Deceived (14 page)

She collapsed back against the pillows as the tremors faded, reaching for him, drawing him down to her lips. And knowing that this stolen moment in time was worth anything that had come before and everything that might happen afterward.

Josie smiled as Evan climbed back into the bed with her and tugged a knitted blanket around them. She curled into his side, his arms folding around her. Together they stared into the fire he had just built for their comfort.

“Have I mentioned how pleased I am you came to visit this afternoon?” he said with a grin that softened his features and her heart.

She laughed. “I’m not sure if you did, but I gleaned your pleasure from the way you moaned.”

“Miss Westfall!” he gasped, feigning shock.

“Have I gone too far?” she continued to tease.

He shrugged. “Perhaps there is no such thing in this circumstance.”

She frowned rather than smiled at their banter. In her mind, there wasn’t such a thing as too far. She wanted everything physically possible between them. But Evan wouldn’t give her what she desired. He insisted on protecting her innocence despite her thoughts on that subject. But he had made himself clear, hadn’t he? He would not change his mind.

Or would he?

She glanced up at him again, intent on opening the subject a second time, but what she saw on his face stopped her. Evan was still smiling, but she noticed something as the firelight flickered over his taut jawline and full lips, and reflected in his dark brown eyes. There was sadness in his stare.

All thoughts of her own desires fled as she saw that unexpected expression. She had known Evan for more than half her life and she had never such a look on his face. He always made himself appear wholly confident, relaxed, jovial, at ease, always the perfect, popular gentleman. But seeing these deeper emotions, the ones that she sometimes felt in her own heart, touched her.

She leaned up and touched his cheek, smoothing her palm over the rough evidence of his facial hair returning despite the close shave he normally wore. He looked down at her, their gazes locked and that pain she had noticed seemed to magnify. His eyes went wide and he attempted to turn his face, as if he could escape what she saw, but she held him gently, not allowing him to avoid this connection.

“What is troubling you?” she whispered.

He stiffened further and shook his head. His cheek scraped against her palm and it took everything in her not to sigh at the touch.

“Troubling me? Nothing at all, I assure you, Josie. Nothing except how much I want to kiss you again.”

He leaned in and there was such temptation to give in to his distracting techniques. She knew where his kiss would lead and she’d told herself that was all she wanted from this man.

But there was a desperation in his voice that brought her up short. And so she dodged his lips with much reluctance.

“Evan, I can see you.”

“Of course you can,” he retorted, wrinkling his brow.

“I mean, I can
see
you,” she said again. “Not just the mask you wear of how jovial you are that you show the world. I see
you
. And I can see something is troubling you. After everything we’ve shared, can’t you tell me what that is?”

He tilted her chin up, and for a moment she thought he might continue to use the sexual heat between them against her as a wall to keep her away from anything deeper. But instead, he simply stared into her face.

“And just when did you develop the ability to see me?” he asked, his tone low and, she thought, a little shaky.

She shrugged. “Maybe once you kissed me? Maybe once you touched me? Or maybe it’s just that when you are broken, you begin to recognize the signs of it in someone else.”

His lips parted. “I am not broken.”

She tilted her head. For the first time she saw that his words were truly a lie. Even with his charmed life, Evan wasn’t whole. Just as she sometimes didn’t feel whole.

She had never felt so connected to him as she did in that moment, even when he touched her.

She stroked his cheek again, smoothing his skin. He leaned into her palm, almost as if he couldn’t stop himself.

“Not broken, then,” she said softly, trying to maneuver around his resistance. “Bruised, though.”

His jaw set and she saw him battling with his desire to keep her out of his emotions and his desire to seek comfort in a friend. In the end, he merely nodded once. “Perhaps a bit bruised,” he admitted.

Her heart soared at those words, not because his pain gave her pleasure, but because he was willing to admit even a small piece of it to her. She knew how hard that had to be to him, this man who always seemed so perfect. Now she saw that was by design, a mode of operation meant to keep others at arm’s length.

And this was him cracking the door for her to know him better.

“Earlier you said something to me about needing me after this morning,” she pressed, delving delicately into the dangers of his heart. “What did that mean? What happened this morning?”

He cleared his throat gently and she saw him struggle once again.

“You know you can trust me, don’t you?” she pressed.

