We were married in the great room of Conall Castle on New Year’s Day surrounded by all of the people we loved most in the world. The vows were simple, but I’d never meant anything more than the few words we spoke to one another.
“I doona know where life will take me, but I choose ye to be at me side. From this day forward, me soul belongs to naught but ye. I now bind meself to ye in the present and for all the times to come. Together we are now one.”
I didn’t know where the vows came from and I’d undoubtedly messed up the accent badly, but Hew didn’t care and neither did I.
As he leaned in to kiss me, baby Ellie Adelle Conall, named in honor of Eoin’s mother, Elspeth and myself, squealed as if she’d been pinched. Our pups howled loudly in response.
A happy chaos surrounded us, and it was just as we wished it.
I had been right. It proved to be the best Christmas that Conall Castle had ever seen.
Love Beyond Hope
Chapter 1
Austin, TX
Present Day
Two thoughts flashed through my mind as my trembling fingers gripped at the letter and the set of keys my husband extended in my direction. The first was that if Brian said one more word, I planned to take off my shoe and ram the pointy end of the heel deep into his skull. The second was that I was so ashamed at my own stupidity, I was nearly just as inclined to ram the heel of the other shoe into my own head.
How could I have let so many months pass with him making the most ridiculous excuses to stay away from home without catching on? What a silly, desperate fool I must have been to make it so easy for him to break his vows. I’m sure he’d been thrilled to marry such an unassuming, trusting wife.
Now that I knew, over a year’s worth of clues seemed blaringly obvious. While we’d never truly been happy, I never thought him capable of such a betrayal. He was an ass to be sure, but a cheat, a liar? I’d not seen this in him.
I had time to come to terms with his affair, weeks of lawyer negotiations and packing my belongings quickly made me glad to be rid of him, but what had me shaking with anger and unshed tears was the revelation of the new information I held in my hand.
“Are you really so surprised? What else would Bri have done with the house after she moved? She left too quickly to sell the place, and it’s not like she had that many friends. Why shouldn’t I have used it?”
I squeezed the key so tightly that its ridges buried deep into my hand, indenting the skin. I was sure he could see the steam coming out of my ears, but I refused to scream at him as he expected. Brian would call it another one of my “ginger” moments and be sure to tell me it was another reason I’d driven him into the affair. I would not give him the satisfaction.
“No,” I said the word calmly and slowly released my breath so that it didn’t come out as a loud sigh of frustration. “I’m not surprised at all, I’d just never given it much thought. What I’m surprised about is how you thought it was okay to keep this letter from me. This is not addressed to you.”
He chuckled once before speaking, and I ground my heel into the floor to keep myself from ripping it off and attacking him.
“You’re right. It isn’t, but we were married when it came in the mail and what’s yours is mine, yes? Besides, Leah and I needed somewhere to go. It’s not like we could come back here when you were always sitting in the house waiting on me.”
My face could not have grown any hotter, but still I did not raise my voice. “You can justify anything can’t you? Bri would strangle you herself if she knew you’d been staying there.”
Turning from him, I walked across the room to swing the last of my belongings, all thrown messily into a large duffle bag, over my shoulder so that I could make my way out of the door. I’d not even read the letter yet. As soon as I saw Bri Conall’s handwriting and the key tucked inside the envelope, I knew that my friend had left her house in my care. The date at the top showed just how long Brian had kept this from me.
There was so much more that I could say to him, so much more I wanted to say, but I knew none of it would do any good. He would never see the kind of man he was, and I was tired of him, of everything really. I only wanted to get out of this house without saying another word. I didn’t ever want to see him again.
“I wasn’t the only one who cheated. Maybe you didn’t do it in person, but in mind you did. Every time I held you, I could see him behind your eyes. It’s too bad for you really. He didn’t want you either. That’s why you ran to me, isn’t it?”