It wasn’t the first time he’d caught Regan looking at the picture. It was, however, the first time he felt like he’d done something wrong by leaving it there.
Sitting up, Thane scrubbed a hand over his face as he contemplated the situation.
If it were the other way around and he’d spent all night in Regan’s bed only to wake up to the photo of another man on her nightstand—his gut clenched at the thought.
Looking back at the picture, he exhaled slowly.
REGAN
The photo of Fran was gone.
When Thane didn’t come downstairs for his coffee, I sucked it up, deciding I was being a jealous, selfish moron. Last night he’d taken a night that could have gone down as one of the worst of my life and turned into one of the best.
With mugs in hand, I ventured upstairs, determined to shove my confused thoughts about Fran to the back of my head.
When I returned to the bedroom, Thane was dressed in his pjs and sitting on the end of the bed with his head in his hands.
And the photo on his nightstand was gone.
Contrition filled me. I placed the coffee on the now-empty spot and sat down beside him. “You moved the photo.”
Thane lifted his head and nodded. “It was time.”
“I didn’t mean to be obvious about it … or make you feel bad.”
“The photos bother you.” He sighed.
“Not all of them. Fran is Eilidh and Lewis’s mom. Your first love. She should be here in the house with them, with you. I … the one on the nightstand is … it’s different from the ones downstairs. Those are about you all as a family. That one is about you and her. I … I’m not going to lie and say it doesn’t make me jealous.” I couldn’t meet his eyes. “But it also makes me hurt for you. Fran was obviously the love of your life, and you clearly can’t move on from her, and I don’t want that for you. I don’t want you to not be able to love again.”
“You got all that from a picture on a nightstand?” His question was defensive, harsh, and it drew my gaze. He glared at me, and I glowered back.
“Not just that. You never talk about how she died. Ever. Why is it such a big secret?”
Thane shook his head, confused. “It’s not a big secret. I assumed you knew. That one of the family told you or that Robyn told you as soon as you got here.”
Now I was confused. “You haven’t been keeping it from me?”
“Why would I?” He turned to me. “I don’t talk about it because it was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced … but that’s different from keeping it from you.”
Fear coiled in my gut. God, Thane, what happened? I wanted to ask, but not after what he’d just said. I didn’t want to torment him because I was screwed up over loving a man who didn’t want to love me back.
Thane sat up straight and stared around the room. Finally, he said, “Everything is different in here. The rest of the house is decorated pretty much as Fran and I decorated it together. But this room … I had to change it. Paint, floors, blinds, furniture …” He glanced over his shoulder, a haunted look on his face. “New bed, new mattress … She died in our bed,” he announced abruptly, and I sucked in a harsh breath.
At the awful look in his eyes, my tears spilled over.
“One morning the alarm went off as it always did, and I woke up. I thought Fran was still asleep … but as I started to wake up properly, I realized there was an unnatural stillness about her.
“She was just … gone.” I saw his disbelief. “And I was in a nightmare. How do you go to sleep with your wife breathing beside you … and wake up and her body is there, but she’s not in it anymore?”
The pain I felt for him burst out in a sob before I could stop it, and he reached for me, catching my tears on his thumbs.
“It was a brain aneurysm,” he whispered. “Died in her sleep. Peaceful, they told me. A peaceful way to go. For her. And for that, I will forever be grateful.”
“But it was horrific for you.” I didn’t need to guess. If one day I woke up to find Thane no longer breathing beside me, I’d lose my goddamn mind. “You’re so strong.” I reached for him, peppering tear-soaked kisses over his face.
He returned those kisses with deeper, more intentional ones.
“Thane”—I tried to move away from him—“maybe we shouldn’t.” Not after what he’d just told me.
“Francine is not a ghost in this bed.” He lifted me under my arms and threw me gently on it. I gasped as he came down over me, his features harsh with need. “And I won’t let her become that for you.”
THANE
Making love to Regan wasn’t just about distracting him from memories he’d rather not linger on or making sure she didn’t let the truth of Fran’s death mess with her head regarding what was between them in this bed.
It was Regan’s tears. Her visceral, unconstrained reaction to his pain.
That she might care enough about him to want to stay. And maybe she did. Maybe now, at this moment, she did.
But Thane couldn’t trust her mind wouldn’t change in a few months or a year or even a few years’ time. If he let himself believe in what sparked between them, she’d eventually destroy him.
So he needed to lose himself in her body, in the distraction of their passion.
And mostly, he needed to let go of the self-reproach that plagued him. Remorse for Fran. For her memory. Because as much as he’d never forget what it was like to love her or grieve her … Thane had moved on.
He’d moved on in a way that shook him to his core.
29
Regan
“Lew, remember your homework,” I said as he and Eilidh made their way toward the front door.
“Got it,” he mumbled.
“Then what’s that on the dining table?” I rounded the island and hurried to pick up his math booklet.
I was just tucking it into his backpack as he waited patiently and Eilidh not so patiently announced she wanted to be at school already because “they were writing letters to Santy Claus today” when the doorbell rang seconds before it opened.
Lachlan stepped into the house.
“Uncle Lach-Lach!” Eilidh lunged at him, and he swung her up into his arms. She wrapped her little arms and mitten-covered hands around his neck. “What are you doing here?”
“Princess Eilidh, I am taking you and your brother to school this morning.”
He was? “You are?”
Lachlan’s azure gaze turned to me. He seemed to study me as he nodded. “Robyn needs a word. I thought I could take the kids before I head to the castle.”
My stomach flipped. I knew what that word was most likely about. Yesterday, I’d asked to speak with her alone, and I’d taken her for a walk on the beach to tell her about Austin’s attack in Vietnam. I tried my best to explain that I wasn’t intentionally keeping it from her, like I’d explained to Thane. I think she understood. Plus, I told her what triggered it, which meant I revealed my affair with Thane, and my sister was not in the least surprised. She said she already suspected, and Lachlan had made a few comments to her that he suspected the same thing. Panicked about him finding out without Thane’s say-so, I made her promise not to confirm it. She was so dazed and angry about Austin, I didn’t even know if she remembered agreeing to it.