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“Abby left me, Elisa.” Josh leaned forward as a pleading note moved into his voice. “We were weeks away from being married. We were in the final planning stages. Then I get home from work one day and her clothes were gone, along with four thousand dollars from our wedding account.” He slumped back into the chair. “She stuck me with the mess and the bills. So, forgive me if I didn’t mourn her betrayal long enough to make you happy.”
Not a hint of worry.Elisa knew she carried that alone. “But did you mourn her at all?”
“Why would I?” He scoffed. “And when exactly did I become the bad guy in this situation?”
“Look, this is a tough subject.” Harris had flipped back into mediator mode. He was a problem-solver. He kept his voice low and soothing.
Other times, fine. With Nathan, sure. Now? She hated it. “Don’t do that.”
Josh nodded. “I agree with Elisa. We don’t need you to play the role of peacemaker.”
“Are you sure? Because it sure feels like it,” Harris asked, clearly exasperated that the two people closest to him wouldn’t just let him fix things for them.
Josh ignored the dig and looked at Elisa. “I know she was your friend and you’re hurt. She abandoned both of us. And when she did it.” He winced. “I mean, the timing. She left a few months after you—”
No, no, no. “Don’t.”
The rumbling started in her ears. She could hear the noise and waited for a muffled darkness to close over her.
Eleven months. That’s how long it had been since that awful day.
Something in Josh’s eyes softened. He looked less hunted. Sounded less defensive. “You were at a low spot. You’d been through one of the worst things imaginable. You needed her and—”
“Stop talking.”Elisa refused to be his excuse for ducking this conversation. Her life, what happened to her back then, the anxiety she had to wade through every day just to get up and function, was not the point. They were talking about Abby. “Where is she?”
He sighed. “I honestly don’t know.”
The words tumbled out of him so easily, but she no longer believed him. “Maybe you should figure that out before you move on to a new woman.”
A cool disdain radiated off Josh. “Maybe you shouldn’t judge me.”
Too late. “It’s hard not to since you’re thirty-five and already have a dead wife and a missing fiancée.”
Two women—gone. And no one seemed to care but her.
Chapter Four
The dinner ended quickly after that. While Elisa handled the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen, Josh made excuses to leave early. After a truncated visit with Nathan that still managed to include an in-depth discussion about which was the best superhero, Josh shot out the door without sparing her another glance.
Harris acted slightly better. They watched television for a short time before he declared it was time for bed. He took over Nathan’s nighttime routine, which included what felt like a hundred reminders about brushing his teeth and reading a favorite book.
She was pretty sure Harris drew the whole process out as long as possible. She’d showered. He’d showered then gone downstairs and fidgeted around. Relief flowed through her when she finally heard him come back upstairs.
A few minutes later he appeared in their bedroom doorway wearing lounge pants, a T-shirt, and his dark-rimmed glasses. He walked by her without taking the usual opportunity totouch her through her nightgown or kiss her bare shoulder along the thin strap.
He let out a dramatic exhale as he sat down on his side of the bed. “We’ve had better dinner parties.”
He’d retired his contact lenses for the night but clearly not his sarcasm.
She squeezed a dollop of moisturizer out of the tube she kept by the bed and rubbed her hands together. She kept rubbing long after the cream disappeared into her skin. “This isn’t funny.”
“You unloading on my brother?” He leaned back against a stack of pillows and crossed his legs in front of him. “No, it isn’t.”
The words carried a slap but he delivered them in an almost bored tone. She had no idea what that meant, but they sure as hell weren’t just going to climb into bed and read or go to sleep after that. “Are you kidding right now?”
“I don’t understand what happened. Josh comes over all the time. He watches Nathan. He eats with us. The two of you joke around.” Harris shook his head. “When did everything change? Why the sudden interrogation?”
She couldn’t tell him the truth. Not until she knew more. Irrational or not, she blamed Josh for adding this new, unwanted dimension to her marriage—secret keeping. “He didn’t wait before moving on. He barely blinked at her disappearance.”
