Chapter 17 Sydney
Sydney
Iwake to a woman’s laugh somewhere in the distance, followed by the gentle rumble of my husband speaking. Her sweet voice, when she says something in return, sounds affectionate and familiar.
I throw off the blanket and climb from the chair.
If I escape down the hallway to the bedroom, I don’t have to see who McRae is laughing with at all.
The thought barely makes an appearance before I dismiss it.
The woman sounds too friendly. I didn’t trust him in my memories.
Maybe the woman attached to the voice is why.
When I leave the library, I turn left, not right. What I don’t do is announce myself when I reach the kitchen. Instead, I hover near the edge of the doorway, peeking around the wood-trimmed casement opening like I’m two kids stacked in a trench coat playing private eye.
The woman in my kitchen reminds me a little of an actress I’ve seen in some movies.
Her caramel-colored hair balances precariously on top of her head in a loose bun, and she holds a baby dressed in blue in her arms—a baby with eyes shaped like my husband’s and the same divot in his chin.
The familial resemblance is impossible to miss.
My insides twist. I knew there was something off about our marriage, but I didn’t think he’d have an infant with another woman or that he’d sneak her into our house while I was sleeping.
The baby reaches a hand toward him. He kisses his chubby fist, then lifts him into his arms. “Hey, little man. I missed you.”
Two or three months old. I helped with the younger ones a lot in foster care, and that’s my guess for the baby’s age. He’d have been conceived during or only a little before our marriage.
The woman leans against McRae’s side. He wraps his free arm around her shoulder and presses a kiss to her temple. “I’m glad you guys came.”
They look like a perfect little family.
“If Sydney isn’t ready for us to invade her space, we’re fine to get a rental nearby. We won’t mind.” She sounds so nice as she explains how she and her child will make accommodations for me. I want to puke.
“I don’t think she’s ready for you guys to stay here in the house, but the bungalow should be fine,” he says.
McRae told me that even if we weren’t together, he’d be here for me. That he loves me like family. Now it makes perfect sense. He has an entire life that has nothing to do with me, but since I “needed” him, he stepped up.
The pain in my throat and pounding heart shock me. I barely know him, but I hurt like a woman losing the love of her life. It makes no sense.
Tears burning in my sinuses, I back up. One step. Two steps. Then I turn and hurry for the front of the house. I swing the front door open, then jolt to a stop at the sight of a man filling the doorframe.
His navy-blue eyes glint behind wire-framed glasses, and his mouth tips up at the corners as he shifts a leather carry-on bag off his shoulder and onto the stone at his feet. “Hello.”
“H-hello.”
“Are you lost?” he asks gently.
I shake my head.
He dips his chin and glances down. “If you go outside like that, you’ll cut your feet. Burn them too.”
“I can’t go back inside.”
“Where are you off to?” He riffles through his bag, locates a small container of Kleenex and holds out two.
I hadn’t noticed my stupid eyes were leaking. I accept the tissues and wipe my face, eyeing him with suspicion.
He gestures to the left. “There’s a quiet little garden over there.
Lots of shade and a waterfall. You can walk on the grass to get there so you don’t hurt your feet.
I find, sometimes, if I sit and see how many constellations or species of plants I can name, by the time I’m done, I’m ready to come up with a plan. ”
“I don’t want him . . . to find me.”
He nods. “Staying on the property does ruin the ‘Storming Off Dramatically’ aesthetic. Sometimes a shoe-less temper tantrum is exactly what a moment is missing.”
His words snap me out of the pain of disappointment and grief into shock. “Y-you’re rude.”
“When you remember me, you’ll love me. Probably.
Honestly, it’s a coin toss. In the meantime, you could sit next to a waterfall—man-made, unfortunately, but it looks like it occurred naturally—and, while you do, you can let that adrenaline leave your system.
And afterward, if you still want to storm off, you can pack a bag, call your husband a giant dildo, and go, but this time with shoes and money. ”
“He’s not a g-giant dildo,” I say.
“How disappointing for both of you.”
I scowl, still sick and sad, and inexplicably exhausted.
“May I walk you to the bench? You look as though you could topple over at any moment.”
I could ignore him, but he’s right. I’ll have to go back inside to get my shoes, phone, and wallet, and I have no intention of doing that yet. I can see the bench from here, the air is sweet, and the guards are within earshot.
He places a hand under my elbow, and we walk. When we reach the seating area, he waits politely for me to sit before sprawling on the bench beside me, leaving a couple feet between us.
“I’m your brother-in-law, Henry, if you’re wondering.” He shoots me a sidelong glance. “Is Gabriel getting on your nerves? Who could blame you, really?”
I bristle. “I’m the one . . . I can’t remember how things are s-supposed . . . to be. I can’t think . . . a-anymore.” Not when it comes to my memories or my emotions.
