by Jill Shalvis
And just like that, the warmth that had been with her ever since she’d first come to Wildstone five weeks ago evaporated out of River’s chest, leaving her cold and chilled at the loss.
She’d done this.
“Someone answer me,” Cora said, using her scary CEO voice with River for the first time ever, which made her want to cry.
But it was Lanie who drew a deep breath and spoke first. “When I got back here after work, I found River searching through my stuff. She had my grandma’s necklace in her hands.” She didn’t mention River’s lie of needing something to hock for cash.
Cora’s mouth fell open in shock and surprise, and her gaze whipped to River.
But River couldn’t have spoken to save her life. Not with her heart in her throat.
“Oh, River,” Cora whispered.
“Is there a problem in here?” another voice asked, this one male.
Mark.
In uniform.
Oh God, River thought, beginning to shake like a leaf. This was bad. So bad. The shame that had filled her veins pumped even hotter and even more destructively through her body.
“Yes, there’s a problem,” Cora said. “Lanie came home to find River with her grandma’s necklace.” She looked at River with such worried, kind eyes that River felt herself start to break. She stole a quick glance at Mark, who was standing there looking stern, but clearly willing to hear what she had to say for herself. She opened her mouth and . . .
Burst into tears.
And not the pretty kind of tears either. Nope, this was the humiliatingly loud, can’t-catch-her-breath sobs as she let the entire sordid tale fall out of her, unable to keep it to herself any longer. “I wasn’t trying to steal anything of hers, I swear! I was trying to find something that’s mine. He stole it from me. He’d told me I was his moon and his stars, but that turned out to be a lie too, just like everything else he told me!”
She felt Lanie jerk in surprise but she couldn’t look. She couldn’t do anything but shake and cry. She was getting close to hyperventilating as the sobs wracked her frame, but she couldn’t stop talking now, not until she made them understand. “I thought I was m-m-married, but it turned out I w-w-wasn’t. It wasn’t ever r-r-real. Kyle f-f-fooled me and d-d-destroyed my life and left me alone and p-p-pregnant. And it was all my f-f-fault for trusting him.” She had to stop for a second and suck in air, which gave her the hiccups. “H-h-he told me we’d be a family and that I w-w-wouldn’t be alone ever again and then v-v-vanished on me. Turned out he’d d-d-died and I wasn’t his only w-w-wife.”
At that, she ran out of air and covered her face and let the sobs take her.
Cora hadn’t said anything more and she knew Mark was still standing there. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel his presence, along with that ever-present sense of rock-solid, stoic authority. “I’m s-s-so sorry,” she tried to say, but she wasn’t sure the words were even understandable. She was horrified, humiliated.
And terrified.
“River.”
This was a new voice. Holden’s voice. And her heart about stopped now because she couldn’t let him know what she’d done. Then they’d all hate her. “No—”
Two arms came around her. Strong, warm arms attached to a solid body that smelled like the mountains and the sea. “Shh,” Holden said in her ear. “Slow deep breaths now, River. Do it with me. In . . .” He demonstrated by inhaling deep. “And then out, slow . . .” He exhaled against her jaw and she clutched at him, the only lifeline on her sinking ship.
“You’ve got this,” he said.
They breathed in and out for a few minutes, during which she shuddered with the last of her tear storm, doing her best to pretend she was anywhere but where she was, with a silent audience, waiting her out.
“That’s it. More.” Holden ran a big hand up and down her back in a soothing, comforting gesture that melted her into his embrace—until she realized he might hear things about her that she didn’t want him to hear because then he too would stop looking at her with all that warmth and affection in his gaze. “What are you doing here?” she managed to ask.
“I heard the yelling. Keep breathing, River.”
“You’ve got to go.” Panic had her shoving him now. “Please. Just go.”
Holden looked around the room, his gaze landing on Mark first, then Cora and Lanie standing there, all very serious, before his gaze came back to her. “If you’re worried about me hearing what’s going on, you’re too late. And I think that more than you need me to go, you need a friend on your side. So I’m staying.”
She swallowed hard and looked away, unable to meet his eyes. But she wasn’t strong enough to let go of his hand, which she gripped tightly.
Cora came to sit on the other side of her and stroked her damp hair from her face. “Water,” she said and snapped her fingers.
Mark was way ahead of her, having already helped himself to Lanie’s kitchenette, where he grabbed a bottle of water from the small fridge. He opened it and handed it to River, who took it with shaking hands.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I know you are,” Cora said.
But River had been talking to Lanie.
Who still wasn’t looking at her.
She sipped at the water, awaiting her fate, shaking in her boots because she’d really managed to do it now, hadn’t she, sabotaging the greatest thing that had ever happened to her. Not only with Cora and her family, but with Lanie, who’d been the best friend—no, the best sister—she’d never had.
But instead of sending her away, Cora just sat next to her, hand on her shoulder. Anytime someone tried to speak—Mark tried twice, Lanie once—Cora stopped them with a look.
She was clearly waiting until River got ahold of herself and stopped hiccupping for breath like a scared five-year-old, but she couldn’t because she felt so ashamed. She somehow forced herself to look at Mark. “I’m ready.”
