Proposing to Preston (The Winslow Brothers, #2)(70)

“’Fraid so, Jess.”

Jessica’s tone changed when she asked, “Pres, what is it? What’s happened?”

Preston threw his garment bag and suitcase into the trunk of his car, and opened his door, swinging his body into the comfortable leather seat.

“How about I tell you when I get back?”

“Get back? Where are you going?”

And suddenly the words fell from his lips in a rush. “My wife of two years just walked back into my life, her mother died this morning, and I’m heading to upstate New York to attend the funeral with her.”

He heard his sister’s shocked gasp as he pulled out of Westerly’s driveway, and headed up the road half a mile to Chateau Nouvelle.

“Your—your—wi—”

“Talk to Brooks. He’ll explain.”

“Preston Downing Winslow, don’t you dare hang up this—”

He pressed End, silenced the ringer and placed his phone in the center console of the car as he pulled up in front of the Rousseau’s mansion. Elise sat on the bottom step, her face tear-splotched and bleak, a rolling suitcase standing at attention beside her.

What were the words again?

Be able to forgive, do not hold grudges, and live each day that you may share it together—as from this day forward you shall be each other’s home, comfort and refuge, your marriage strengthened by your love and respect for each other.

Two years ago last Saturday, he’d promised to be her comfort and refuge, and until those divorce papers were signed, he intended to honor his promise.

***

They rode in silence for a while before Preston asked Elise if she wanted to listen to some music.

“I mostly have classical, but I have a little country,” he said. “And jazz. I have some soft rock, too, or—”

“Für Elise,” she said softly. “Do you have that?”

“Sure.”

He nodded, fumbling with his iPhone for a moment before the familiar classical music surrounded them.

Her eyes burned with shed and unshed tears, her heart throbbed with a strange mix of regret and gratitude, and her head ached, trying to understand everything that was happening in her life…and failing. Her mother was dead. Her estranged husband was driving her to her mother’s funeral. It was almost too much for her to comprehend, so instead of trying, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back, remembering the morning, so long ago, when she’d woken up to find Preston in the kitchen listening to Für Elise, and he’d asked her to move in with him. A lifetime ago. When they were happy. When he’d loved her.

“Elise,” he said softly from beside her. “I forgive you.”

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, twisting her neck to look at him.

“You asked for my forgiveness.”

She nodded, reaching up to brush a falling tear from her cheek.

“You have it.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, placing her hand on the bolster between them.

He covered it, closing his fingers around her hand, and stroking the back with his thumb. “Tell me about your mom.”

She took a deep, ragged breath through her nose, then released it slowly, willing herself to stop crying.

“She was…plain. Not totally, but close. She wore simple clothes. Jeans, mostly, or long skirts, with long-sleeved cotton shirts. Always long-sleeved for modesty.” She paused for a moment, picturing her mother, and a fresh stream of tears poured from her eyes. Unable to stop them, she just let them fall. “She smelled like soap…and hay. Sometimes like bread. Always like milk. Like fresh air at the start of the day before she started working. She liked hymns. Her favorites were Blest Be The Tie That Binds and Come, Thou Font of Every Blessing.”

Turning her face away from Preston, she looked out the window at the trees that blurred into a watercolor of green through the haze of her tears, and heard her mother’s strong alto voice in her head: O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be! Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.

Her mother had been unable to bind her wandering heart. Stay here with me, Liebling. Don’t go. Elise had left and she hadn’t looked back. She’d lived her whole life running away.

“I’m sorry,” she said out loud. “I’m so sorry I ran away from you.”

Preston’s fingers tightened around hers, and she realized that her quiet apology to her mother applied just as well to him.

“I know why you left,” he said softly. “I knew then. I knew that you were in over your head. I just…I just loved you too much to let you go.”

“Pres,” she sobbed. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It wasn’t yours either,” he said. “You were scared.”

“I just wasn’t ready,” she said, turning her head back to look at him.

He nodded, squeezing her hand again before withdrawing his fingers and swiping them under his nose. “I know.”

“I thought I was. That morning when you asked me? I said yes because it was so romantic and I loved you so much, Pres. It wasn’t until after the wedding that I realized how much we hadn’t discussed or shared…I didn’t know your family and you didn’t know mine. We hadn’t talked about children or the future or Philadelphia or our career plans or what we expected from each other or what we wanted. I should have had more faith in us, but…”