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“Then she’s old enough to know that some men aren’t honorable.”
Daddy paused and looked at her. “You want her to know?”
“I don’t care if she knows,” Gerty said. “It’s up to you and Mom.”
He looked like he needed a minute to think on it, and he stayed silent—quite the feat—on the way back inside. Mom turned from the kitchen sink, worry etched in every line on her face, and Gerty’s tears reared again.
She should’ve come home sooner. She shouldn’t have stayed away from Ivory Peaks for so long.
“I sent them outside,” she said, hurrying toward Gerty and her father. “They wanted to have their cake on the trampoline.”
“It’s okay,” Daddy said.
“My Gerty-girl.” Cosette drew Gerty into her arms, and Gerty experienced true, maternal love, and it was strong and beautiful. “Why have you been crying?”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I should’ve come home more. I should’ve come straight here after.”
“You’re fine,” Mom said. “It’s fine.” She pulled back, her eyes seeing and searching. “After what, Gerty?”
“After I broke up with James.” Gerty hung her head. To her surprise, Daddy didn’t jump in and tell Mom what was going on. She looked over to him, but he gestured for her to speak up. “He cheated on me, and when I found out, I ended things with him. Called off the wedding.”
Gerty looked up and blew out her breath. “I left Coldwater and went and stayed with my grandparents for a while. I don’t know, I was just….”
She didn’t know what. Lost.
Part of her had hoped that it would all be a mistake, and she hadn’t wanted to put too much physical distance between her and James. But it hadn’t been a mistake. He hadn’t called or texted her once since, and she’d finally deleted his number from her phone the night before she’d driven here.
“I’m—I don’t know what to say,” Mom said. She exchanged a glance with Daddy, who still wore one of the darkest looks on his face that Gerty had ever seen. “I should’ve made the apple cider doughnuts.”
For some reason, that made Gerty smile, and then she started to laugh. “I don’t think doughnuts can fix infidelity,” she said between the giggles.
“Oh, now, that’s where you’re wrong.” Mom grinned at her. “Come sit down.”
“We can go out on the deck,” Gerty said. “I don’t care if the younger kids know.” She drew in a big breath. “Everyone will find out eventually.” She thought of Mike and how closed off she’d gotten the very moment he’d mentioned James and wanting to know about him. She’d told him she was engaged to him and that it had only been over for a month.
Mike hadn’t gone anywhere. He hadn’t even acted concerned.
“I’m okay if they hear,” Daddy said. “They’re not babies.”
“Okay,” Mom said cautiously. “Just remember that they’re young.”
Gerty knew, so she nodded and said, “He’d been cheating on me for at least a year, with at least three different women. Two of them I knew.”
“I am going to find him and kill him,” Daddy said, his fingers curling into fists.
“Boone,” Mom said, her eyebrows drawing down. “You definitely can’t go outside and say stuff like that in front of your children.”
“Who does that?” Daddy raged. “Not a man. A coward.”
Gerty let her father say what he wanted, because she didn’t disagree. Her so-called friends had been complicit in things too, but it hadn’t hurt to walk away from them as much as it had James. Even now, part of her still loved him. She wasn’t sure how to simply turn off that feeling.
She’d had many times where she wanted to do exactly what Daddy had just said—hunt James down and kill him. And in the very next moment, she’d be sobbing because she missed him so much. None of it made sense, and Gerty didn’t know how to unravel it all.
“I don’t disagree,” Mom said. “But you can’t say stuff like that in front of Amy. She’ll say it to everyone at school.”
“School just got out,” Dad said back. The two of them went into the kitchen, and Gerty followed. “I just can’t even believe it. We met James only eight months ago. He was cheating then? How could he have looked me in the face—the father of his girlfriend—andliedto me?”
He’d been doing the same thing to Gerty too, and she knew how deep that betrayal stung.