“For what?”
“For you to arrest me.”
Silence.
Mark slid a look at Lanie, who wasn’t looking at any of them. She’d moved to the window and stood with her back to them all, hugging herself tightly. Unreachable.
Mark headed toward her but Lanie held up a hand and gave a single head-shake. This didn’t stop him. He still moved to her side, but he didn’t touch her, just stood next to her, silent, supportive. A presence of security that River was both painfully jealous of and also wistful for.
“Lanie?” Mark said.
From the window, Lanie didn’t move except to sigh as she answered a question River didn’t realize had been asked. “No. I don’t want to press charges.”
All of the tension seemed to drain out of Cora at that. “Extremely generous,” she said quietly to Lanie and gave River a small smile.
“Thank you,” River whispered to Lanie’s stiff back.
“I’m not doing it for you.”
River nodded even though Lanie still wasn’t looking at her. She stared down at her tightly clasped fingers in Holden’s big hand.
“Talk to us, River,” Cora said softly.
It was the last thing she wanted to do. The very last thing, right behind having a root canal without drugs. But she’d been braced for Mark to cuff her and drag her off and he hadn’t done that. She owed them all, but she especially owed Lanie.
“You thought you were married,” Cora prompted.
“Yes,” River said.
“But you weren’t?”
“No, because Kyle was already married.” She wanted, desperately, for Lanie to turn around so she could see River’s regret, but Lanie still didn’t budge. “To Lanie.”
The sudden silence was so absolute that River wasn’t sure any of them were breathing. Then in unison, they each turned to look at Lanie.
Who was still doing an impression of a statue.
“Since my marriage wasn’t real,” River said, “I got nothing when he died. Not that I wanted a thing from that rat-fink b
astard. I don’t want anything from anyone that I haven’t earned, but . . .”
“You ran out of money?” Cora asked.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Kyle told me he’d paid my rent up to a year, but that wasn’t true. I lost my apartment and when I couldn’t hide the pregnancy anymore, I lost my job as well.”
“And you had to stop going to school,” Cora said, but she was looking at Mark as she said it.
“Yes.” No use thinking about her dream job of being a nurse, helping others the way she’d watched nurses help her mom.
“What did you want from Lanie?” Mark asked. Calmly. Quietly. But with an unmistakable tone of unbendable steel.
She wasn’t out of the woods with him, not yet.
“I was desperate,” she said, equally desperate for them to understand. “You have to understand, it took me forever to figure out what even happened to Kyle. At first I thought he’d just vanished on me. Two months went by and I got kicked out of our apartment—”
Lanie made a soft sound of . . . pain? Hard to tell. Everyone looked at her but she never took her gaze off the window.
“Go on,” Cora said quietly to River.
She swallowed hard. “I needed a new place, but didn’t have enough money, so I went to hock the ring Kyle had bought me.”
Cora nodded encouragingly. “But . . . ?”
“But it was fake.” He’d given her a fake diamond. The humiliation of her stupidity burned deep. “I’d bought him a real ring.” With her entire nest egg. “And I want it back. I need it back so I can sell it and get a place for me and the baby. But when I tracked down Kyle’s family to ask about it, they told me his wife had his belongings.” The words were bitter in her mouth. “That’s when I found out I wasn’t married to him at all. That he had another wife.”
Lanie finally turned to face her, her expression so carefully blank it broke River’s already broken heart all over again. “You tracked me down and came here to make pretend friends with me, to feel things out and see if you could somehow get to Kyle’s belongings through me.”
River winced at the harsh truth. “Yes.”
Lanie nodded and turned back to the window.
River stared down at her hands, feeling the same helplessness as she had when her mom had died. She was going to be kicked out, maybe arrested, and once again she’d be on her own.
Stupid.
She was so stupid.
“Everyone, follow me to the big house, please,” Cora said, eyes on Lanie’s back. “This is Lanie’s private space; we will finish this without further intrusion on her.”
More guilt slashed through River, but Cora wanted them to move, so they all moved. Even Lanie.
Cora kept a close eye on them all as they walked to the big house, waiting until everyone settled in the living room, even Holden. Lanie tried to keep to herself, but Gracie wasn’t having it, leaning all her considerable doggy weight against Lanie until she was pretty much forced by cuteness overload to pet the dog.
“River,” Cora said, “look at me.”
She forced her gaze up to Cora’s.
“I understand why you did what you did,” she said and River stilled.
“You do?”
“Yes. You were alone, terrified, and pregnant. We’d have to be monsters not to understand.”
Mark cleared his throat. “Mom—”
“She’s a kid having a kid, Marcus. She needs us.”
Mark just looked at his mom.
“We’re all about second chances,” Cora told him. “And she didn’t actually steal anything.”
“Yet,” Mark said.
“You heard her, she’s only looking for what’s hers.”
There was another long look between mother and son.
“She was taken advantage of,” Cora said and took River’s hand. “It’s going to be okay.”
“So . . . you don’t want me to leave?”
“No,” Cora said. “I most definitely don’t want you to leave.”
