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“Yeah,” Ellie said. “Sorry, I guess I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, it’s all right,” Michael said. “You two are married after all.”
Ellie winced at that, and Michael felt a rush of guilt in spite of the fact that he was absolutely justified in being upset with her. He sighed and said, “Sorry. I just …”
“No, it’s okay,” she said. “You don’t need to apologize. I do.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away from him. Michael could hear Faith’s voice in her head telling him not to do anything stupid and get himself hurt, but he couldn’t quiet it in time to keep from crossing the room to her and pulling her close. “It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to talk about it until you’re ready.”
She melted into his arms, and as he pressed her body to his, he knew he was lost. He would never let her go. She might leave him, but he could never leave her.
He would never admit it aloud to anyone, least of all Faith or Ellie, but a big part of the reason he loved Ellie more than he had loved Faith was that Ellie needed him while Faith didn’t. Faith was strong the way steel was strong. She was hard and cold and unbending, and she utterly refused to open up, at least to Michael.
Ellie needed him. She was strong, too, in her own way, kind and caring even when the world was unkind and careless with her, but she wasn’t cold and unbending the way Faith was. She was full of kindness, and she needed Michael to be her rock.
Or so he told himself at least.
After a few minutes, Ellie sighed and pulled away. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and said, “I’m not ready to talk about my marriage yet, but I am ready to explain why I lied to you.”
“All right,” he said, “if you’re ready.”
They sat on his couch, and Ellie started, “I didn’t expect to meet someone so soon. When I found Bill with Christy, I just … I …”
She looked away a moment, then looked back at Michael. “I was devastated,” she said. She chuckled and said, “It’s funny. I knew that Bill and I were falling out of love. I would look at him, for years I would look at him and try to remember what it felt like to be in love with him, but I couldn’t. I still can’t. I knew our marriage was over, but I guess … I mean, I always thought it would come back around. My parents went through a rough patch, you know. For a long time. Almost all of my twenties, they were just bitter and angry with each other all the time, but now they’re like kids all over again. I guess I thought Bill and I would be the same.
“Then he cheated, and I knew immediately that it wouldn’t change. We were well and truly done. That was two years ago. We, um …” she took a breath, and Michael noticed her eyes flicked to the left before she spoke again. He hated that he noticed that.
“We haven’t divorced because a lot of our finances are still bound up together. The house, in particular, is a tough spot; I’ve told you that.”
“Yes,” Michael agreed.
“So, I haven’t pushed it because I didn’t think it really mattered how fast it ended. I didn’t think I would meet anyone, and Christy is fine being his little plaything on the side.”
There was the slightest touch of bitterness in her voice when she said that. Michael hated that he noticed that as well.
“So, I just haven’t pushed for it,” she said. “Then I met you, and suddenly I had a reason to want this to be over.”
She smiled at him, and once more, he was powerless to resist that smile. “I lied to you because I didn’t think you’d want me if you knew I was married. So, I said I was in the middle of a divorce, which was sort of true but not completely.” She hung her head. “I should have been honest with you.” She lifted her head and stared at Michael with her big, blue, earnest eyes. “Can you forgive me?”
He didn’t answer right away. When he did, he asked the question that he himself knew was the most foolish question he could possibly ask. “And now? Have you talked to him about finalizing the divorce?”
“Oh yes,” she said, bobbing her head up and down. “Yes, we’re going to meet with our lawyers soon and start finalizing everything. I can’t promise it will be an overnight thing, but we’re definitely moving forward.”
You would make an excellent politician,Michael said, once more hating himself for not being able to turn off the detective.
“That’s good,” he said.
“So?” she asked. “Can you forgive me?”
He hesitated a moment longer. Faith’s voice screamed at him to say something, anything that would make it clear she needed to follow through on her promises, but all he could manage in the face of those earnest eyes was, “Of course, I do.”
She sighed and threw herself into his arms again. He pulled her close to him, and when she began to kiss him softly just behind his ear, he sighed and yielded to her desires.
Even as he moved with her, though, he could feel doubt weighing down his belly like a stone.
EPILOGUE
Faith watched Jared leave the store and smiled inwardly. If Jared was a serial killer, he was a poor one, at least as far as hiding from the law went. He shopped at the same store at the same time every week. He parked his car right in front of his apartment on the town’s main street and paid with a credit card.
