“So was I,” Laura pointed out. “This place has a way of changing a person. Do you think Henry lied to you about who he used to be? Is that what this is about? You’ve heard the rumors and you’re worried they’re true?”
She couldn’t help but think about it. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll have a long talk with my husband,” Holly promised. “He’s always paranoid, but he usually manages to keep it to himself. If it helps, Alexei teases him about it. He thinks it’s completely ridiculous, and he was in the mob for years. If Alexei can’t tell who’s dangerous and who isn’t, then no one can. And Gemma literally worked with murder lawyers for years and didn’t see it. I think Henry is fine.”
Holly wasn’t telling her anything that hadn’t gone through her head. He hadn’t given off signals anyone had picked up. She knew Stef had vetted him.
Why was she even thinking these things? And why hadn’t she confronted Henry with her questions?
“I hid a lot of things about my past when I got here,” Laura admitted. “It certainly didn’t make me some kind of killer.”
Nell shook her head. “I didn’t say he was a killer.”
“Then what else are you worried about?” Laura sometimes got a look in her eyes that reminded Nell she’d worked for the FBI for years before she’d come to Bliss, though she hadn’t admitted that for a long time.
“I’ve never met any of Henry’s old college friends. With the singular exception of Bill, I’ve never met anyone who knew Henry before. He talks about some people he knew and they sound interesting, but he’s never offered to go see them or bring them to Bliss.” She’d known he didn’t have any family, that he’d been raised by a single mom and she was gone. No siblings or cousins.
“Not everyone is close to their work friends,” Holly pointed out. “And it’s easy to fall out of touch when there’s so much distance. Caleb doesn’t have any friends from his days in Chicago. Alexei has a cousin he talks to quite a bit, but that’s about it. All of their friends are from here now.”
“It’s pretty much the same for Rafe and Cam,” Laura agreed. “Rafe tries to reach out to his family, but I don’t think it’s going well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Laura had explained that Rafe’s family was very old fashioned, and they were giving him trouble about his unorthodox marriage. They didn’t consider it a marriage at all. “That has to be hard on Rafe.”
“It is.” Laura looked down at her sleeping child. “We thought his mom would bend when we adopted Sierra, but apparently she’s only interested in children who have her blood. I don’t know. Family can be overrated. Sometimes it’s good to make a family on your own, to choose the people who stand beside you. I think that’s what Henry’s done. He’s incredibly devoted to this town and its people.”
He was. Henry was always the first to volunteer. Was she looking for trouble where there was none?
“The rumors are getting to you,” Laura said, not unkindly. “My question to you is does it matter?”
Holly frowned Laura’s way. “Of course it matters. I would be upset if people were talking about Caleb and Alexei around town.”
“They’re always talking about Caleb.” Laura shook her head. “But it’s not the talk that bothers her, not really. Nell’s dealt with rumors all her life, but something about this one is getting to her. It’s the idea that Henry might have a darker past than he’s been willing to talk about. Does that matter? If you found out Henry wasn’t who he said he was, that he might have hidden something about his past from you—would that change how you feel about him?”
It was time to level with her closest friends. It had been so hard to not talk to them, but she could now. “I love him. I’ll always love Henry. I’m having his baby.”
Laura’s eyes widened, and Holly went still.
“Nell, are you serious?” Laura managed to get to the edge of her seat without waking the baby.
She hadn’t told anyone because she and Henry had decided to wait a while longer, but she needed to talk to her friends about this. “We’ve been trying for over a year. I’ve had a couple of miscarriages.”
She said the words simply, and this time they didn’t bring immediate tears to her eyes. She’d cried so much over those two losses.
“Caleb didn’t tell me.” Holly’s eyes filled with tears. “Does he know?”
Even in Bliss there were HIPAA rules, and Caleb followed them. The doc was awfully good at keeping his mouth closed. Even around his wife. “Of course. We went to him both times. It was very early on in both pregnancies. So early that he thinks I might not have been pregnant at all the first time.”
But she had been. She’d felt it.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Laura held Sierra close.
There had been so many reasons. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. You were getting married. At first I didn’t want to take attention away, and then I didn’t want to make anyone sad. It’s a happy time.”
“It can be both.” Holly moved closer to her. “It can be happy for us and we can still mourn with you. That’s what it means to be sisters. Like Laura said, sometimes we put together a family out of the people we love. Laura and I don’t have any family left. Not the blood kind, but you two are my
