And Conor didn’t even answer. He didn’t have to.
35
Tuesday, July 6; 1:00 p.m.
“Enchanted Petals,” Sam said, sitting beside Lincoln in the front seat of his Mercedes SUV.
“Strange name, right?” he asked, giving her an amused sideways glance. “Like, flower petals have magical powers?”
“You know how to get there?” Sam asked.
“Like I told you, I’ve seen it. There’s an awesome trail that runs basically from Point Judith all the way up Narragansett Bay to Providence. I did it with my dad once, and I’ve walked parts of it other times. It goes right past the garden center.”
“How far is it?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know—twenty-five minutes? Why, what’s the rush? Why do you feel it’s so important to go there?” Lincoln asked.
Sam couldn’t explain that. They had driven from Watch Hill along Route 1, through South Kingstown, toward Narragansett. She knew they were heading in the direction of Maynard-King, but then Lincoln turned slightly inland from the shore and drove roughly parallel to Narragansett Bay. They passed fields crisscrossed with old stone walls, a chicken farm, a small village with shops and a gas station. They hit a traffic signal next to a funeral home, and Lincoln stopped at the red light.
“You’re close to Kate, aren’t you?” Lincoln asked, surprising Sam with his out-of-the-blue question.
“Very,” she said. “She’s never tried to be my mother—she knows that I only had one of those—but she has always been there for me. And she doesn’t have kids of her own, so I know I’m like a daughter to her.” Sam paused. “I’m not the only one she loves, though. She’d fight for a few of us. Conor, of course. Hadley and CeCe. And Maeve.”
“That makes two of us,” Lincoln said. “I’d do anything for Maeve. But Conor ...”
“What about him?”
“Why would Kate fight for him, after what he did to her?”
“Did to her?”
“With Belinda. That whole thing had to devastate Kate. Whatever parts of it are true, whether Belinda had his kid or not, or whether they just hooked up—man, that would be hard to live with. Being cheated on, lied to.”
Sam blinked hard and looked out the window again. They had left the small town and were back in a rural section. They passed a one-story motel with an attached restaurant and a half-empty parking lot, then a lake surrounded by pine trees.
“I don’t know if any of that Belinda stuff is true,” Sam said. “And neither does Kate. She loves Conor. They’re going to get back to how they were.”
“I wouldn’t,” Lincoln said, still speeding, taking his eyes off the road to momentarily look over at her. “Guys sometimes lie, Sam. They might act one way, but they’re hiding their true selves. They hurt the women they’re with and supposedly love.”
Sam snapped her head to look at him. “Are you talking about yourself?” she asked. “And Maeve?”
“I would never do that to Maeve,” he said in a low voice.
They came to a stop sign, and Lincoln took a right. Now they were on a straight road, and they were silent. After a few minutes,Sam caught a glimpse of the water in the distance. She knew they were heading east, toward Narragansett Bay.
“This looks familiar,” Sam said. “I’ve been here before, with Kate and Maeve. We went to Maynard-King—is it near here?”
He glanced over and smiled at her. “Yes,” he said. “You have a good sense of direction.”
“I thought we were going to Enchanted Petals.”
“We are—the nursery property abuts the hospital’s.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “The land used to be owned by the same family.”
“Whose family?” she asked.