A tiny flame of hope flickered. “I can keep my job?”
“You’re keeping your job. We’ve got you, River,” she said.
No one had ever had her, not since her mom died. She couldn’t help it, her eyes filled again. “Are you sure?”
Cora turned to Mark, who just gave her a single nod. Cora looked at Lanie next.
She didn’t react.
“Lanie,” Cora asked softly. “Are you okay with that?”
And River held her breath, waiting for the only answer that mattered.
Chapter 19
A haiku about getting out of bed:
No no no no no.
No no no no no no no.
No no no no no.
Lanie felt trapped. In a nightmare of her own making, no less. A pleaser at heart, she liked when people liked her. Especially the two Capriottis in this very room.
But her heart felt cold and shrunken in on itself and at the moment, she couldn’t access any of the happy she’d had only an hour ago.
You’re my moon and my stars. Kyle had told her that on numerous occasions. She’d loved those words; she’d thought them sweet and had felt special when he’d said them.
But apparently it’d been his signature line, and that made her angry all over again, so angry she couldn’t even speak.
Had she really thought her past was behind her?
Had she really believed that she could let it all go and live in the present? Because her past had just shown up without an evite. So was she okay with River doing what she’d done and getting to stay? Hell no. But there was no way she could say so. “It’s fine.”
“Lanie,” River whispered softly, entreatingly, her tear-ravaged face looking even younger than her twenty-one years. “I’m sorry.”
She tried to feel nothing at that, nothing at all. And normally she was really good at it. But it seemed everything was failing her today, even her own emotions. The thing was, she actually did believe River was sorry. She was sorry she’d been caught, and Lanie got to deal with the consequences—that being that now her secret humiliation had become public. Everyone knew she was every bit as pathetic as River, that she’d been cruelly fooled by a man, by her own husband.
“I really am,” River said. “So very sorry.”
Extremely aware of Mark’s and Cora’s gazes on her, watching her reaction, Lanie turned to her. “Sorry for what?” she asked, really wanting to know. “For faking our friendship? For invading my privacy? Or for telling everyone a past that I didn’t want to share?”
“Lanie,” Cora started but stopped when Mark shook his head at his mom.
“All of it,” River whispered. “I’m sorry for all of it.”
Cora looked at Lanie. “Honey, what do you want to do?”
Lanie wanted River shown to the door, but that was the selfish, hurt, pissed-off child inside her.
Kyle had married River.
Kyle had . . . oh good God, she thought with sudden shocking clarity . . . River’s baby was Kyle’s. He’d refused her a child, but he’d given one to River.
It all washed over her, the shocking betrayal and now having it aired out in front of everyone. Clearly Cora had no problem forgiving River, and more than that, she wanted to continue to help her because River was the victim here.
Lanie’s wounds were all on the inside, shoved purposefully deep where no one could see them. She’d made damn sure of that. She was a stone.
But not River. She stood there with her pregnancy glow, face still wet from her tears, looking like a lost soul in desperate need of help.
Cora would never turn away from that. Neither would she understand anyone who could. And much as she didn’t want to, Lanie cared what Cora thought of her. So she shook her head. “Nothing. I don’t want to do anything.”
When everyone looked at her in varying degrees of doubt, she added a smile. “No, really. No harm, no foul.” She jerked a thumb to the door. “But I’ve got to go. I’ve got an appointment.”
“Wait,” River whispered.
Holding back her sigh, Lanie turned to look right at her for the first time, hardening herself to the fear and regret and those lingering tears in River’s eyes.
“The ring,” River whispered. “Was my ring in his personal effects? I wouldn’t ask, especially after what I just did and how I didn’t tell you the truth from the beginning, but I . . . I really need the ring back.”
The irony was that she didn’t have the ring. She didn’t have any of Kyle’s belongings with her here. The one box of his stuff that had been sent to her, she’d left in her leased town house garage in Santa Barbara, two and a half hours south of here. Life had once again bent her over a barrel and all she wanted to do was crawl into a dark hole and disappear. Maybe eat a full-pound bag of chili-flavored Fritos. Nap. Marathon a season of any CW show.
Forget her life existed.
But she couldn’t do that. She needed to suck it up and make the motions and at least pretend to be as understanding and forgiving as everyone else was being when the truth was she hated Kyle to the very depths of her soul.
And now she hated River for bringing it all back to life inside of her again. “I don’t have his things with me, but I got his life-insurance policy payout. I can give you the money you need. Would five thousand work?”
River blinked. “But my ring’s only worth about twelve hundred,” she said faintly.
Lanie shrugged, over it, all of it, but especially this conversation. “I received a hundred-thousand-dollar payout from his life insurance.” The money was still sitting in her account. Ever since she’d started being contacted by the other “wives” who’d come out of the woodwork, the money had felt dirty to her. Just because she’d been the first woman Kyle had fooled didn’t make it right. She was going to have to divide up the money. “Consider it your due for what Kyle put you through. Put us all through.”
“You’d do that for me?” River asked. “Why?”
So that we never have to discuss this again . . . “Because it’s the right thing to do,” she admitted, willing to go that far and no further.