such intensity. He had pictures of her all over. Not that the house was a shrine, exactly. Far from it. She figured these pictures were the same ones that’d been up when Amber Rose was alive but they still made Vivian a little uncomfortable. She’d been so worried about her own problems, her own reasons for being unable to sustain a relationship, she hadn’t really considered whether or not she could compete with someone like Amber Rose. In death, Myles’s wife only became more perfect. While Vivian had to live with whatever life threw her.
“No, I’m fine.” She was too exhausted to eat. And she was afraid, that if she ate the wrong thing, her ulcer would act up again. Her stomach had been burning all day.
As his gaze moved over her, she realized she wasn’t looking her best. Knowing how much she was going to miss her children, she’d cried the whole way back from Kalispell and hadn’t bothered to repair her makeup. And she was wearing loose-fitting jeans with holes down the legs, sandals and a simple T-shirt, nothing that would impress him.
He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, too, but after a shower, he looked fresh. Smelled good, too. The scent of his shampoo brought back the night she’d pressed her face into his neck and breathed in the same scent she was enjoying now.
“Did you ever have dinner?”
They’d been staring at each other. Slightly embarrassed by the appreciation that must’ve shown on her face, she blinked. “No, I had a late lunch with Claire.”
“It’s midnight. Even a late lunch would’ve been hours ago.”
“I’m fine,” she repeated.
He started to move past her but hesitated. She could sense him behind her, large and solid, and wished he’d place his hands on her shoulders, her arms, anywhere. With so much at stake, she needed him to reassure her that she’d put her hope in the right thing. But he didn’t. After a pause, in which it felt as if he wanted to say something but didn’t, he skirted past her into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.
“I make a mean omelet. Will you eat one if I cook it?”
Her stomach burned enough already. “Thanks, but I don’t think so.”
“What’s wrong?”
She adjusted her position to try to ease the discomfort. “Nothing.”
“You keep rubbing that spot. Does it hurt?”
“A little,” she said with a shrug. “I have an ulcer that gives me trouble every once in a while. Nothing big.”
“An ulcer.”
“It comes and goes. The wine I drank the other night might’ve caused it to flare up again. I don’t do well with alcohol. And stress makes it worse.”
“What can I feed you that’ll help?”
He seemed genuinely concerned, but after what he’d been through with his wife, she couldn’t imagine he wanted to deal with any kind of illness, even if it wasn’t cancer. “An omelet will be fine.” She smiled as she said it.
The comforting sizzle of eggs in a frying pan filled the kitchen as she wandered to the windows overlooking his back porch and that elaborate deck. From where she stood, she could see straight into her own kitchen. She wondered if he’d ever noticed that—or been tempted to watch her as she moved about. She certainly glanced over here often enough.
“Will you tell me about your ex-husband now?” He opened a drawer and the utensils rattled as he came up with a spatula.
Leaving the windows, she sank into a seat at the circular booth that served as his kitchen table. She wasn’t that impressed with the decor in his house, thought Amber Rose’s taste had been mundane. But Amber Rose hadn’t been known for her decorating ability. She’d been known as a wonderful wife and mother. So saintly it was probably crazy to hope Myles could ever get over her.
“Why do you want to know about my ex?” she asked.
“Was he abusive? Or was that a front for everything else that was going on?”
As Tom’s face appeared in her mind, Vivian grimaced. “He was definitely abusive.”
“In what way?”
“Is there anything I can do?” she asked.
“No. I’ve got it. In what way?” he repeated.
She would rather have chopped vegetables or grated cheese. It would be easier than watching him. “In every way.”
He put two slices of bread in the toaster. “How old were you when you married him?”
“I’d just turned eighteen.”
“Wow, that’s young.”
“Too young.”
Opening the cupboard closest to him, he took out the salt. “Where’d you meet?”
“At the doughnut shop where I worked.”
“He came in?”
“Pretty regularly. I didn’t notice him at first. He was just another customer, someone who was quite a bit older than me. It was his persistence that eventually caught my attention. I worked at the doughnut shop in the mornings and waited tables at a Mexican restaurant in the evenings. Once he learned I had a second job, he began to show up there, too.”
Myles twisted around to look at her. “Sounds like a stalker.”
“He has emotional problems. I wish I’d been smart enough to realize it then. But I had to work night and day just to get by, and that left me with no social life. I was really lonely, angry at my mother and worried about my brother. Tom stepped up to help me through it.”
“And I’m sure he did that for your benefit.”
She recognized the sarcasm in those words but didn’t attempt to justify her actions. Hindsight made her mistakes so clear. What she didn’t add was how desperate she’d felt for a little love, how long it had been since she’d experienced anything like that. “Everything started out okay,” she went on. “It wasn’t until I was pregnant with Jake that he got so possessive.”
Myles didn’t seem to like this story. A muscle jumped in his cheek and his movements grew jerky, at odds with his typical athleticism. Yet he was engrossed enough that he’d all but forgotten his cooking. “Where were your parents?”
She pointed to the pan behind him. “I think the eggs are going to burn.”
He shook on some grated cheddar and flipped the omelet. “So, where were your parents?”
“My dad abandoned us shortly after I was born. My mother went from relationship to relationship. Each new ‘love’ was all that mattered to her. I moved out at sixteen, shortly after my brother went to prison. He was what made home bearable for me.”
“You’re talking about Virgil.”
“Yes. He’s my only sibling.”
“Prison was how he met The Crew.”
“Did Rex tell you that?”
“Yes, but not what Virgil did to land himself in prison. And…didn’t you say you have an uncle in prison, too?”
“I’m getting to that.” She propped her chin on one fist as she recited the rest. “They charged Virgil with killing my stepfather, but he was exonerated fourteen years later, after my uncle’s ex-wife came forward with what she knew about the night in question.”
He put the first omelet on a plate and started another one. “What took her so long?”
“Loyalty. It wasn’t until they broke up and some of that love and loyalty faded that she was willing to reveal what she knew. After all, she’d benefited from it, too—at least, financially. When he fought her for custody of the kids, she got so angry she went after him with everything she had.”
“Bet that was interesting.”
“It was. She said he’d gone out the night Martin died. That when he came home, he had blood on his clothes and was visibly shaken. Then the insurance money arrived, and they could finally pay their bills. That sort of
