He gave his second lie of the evening. “I just wish I could be home with the kids. How are they doing? Did you have a good day?”

“Yes. I took them to church,” she answered.

Luke didn’t miss the hesitancy in her voice. He knew his sister well enough to sense she wasn’t telling him something. “What happened? What’s going on?”

“Nothing you need to worry about. You have enough on your plate right now. We can talk when you get home.”

“Megan. What happened.”

She sighed. “I guess I need to tell you. Bridger got in a fight after Sunday school.”

“No, he didn’t!”

“Do you think I would lie about something like that?”

Bridger was not that kind of kid. He was sweet and good-natured, always willing to focus on the good in other people. “I’m sure there was some kind of misunderstanding.”

“Maybe. One of the other parents saw the whole thing and intervened before it could get too ugly. Apparently another kid said something mean to Bridger and he punched him.”

“Who was it?”

“Jedediah Sparks. That kid is a pistol. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, you know?”

He did know. Jed’s father, Billy, and his mother, Arlene, were some of Luke’s most vocal critics, making sly comments about wife killers and criminals going free whenever they happened to inhabit the same space. The boy probably heard all kinds of nasty gossip from his parents.

“Did Bridger say why he lost his temper?”

“He’s not talking. He only said it was a difference of opinion and he wanted to make the other kid shut up. He feels awful.”

“He should feel awful.”

“He’s upset about punching someone in church and thinks God is going to be mad at him. More than that, he’s afraid you’re going to be mad at him. Or at least disappointed. He said you always told him the most important lesson a man has to learn is how to control his temper.”

Megan didn’t say more, but Luke knew what she was thinking. They had both shared the same son of a bitch for a father. Paul Hamilton had never given a single damn about controlling his temper. He had been harsh, demanding, cruel. Both Luke and his sister had barely survived their childhood.

“Is he already in bed? I’d like to talk to him.”

“He is. They were pretty tired after helping me shovel snow earlier at the inn.”

“Are you okay staying overnight with them? I’m sorry to do that to you. I can find someone else if you have things to do. I’m hoping we can get an early start, but I don’t know how long this weather will hold out.”

“We will be great. Tomorrow is a slow day for me. I’m just working on photos and my schedule is totally flexible. I can get the kids off to school and work after that.”

“Thank you. I owe you.” Again, the words seemed wholly inadequate. “I’ll keep you posted about the weather here.”

“Is that all you have to say? You don’t want to tell me your impressions about Elizabeth?”

He shifted, telling himself the sudden warmth seeping through him came from the gas fireplace in the lobby. “Nothing to tell. She’s a stranger now.”

“You must have had a million questions. What kind of explanation did she give? Why did she run off? Why did she change her name? Where has she been all these years while you have been raising your children, living under a cloud of suspicion?”

He gazed into the dancing flames, thinking of the woman probably asleep in the room upstairs. “I don’t know any more than I did this morning. She’s still a mystery. I told her I didn’t want to know anything. I don’t care. She can tell her story to the district attorney tomorrow.”

Okay, that had been a stupid, stubborn thing to say, his knee-jerk reaction. He was afraid that the more he knew, the angrier he would become.

The most important lesson a man has to learn is how to control his temper.

It was the advice he’d given his son and also the advice he most needed to follow himself. He found it tough enough to keep his temper contained around Elizabeth. He feared the task would become impossible once he knew the full story about her reasons for leaving him.

“Seriously?” Megan pressed. “You don’t know anything?”

He knew Elizabeth was still lovely, though very different from the woman he had married. He knew he was still attracted to her. He knew he missed the wife he had loved with a deep, yearning ache.

“Not much. She doesn’t look the same. You wouldn’t know her if you bumped into her on the street, but I do know she’s been back to Haven Point at least a few times over the years. I recognized her and realized I’ve...seen her around town before.”

Megan’s outrage seemed to pop and sizzle over the phone line. “What? And she never stopped to see the kids? Every time I think I can’t despise the woman more, I discover I’m wrong.”

For one crazy moment, Luke was almost tempted to defend Elizabeth. She seemed so fragile, so vulnerable, the sort of wounded creature he had always tried to nurture back to health.

