Alone (Bone Secrets, #4)(34)

Lacey was the closest thing she had to a tight female friend. Didn’t most women have hordes of close friends and run in packs? Victoria had always been the type to have a few intimate friends, usually male. Right now that list included only her neighbor, Jeremy. He knew more about her than anyone.

Except for Seth. Even though they hadn’t been around each other in years, he looked at her as if he knew all her private thoughts. He’d always been that way. He’d always been able to read her perfectly. She thought she’d mastered a mask to hide the thoughts in her head, but it’d fallen away when Seth looked at her in the woods.

Her ex-husband, Rory, said she always wore a fa?ade. He claimed he never knew how she was feeling or what she was thinking. She’d said she’d let him know if she was upset, but it wasn’t enough. To him, she never looked happy, and he took that as a failing on his part.

What a bunch of bull.

Her happiness didn’t rely on her husband’s actions. And just because she didn’t walk around being ecstatic, it didn’t mean she was unhappy. He didn’t seem to understand that a person can function in the space between happy and unhappy. That space offered a level of calm and balance. It held an evenness, a place of moderation that allowed her to do her job and go home to forget some of the horrors she’d experienced that day. Some people might drink to forget or seek relief; she preferred to simply exist and accept it.

Rory wanted to party. When they’d first met, he was a breath of fresh air. A stimulant to the life of books and studying and old bones. Rory was fun and outgoing and made her feel important. She fell under the popular college professor of English’s spell and married him ten months after they’d met.

Then reality struck. Their oil and water didn’t blend. She’d thought she could bring him down to earth, and he’d thought she would lighten up. Deep down, they’d both hoped for a bit of change in themselves and believed the other person could make it happen. Their five-year marriage ended two years ago.

She’d learned a lesson. An obvious facts-of-life lesson. You can’t change a person.

You can only change yourself.

“So, how’ve you been getting along with Seth?”

Victoria fought to not break her stride. “What?”

“Dr. Rutledge. How is it to be working in the same building with him after all these years?” Lacey tried to give an innocent making-conversation look but failed miserably.

“It’s fine.”

“Fine? That’s all you’re going to tell me? You haven’t seen him in eons, and all you can say is it’s fine?” Lacey shot her a sideways look. “Sparks blaze when you two are in the same room. It’s distracting when I’m trying to chart teeth.”

“Sparks?”

“Denying it?”

Victoria felt ambushed. Her mind went into protection mode, and she kept her mouth shut.

Sparks?

Lacey pushed open the door to the lab and headed straight to the shelf with number three’s remains. The first skeleton was laid out on a table. Lacey set box number three on a table and removed the lid. “I don’t know your history with Dr. Rutledge, but there are a lot of rumors circulating. Why don’t you talk about it so people will stop speculating?”

“It’s none of their business.”

“That’s true. Is it an ugly past?”

“It’s also none of your business,” Victoria said pertly.

Lacey grinned. “You need to talk to someone. Your eyes go all puppy-dog when he walks in the room. I swear you’re about to melt when you look at him.”

“They do not.” Victoria stared at her in shock. Puppy-dog? Her?

“How’d you meet?”

“We met in college.”

“And?”

“We dated in college. We broke up.”

Lacey had a disappointed look. “Why did you break up?”

Victoria fumbled for the right words. “It’s a long story.” She ran a hand over her hair.

The dentist sighed. “I get that. And it’s safe to share with me. I won’t abuse it.”

Victoria studied Lacey’s face. She was serious. Everything she knew about Lacey Campbell told her she could trust her with innermost secrets. Victoria simply didn’t know how to get the words out. She didn’t know how to confide in another woman. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last woman she’d admitted a secret to. Her mother? Her roommate in college?

“He dumped me,” she blurted out. “He dumped me for another woman he’d gotten pregnant. She was an old girlfriend who he’d believed had a baby with another guy. Turns out he was the father, and she didn’t tell him until Eden was seven months old.”

Lacey’s mouth opened slightly. “How shitty for you.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You were dating when he got the news he was a father?”

“Yes. We’d been talking of living together. I really believed there was a future there.”

“You were in love with him,” she stated.

Victoria held her gaze. “Deeply.”

Sympathy flashed in Lacey’s eyes, and Victoria cringed. She hated pity from someone she respected.

“You haven’t seen him since then?”

Victoria pressed her lips together and moved her gaze to the box with the 3 on it.