Speaking around the hard lump in her throat, Megan asked, “Why didn't you marry and have them?”
“I was close once, but”—he shrugged laconically—“things didn't work out.”
“With Laura.” He nodded tersely. “She's a lovely woman, Josh. I like her.”
“I didn't know you knew her.” He turned away from the stage and faced her. She had his total attention again.
“I don't really. We visited today while you were playing golf. She talked about you.”
“What did she say?” he asked quietly, though Megan could hear him even over thunderous applause as the boys returned to their beaming parents.
“That you were a kind man. That you regretted having to hurt her. That you were unselfish.”
“Did she tell you why I had to hurt and disappoint her?” She nodded, but couldn't speak. “Why was that, Megan? What did Laura tell you?”
“She said you were in love with a married woman.” The words scraped past her throat, pricking it like barbs.
“That's right.”
Oh, Lord, why was he doing this to her? It didn't matter, it didn't matter. The statement reverberated in her head, but it had no meaning. It mattered more than she could have imagined. The revelation brought more pain than she'd ever known.
“I'm still in love with her.”
“I see.”
“No, you don't, but you're getting close.” His enigmatic words brought her eyes up to his. His scarred brow was arched in what she could only interpret as mischievousness. There was a curl of suppressed laughter at the corner of his mouth. “She's no longer married.”
Suddenly rage roiled through her, taking with it every misplaced tender emotion that had been collecting for the past two days. Her back stiffened. “Then why have you put the big make on me? Why didn't you bring her with you this weekend and leave me in peace? You're loathsome, do you know that? A mean, sick—”
He gripped her arms tight and shook her slightly to stop her tirade. “Megan, stop it!” he commanded. She turned her head away and squeezed her eyes shut.
His grip became tighter. “Didn't Laura tell you when I broke our engagement?”
Still refusing to look at him, she said acidly, “No. I didn't want to know. I didn't care. I don't care.”
“The day after you buried James.”
Nine
As she brought her head slowly around to face him, her mouth formed a moue of incredulity. She opened her eyes wide as she stared up into his smiling face.
“You mean… I…?”
His eyes, sparkling like gems as his hands lightened the pressure on her upper arms, congratulated her on her brilliant deduction. “I meant what I said earlier today. I didn't take kindly to your marrying James. I had just found the woman I'd been looking for all my life. That you were about to become another man's wife didn't keep me from loving you, only having you.” He steered her away from the crowd, which was breaking up now that the singer was doing his finale for the evening. “Let's go home,” he suggested softly.
As they walked back to the car, he continued to explain. “About eight months after your wedding someone arranged a blind date for Laura and me. I wasn't enthusiastic about going. I wasn't enthusiastic about anything during that time.” He hugged her tighter. “But I liked Laura's pleasant disposition and the fact that she didn't make any demands on me.”
He unlocked the passenger door of the borrowed car, and Megan slid inside. In the brief seconds it took him to come around to his side, she drew in several deep breaths. It couldn't be. It just couldn't be! Was Joshua Bennett actually telling her that he loved her?
He started the ignition and navigated the car out of Harbor Town before he spoke again. “I began seeing more of Laura. I wanted children. I wasn't getting any younger. She expressed a similar desire to settle down and have a home and family. Your marriage seemed to be solid. I thought you were lost to me forever. I asked Laura to marry me.”
The night was absolutely black, unrelieved by any sizeable moon. The stars winked brightly overhead, but they could hardly penetrate the network of tree branches in the thick woods lining the two-lane road.
Megan was grateful for the darkness. It hid her features from the man who was killing her with every word. It was a painless death, a marvelous one, yet she was dying just the same.
“Some intuition, I don't know-what, made me ask Laura to keep our betrothal quiet for a while. Then in a few weeks, before we even made our engagement public, James was dead.”
“And I was free,” Megan whispered.