*
“You can’t notgo to Sophie and Cole’s wedding.”
Eyeing the plate of cookies Sarah put on the bar, Zach ran his fingers through his hair. “Isabelle doesn’t want me there.”
“Isabelle is why you have to go.” Sarah gestured for him to take a cookie, but Zach shook his head.
He’d not eaten at the rehearsal dinner but wasn’t hungry.
“She never wants to see me again.”
Sarah gave an empathetic look. “She was upset about her father. You know that. Tomorrow is going to be difficult for her on several levels. She needs you there, Zach.”
“She has you, her family, her friends.”
Sarah put a glass of milk in front of him. “None of us are you.”
“Don’t tell me you got caught up in believing our relationship was real. You’ve known from the beginning it wasn’t.”
Sarah slid onto the barstool next to him. “The only people who didn’t believe what was happening between you and Isabelle was real were the two of you.”
Not true. Zach had known. But that didn’t change that Isabelle would never let herself trust him. Why should she? He didn’t even trust himself. How could he when he didn’t know what was locked inside his head? What if memories of the explosion returned, of what had really happened that day, and knocked him back into that dark place he’d worked so hard to climb out of? What if she trusted him and then he pulled a disappearing act the way her father had?
Sighing, he picked up a cookie and stared at it. “You’ve been hanging out with your Butterfly friends too much.”
“Nice try.” Sarah laughed. “But there’s no such thing as hanging out with those ladies too much. They’re wonderful, and you know it.”
Taking a bite of his cookie, Zach nodded. “They are, but that doesn’t mean they don’t meddle.”
Sarah’s smile lit up her eyes as bright as the twinkling lights she had strung around the house. “It’s one of their most endearing qualities.”
“Poor Jeannie doesn’t stand a chance with them around.”
Sarah laughed. “My matchmaking Butterflies won’t stand a chance against her father. He swears he’s not letting Jeannie date until after her thirtieth birthday. I think he means it.”
Sarah’s comment shouldn’t have triggered anything but a smile. Instead, Zach couldn’t help thinking of how Isabelle and Sophie had missed out on their father’s protectiveness. Yes, they’d had the town who loved them, but they’d not had their father. He understood Isabelle’s pain, wanted to make it go away, wanted to not empathize with Cliff, but Zach couldn’t help doing so. In many ways, Isabelle had been right. He was a lot like her father.
Sensing where his thoughts had gone, Sarah touched his arm. “You did a good thing bringing Cliff here.”
“You think?” Zach scoffed. “Because I’m not so sure that I shouldn’t have just walked away when he said he wasn’t coming back to Pine Hill.”
Sarah patted his arm the way she did when she was comforting Jeannie. “There were a lot of unresolved emotions in Isabelle’s family. Now they have a chance to heal.”
“By ripping off the bandage?” Zach shook his head. “I did what Isabelle said she wanted, but I always knew she was lying to herself. Her mother didn’t look too happy, either.”
“Darlene is stronger than her girls give her credit for. She did what she had to do to get by. Things weren’t ideal, but they never did without love or anything they needed. My dad talked to her a long time. Tonight wasn’t easy, but she’s going to be just fine.”
“The only way Cliff would agree to come without my using bodily force”—he’d been willing and Cliff had known it—“was if no one was told ahead of time, including Isabelle.” He dropped his forehead into his palm. “I should have told her, anyway.”
Maybe he would have had she answered his calls.
“Not when you gave him your word you wouldn’t,” Sarah reminded.
Zach sighed. “Isabelle is more important.”
“Than keeping your word?”
Zach thought about it a moment, didn’t like how conflicted he was over his answer to her question, then shrugged. “None of it matters now. Cliff is here. Sophie is ecstatic. Isabelle will grit her teeth and bear it for Sophie’s sake.”
