Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“You know, this is all I’ve ever known. The foundation and what we do. I wasn’t with a lot of kids my age growing up. By seven years old, I was already traveling with Aunt Kris.” A small smile played around Jo’s mouth, half pain, half humor. “One year we traveled the world together. She kept me out of school and tutored me herself. We went to Paris and Milan.”
Jo looked down at her lap, stroking Kristeene’s ring on her finger.
“We went to Uganda and Ethiopia. We held babies living in deplorable conditions in Chinese orphanages. Who cared about whatever I was missing with kids my age. I got a whole year of that. With her.” Jo glanced up at Kerris, and it was like Kristeene was alive in her eyes. “That’s who raised me. That’s who raised Walsh. And in many ways, that’s who raised Cam. She made us a family.”
The words ambushed Kerris. She hadn’t seen this coming and didn’t want to go there with Jo, but insistence firmed itself on the other woman’s face.
“They were all I had. My mother died before I knew her, but I had this incredible woman and this incredible unit. And for a while, I felt like you ruined that.”
Kerris disciplined her mouth, refusing to let it tremble, denying the tears burning in her throat.
“The first time they met at camp, Walsh and Cam fought. Aunt Kris had to break it up. I never saw them fight again.” Jo’s silvery eyes dulled. “But the last time I saw them together, they were both bloody, fighting over you.”
“They fought?”
“Yeah, they fought.” Jo glanced around the room, at the festivity that continued even while they spoke. “I wanted to hate you, but I can’t. Walsh loves you. Aunt Kris loved you.”
Pain twitched Jo’s face.
“Cam loves you.”
That look when Jo said Cam’s name was so completely different from anything else, Kerris couldn’t help but study the other woman an extra moment or two. The lines of Jo’s face, usually guarded and disciplined, softened. She bit her bottom lip and ran her palms along the silk of the skirt she wore. She closed her eyes briefly, and Kerris could see Jo clamp the emotion welling up to the surface.
“Jo, you love Cam, don’t you?”
For a moment Kerris was sure Jo would deny it, but maybe her face was too tired to hide the truth anymore.
“Yeah, I love him.” Jo stood up, the glance she ran over Kerris close to a dismissal. “And you didn’t. You promised me on your wedding day that you’d take care of him. You told me you loved him. You lied to me.”
In the face of the kind of selfless love Kerris read for Cam in Jo’s eyes, there was no defense for how she had abused the other woman’s trust. She could explain that she had never felt good enough for Walsh. Could say she had assumed he’d marry Sofie. Could even say Cam had known what he was getting into. But none of that would do any good. So she said the only thing that might.
“Jo, I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”
Jo towered over Kerris with her height and her will. Just when Kerris thought Jo might haul off and slap her, her face conceded the kind of grin they hadn’t shared in a long time.
“Get things fixed between my boys.” Jo offered an uncharacteristic wink. “And I’ll think about it.”
Chapter Fourteen
When Mama Jess had turned Walsh away a year ago, Kerris believed the months would be covered in molasses. A slow drip. In some ways it had been just like that. The days she forced herself out of bed, forced herself to be with people, forced herself to smile—those were the days she measured in slow, painful breaths and the weight of loneliness. In other ways, the minutes, hours, and days had moved at the speed of sound, thrown ahead and waiting for her to catch up.
She and Cam had lived apart for a year, and according to North Carolina law, Cameron Raymond Mitchell and Kerris Moreton Mitchell could officially dissolve their marriage. Cam’s lawyers, efficient rascals that they were, had already worked out all the details so the divorce could zip right through the system. The papers were here, already signed by Cam, awaiting her signature. They had agreed to walk out of the marriage with what they had come into it with. Cam had acquired a lot more than she had over the last few years, considering the money Kristeene had left him, but Kerris wanted none of it. It was so simple. So easy. So clean.
And yet, the typed words blurred under Kerris’s teary eyes. She saw her failure, her selfishness, her faithless heart woven between the lines of text. That kiss with Walsh had been the domino that fell and started the downward spiral of her marriage. The beginning of the end. Or had the end begun when she said “I do,” knowing she didn’t, couldn’t, love Cam the way he deserved to be loved?