I smiled. “You didn’t have to. You were very patient and kind about listening to my stories. But I saw the look in your eyes.”
“You’re wrong.”
I glanced up at him in surprise, and read the earnestness on his face. “I am?”
“I’m not at all confident in saying that it’s impossible, to get messages from… What? I don’t know, the other side? On the day that you saw Elizabeth’s photo at the library… Afterwards, when you left during the storm… ”
“Yes?” I asked when he faded off.
“I thought… no, I know that something told me to follow you. Something told me that you were in danger,” he said, his gaze fixed on Elizabeth’s coffin.
“What told you?” I asked, watching him like a hawk. “Who? Evan? Was it Elizabeth?”
“I’m not sure. It was a voice in my head, but not like you said it was for you, when Elizabeth actually spoke. It was more of a feeling. I don’t know. All I knew that it was like my body and my brain got charged. I just knew you needed help.”
“It was probably her. You and Elizabeth were always close. She told me once that you were a good man.”
His head came around.
“She did?”
I smiled in the face of his strained surprise, but tears welled up in my eyes. “She said that she never deserved you. But that I did.”
I sensed his stare boring into me from behind the sunglasses he wore. Strands of his dark hair flickered in the autumn breeze. His hand opened at my back, his fingers digging gently into my flesh. I felt that familiar ache at my core, and the inevitable rising panic that always accompanied that feeling these days.
“I feel like the last man on earth who deserves you. Anna—”
“I think that backhoe is meant for here. We should go,” I said thickly, interrupting him. I nodded at the yellow backhoe that had paused in the distance, probably upon the driver noticing family still stood at the grave.
I wasn’t ready to talk about us. About our future.
I wasn’t prepared yet to look into his eyes, and say goodbye.
Chapter Thirty-Three
When Evan and I returned to Les Jumeaux after Elizabeth’s funeral, the house was empty. I knew that Lorraine was likely leading her new caregiver, Sasha, on a wild, steep gallop up the mountainside. I gave a quick thanks to God that Sasha was young and in shape.
Evan and I walked up the grand staircase together, both of us preoccupied. Maybe I understood why we were so grave, aside from the obvious. Elizabeth’s funeral had been the final step in this tragedy. The years of planning for revenge on Evan’s part, the impetus that had brought Evan and me together, Noah Madaster’s reign of sadistic power: All of it was over now.
Now I was left with nothing to do but stare the glaring question. What next?
Evan paused when we reached the door of the bedroom I’d been using. Our stares met, and held. For a second, my heart jumped.
Then he gave me a small, sad smile. He leaned down and kissed me on the temple. He turned to continue down the hallway. Sharp pain pinched at my lungs and heart. I opened my mouth to say something—but what? No matter his deep regret. No matter my desire for him. He’d still dragged me into this ugly scenario for his own selfish reasons.
He was still one of the people responsible for shoving me into that dark, bottomless hole where I’d panicked for days… hours. What did it matter how long it had been? That memory of terror would stay with me for a lifetime.
Noah Madaster had been right. Even minutes, believing that I’d slept with my biological father, that I’d fallen in love with him more passionately than I could put into words, would have been enough hell for several lifetimes.
I walked into my bedroom, feeling hollow and bereft. Hopeless.
I shouted in surprise.
“What is it?” I heard Evan ask from behind me a second later, sounding alarmed.
I pointed wordlessly at my bed. A three-by-three-foot mélange of red maple and golden alder and aspen leaves had been placed on the mattress into a tall heap. On one pillow sat a large, perfectly formed pinecone.
“Oh my God. Lorraine?” Evan asked after a moment, clearly bewildered.