Page 66 of Dangerous Secrets

“Yes, I—” Her throat was scratchy. She tried to swallow but her mouth had gone dry. This couldn’t be happening. Nick was smart and strong. Surely he got out of the car before—“Yes, we married this morning. Is—is my husband, is he—?” the words wouldn’t come. Her throat simply closed up tight and all Charity could do was stare at him.

For an answer, the officer dug into his jacket pocket and held something out to her in the palm of his hand. Her knees buckled and she had to cling to the door-jamb for support.

“I’m really sorry to have to give you bad news, ma’am,” the officer said sorrowfully. “This was found in the car. There was nothing else left that could give us an identity. Do you recognize it?”

On his rough palm, the Claddagh ring gleamed in the bright light of the porch lamp.

Chapter Eighteen

Parker’s Ridge

November 27

Iburied my husband today.

Charity Prewitt Ames hugged her cold knees with her cold arms and shivered.

Husband. He’d been her husband for what? Five hours? Maybe six?

It wasn’t very long to be a bride. And now her husband was in the stone cold ground and Charity wished she could follow him.

The phone rang. And rang and rang. Charity Prewitt Ames couldn’t pick up. She hadn’t answered the phone since the funeral. She didn’t want condolences, she didn’t want any gentle inquiries into how she was feeling. Everyone wanted to know if she needed something.

Why yes, yes she did need something, thank you.

Her husband back, alive.

Condolences were words. Mere words. They wouldn’t bring her husband back. Short of Nick back, there wasn’t anythinganyone could give her that would make any difference whatsoever.

Uncle Franklin and Aunt Vera, bless them, stayed away because she told them she wanted to be alone. She loved them, but she couldn’t face them right now. Even knowing that Aunt Vera was probably hallucinating, out of control, and Uncle Franklin was dealing with it alone, she simply couldn’t face her aunt’s needs right now.

She couldn’t face anything right now. The only thing she could do was curl up on the couch in an aching ball of grief and sorrow. There was nothing in her to give to anyone.

Everything in her was crushed, broken. She could almost feel her rib cage caving in, sucked in by the collapse of her heart. Every cell in her body was rejecting the idea of Nick in the stony, frozen ground. A collection of charred bones in the place of her handsome, vital husband. She’d spent the past two days vomiting the notion out of her body. But however much she emptied her stomach, the reality didn’t change

The phone rang again. She’d switched her cell off but the landline still worked. She counted ten rings before whoever it was hung up again without leaving a message. The cordless was nearby—all she had to do was stretch out her hand and grasp the cold plastic.

She’d listen to some tinny voice, tuning in and out. She’d absorb only the odd word or two.Terrible.Shocked.All the usual words.Sorrywould definitely be in there.

There were proper answers to give. Little murmurs to say that she was bearing up, grief passes with time, thank you for calling.

The few times she’d answered the phone before the funeral, though, the words wouldn’t—couldn’tcome out. They simply remained in her throat, like hot little knives, slicing her to bits.

The phone rang again.

Her hand stayed where it was.

The house was cold. She hated the cold. In winter, her heating bills were atrocious because she liked her house toasty warm. The fire was lit almost every evening, well into spring.

But now it was cold. She hadn’t had the energy to turn the heat on or light the fire after the funeral. She hadn’t had the energy to do anything but collapse on the couch in a miserable huddle.

The last time she’d sat on this couch, she’d been in Nick’s arms.

The cruelty of losing someone so suddenly, particularly a man as vital as Nick, was that it was impossible to take in the fact that he was dead. Not long ago, she’d been lying along her couch, Nick on top of her, kissing her neck, her breasts.

She grabbed one of the big couch pillows and buried her face in it.

It still smelled like him, like Nick. She could smell wood smoke from the blazing fire he’d built, his shampoo and soap and something that was simply . . . him.

---