What the hell was wrong with him?

She had left him. Worse, she had left the kids. That was unforgivable, as far as he was concerned.

“How’s the wedding planning?” he asked, a blatant ploy to distract her.

To his relief, the diversion worked. “It’s good. But next time I decide to plan a winter wedding, remind me not to.”

“I hope you don’t plan another wedding ever,” he replied.

“So do I.”

“What do you hear from Elliot?”

Megan sighed. “Nothing. I know it’s the job and one of the things I’m going to have to learn to live with, but I hate having him out of contact. I need him here, you know?”

He didn’t like thinking about Megan and Elliot together, especially considering recent history between them. While it would take a long time to repair the damage of the past seven years when the FBI agent had suspected him of harming his wife, Luke still respected him. Elliot had always focused on doing the right thing. He had been the one to locate Elizabeth, through tireless investigation that he’d undertaken for Megan’s sake, not for Luke’s.

The man came close to being good enough for Megan, though nobody could ever really hit that bar.

“Oh, that’s Cyrus. I need to take him out.”

He pictured her funny-looking little dog and almost smiled. “Okay. I’ll let you go. Thanks again for taking care of the kids. I can’t tell you exactly what time I’ll be back but I’ll be in touch.”

“Be careful,” she said. Luke had a feeling she wasn’t just talking about the roads.

“Yeah. Thanks. Give them both a hug for me in the morning and tell Bridger to stay away from Jedediah.”

“I will. Maybe I can get him to tell me a few more details about what set him off.”

After he said goodbye to his sister and ended the call, Luke sat for a long moment in the lobby. He had a feeling the desk clerk wouldn’t be happy if he just stretched out in this comfy chair and went to sleep down here, but he really didn’t want to go back to that hotel room to face Elizabeth yet.

Outside, the storm was either on momentary hiatus or had slowed a little. The intensity seemed to have decreased. Instead of blowing horizontally, the snow seemed to be falling in the usual manner.

He was so tired from hours of driving but knew he would be too restless to sleep. On impulse, he headed for the front desk, where the same clerk who had checked them in earlier still worked.

His family had run an inn for most of his life. Megan still oversaw the Haven Point Inn. He knew exactly how many little details went into giving guests an enjoyable experience and how hard it could be to accomplish everything necessary.

“Hi. I’ve been sitting behind the wheel all day and need to burn off some energy. Do you mind if I take a shovel and clear off the front walk?”

The woman’s face brightened. “Mind? Are you kidding? Our maintenance guy is up to his eyeballs trying to fix a problem with the swimming pool. We’ve got twenty kids who want to swim and the situation is getting desperate. You would be a lifesaver.”

Luke grabbed the shovel from the closet she pointed to and headed out into the storm, grateful he’d still been wearing his coat when he walked down to use the phone.

In the end, he shoveled the walks all around the small inn. The physical exertion helped calm his brain, almost a form of meditation. By the time he finished, his muscles burned, but he felt much more able to rest.

“Thank you,” the clerk said when he came inside again. “That was so kind of you. The least I can do is give you a coupon for a meal at the restaurant next door. We offer a free breakfast of muffins and fruit, but they have a more elaborate spread.”

“Thanks, but I’m hoping we’ll be making an early start and won’t have time for a sit-down breakfast. There was a nice young couple just ahead of us when we checked in. A couple with a little girl. You could give it to them.”

“I’ll do that. That’s very nice of you. Thank you.”

“Good night.”

He couldn’t put it off any longer. He had to go to the room. Cheeks still cold from the elements, Luke made his way up to the elevator, bracing himself the whole way to deal with her again.

When he opened the door to the hotel room, he found it mostly dark, illuminated only by the bathroom light. It took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the dim conditions. When they did, he saw she had picked the bed closest to the window and was under the covers, unmoving. Was she asleep? He couldn’t say. Her breathing seemed regular and steady but she might have been faking.

He grabbed his duffel and headed into the bathroom to get ready for bed. He hadn’t been planning to stay the night but also hadn’t known what he would face in Oregon. He was glad some sixth sense had prompted him to be prepared for a night on the road. He at least had a T-shirt and gym shorts he could sleep in.

