“I hope you can hear me,” he whispers. If I were asleep, I’m not sure his low, deep voice would wake me. It’s more a rumble than anything. So much so that for a second, I feel it vibrate along my skin, tickling every tiny hair and tingling along every twitching nerve.

“She’s not my wife,” he begins. My heart trips over itself and my breath catches. Hope floods my soul, and I might’ve responded to him had he not continued on so quickly. “Not in any way other than legally.”

Oh. Is that all?

I will my chin not to tremble the disappointment is so great.

“I loved her the way a kid in high school might love his girlfriend. We were barely together after I went to college, but I was a typical guy. Stupid. Horny. Proud. When she kept coming around, who was I to tell her no? Then she got pregnant. I thought I was doing the right thing by marrying her. But I never loved her. Not the way I should’ve. Not the way I love you.”

Oh, God! My heart! I feel like it was made of glass and it just exploded inside me, shards sticking into the walls of my chest like shrapnel.

“There were other women. She knew it. She knew I was caught up in the world of fame and money and fans. She didn’t deserve any of what I did to her. And when Charity…after Charity, I knew it was time to set her free. She deserved better than me. Someone who would love her like she needed to be loved. Someone who could help her heal. Give her more children. Someone other than me.” He pauses and I want so badly to open my eyes. But I don’t. I know better than to look at him.

“I left and came here. Sent her divorce papers. She never signed them. I didn’t really care either way. I gave her a way out. The divorce wasn’t for me. I never planned on meeting anyone, on having anything more in my life than the misery I deserved. Than an eternity spent mourning my daughter. But then you came along.”

I feel the ever-so-slight warmth of Cole’s head when he rests it on the mattress right in the curve of my body. He’s not touching me. But he doesn’t have to. I feel him as if he were.

“Emmy looks so much like Charity, but as beautiful and sweet as she is, she’s not the one I couldn’t stop thinking about, even from the beginning. It was you. It’s always been you.”

Another pause. Another deep breath.

“I’ve been alone for a long time, and not once have I ever felt lonely. Bereft, yes. Angry, hell yes. Bitter, remorseful, hopeless, yes, but never lonely. Not until you. You changed everything. And I was so caught up in you–in the way you respond when I touch you, in the taste of your body, in the sound of your voice–that I didn’t think about tomorrow. Or even yesterday as much as I used to. Most days I’ve thought of you more than Charity. And I wasn’t prepared for that. I wasn’t prepared for you. Because of that, I’ve handled it all so, so badly.”

I hear his shaky breath. I feel his sincerity. I want it to matter. But it can’t.

“Please forgive me. I’ve hurt so many people, but I swear on my life, I never meant to hurt you. I hope you believe that.”

Another pause. Cole is quiet, his breathing heavy. I keep mine even, continuing the ruse. I can’t let him know I’m awake. I can’t have him here, in my bedroom, so close and so sincere, and expect to resist him. I need time. And distance.

I feel him lean back, pull away. I hold perfectly still.

“I’m twenty-nine years old and you changed everything for me. You made me want to laugh and love and live again. You made me feel when I didn’t think I could feel anything anymore. I just wish I could’ve been whole when we met. I wish I could’ve said the right things and done the right things. I wish I could be the type of man you deserve. I wish I could be the kind of man you could love.”

I hear him shift and then I feel the feather-light brush of his lips on my forehead, the tip of my nose, the curve of my cheek.

“I know you’re awake. And I love you,” he says quietly, his mouth near my ear.

I open my eyes and meet his. They’re dark and fathomless in the shadowy night. I say nothing. He says nothing. We just stare at one another, memorizing lines and shapes, angles and planes.

And then he stands and walks away.

My heart doesn’t start beating again until he closes and locks the door behind him.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Cole

I’M ON THE beach before daylight. I couldn’t sleep after I left Eden’s. I didn’t want to be in the house when Brooke got up. So I came here. This is the one place that’s brought me whatever comfort I’ve been able to find for the last three years.

Until Sunday.

I push back the snow until I see sand. I start this castle like I’ve started them all–building up the ground, laying the foundation. I bring up the mental image of Charity, picturing her face with so much clarity my chest hurts. I see every tiny detail–every freckle on her nose, every gold speck in her green eyes. I listen for her laugh.

Only it never comes.

I work a pile of sand into a tall turreted structure, right in the center of the mound and I wait for my daughter to arrive. I watch and I listen, glancing around the empty beach over and over again, but still there’s no Charity.

I sit back on my haunches, the snow no longer cold to my numb knees and hands, and I close my eyes, trying harder to see and hear my daughter. I mentally flip through a hundred different memories, losing myself in them. But the moment I open my eyes, she’s gone.

With a primal growl that the wind carries away, I destroy the castle tower with one brutal swipe of my hands, guilt and pain spewing from my gut like a volcanic eruption, burning in my chest, laying waste to everything it touches.