Page 12 of Silent Partner (Pine Falls 3)

Maybe I was incompetent all around. I felt as if I could do nothing right. My business was struggling, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to trust my heart ever again.

It had been wrong about him.

Wrong about Tristan.

I pulled into the parking lot and a sense of coming home washed over me. I missed this place and the soothing sounds of the river nearby. I longed for the days when it was only Ariana, Dani, and me. Don’t get me wrong: I was so happy for my sisters. You couldn’t find two better people. They deserved all the happiness in the world. Still, I missed them. Nothing had been the same since they had gotten married and started families of their own. I hated coming home to an empty house every night. Especially now that I lived in our old home. It was too big for one person, but I couldn’t stand the thought of living in a cheap dump. I was getting too old for that. Besides, as a child, I’d lived in my fair share of them.

I pulled down the visor and looked in the mirror. Oh, that was a mistake. I was a hot mess with splotched, waterlogged cheeks and bloodshot eyes from crying and a lack of sleep. Maybe I shouldn’t have come, except I needed some shoulders to cry on despite being embarrassed that, once again, I was rejected. Worse, I had told my sisters that I was hoping Tristan and I would discuss our future this weekend while he was in town. Dani had been ecstatic about the possibility and said something like she knew he was the one. Ariana, on the other hand, had been more cautious. “Tristan’s great,” she’d said, “but are you sure he’s the one?”

I’d known what she had been getting at, or should I say who? Ever since he’d broken off his engagement, Ariana had subtly dropped hints that perhaps it was a sign. Dani hadn’t appreciated Ariana’s take and had warned it was best to stay away from him. Which was weird, because she thought he was one of the best people around and he was, after all, her brother-in-law. When Ariana had pressed Dani about her objection, she’d responded, “Please just let it drop. His life is complicated.”

Dani would never say why, and I never asked. I just did what I had always done around him—pretended I had nothing but feelings of friendship for him. Avoiding him would have said otherwise. But I certainly never purposely sought him out. I had done my best to not even think or say his name. There was too much power in it. It evoked beautiful, tender feelings that I was never meant to have toward him. Oddly, I’d noticed he had quit saying my name, too, and avoided me as much as possible. Unfortunately, our lives were too tangled up to never see each other. It would have been a welcome relief to never have to be around him. To not feel this pull to comfort him. There was no doubt this past year had been difficult for him. First, he had given up his dream of running for the Senate, and then his fiancée had broken up with him. Which in my mind was a gift. He and Jill hadn’t seemed like a good match, and I wasn’t only saying that because I was jealous of her. Regardless, it was all odd. No one ever talked about it, and the reasons given for the major shift in his life seemed inadequate. It obviously pained him. His light had gone out.

Dating Tristan had made it easier to ignore that he was hurting. Sometimes that made me feel like an awful person. But he’d made his choice, and I had to move on. My biggest mistake was that I chose to move on with another man. I should have moved on with a puppy or a kitten. Definitely keeping that in mind for the future.

I flipped up the visor. There was nothing I could do to fix the mess that was my face. Or my life. I grabbed the basket of food I’d made for lunch. I’d been cooking and baking since four this morning. Some people cleaned when they were upset; I made huge messes in the kitchen. In my defense, the result was a lot of good food. Today, for instance, I’d made chicken carbonara, breadsticks, chocolate truffles, dark chocolate brownies, and chocolate almond petit fours. I’d probably overdone it on the chocolate, but I didn’t regret it, or the fact that I had licked all the spoons . . . and, okay, the bowls too. Yes, I’d licked the bowls. Every. Single. One. And eaten half a pan of brownies already. So what if my stomach hurt? It had nothing on my heart.

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