The person I remember being wasn’t dramatic. I didn’t cry or have meltdowns like this as a teenager. I kept everything tamped down and only let loose on the soccer field. Even then, my emotions were under my control.
He pats me on the shoulder. “It’s going to be okay,” he says dryly.
Scowling, I glare back at him and attempt to discern if he’s mocking me.
“I’ll admit, I’m worried about him.” He removes his hand from my shoulder, plucks a flower from a tree branch behind our heads, and examines the white-and-yellow blossom before letting it drift to the cool, pebbly sand beneath our feet.
“I’m worried about you too. Of course. I’m merely pointing out that it’s not all about you. ”
“I’m leaving for him. I’m . . . ruining his life.”
“Ah. The old ‘better off without me’ argument. Except he’s never been better off without you. Honestly, if you hadn’t come along, I think he’d probably be dead by now.”
Impossible to believe. All anyone has to do is look at him, and I never could have become someone who tried to “save” a man. I know better.
“In case you think I’m calling you two co-dependent, I’m not. He did the work himself. You didn’t fix him,” he says.
That, I do believe, regardless of whatever supposed problem he had.
I watch the water as it pours over the rock and splashes into the pool below.
Cool mist sprinkles the tops of my bare feet.
I don’t know where I’ll go without McRae.
Don’t know how I’ll heal from a broken heart when I can’t understand the injury in the first place. “He wants s-someone else.”
Henry leans toward me, his expression rapt. “Really?”
“Yes.”
He laughs, then sobers abruptly when my chin wobbles.
“Sorry. I’m not laughing at you, but Gabriel waited for you to give him a chance for years. You’re telling me he finally gets you, then screws around on you? That’s not my brother.”
I shrug.
“Did he tell you he wanted someone else?”
“He kissed her.”
“When?”
His rapid-fire questions feel like an interrogation. I point at the house, just visible through the greenery and scowl. “Now.”
“Kissed her where?” he insists.
“Kitchen.”
“Good God, woman. Where on her face or body did he place his mouth?”
I point at my temple. “He has a baby. Looks just like him.”
“At least you walked away. Once, I nearly punched him in the face for putting his arm around her shoulders,” he says pleasantly.
I double-blink.
He smiles with his mouth closed. “My brother is affectionate. He doesn’t mean anything by it. Probably kissed the baby too.”
He pulls out his phone, scrolls, then holds it out to me, showing me a photo of the woman holding the baby. “Is this her?”
I nod. “She’s beautiful,” I say mournfully.
“She’s even more beautiful on the inside. She’s the kindest woman you’ll ever meet. Genuinely. She’s patient and incredibly intelligent. People misjudge her sometimes because she’s different. Not everyone knows what to think when they meet someone who isn’t like them.”
Is everyone in love with this fucking paragon? The thought reeks of jealousy, but I don’t even try to be a bigger person. Giving my husband back to her is as big as it gets.
He flips through ten more photos, all of them of the woman or the baby or both, then he angles the phone away, hiding the screen. “I love this one, but you can’t look at it. She’s got bedhead, and she says I’m the only person allowed to see her like that.”
I’m an idiot.
I indicate the ring on his left hand. “She’s your wife.”
He smiles and puts his phone away. “Yes. Ian is my son. He does share a genetic likeness with me and my brother. It’s true.”
Now that he mentions it, I see the family resemblance.
“My brother,” he says, “is the human equivalent of a golden retriever. He’s friendly to everyone who deserves it, but loyal to you to a fault.”
“A fault,” I repeat slowly.
“You’re making choices that hurt both of you, and he supports you in all of them because that’s what he does. He’d lie down in front of you and let you light him on fire if you caught a chill.”
I shake my head, hating the thought.
“It’s true. I’d do the same thing for my wife. The difference is Franki would never ask it of me.”
“This is a guilt trip,” I mutter.
“Do you feel guilty? I’d prefer you take your meds, stop avoiding the doctor, and cooperate with this investigation. That would be much more useful than guilt or lying to yourself that Gabriel would be better off without you.”
“I don’t know anything else.” My mind buzzes with the words and the start of a stabbing headache.
“The holes in our security need to be plugged. If we don’t figure out how Markov got to you, we can’t be sure someone won’t target the children the same way.”
“Children?” The idea of kids, like the baby inside, in danger shoots an electric hum of protective anxiety through my system.
“You’re an auntie several times over. Didn’t you notice the photos everywhere?
You saw my son, Ian, inside. My sister, Bronwyn, has three.
Ophelia is ten. Rory is seven. Sam is three.
Your friend Clarissa is pregnant with her first. If I were you, I’d never forgive myself if something happened to one of the children while I was busy playing a little game of I Don’t Know Anything Else. ”
“It’s not on purpose,” I say, stung.
“Hmm. It’s not really an accident either. Is it?”