“Uncle Patrick?” Winston called from the doorway down the hall.
“Yeah, buddy.” Patrick made his way to the boy.
“Who’s there?” Will asked.
Emily recoiled. “I’m sorry,what?”
“I heard someone. That didn’t sound like Sienna or Blair.”
“I don’t have to answer that.” A mixture of indignation and emptiness welled up suddenly as tears, and a lump formed in Emily’s throat. “If anyone owes answers, it’s you, not me. I’ll get to your form when I get to it.” She hung up on him.
Patrick strode toward her as Emily wiped at a runaway tear, hoping it was dark enough that he wouldn’t see. But by his pause when he reached her, he’d noticed the sudden change in her demeanor.
“Sorry. Julia’s in the bathroom getting ready for bed, and Winston wanted to know how long the storm would last.”
“Oh.” She tried to huff out amusement, but it fizzled between them.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, even though nothing was okay.
He searched her face. “Want to talk about it?” He nodded down the hallway to the living room.
She was dog-tired, she didn’t want to talk about Will at all, but her curiosity won out. Why had Patrick invited her into aconversation? Didn’t he say that he preferred silence? She poked her head in to let her friends know the bathroom was open.
“I’m gonna hang out a little longer with Patrick,” she said, dumping her clothes in the room and setting her phone on silent mode.
Sienna’s brows rose in interest.
“I’ll be back in a few, I’m sure,” Emily whispered, turning on her phone’s light. Then she went down the hallway to find Patrick.
FIFTEEN
The candle Julia had given Patrick flickered in the center of the coffee table. He put the folded blanket he’d been holding at the end of the sofa and sat down next to it.
“The guy who prefers to be left alone askedmeto talk?” Emily took a seat next to him.
He offered a small smile, but something lurked behind it. “I’m not tired, and you look upset.”
“I’m not sure you really want to hear my drama,” she said.
The corner of his mouth twitched upward. “I’ve been in the navy. Throw it at me. I can take it.”
She liked him. And there was an electricity between them that she’d never experienced. For a split second, she wondered if telling him everything would turn him off. They hadn’t known each other long enough for her to spill her life to him. She’d rather start over. But something in his honest gaze made her want to strip away the pretense and tell him her deepest thoughts. She gave him the rundown on Will and what she’d been dealing with.
“The craziest thing is…I keep beating myself up, thinking I should’ve seen it coming. The whole ordeal made me realize that I didn’t really know him like I thought I did. I should’ve spentmore time with him, asked him the hard questions, to really understand who I was marrying, but I was so busy trying to make a life for myself that I didn’t stop to consider what I wanted in all of it.”
“What had you so busy?”
“First, it was finishing college. After that, I had to find a job. My friends were getting married, so I had to cross that off the list. The next step was we needed a house… I got caught up in building a life and didn’t stop to pay attention to who I was building that life with. And then it all came tumbling down.”
“Maybe it was God’s way of putting a stop to it before things got too heavy,” he said. “Before you had kids in the mix. You know?”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
His demeanor was soft tonight, his undivided attention intoxicating.
“What would you do differently next time?” he asked.