When he came out of the bathroom, he couldn’t see that she had moved.

Odd. She had always been a restless sleeper. He couldn’t count the number of nights he had awakened with her sprawled across him, warm and soft, the comforter somewhere at their feet or on the floor. He used to love wrapping his arms around her and holding her, cherishing the pure perfection of the moment while he counted the moments until he could legitimately awaken her with a kiss.

He pushed away the ache and slipped into his own bed, wishing it were a little farther away so he didn’t have to listen to her breathing.

He had become the restless sleeper now. Since she left, he rarely slept all the way through the night, as if something in his subconscious continued to wake up, looking for her. It made him furious and empty at the same time.

He stared up at the ceiling in the room, tinted red and green from the snow-covered Christmas lights filtering in through a gap in the curtains.

Finally, exhausted from hours of driving and from the emotional tumult of the day, he slept.

He awoke to whimpering coming from the other bed. For a moment when he first awoke, he couldn’t remember where he was. Was that Cassie or Bridger having a bad dream?

He saw red and green lights filtering through the curtains and remembered then. He was in a hotel somewhere in Oregon. That wasn’t one of his kids. It was the wife he hadn’t seen in years.

He rolled onto his side, facing her. He could just make out her features in the dim light, twisted with either pain or fear. As he listened, trying to decide whether to wake her, the sound turned into more than whimpering. She cried out, the emotion in her voice tortured and raw. “No. Please. My babies. I need my babies.”

He frowned, sitting up and scrubbing his face to push away the remaining tendrils of sleep.

“I’m not Sonia. I’m Elizabeth. Why won’t you believe me? Please. Please! Don’t leave me trapped here.”

She said a few more things, her words garbled and unintelligible but the distress coming through with grim clarity.

Finally he couldn’t take it anymore. He flipped on the light on the table between the two beds. “Lizzie? Wake up. You’re dreaming.”

“Luke. Oh, Luke.” She said his name on a sob, her eyes still closed. He was fairly sure she wasn’t awake but he couldn’t be sure. He did know he hated her tears.

“Hey, now. Don’t cry.”

Though he knew it was probably one of the more stupid things he could do, he couldn’t resist sliding out of bed and sitting on the edge of hers. She was trembling. He could feel the bed vibrating with her small movements.

“Don’t cry,” he repeated. “You’re dreaming.”

Except this didn’t seem like a dream. She wasn’t here. She was...somewhere else.

He reached a hand out to calm her. That was all he really intended but the next moment she was somehow in his arms.

In an instant, seven years melted away. She was here and she was his.

He had forgotten how perfectly she fit in his arms, how her head nestled against his chest at precisely the right angle and her arms wrapped around his waist. She smelled the same, that mix of citrus and vanilla that always made his mouth water.

He wanted to bury his face in her hair and inhale, to burn that scent into his memory again.

He knew the instant she started to awaken. Her whimpering slowed and then stopped altogether. She sighed, and for perhaps sixty seconds, she relaxed in his arms, her body going boneless and calm before he could feel her muscles tighten and she started to fight against his hold.

“Don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me. Take what you want but don’t hurt me.”

He hated those words. He had never hurt her. He even hated raising his voice. How many times had he walked away when she would explode at him, lashing out in her pain that he should leave her, that he was better off without her?

“Easy. Easy. It’s me. It’s Luke.”

She scrambled to the other side of the bed, those familiar-unfamiliar features twisting with confusion. In the low light, she looked...haunted.

“Luke. What are you...?” Her blue eyes widened and he watched memory click back. “Oh.”

“You had a bad dream. You were crying in your sleep.”

“Was I?” She blinked, obviously trying to make sense of the last few moments. She pulled the blanket to her shoulders like a shield, becoming guarded once more. “What...what did I say?”

“You begged me not to hurt you. And you also said you were Elizabeth. Not Sonia.”

“I would say...I’m a little of both now.”

“You also said something about being trapped. It sounded pretty frightening. What did you mean?”

