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“I get it. But Louisa was my best friend and she wasn’t a saint,” Lizzie said. “She was just a person with good points and bad points, and maybe she screwed up on this particular thing because she so desperately wanted to be right. Do you know what would’ve been nice, Adam?”
“What?”
“If you’d chosen to believe me,” Lizzie said simply. “That just for once you’d let go of your idealized portrait of Louisa, and even considered that maybe she could have lied to you instead.”
“I—” Adam shook his head, his frustration clearly evident. “I do believe you—I want to believe you, but—”
“But you just can’t quite get there, can you?” Lizzie interrupted him. “It’s very clear where your loyalties lie, and it was stupid of me to forget that.” She walked up to him and pushed past to open the door. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
* * *
Adam returned to his mother who had been waiting very patiently for him at the table. Daisy had already gone back to her flower shop. With a huge effort, Adam forced his mind away from Lizzie’s damning comments, and concentrated on Leanne.
“Do you want to go up to the Cortez ranch now?”
“Yes, please. I texted Ines, and she says it’s fine to come over.” Leanne touched his arm. “Are you okay?”
“Not really.” Adam held the door open and followed her out onto the raised, wooden sidewalk. “Lizzie’s still pissed with me.”
Leanne didn’t say anything as they walked back to his truck and he boosted her up into the passenger seat.
Adam didn’t immediately start the engine. “Lizzie said I always put Louisa first—that I’ve put her up on some kind of pedestal where she can do no wrong.”
“Is she right?” Leanne asked softly.
“I don’t know anymore,” Adam confessed. “I feel like all the certainties I built my life on are currently crashing to the ground.”
Leanne nodded. “Sometimes that’s a good thing, because then you have to climb out of the rubble, pick yourself up, and start again. I know I did.”
Leanne’s words stuck in his head as he drove up to the Cortez ranch. Was that what he needed? For his whole world to come crashing down again? He’d lived through that once with Louisa, and it had made him even more cautious about building a new life. But had he gotten it wrong? Was he still stuck down there hiding in the foundations of his first life and clinging to the rubble?
Louisa hadn’t been a saint. They’d argued all the time about having kids. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that her wanting to leave him with their baby made a horrible kind of sense. He’d tried to get that across to Lizzie, but somehow he’d failed, maybe because he still didn’t want to say the words out loud and make them real.
* * *
Ines welcomed them warmly. She took them through to see Carlos whose bed had been moved out onto the covered back porch so that he could look out over the pastureland he loved. Adam held back as Leanne went to greet her old friend and sat by his bed holding his hand. Carlos had the same look in his eyes Louisa had at the end—as if he was already untethered to his earthly existence and moving onto another.
Ines touched Adam’s shoulder. “I don’t think he’s got long. Dr. Tio’s coming up here every day now.”
“Yeah.” Adam sighed.
“Come and get some coffee while Leanne talks to Carlos.”
“Okay.” He went back inside and sat at the familiar kitchen table surrounded by pictures of Louisa growing up into the beautiful vibrant women he’d married.
“Can I ask you something?” Adam looked down and gripped his coffee mug hard. “Did Louisa tell you she was pregnant before she died?”
Ines was silent for so long that Adam ended up having to look at her anyway.
“Yes, she did.” Ines met his gaze. “She . . . wouldn’t listen to anyone. She was convinced the baby would be fine if she could just hang on for a few more months.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Adam asked.
“Because Louisa only told me and Lizzie, and swore us to secrecy. I’m not even sure she told her doctors until she had no choice.” Ines grimaced. “We both knew she was delusional, but the very idea of it made her so happy and hopeful that we even began to wonder whether she’d will herself to live that long just to see it happen.”
