“You’ve been up here ten minutes. It doesn’t take that long to get a sweater. I wondered what was wrong, so I came up here to check. Now I know, you were going through my stuff.” She snatched the photo frame and stalked as best as she could with her injured knee to shove the picture back into the draw where he’d found it.
“Where are your crutches?” he asked, hoping to distract her.
She whirled around and glared at him. “Why were you going through my stuff?”
“I found it by accident. I was looking for a sweater, and it was just there. Why didn’t you tell me you were married?”
“Like you told me everything about your life,” she shot back.
“I would have told you if I had been married.”
“So, it changes things between us because I've been married before?” she demanded. “I guess that’s a big cross against me on your checklist.”
She turned to leave the room, but he jumped up and caught her wrist stopping her. “It doesn’t change things. I just wish you'd told me. It makes me nervous because maybe you didn’t say anything because you're still in love with him.”
Summer dropped her gaze to the floor. “I'm not,” she said softly.
“You’re divorced?”
“No.” She paused, agitated. “Look, he’s dead okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I killed him.”
His mouth fell open, and he stared at her, sure he must have heard wrong, but the look on her face clearly said he hadn’t.
She finally looked up, her brown eyes devastated. “Thatchanges things though, doesn’t it.”
She sounded so sad when she said it, and he knew that was why she didn’t date. She didn’t think she deserved to. But he knew Summer well enough already to know that if she had killed her husband, there had been a very good reason why. He tightened his grip on her wrist and said firmly, “No. It doesn’t change things. What happened? What did he do to you?”
“Nothing,” she said simply. “He never laid a hand on me.”
That wasn't what he had been expecting to hear. “Then what happened?”
She squirmed, uncomfortable, and tried to withdraw. “I'm not ready to talk about that,” she muttered.
“Yes, you are,” Luke contradicted. “I told you I was serious about seeing what could develop between us and you agreed. You knew you would have to tell me about your husband. Are you sure he never hurt you?” he asked doubtfully.
Summer nodded. “He never laid a hand on me. Ever. But …”
“But what?” he prompted gently, taking her elbow and guiding her to sit on the side of the bed.
“He was a murderer,” she said in a rush.
“A murderer?” he echoed.
“He killed seven women in the two years we were married,” she said softly. Her eyes had gone far away. “He abducted young women my age and kept them locked in a box under our bed. He dislocated their jaws and put a huge ball gag in their mouths so they couldn’t scream for help. He just locked them in there and left them to die. While I was having sex with my husband and sleeping in his arms, they were dying beneath me.”
He didn’t like the toneless way she spoke, it made it clear that she blamed herself. “Did you know what he was doing?”
“No, of course not.” She looked horrified at the thought.
“Then why do you blame yourself?”
Her cheeks tinted pink. “I don’t.”
He slipped his fingers beneath her top and pulled out the chain. He’d noticed it days ago, but it hadn’t been until Summer told her story that he realized that the rings she wore around her neck were her and her husband’s wedding rings. “You do. You hold on to these to punish yourself.”