She looked away, focusing on the banal artwork in the room. “Nothing. I was rambling in my sleep, I suppose. You know how...dreams can be.” She swallowed. “What time is it? Has the weather cleared?”

His jaw worked, aware she was trying to avoid the questions. She didn’t want to talk about the nightmare or about what her subconscious may have revealed.

Since he wasn’t entirely sure he was ready to hear her answers, he decided to let her change the subject. “A little after four. The snow had eased a little when I went to sleep around midnight. I’ll take a look.”

Though the room was carpeted, the floor was still cold on his bare feet as he slid out of bed and walked to the window. Dawn was still a few hours away. The storm had dropped several more inches since midnight but it looked as if the winds had died down. With luck, crews had been hard at work in the early hours clearing the freeway and they could get on their way at first light.

Good. He wasn’t sure he could take another night, trapped in a hotel room with her.

“It’s still too early to take off again. We should try to catch a few more hours, then get an early start.”

“All right. I’m...sorry I woke you.”

He thought about telling her she’d been giving him sleepless nights for seven years but didn’t want to admit that to her.

“Good night,” he answered, then climbed back into bed, rolled to face the wall and tried to do the impossible—put her out of his mind long enough to slip back into sleep.




Chapter Five (#u6f2a8054-74a2-5c8b-854c-89d0406f3f48)


Had he fallen back asleep? When she looked under her lashes at the form in the bed next to her, Elizabeth couldn’t really tell. Luke gave every indication that he was sleeping. He didn’t move a muscle and his breathing was even and steady.

She couldn’t return to sleep, maybe because she had dozed so much the afternoon before and then had gone to bed earlier than usual after Luke left, simply because she didn’t know what else to do.

Now, in the aftermath of what she knew was probably a small seizure, the fragments of the nightmare stayed with her, stark and terrifying. Not a nightmare. More memories that she had managed to shove down.

Driving through the storm the day before had brought back a plethora of things she had avoided facing. Her helplessness, regret, fear. And the long hard journey she had traveled since leaving Haven Point.

She shifted on the bed, watching the play of red and green on the wall from the Christmas lights hanging on the exterior of the hotel.

She knew nothing good came from hashing and rehashing the past. She had learned grim lessons from that journey. Right now, she had to focus on how she was going to make it through the next few days.

At least she would be able to see her children. Maybe even hug them. If the price for that glorious gift was time spent with a man who hated her, she was more than willing to pay for it.






“Yes, the interstate is open now. But I would still stay put if I were you.”

The highway patrol officer at the checkpoint before the freeway entrance looked cold and exhausted, with rosy cheeks, bleary eyes and heavy lines pulling down the corners of his mouth as he spoke. “This is the safest place for you, at least for a few hours. The roads might be open but they’re still slick and snow-packed.”

“Even on the interstate?” Luke asked.

“After the storm came a nasty fog that’s socked in everything from here to Boise. It will be at least noon before we can advise travel again for anything except emergencies. I know it’s an inconvenience, but it’s only a handful of hours.”

Luke’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. He didn’t look at her but awareness still seethed between them.

He didn’t want to wait another few hours to be rid of her.

He didn’t have to say the words for her to know what was going through his mind. She knew she had earned every ounce of his scorn, though that did not make it any easier to bear.

“I appreciate the advice, sir, but I’m sure we’ll be fine. We have four-wheel drive and I put the chains on this morning. We’ll go slow.”

The patrolman shook his head. “I can’t stop you since the roads are open. I tried to warn you. Just remember that.”

After that ominous warning, Luke nodded, waved at the man, then pulled slowly away from the checkpoint and onto the freeway.

They proceeded much as the officer had warned, at a slow pace, though it seemed conditions were better than she had feared. While there were certainly pockets of fog, they lifted for long stretches of time, revealing a pristine white landscape that made her grateful for her sunglasses.

She tried to make conversation at random intervals, but Luke shut her off every time with terse, monosyllabic answers. Eventually she tired of fighting the silent treatment and reached into her bag for a novel.

She had never been much of a reader, always too busy playing with friends or helping her dad out in the garden. Months of forced inactivity and the long tedium of a recovery with little else to do had introduced her to the sheer joy of losing herself in a story, reading about someone else’s troubles and triumphs instead of dwelling on her own all the time.

