He grabbed her arms; she yanked away and went to the window. He followed her. “I don’t blame you for being pissed at me. I came across your story four months ago, and I got swept up in it. The idea of you and Josh, of what you must have gone through, of what might have happened to him. I pitched it to my editor, and he loved it.”
His voice softened. “The more I learned, the more I wanted to see how the story ended. And it was horrible of me not to tell you exactly what I was doing when we met that first night. I stayed in town, talked to a few people. To the police, to the DA, the reporters who did the original work on the story. Everyone thinks you’re guilty, but I know you’re not. I know you had nothing to do with Josh’s death.
“I lied, Aubrey, and I know it was wrong, and I am so, so sorry.” He tried to pull her to him. She resisted, pushed against his chest.
“No!”
“Aubrey, please. I am not lying when I say I’m in love with you. Falling in love with you was the last thing I expected to happen. But I did. I love you. The story doesn’t matter. I killed it. I told my editor there was nothing here, nothing new. I won’t be doing the piece. I just want to be with you. Please, you have to forgive me.”
She shook her head, forced the words out.
“I don’t believe you. And you are not allowed to love me. You’ve lost that right.” She was spinning out of control. She had nothing to lose anymore; her heart was a solid mass of stone. “And there’s something else you need to know. Maybe it will help you finish your little saga. I think he’s alive. I think Josh is alive. So fuck you, Chase Boden. Get the hell out of my house, and leave me to my fucked-up little life.”
She started pushing him, backward, toward the door.
“Aubrey, please. I love you.”
The fury bubbled over and she started to yell. “Get out, get out, get out!”
Chase stiffened, his face angry and tight. In that brief moment, he looked so much like Josh that she sucked in her breath and her mind started to whirl. Her heart felt like it stopped, then started again, taking off at a gallop.
Of course. She’d been an idiot not to see it before. It had all been staring her in the face this whole time.
Daisy said she had sons.
Brothers.
Josh and Chase.
Aubrey felt herself falling, heard Chase shouting. Then there was nothing.
CHAPTER 54
Daisy
Thirty-three Years Ago
Daisy was twenty, just shy of twenty-one, when she found out she was pregnant. Twenty, and already married for two years to a Navy SEAL who’d been stationed at too many posts to count. He was always being shipped away, off to foreign lands. He was a decent man, Chris, big and brusque and handsome, but gone so much. She was lonely. So very lonely.
They had a small house on the east side of Nashville that was easy to keep, and to stave off the boredom she experienced when he was gone, she was taking classes at Nashville State: English composition and Creative Writing 101. She’d started the community college classes at the beginning of the summer semester—something, anything, to keep busy. Chris had shipped off last month to some South American country; she wasn’t allowed to know exactly where. He wasn’t due back for a while.
She shouldn’t have done it. But she was young and so lonely, married to a man who was never around. And Dr. Edwards, well, he was smart and sexy, and beauty and light and happiness and hippie—all in a little roll in the hay.
She knew better. It was a mistake, a terrible, huge mistake. She realized that before the sweat dried. Fun while it lasted, and all kinds of sexy since it was so forbidden. But wrong. She refused to see him again, dropped his class, and went on her way, trying to forget.
Six weeks later, there was no denying it. She was late, and sick, and sore, and scared. She went to the doctor at the Planned Parenthood in Williamson County, where no one knew her, and they confirmed the worst. She was pregnant.
How could she have been so stupid?
She was on the pill—every woman her age was on the pill. Chris wanted her to take it. He was afraid of orphaning a child. His work was terribly dangerous. But with Chris gone, she hadn’t been particularly religious about taking them.
And now here she was.
She didn’t know what to do. Or, rather, she did, but she was scared to death. The Planned Parenthood people were nice enough; they told her it would be quick and easy, especially since she was this early in her pregnancy. She went to the professor, waited outside his classroom, and told him she was six weeks gone. He was thrilled, and excited, and wanted her to keep the child.
She regretted telling him the instant the words came out of her mouth and his eyes lit up. He was from a bohemian world, where drugs and drink and casual sex were a daily thing, not missteps made by lonely young women.