Page 37 of The Secret of Emerald Cottage

Chapter Twenty-One

Holy martyrs! Now he’d done it. Brec froze with the fork in his mouth, throat muscles refusing to work as he stared at her like she was The Terminator. Which wasn’t far off because if he resurrected the Irish Brec McGill for her, he was also resurrecting it for himself, terminating in his own mind any good he had tried to do for his aunt. His Adam’s apple jerked hard as he finally swallowed, eyelids lumbering closed at the prospect of exposing “the whole truth.” A bitter reminder of what a failure he was as a human being.

To his coach.

To his fiancée.

And to his precious Aunt Lilly, which deep down was his biggest failure of all.

Appetite suddenly diminished, he laid his fork back on the plate with a painful swell of his chest, discharging one excruciating breath of regret along with his surrender. Because he knew that as hard as this would be—seeing the disapproval in Molly’s eyes, someone he was coming to care for—it was something he needed to do if he wanted to start over. And God knows that he did. To turn the page on the past and start anew.

A clean slate and a clean heart.

And a clean soul?

Thoughts of Aunt Lilly and her ever-present faith came back to haunt. The same faith she had tried to instill in him every single summer, and had.

Until he’d learned the truth about his mom and dad.

The whole truth.

And the picture wasn’t pretty—now or then—serving to destroy and unravel any faith he may have ever had.

Gouging both hands into his hair, he lowered his head with elbows propped on the table, staring at his unfinished dessert through glazed eyes. “What do you know about the scandal?” he asked quietly.

She cleared her throat. “Uh, just what I read online.” Her dessert plate scraped on the table as she obviously pushed it away, her voice lowering to a strained rasp as if what she was about to say was too shocking to speak aloud. “You cheated on your fiancée with your best friend’s girlfriend, drank like a fish, and got suspended for doing drugs and having an affair with your coach’s wife.”

He winced, the hands embedded in his hair sliding down to cover his face with a near-silent groan. Her chair squeaked and he knew she was shifting to get comfortable.

To dig in.

Good. Because when he was through, he doubted she’d ever be comfortable with him again, at least for a long, long while.

“Is it true?” Her voice was barely a whisper, a plea begging for denial.

Only he couldn’t. Not completely.

Because he promised himself that lies were part of his past, not his future. Exhaling loudly, he slowly sat up and faced her head-on, expression immobile except for the shame burning in his eyes. “Partially.”

“Which … p-part?” she asked haltingly. The gentle tenting of her brows, nervous chew of her lip, and creamy complexion gone pale struck anew at just how pure she was. How gentle and sweet. A sad smile shadowed the edge of his lips. Except for the gun. Which right about now, would be a whole lot easier to take than that vulnerable look in her eyes.

He wanted to glance away, but he didn’t because she deserved the truth no matter how ugly. Just like Aunt Lilly did. And, to be honest—so did he. He drew in a deep breath, exhaling it in one long, cleansing sigh. “The cheating and drinking, which went hand-in-hand the night my best friend, Fergus, had a fight with his girlfriend and she called me.”

Eyes never leaving hers, he raked shaky fingers through his hair. “Ferg and I were tight, which meant Lucy and I were tight, too, since she hung out with us a lot. So, when she called me one night crying, begging me to come over because Ferg had walked out on her”—he gave an awkward lift of his shoulders—“I did. She was pretty bummed when I got there, a quarter of the way through a bottle of Jack. Which, of course, she insisted on pouring for me as well while I gave her a shoulder to cry on.”

A muscle convulsed in his throat as his voice trailed off into guilt. “Until it became more.” He put his face in his hands, fingers digging in at the roots of his hair. “I made a complete fool of myself, a real eejit, completely hammered when she laid one on me, telling me insane things like she’s always been attracted to me, blah, blah, blah. I never had any intentions except to comfort her, I swear, but the both of us were so bloomin’ fluthered, we never even heard Ferg come in.”

He absently rubbed the side of his face, remembering all too well the left hook Ferg had doled out, which he had totally deserved. His eyes trailed into a dead stare as a knot of shame ducked in his throat, his voice barely audible. “Not only was that the last of my friendship with both Ferg and Lucy,” he whispered, the memory making him sick to his stomach, “but the last time I touched a drop of alcohol.”

“You … d-don’t drink anymore?” she asked quietly.

He shook his head as he refocused on those wide blue eyes, her look way too gentle for a jerk like him. “No”—his lips flatlined—“you might say it was the end of a very long line of really stupid booze-related mistakes.” One side of his mouth took a slant. “Inherited, no doubt, from my father.”

“He was an alcoholic?” The question was tentative, as if tiptoeing around his feelings.

He almost smiled. “Not till later in life, but yeah. In the beginning, just a bad habit of making really stupid decisions while under the influence. Like me, I guess. So I gave it up.” His tone as dry as his new life, he gave a loose nod toward upstairs where Aunt Lilly was, no doubt, fast asleep. “Of course living in a sobriety zone doesn’t hurt either.”

A smile flickered briefly on her lips before it disappeared just as quickly. “And the drugs?”