This book was fascinating and well written, and she was able to immerse herself in the story, grateful for the diversion from the tension, until Luke stopped for gas again near the Idaho border.

She got out to stretch her tight, aching leg and limped into the convenience store to use the facilities, then bought another protein bar and an apple.

She wasn’t inside long, but when she returned, Luke was already sitting behind the wheel, ready to go. The man could be a machine sometimes. He didn’t even seem to need so much as a cup of coffee to keep him going.

“We made...better time than I expected,” she said when they were on the road again.

“Still too slow,” he said. “But I’m glad we didn’t hang around at the inn.”

He didn’t seem inclined to say more and Elizabeth sighed. She tried to return to her book but increasingly felt her attention wandering.

She had so many questions she wanted to ask him. About the children, about his construction business, about the community she had once loved. He didn’t want questions from her. He didn’t want anything.

A lump rose in her throat at the sobering realization, but she swallowed it down along with a bite of her protein bar.

While she didn’t feel particularly tired, the tedium and her restless night—added to the extra medication she had taken to make sure she didn’t have another seizure—eventually caught up with her.

After she found her attention wandering away from the story and realized she couldn’t remember what she was reading, she moved her bookmark back to the previous chapter heading, closed her book and created a makeshift pillow out of her coat. She didn’t expect to sleep—Haven Point was only a few hours away, after all. Yet one moment she was watching the lines go by outside the windshield, the next she had escaped into her dreams.

She wasn’t sure how long she was out of it. When she awoke, the trees and mountains on either side of the road began to seem familiar. She knew this landscape, had seen it from the time she and her parents moved here when she was ten.

They were close to Haven Point. Her heart started to pound and her hands felt sweaty. Oh Lord. She couldn’t do this.

Luke seemed to become more grim and foreboding the closer they traveled to their hometown. His jaw looked hard enough now to slice through granite.

“I’m...sorry I fell asleep.”

He glanced over, his eyes as hard as the rest of him. “It was fine. The fog lifted right after you fell asleep. It hasn’t been a bad drive since then.”

She turned her attention out the window, catching glimpses of the pure blue of the lake through the trees as they neared it.

She loved that lake as much as she hated it. Yes, it had brought her joy through her childhood. She had wonderful memories of picnics by the shore, swimming at the beach near downtown, kayaking with her girlfriends in high school.

But it had taken so much from her.

Every mile seemed to contain more memories, not only of Luke but of her parents. Her childhood had been filled with joy, with parents who adored each other and her from the moment she was born, in stark contrast to what Luke endured.

Whenever she thought about the few things he had revealed about his childhood, she wanted to cry. Those memories had come back to her slowly, probably because they were so painful. She remembered he hadn’t wanted to tell her anything, preferring to focus on the present and about the future they wanted to build rather than his heartbreaking past.

His sister had revealed more. Megan had been the one to tell Elizabeth about their brute of a father, his drunken rages, his abuse and how he had singled out Luke for the worst of it.

Her husband would not have been happy with his sister for telling her that. He had only told her that his relationship with his father had not been a good one.

Like so many other things, Luke had shoved down his deepest emotions. He tried so hard not to show anger but sometimes that had translated into burying everything so deep, it was hard to bring anything out. Joy, happiness, love. She knew he felt those things, but during their marriage, he had struggled to show them.

She and her parents had provided a sanctuary for him, a place where he had been loved and accepted from the moment they started dating. She could remember her father taking Luke on fishing trips into the mountains and her mother showing him something she was growing in their beautiful gardens. Luke had lapped up their attention.

When her parents had died so unexpectedly, she had withdrawn into herself and her pain, leaving him with nothing.

She fought the urge to rub her hand against the ache in her chest. Unlike her parents, she had made the choice to leave him alone and she couldn’t blame him if he could never forgive her for that.

As Luke drove around the lake toward home through a beautiful wintry scene, blue skies contrasting with the new snow that coated everything, her heart began to pound. Whenever she returned to Haven Point to see the children’s plays or ball games—always sitting in the back, always trying to stay anonymous—she felt the same sense of peace, as if this was the one place in the world she belonged.

