Fools Rush in(105)

“I know.”

“That ass**le Avery dumped her, and she panicked. She didn’t think she had any choice other than coming back to the Cape. So she convinced herself that we should give our marriage another try.”

At that moment, Curtis came scurrying in with a beautiful tray of Brie and crackers, grapes, a bottle of wine and two glasses. “Pretend I’m not here,” he whispered, expertly pouring the wine. He flashed a brilliant smile and scurried back out.

“Good friends you’ve got there,” Sam said, watching him retreat. I picked up my glass and took a long sip.

“Curtis and Mitch saw you at the Forge—”

“Yes, we went there for dinner. It was too hard to talk about things at home, with Danny around, and we wanted to go somewhere where no one knew us. Your friends are crappy spies, by the way. Too bad they weren’t listening. They could have saved us a lot of time.” He smiled at me, and I cringed, remembering how I had ordered my friends not to eavesdrop. “Katie told me that you came here, and what you were thinking.”

“Well,” I said, looking down at the Persian carpet, “one does draw conclusions when one hears that one’s boyfriend is kissing his ex-wife, who also happens to be one’s sister.”

“Um, right. And I did kiss her. But I kissed her goodbye.” Sam leaned back against the couch and ran a hand over his face. “Trish said she wanted to get back with me, and I told her two things. The first was that I just didn’t buy it. I’d never made her happy before, and there was no reason to think that I would now. And after she’d calmed down, I think she could see that, too.” Sam sat back up and took my hands in his. He looked at me, his gentle eyes sad. “She just didn’t know where else to go. She’s never been on her own before.”

It was true. My sister, at age thirty-six, had never lived alone. A sudden stab of pity for her pricked my heart.

“Then there was the other thing I told her.” Sam’s voice broke my reverie.

“What was that?”

“I told her that I loved you.” His eyes were steady on me. Even as my heart leaped at his words, a trickle of sadness tempered my joy.

“That must have been hard to hear,” I whispered, looking down. Poor Trish. It was the first time in my life that I’d ever thought of her that way. Alone. Confused. Rejected. I took a deep breath. “So what is she going to do now? Is she really headed for France?”

“Yes. She’s always wanted to go there, always wanted to see more of the world than South Bend and the Cape.”

I nodded, thinking of Trish’s many tirades about how there was more to life than sand and salt.

“I sold the house, Millie,” Sam said quietly.

“Sam, no! Not your house!”

“It’s done,” he answered. “I sold it to the bank, not quite for market value, with the promise that Dan and I can stay until he leaves for college next year.”

“Sam,” I whispered, my eyes filling.

“No, it was the right thing to do,” he said. “Millie, don’t cry.”

“You love that house,” I said. “It was your parents’….”

Sam smiled, then pulled me back against him and kissed the top of my head. “Of course I love it. But it was Trish’s house, too. In a way, it was hers more than it was mine. And she deserved half of it, no matter what the divorce papers said. So now she has plenty of money, hopefully enough to last a good long time, and she can find something that makes her happy. And I can put some more in Danny’s college fund, too.”

“You’re too good,” I whispered, wiping my eyes.

“Millie, this thing with us…” He turned to look at me and cupped my face with his hands. “We started out fast, but I think we should maybe slow down. It’s not your average relationship, being with your ex-sister-in-law. But I love you, Millie, and I want to be with you. Be patient with me, okay?”

“Okay,” I whispered, my heart so full of love and happiness that it didn’t seem there was enough room in my chest to hold it. “Oh, Sam, I love you.”

He kissed me, a slow, sweet kiss that was new and home at the same time. When I opened my eyes, Sam was smiling at Curtis and Mitch, who were peeking around the kitchen door.

“We get to be bridesmaids, right?” Curtis asked.

Sam laughed. “Come on, Millie,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

EPILOGUE

A YEAR AND A HALF LATER, I was once again being harbored at the Pink Peacock, hiding from the man I loved. But this time was very different. Today, in roughly forty-five minutes, I would be marrying Sam Nickerson.

There had been some bumps in the road. Things hadn’t been perfect. Danny had had a bit of a hard time with the thought of his dad and me together. Neither Sam nor I had wanted to cause him any unnecessary discomfort, so we’d been very discreet, dating as if it were the 1950s, with him picking me up at my house and bringing me back with a kiss good-night on the front porch.

But with each passing week, the rightness of Sam and me grew stronger. The strangeness of dating my sister’s ex-husband faded, both for us and for other people. My father was the only one who had no adjustment problem whatsoever, and in that way, he paved the road for us. In the spring, he took Danny away for a weekend of fishing, and when they came back, Dan took Sam aside and told him it was okay if he wanted to marry Aunt Mil. My father never told me what he’d said, only that some things in life were just right, even if they were a little weird.