Chapter 18
He hasn’t let go of my hand since we got in the car.
His thumb moves against my knuckles. The radio is off. The valley is two hours behind us, and the foothills are starting to flatten out into a long, quiet stretch of road. I have decided in the hour since we pulled out of the Cresswell drive that whatever I need from him today can wait.
Today is his day.
I’m here to be what he needs me to be.
I squeeze his hand once.
He squeezes back.
The house comes into view at the end of a long private drive — limestone, two stories, a slate roof, a row of sycamores that have been there since before the foundation. There are six cars in the gravel circle. One of them is a hearse.
He turns off the engine and lets go of my hand before he opens the door.
I watch him do it.
We walk up to the house together. The gravel under my heels is loud in the small still air. The entrance door opens before we have reached the top step.
A woman in her 60s with silver-blonde hair is on the other side. In her black dress, with warm eyes, she has the kind of presence that anchors a room without ever taking it.
Behind her are two men. One of them is in his early 30s, taller than Cade, lighter. The other is older, mid-60s, soft mouth, wearing a gray suit.
"Cade."
"Mom."
She holds him for a long moment, and he lets her.
She lets him go, steps back, and looks at me.
"Mom, this is Suzanne. Beau, Henry — Suzanne."
I shake hands with Vivienne, Beau, and Henry.
"She's one of the artists I represent. She wanted to come pay her respects."
I glance at Cade and hold my composure.
He is not looking at me.
Oh. We are still a secret?
Vivienne looks at me just for a second.
Beau opens his mouth. He closes it and changes course. He steps past Cade and takes my hand in both of his.
"I'm so glad you came."
"Thank you."
"What kind of work do you do?"
"Painting, mostly. Sketches when I have free time."
"Has my brother been overbearing about it? He gets that way. I tell him not to."
"He's been — "
"You don't have to be polite. I’ve known him for twenty-one years. He’s overbearing. I take it as a compliment to you."
I almost smile.
He squeezes my hand and lets it go.
Vivienne steps forward. She takes my hand. "I'm so glad you could make it."
"Thank you. I'm — I'm sorry for your loss."
She nods, slowly. She does not let go of my hand for one beat longer than the social rule allows, and her eyes don’t leave my face for that whole beat, and then she lets go and steps back.
Henry shakes my hand last. His palm is warm.
"How was the drive?"
"Fine."
"Long stretch out past the lake?"
"Yes."
"Come in. Come in. I think there's coffee. Beau, is there coffee?"
"There is, Dad."
We go inside.
The service is small and private. Forty people are in folding chairs in the long room at the back of the house. The casket is closed. There is a framed photograph on an easel beside it — a man in his 50s on a sailboat, squinting at the sun, his hand half-raised against the light.
I sit three rows back next to Beau.
He has positioned himself beside me without making it a big deal. I have noticed since we walked through the door that Beau notices everything and pretends he does not, which is the same thing Frank does at the Cresswell, except Beau is warm and Frank is silent.
Cade is in the front row.
I watch his shoulders. They are locked. His jaw is tight. He's pretending to be calm, and he's good at it. I can see him doing it. I don't think anyone else in the room can. They've known him his whole life, but they don't see what I see.
I want to put my hand between his shoulder blades.
I want to walk to the front of the room and put my palm flat against the top of his spine and comfort him. I want to stay there for as long as he wants me to.
I can’t do that.
I’m just one of the artists he represents.
I cannot do that because Suzanne the artist would not put her hand between Cade Nightingale's shoulder blades at his father's funeral, and Suzanne the artist is who I'm supposed to be in this room.
I lean toward Beau. "Were they close?"
He shakes his head, small.
"What happened?"
"His father left when Cade was ten. Mom married my dad a few years after. He took her name as soon as he could legally do it, and he hadn't spoken to his father in fifteen years."
"Oh."
"They were never going to be okay. He came today for Henry and for Mom, not for the man in the box."
"And you?"
"I came for him." A small one-shoulder shrug. "He won't say it, but he needs us here. He has needed us here every day, and he is not the kind of man who knows how to ask."
Cade has always been like that. He would rather bleed alone than let you hold the gauze. He's protective of the people he loves and despises the ones who hurt them. That's the whole of him, really — shield or sword. Nothing in between.
The reception is in the house afterward.
Forty people in small standing groups in the long living room.
The catering is modest but thoughtful. The conversation is low.
Cade moves through the room with his family — handshakes, the careful nods men give each other at funerals, the brief shoulder-touches.
I stay near the edge of the room.