Sometimes before heading back to Boise to the airport, she would have the car service she hired drive past their house, the one on Riverbend Road. If she were extraordinarily lucky, she might see the children playing outside in the yard with their dog or Luke doing something around the house.

Those moments were rare and precious and she cherished them, yet they were like a beautiful, perfect rose that came with plenty of thorns. Seeing the children at home, growing bigger each time she saw them, also made her feel terribly lonely as she rode out of town. She would often cry silent tears the entire way to the airport.

This time would be different. This time she would actually be able to see them. Talk to them. No matter how difficult it was to see Luke again, she could hold on to that joyful thought.

What would they think of her? The reality of the situation started to seep through. Would they be as angry and closed off as Luke? Or would they maybe be a little bit happy to see her again?

As he turned onto their road, panic welled up, cold and relentless, and she had to force herself to breathe slowly and evenly. She could handle this. Couldn’t she?

When he pulled into the driveway, she thought the house looked cold and rather forlorn. She could see no sign of life.

Luke turned off the engine. “I tried to find a room for you at the inn when we stopped for gas, but Megan says they’re full. Some holiday event going on at Caine Tech and they’ve booked the whole place.”

No room at the inn. How appropriate for this time of year.

“I don’t mind. This will be fine,” she answered. Did he really think she would rather stay at a hotel instead of with their children?

“There’s not much here,” he said, an odd sort of warning in his voice. He unlocked the door and walked inside. As soon as she followed, she knew exactly what he meant.

The place was empty.

No pictures on the walls, no knickknacks, no furniture except an old sofa.

The house where she and Luke had started their marriage with so many high hopes was now a hollow shell.

“I don’t...I don’t understand. Where are...Cassie and Bridger?”

He set her suitcase down with a thump beside the front door. “In school until I pick them up. Then they’ll be at home. My home.”

“Oh. I thought...” Her words trailed off as she only now realized how stupid and shortsighted she had been.

“You thought I would let you see them? Talk to them? Hell no, Elizabeth.”

Of course he wouldn’t let her see the children. She should never have been foolish enough to expect otherwise. Disappointment rolled over her like a snowplow, with sharp, fierce intensity.

“You...won’t?”

“You lost any rights where Bridger and Cassie are concerned when you walked away from us. I won’t let you break their hearts again.”

She could feel herself sway, her legs unsteady. For one horrible moment she was afraid she would fall to her knees. She reached behind her for the wall, hoping he didn’t notice the gesture.

“I would never hurt them,” she said, her voice small.

“What do you think you have been doing for the past seven years?”

She had hated his silence during the drive but this bitterness was far worse. Elizabeth closed her eyes, the pain and loss and loneliness almost more than she could bear.

He would never agree, but everything she had done had been in her misguided effort to protect her children. They were the entire reason she had left in the first place.

“I...see.”

“You created this situation, Elizabeth. Because of you, I have been their sole caregiver. I’m the only one who gets to decide what’s right for them. You gave me that responsibility when you left—before then, actually, when you checked out emotionally after Bridger came along.”

She drew in an unsteady breath, hating his reminder of what a terrible state she had been in, lost and depressed and overwhelmed.

She had suffered severe postpartum depression made worse by the clinical depression. She hadn’t asked for it, had she? Hadn’t wanted it. He made it sound as if she had chosen to be depressed instead of fighting it with everything she had. She had tried prescription medicine, therapy, everything the doctors recommended. The next step would have been an inpatient program, which in retrospect had probably been exactly what she had needed.

That was the past. Hadn’t she paid the price all these years?

She found it hideously ironic that the only good thing to come out of the severe brain injury she suffered in the accident had been that the cloud of soul-stealing depression had lifted.

She had traded one problem for about two dozen more.

Luke stood beside the door, unyielding and rigid as one of the oak trees growing outside. She wanted to yell at him, to fight and argue and pound her fist against his chest until he let her see her children. She couldn’t. The harsh truth was, he was exactly right. She had lost any right to even call herself a mother.




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