Hearts Divided (Cedar Cove #5.5)(71)

“Why?”

“Why?”

“I’m not questioning your decision. I’m just wondering if you expanded on your reasons.”

“I did point out that lies don’t ‘just happen.’ And that he’d lied to me in advance about where he’d be yesterday afternoon.”

“A premeditated lie.”

“Yes.”

“Betrayal in the first degree.”

“I wish I’d said that. Are you an attorney, Nick?”

“Elizabeth,” he said, “I’m a handyman.”

“Who can do anything, according to Gram.”

“I can do a few things.”

“Have you always been a handyman?”

Not always, Nick thought. Not until a December afternoon. Before then, he’d been a boy no one wanted, or valued.

He hadn’t believed—until then—in a better world than the one he’d always known. But there was a better world, he’d discovered. And, just maybe, it was a world in which he could belong. He’d vowed to try.

“From the time I was seven, when I’ve seen something that needed fixing, I’ve done my best to fix it.”

“Do you think I should’ve tried to fix my relationship with Matthew?”

“Not in a million years. Not even if you loved him.” This time it was Nick who stopped. He waited until she met his dark gray eyes. “Did you?”

“Love the man I was going to marry? And whom I would have married if I hadn’t caught him in flagrante with Janine?”

“Yes,” Nick said. “That man.”

“No.” It began as a whisper, as if it were a confession almost too shameful to reveal. Once exposed to the summer sun—or perhaps to the gray eyes that glittered with sparks of blue—the no took on a life of its own. A happy life, relieved…and giggling. Bubbling. “No. No! I didn’t love him.”

Seven

“Where’s Clara?” Nick asked when they entered the kitchen.

“She’s at Eve’s.”

“Ah.”

“Lemonade?” she offered.

“Sure. Thank you.” Tossing the folder he’d brought with him onto the kitchen table, Nick walked to the counter where Charles’s letters lay, taken from their glossy boxes. “Are you reading these?”

“Yes. Gram wants all of us to read them. All of us is her family…and you.” It surprised him, Elizabeth thought. And moved him. He swallowed and looked away. “After making copies, I’m going to have each set professionally bound.”

“That’s nice.” Nick touched the stack that had been removed from their envelopes. “Are these the ones you’ve read so far?”

Elizabeth nodded as she gave him a glass of lemonade. “I put the envelopes in order first. That didn’t take as long as Gram figured it might. Then I started reading. The letters begin the day Granddad said goodbye to her in Portland. He introduces each fellow soldier he meets like an author introduces the characters in his story—who each of them is, where he comes from, who he loves, who and what he left behind. It’s a diverse group, but they’re united in their commitment to what they’ve chosen to do. Granddad doesn’t portray their journey as a grand adventure. And yet, as they’re crossing the country—and then the ocean—it feels that way. There’s a sense of excitement, of eagerness for what lies ahead.”

“Do you think they know what lies ahead?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “How could they? They’re only eighteen. And, like Granddad, they’ve enlisted because of Pearl Harbor. The country they love has been attacked. They want to defend it. They believe what they’re doing is right and good. And because it is right and good, they also believe they’ll return triumphant and whole. But they can’t, can they? Not all of them.”

“No,” Nick said. “Not all of them. In the letters you’ve read, have they gone into battle yet?”

“Yes. Just. And they all survived. Granddad says it that succinctly, that flatly, without any description of what actually happened.” Elizabeth handed him the letter Charles wrote at midnight on April 13, 1942. “A few hours later, he wrote this.”

Nick’s expression as he read revealed nothing. When he finished and looked at her, his eyes were the color of stone. “What do you think?”

“About the letter? That it’s beautiful. He loves Gram so much.”

“Yes, he does.” Nick hesitated briefly. “I’m sensing you have other thoughts.”

“I get the feeling something horrible happened. He needs to tell her what it was.”

“He won’t. Ever.”

“What?”

“He’ll tell her succinctly, flatly, when one of his band of brothers dies. But he’ll never describe how his friends die, or the way it feels to aim a rifle at another human being and pull the trigger and watch him fall, or how frightened he is, or angry, or if there comes a time when he wishes he could take a bullet instead of firing one.”

“He has to tell her those things.”

“Does he? Why?”

“She’s the woman he loves! The woman who loves him. He can’t hide such important emotions from her. It would be wrong.”