Beau keeps finding me, whether it’s a hand at my elbow to introduce me to a couple, or a quiet comment about a watercolor on the wall. "That’s my mother’s, and she did three of them in the year she moved in with my dad and me, even though they are not very good, but don’t tell her I said so."
I'm, somehow, surviving the afternoon because of him.
After a while, Vivienne finds me at the window.
"How did you meet my son?"
"At the Cresswell. There was a small event there. We…we just started talking."
"What kind of event?"
"It was an art reception. The Davies collection."
She nods, brings her free hand up, and squeezes mine briefly. "It is a lovely afternoon. I'm glad you came."
She moves on to the next group.
I stand at the window for a long time after.
And I think about how I landed here — not just in this house, but in this family.
At a funeral, of all seasons. Vivienne has her gentle hands, and Beau steers me through the crowd like I have always belonged.
No one makes me feel like a stranger. They just fold me in, warm and whole, because that is who they are. That is who Cade came from.
We leave at 6:00 p.m.
The drive to the cottage is short. We are not staying in the main house. We are staying in a small guesthouse at the far end of the property — one bedroom, a kitchenette, and a stone hearth. It was Vivienne's idea. "More privacy," she had said in a warm, careful way.
He unlocks the door, and I go in first.
The door closes behind him.
He reaches for me.
He has me by the waist before I have turned all the way around. His other hand comes up to my jaw. He kisses me — not gently. He has been holding himself back all day, and he doesn’t want to wait another second.
I kiss him back, my fingers pressing into his shirt.
Then I pull back. "So you want to touch me now we're alone?"
He blinks. "That’s the whole point of a secret relationship, isn't it?"
I step back from him. "The whole point of the secret was because of my job. My job is gone. You took the hotel. You fired the manager. There is no Cresswell to lose. I don’t have a job to be terminated from."
"I know."
"So why are we still a secret?"
He doesn’t answer.
The silence stretches.
I watch his jaw shift as he decides not to answer.
"I need some air."
"Suzanne…"
I walk out of the cottage when he calls my name, but I don't look back.
The grounds are enormous. Hedged paths, a small pond, and an old stone wall separating the gardens from the woods beyond. I walk without choosing a direction. I’m trying to breathe and think clearly without his presence.
My job is done.
The reason for the secret is gone.
I have been building a version of my life in my head where I meet his family as his, where I walk into his world as his, where I'm introduced by my actual name, but he introduced me as one of his artists.
My phone suddenly buzzes in my pocket. I look at it out of habit. The number is not in my contacts, but I know who it is. I haven’t seen this number in days.
I pick up before I have thought about it.
"Well, I didn’t think you’d pick up.” The voice is bright.
"I just wanted to say thank you. To you and to that lovely, generous boyfriend of yours."
"What are you talking about?"
"Don’t play dumb. I won’t ask you for more money. Just wanted you to know I’ll be out of your hair for a while. I’ll be seeing ya."
The call ends.
I stand on the path and look at the wall, replaying her words over and over because none of them make sense unless Cade paid her off.
She's never thanked me for anything, let alone called me just to say she'd stay away — that's the part that cracks everything open.
He bought my peace without asking if I wanted it bought, and now I don't know if I'm supposed to feel grateful or gutted.
I walk back.
I cross the lawn, the path, the gravel, and I open the front door of the cottage. Cade is standing in the living room exactly where I left him, both hands at his sides, the soft lamp on.
He sees my face.
The sentence dies in his mouth.
"Did you pay my mother?"
His eyes widen for a second, and then they go back to their normal form. “Yes, I did. Because it was the right thing to do. She wasn’t supposed to contact you. I’m going to…"
"No, you’re not going to do anything. I can’t believe you don’t understand how insane that is."
“I did what I had to do to get her out of your life.”
“Well, clearly, it didn’t work since she called me to gloat.”
“That’s why you should let me…”
“My god, listen to yourself. I don’t want you reaching out to my mother. She’s my burden to handle.”
“Suzanne, I’m here to carry that burden for you. I’m not complaining.”
“But we’re a secret, aren’t we? How will you explain your undying devotion to me?”
He doesn’t say anything for a beat.
“That’s not the point. The point is I’ll keep doing right by you, no matter what. That’s why I punched Brandt in the face, and I’ll do it again if I have to.”
“You did what?”
“He wasn’t just interested in your art, Suzanne. He wanted you.”
I don’t speak for a second. “Okay, Brandt deserved it, but that isn't the problem."
"What's the problem?"
"You didn't tell me. You keep making decisions for me, Cade. Do you think so little of me that you didn't believe I could handle my own mother?”
"No."
"Then what was it?"
"Suzanne, I was just trying to help."
"I didn’t ask for your help."
I turn and walk out of the room.