“No, Sugar Beth,” he said quietly. “I put my heart and soul into you.”
She flinched.
He leaned back into the car and repositioned a box of books. She saw Gordon’s water dish on the floor. He emerged and shut the door, his mask of remoteness firmly back in place. “Talk to my attorney about the house. I’ll get my things out as soon as I decide where I’m going to settle, but in the meantime, you’re welcome to move in.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this.” She gazed back at Winnie and Ryan, willing them to say something that would make him change his mind, but they looked as helpless as she felt. “Please,” she whispered. “I ran you out of town once. Don’t let me do it again.”
“You’re the one, my dear, who decided this place isn’t big enough for both of us.” He pulled something from his pocket and pressed it into her hand. As he moved away to shake hands with Ryan, she saw he’d given her the keys to Frenchman’s Bride.
“Tell Gigi I’ll call her tonight.” He hugged Winnie. “Take care of yourself, Ms. Davis.”
Winnie gave him a hard squeeze. “You, too, Mr. Byrne.”
“No!” Sugar Beth shot forward. “No, I won’t have it, do you hear me? This big sacrifice of yours doesn’t mean anything because I’m leaving whether you go or not. I mean it, Colin. You’re doing this for nothing. Next week I’m driving out of this town for the last time.”
“That would be very foolish.” He came to her then, tipped up her chin, and gently brushed her lips. It wasn’t nearly enough contact, and she tried to embrace him, but he stepped away. “Good-bye, my love.”
“Colin . . .”
He turned his back to her and walked around the car to the passenger door. “Come along, Gordon.”
Gordon trotted over and hopped in, her awful, traitorous dog. Colin shut the door behind him. Gordon propped his front paws on the back of the seat and stared at Sugar Beth. Winnie moved to her side and took her hand.
“Don’t do this,” Sugar Beth whispered.
He gave her one last glance and opened the driver’s door. But just as he began to climb in, Gordon shot across the passenger seat and hopped out.
“Gordon?” He snapped his fingers.
Gordon’s head drooped. He slunk toward Sugar Beth, ears dragging on the ground. She crouched next to him, fighting the lump in her throat. “Go on, pal,” she whispered, giving him a last pat. “You’re his now.”
But Gordon gave a miserable sigh and lay down in the grass at her feet.
“That’s it, then.” Colin spoke briskly, as if he didn’t care, as if this desertion, too, had been inevitable. A moment later, he’d started the engine and begun to back down the drive.
“No!” Sugar Beth shot forward, ready to throw herself at the car, but Ryan caught her and pulled her back.
“Don’t, Sugar Beth. Have a little dignity.”
“Let me go!”
Too late. Colin Byrne had left the last whistle-stop behind forever.
Gordon began to howl, a mournful, heart-wrenching sound that came from the very bottom of his doggy soul. Sugar Beth’s teeth started to chatter. She drew away from Ryan, and as she knelt by her dog she remembered his water bowl in Colin’s backseat. Where would Colin be when he noticed it? At a gas station somewhere? Unloading a suitcase at a roadside motel? He’d endured so many losses: the father’s love that should have been his birthright, the wife who’d betrayed him by not having the courage to live, the child he’d lost, Gordon . . . and her.
She looked up in time to see Ryan pull Winnie to his side. She curled against him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was gazing at Sugar Beth instead, and in those sympathetic golden brown eyes, she saw his big heart and his deep-rooted decency. She saw a man capable of fidelity, a man worthy of trust. A man who knew how to love . . . forever.
Something loud and shrill roared in her ears. Her heart thumped against her ribs. She sank back into the grass so hard she banged her tailbone.
Dear God, she’d done it again.
“Sugar Beth?” Winnie broke away from Ryan to rush to her side. “Are you all right?”
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Once again, she’d turned her back on the love of a good man.
Winnie knelt next to her and rubbed her back. “It’ll be all right.”
Sugar Beth put her head to her knees. Colin had said he wouldn’t beg, and he hadn’t, but that had been grief talking, not pride. He wasn’t leaving Parrish just so she could stay. He was leaving because he couldn’t bear the pain of being around another woman with a cowardly heart.
All along, he’d been right. Rejecting him hadn’t been an act of bravery. It was an act of fear. She’d sent him away because she hadn’t been able to find the courage to give them a chance.
Gordon licked her cheek. She lifted her head to Winnie. “I’m too afraid,” she whispered.
Winnie squeezed her shoulder.
The late-afternoon sun slid from beneath a cloud and struck Sugar Beth in the eyes. It felt like an electrical shock, and she jumped to her feet. “My purse! I need my cell. Where’s my purse?”
“At the bookstore,” Winnie said. “I’ll get mine.”
But Ryan had already handed his over. “For God’s sake, don’t screw this up, too.”
Sugar Beth’s heart pounded as she punched in Colin’s number. She’d made a colossal mistake, the mother of all mistakes, and she had to set it right. She and Colin couldn’t work this out unless they were together. She sank back down next to Gordon as it began to ring. Once, twice, three times. An automated recording kicked in.
“He’s not answering.” She disconnected and punched in the number again, but he still didn’t pick up.
“He’s licking his wounds,” Winnie said. “He’ll answer later. Let me drive you back to the store. Then we’ll move your things into Frenchman’s Bride.”
Sugar Beth’s head shot up. “I can’t move into Frenchman’s Bride.”
Winnie regarded her evenly. “You’re home for good now. You can’t do anything else.”
“Oh, dear, I wish to heaven I knew where he has gone, and what it all means!”
G
EORGETTE
H
EYER
,
The Corinthian
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
By dinnertime, Winnie and Ryan had resettled Sugar Beth at Frenchman’s Bride, doing all the work themselves while Sugar Beth paced the house and made more fruitless calls to Colin’s cell. With every call that went unanswered, her anxiety grew. He was tough. What if she’d only been given one chance and she’d blown it? Maybe he’d performed some sort of permanent exorcism when he’d driven away and cut her out of his heart forever.
She stood in her old spot just inside the door of Colin’s closet and watched Winnie at work. The sight of her dismal wardrobe hanging among the expensive suits and sports coats Colin had left behind made her want to cry. “I’m just going to move everything back to the carriage house after you leave,” she said.
“No, you’re not,” Winnie replied. “You’ll feel better if you’re here. This will help you understand where your life is supposed to be.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do.”
Sugar Beth turned away. Gordon followed her downstairs, where Ryan was taking a break on the sunroom couch, drinking a beer and catching the end of a golf tournament. “I want my wife back,” he said, flicking off the TV as she came in. “I know you’re upset, and I know this isn’t a good time for you, but I want her back tonight.”
“You’ve had her for fourteen years. Can’t I have her for a few more days?”
“No. I need her now.”
“You think I’m being selfish, don’t you? Keeping her?”
He smiled and set down his beer. “Always.”
She wandered over to the sunroom windows. As she gazed out at the piles of stone still waiting to be laid, she prayed Colin would someday finish his wall. Why did he have to fly off like this? He should have given them more time, and when she finally reached him, she intended to tell him exactly that. “Why won’t he turn on his phone?”