Sugar Beth pulled the pillow over her head and went to sleep.
Winnie awakened to the sound of Ryan showering. Not long after, she heard him rousing Gigi for Sunday school along with her predictable protest.
“I was suspended, Dad. Remember?”
“Not from church.”
“Where’s Mom?”
“She isn’t feeling well.”
“Me either.”
“Get dressed.”
Winnie drifted. She caught the faint scent of coffee… dishes clattering in the kitchen… a door slamming… a car driving away… the world going on without her. Finally, she roused herself enough to get out of bed.
She stepped over the black teddy she’d shed last night in favor of an old T-shirt of Ryan’s and a pair of pink sweatpants she’d stashed in the closet for the church collection box. She made her way to the bathroom and managed to brush her teeth, but a shower was beyond her. She gazed at herself in the mirror: puffy-eyed, pasty- faced, hair smashed to one side of her head. Her life was unraveling like the seat of the pink sweatpants, one thread at a time.
“Feelin’ better?”
She jumped as Ryan’s reflection appeared in the mirror over her shoulder. He was wearing khakis and the Old Navy rugby Gigi had bought him for Christmas. “I thought you left.”
“I was worried about you, so I asked Merylinn to take Gigi to church with them. How are you doing?”
“All right.” The isolation of the guest room bed called out to her-a place where she couldn’t hurt either one of them. She wanted to creep back in and bury herself under the covers.
“The concert’s this afternoon. The reception. Are you going to be up for all that?”
“I’ll be fine.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. She knew why he’d stayed home from church. He wanted to make up for what he’d done at the party. Everything had always been so effortless for Sugar Beth: her beauty, her charm, her ability to hypnotize the most decent of men, even Colin. As for Ryan… One look at Sugar Beth was all it had taken for him to be run down by a whole truckload of the might-have-beens.
Winnie’s anger choked her. She’d sacrificed the very essence of who she was in a futile attempt to compete with the ghost of a spoiled eighteen-year-old girl. She was so sick of herself she couldn’t bear it.
Ryan glanced at his watch. “Gigi won’t be back for a while. Let’s-”
He couldn’t have looked more shocked if she’d slapped him. The geyser sputtered, then retreated as remorse swamped her. “I’m sorry. Oh, dear, Ryan, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
But no easy apology would fix this. His warm brown eyes had grown wintry. “I was about to suggest you throw on some clothes so we could drive to the bakery and get some of the cherry fritters you like.”
The unfairness of her attack sickened her, but the simmering anger wouldn’t go away. All her life she’d believed she didn’t deserve anything better than everyone’s emotional leftovers, and she was tired of it. She breathed hard, choked the anger back down. “I’m sorry.”
“Contrary to what you seem to believe, sex isn’t all I think about.”
“I know that. I’m just… out of sorts.” She pressed her hands to her waist, trying to hold the bubbling geyser in. “Let me get cleaned up, and I’ll go with you.”
“Forget it. I have some paperwork to do.” He took a step, then stopped. A slash of morning light threw his face into shadow, and for a moment, he looked like a stranger. “If you’re mad about last night, why don’t you just come out and say it instead of going through all this drama?”
The geyser rumbled. “I’m not.”
“Sugar Beth deserved the cold shoulder, but what happened went beyond that. You all behaved like children, and I won’t have any part of it.”
“Of course you won’t.” The geyser churned inside her, searching for a weak place to push through her skin.
“When are you going to let the past go?”
“Like you have?”
“Damn right I have.”
“You couldn’t take your eyes off her! All night. Every time I looked at you, you were watching her.”
“Stop right there.” His hand shot out. “We’ll talk about this when you’re ready to make sense.”
His dismissal cut through what was left of her self-control, and the geyser erupted again. This time it brought everything with it, including the secret she’d kept locked away for so many years. “I can’t do this!”
He began to walk away.
“Don’t you dare walk away from me!”
He kept going.
She rushed after him, a wild-eyed harridan, shrieking, hysterical, out of control. “I got pregnant on purpose!”
“Settle down.”
“I lied to you!”
He stopped at the top of the stairs and turned back to her. For the first time, he looked genuinely alarmed. “Winnie, stop this.”
“I got pregnant on purpose so you’d marry me!”
“I know.”
She pressed her fingers to her lips, swallowed her bile, tried to breathe, couldn’t. “You
“What was the point?” He thrust a hand through his hair. “There’s no reason to talk about this.”
“I trapped you!”
“I don’t feel trapped. Gigi’s more precious to me than my own life. Now go take a bath. You’ll feel better.”
As if a bath could wash away her sin.
“Ryan…”
But he was already disappearing down the stairs.
She slumped against the wall. Her darkest secret… and he didn’t want to talk about it.
Numbly, she returned to the bathroom and sank down on the side of the tub. She’d never planned to trap him. But then one night she’d heard herself say that she was on the pill, and he didn’t have to worry. Since she was Winnie Davis, he’d believed her.
She had responsibilities, so she turned on the faucets. The concert was this afternoon, the reception. If only she could be like Sugar Beth-callous and self-centered, utterly without conscience. She began to cry. How long did a person have to pay for old sins? Her lie had made Gigi, so she couldn’t regret it. Why, then, did she keep hating herself?
Maybe because Ryan had never done the job for her.
Sugar Beth smelled coffee. And bacon. She loved bacon. She rolled over, saw that it was nearly eleven, and headed for the bathroom. Twenty minutes later, she was on her way downstairs wearing clean underwear, a black satin Victoria’s Secret robe she’d had forever, and her oldest pair of cowboy boots. She’d washed her hair, but she hadn’t taken the time to dry it. She also hadn’t bothered with makeup. After yesterday, Colin Byrne didn’t deserve more than clean hair and a little moisturizer.
Her muscles ached from hard work and righteous indignation, but more than that, she felt relief. Whether Colin knew it or not, he’d finally forgiven her. The burden she’d carried for so long had been eased at last.
He stood at the stove in the small kitchen, his back turned to her, his presence dominating the small space. Just looking at him made her want to rip off his clothes and drag him upstairs.
“I was getting ready to wake you up.”
She wished she’d stayed in bed longer and let him do it. That ol’ black magic-falling for the wrong man. Except she wasn’t so stupid now. It might have taken her awhile, but she finally knew the difference between lust and love.
