To say it out loud would make him sound needy and disrespectful of his brother and the job he’d done raising him. He’d caused enough pain for one day without adding to it.
“I’m sorry you feel that way but it’s important to me. You’re holding secrets you won’t share. If we can’t be honest with each other, what chance do we have?”
“If we can’t trust each other, secrets included, even when I’ve promised to let you know when I can, what chance do we have?”
*
Thinking about falling into a relationship with him hadn’t been the wisest thought she’d had but at the time, it felt right. They had history, which had to mean something. At least that was the excuse she told herself when she questioned the wisdom of it all. And she’d been alone for too long now. She ached for someone to hold her, to comfort her and he was the only person she knew would be able to take away the pain.
She’d seen him almost every day for weeks while they were doing the renovations on the ballroom, and it’d been easy to get into the habit of spending time with him. Every day more and more memories came back to remind her of what they had before. Memories that made it seem like the relationship would work for them again.
The odd dinner in their apartment when Noah kindly offered the invitation without her prior knowledge, not that she’d say no anyway. The moments when he’d pop into her office on the pretext of asking her advice or informing her of their progress and staying beyond the time the other workers left of an evening. The “casual” appearance at a family dinner she was attending that one of her sisters had organized and thought to invite him.
Mari had sat Noah down again after the visit from Pearl and asked if he had any questions about his family. He knew Pearl was his real grandmother. Noah had taken it without question from the very beginning and they were great together. “Cool. So that means Ethan is my real dad and I have a grandfather too. Right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“So when can I see Granddad then? He wants to see me, doesn’t he?”
It’d been up to her to explain away Jeff and that left a sour taste in her throat but Noah seemed happy with her explanation that he was still hurting over losing Rake.
Pearl had managed to visit most Sundays too much to Noah’s joy and that helped smooth her guilt at the deception she’d carried on. He loved having Grandma Pearl around. The hardest part was fobbing off the questions he asked about her not being there when he was little. Distance and his father’s career seemed to cover it for now but there was no doubt things would change when he got older and thought more about it. She’d deal with that when the time came, but at the moment, she had enough on her plate.
And now that was all put in jeopardy because she couldn’t bring herself to break her promise to Rake. Jeff still refused to talk to her and instead of being relieved at not having to confront him with the news, it was digging at her. She’d try one more time and if he didn’t want to talk to her she would go out to the cherry farm and confront him. Then she’d try and salvage what she could of the relationship between her and Ethan.
It’d been nice to feel wanted again. She couldn’t deny that but with that commitment would come the questions and she’d been right. It was inevitable, but still, Mari wasn’t ready to open her heart and tell Ethan his brother’s darkest secrets. Not yet. Not until she was sure they would all be able to deal with them. The first one hadn’t gone down well. The next one might break the family apart and they were already on thin ice. She didn’t want to be responsible for wrecking everything. But she wasn’t ready for Ethan to destroy what trust they still had either.
Rake should have thought what would happen if everything went wrong but, at the time, she didn’t want to throw that hammer into the works. Returning with Noah to Cherry Lake was the only thing that kept him going at the end.
She and Rake had a good life together. It didn’t have the passion she might have had with Ethan but they were good for each other. He was caring and looked after her when she needed it most. She gave him something to come home to, to focus on while he strived to be the best he could be and to prove to himself that he could go to the top of his game with sheer determination.
Noah was the thread that bound them together. The thread they both clung to when Rake was first diagnosed and the reason he kept fighting when he’d been told it wouldn’t do any good. A clever man, he’d set things in motion for their future after the first professional fight. Instead of wasting money on parties, fast cars, and rich men’s toys as many sports stars did, he’d invested wisely. Determined to leave Mari and Noah with a tidy nest egg to see them right for the future, he wanted to make up for what he called his “lack of security and knowing who he was.” And of course there was his life insurance, which thankfully
