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'Exactly,' he said, his voice cool. He didn't look at her as he continued, 'And you're damn lucky if you find them. Few do. And you're even luckier if they love you back in the same way. It happens but it's rare.'
She stared at him as the green countryside outside the car window flashed by. The evening was mellow and bathed in sunlight but the tranquillity was all outside the car. 'But that's a terribly jaundiced way of looking at relationships,' she said, ignoring the fact that in latter months she had been even more cynical about life and love. "That means that most people are never truly happy, or at least not as happy as they could be.'
'Hence the divorce rate." And don't forget millions of couples live together for years and break up without getting married. In our grandparents' time you stayed together come what may and made the best of a bad job; people don't have to do that these days. How many friends of yours are on their second, third, even fourth serious relationship? They're all searching for that elusive thing they know is out there but have little chance of finding.'
Beth was appalled. There was no doubt he meant every word he was saying. After a moment or two she said, 'The world's a sad place according to you, then.'
"The world can be a sad place,' he corrected evenly. 'If you tie up with the wrong person, if you don't recognise the right one or they don't feel the same, but for those that hit the jackpot it's heaven on earth. My parents loved each other like that and my mother went for second best when she married again. Perhaps she was lonely or afraid of growing old by herself, I don't know, but she would have done better to remain single. She's been more unhappy married to my step¬father than she could have been living alone.'
'So if you never meet anyone you know is the love of your life you'll stay single for ever?' she said slowly.
'How do you know I haven't met her?' he asked very softly after a considerable number of seconds had ticked by.
'Because you'd be married and you aren't, are you?'
'No, I'm not.' He smiled. 'But that's because she didn't feel the same.'
Beth felt as though someone had punched her in the solar plexus. Which was as shocking—more shocking—than their conversation. Why should she care if Travis had been madly in love with someone he knew was the love of his life and who still held his heart, by the sound of it?
She didn't—she didn't care—she told herself in the next second. Not a personal kind of caring anyway. She just felt sorry for him, for anyone in that position. After the hurt and disillusionment she'd felt when her marriage broke up so suddenly she could feel for someone who was suffering, that was all. It was a horrible position to be in whoever you were.
She cleared her throat. 'I'm sorry,' she said quietly.
He shrugged. They drove on a good few miles before he said very softly, 'Was your husband the love of your life, Beth? Is that why you married him?'
'What?' She turned her head to look at him so quickly her neck cricked.
'Your husband,' he persisted gently. 'Was he the love of your life or just one of many men you could have been happy enough with if things had turned out differently?'
She wanted to tell him to mind his own business, but after he had been so open with her, she couldn't. He turned for a moment, his eyes meeting hers and then looked back to the road ahead. The car sped on, eating up the miles with con¬summate ease.
Her mind whirling, she tried to dredge up a reply. How could she answer such a question? She had felt her world had come crashing down about her ears when Anna had talked to her that day, had vowed never to put her trust in a member of the male species again, but... As her brain stopped scrambling her eyes widened. She'd survived. And it was as much the sudden loss of her parents that had caused her to overwork to forget as the breakdown of her marriage. What did that mean? She swallowed hard. 'I don't know,' she said after a full minute had passed. 'I don't know if Keith was the love of my life.'
'You don't know? Is that the truth or a way of telling me to shut up?' he said steadily, after one swift glance.
'It's the truth,' she said shakily. 'How can I know that?'
'Then he wasn't.'
It was so definite, so authoritative that immediately Beth rebelled. 'You can't say that' she protested hotly. 'You don't know how I felt, how I feel.'
'That's true, but what I do know is that if he'd been the one you would have known. You'd know now.'
She didn't believe this! How dared he decide for her? 'I don't accept that,' she said vehemently.
'Is there a raw wound in your heart you know will never close unless you get back with this guy?' His voice was matter-of-fact, cool even. 'Something you tell yourself you'll have to learn to live with but which hurts like hell every minute?'