His gaze jerked to her face and flitted over her. She held her breath as he looked, seeking and searching. Then he nodded. “Yes. I suppose I know I can,” he said, but there was not much pleasure in those words. She thought she heard guilt in his tone. Likely over the cruelty that had resulted from his words in the past.

But right now that was the furthest thing from her mind. She took his hand and lifted it to her chest. “How can I help you?”

He turned his face forward to look at the fire again and was silent for a long moment. Then he whispered, “It’s Gabriel.”

She blinked. She wasn’t certain what she had expected when she asked the question, but his response was not it. She shook her head. “Gabriel?”

He nodded. “We had—” He cut himself off and she could still see what a struggle it was for him to talk about this to her. But he finally caught a breath. “We had a bit of a row this morning.”

“Over what?”

“He wants me to do something I do not feel right about. And he believes if I don’t then it proves I don’t care about Claire.”

Josie stiffened at the mention of her friend’s name. She shouldn’t have been surprised, of course. The loss of Claire had been the catalyst for a great amount of turmoil and pain for the Woodley clan.

“I know Gabriel is troubled, as you all are,” she said softly.

“Of course we are all troubled, but I fear Gabriel takes her loss the hardest.”

She watched his pained expression, the way his jaw set as he spoke of his lost sister, and she shook her head. “I’m not sure about that.”

“What do you mean?” Evan asked, leaning forward, as if desperate for any tidbit about his sister.

She chose her words carefully. “Gabriel is her twin and of course they have a strong bond, but you shouldn’t discount your own bond with her, or Edward’s or Audrey’s or your mother’s. You are all hurting, Gabriel does not own the only share of loss.”

Evan seemed to consider that for a long moment. “I do feel her loss,” he admitted. “And I wonder if I could have done anything to help her. Was I so selfish and blind that I didn’t do anything to save her when the option was right in front of me?”

Josie froze. She had made promises to Claire to keep her secrets, but now her will was being tested. Here was Evan, his eyes filled with pain, his hands clenched on the bedclothes, and he needed her to console him.

“I am certain you couldn’t have changed your sister’s path,” she said, hoping that would be nonspecific enough a statement.

But Evan’s hawkish stare lifted to her face immediately, and she saw his focus. “She talked to you before she left, didn’t she?”

“She did.”

He shook his head. “But you can’t know her heart now. Just as I can’t. The only person she makes any contact with is Gabriel. And she shares little, even with him.”

Josie held her breath, considering her options for a moment. She wanted to help Evan. But she didn’t want to be used.

“Evan?” she began.

He locked eyes with her. “Yes?”

“You—you aren’t only doing this because of Claire, are you?”

He blinked. “Doing what?”

She swallowed hard past the lump of anxiety in her throat. “You aren’t using me, using this connection between us, as a way to get to Claire, are you?”

His face went unreadable in a second. She tensed, uncertain if he had shut down because she was right or wrong.

“No, Josie,” he finally said softly. “I’m not using you.”

She let out her breath as relief washed over her. This was real. It was just
them
. Nothing else.

She nodded. Knowing that, she could be more honest. “You say Claire only writes to Gabriel, but that isn’t true.”

Evan tilted his head. “It isn’t?”

She fought to find a way to say the words, a way that would keep her promises and yet ease his pain. “I—Claire has been writing to me as well.”

He pressed his lips together, and she felt his body tense beside her. “Josie, you don’t have to—”

“But I will. At least as much as I can. Claire has written to me a handful of times since she left.”

His eyes went wide at her admission, but then he leaned in. “What does she say?”

Now she balked. Some of the things her friend had said would be hurtful. And she didn’t want to be the one to break Claire’s confidence or her lover’s heart.

“I’m certain our letters are not so different from the ones she writes to Gabriel.”

“But your eyes do not say certainty,” he pressed, leaning closer.

She bit her lip. She’d meant to comfort Evan, but it seemed she had failed.

“I can say no more,” she whispered. “I only mentioned it in hopes it would give you some relief to know that she reaches out to more than one person. That I
know
you couldn’t have done things differently because your sister has told me so.”

“But there is more to it than that,” he insisted. “What did you say to me earlier? I can
see
you, Josie.”

She held perfectly still for what felt like an eternity as she struggled for a response to Evan’s pressure, his pain. “Then perhaps you can see that I am not able to tell Claire’s secrets any further. Please don’t ask me to.”

“How can I not?” He frowned. “My sister writes to you and apparently gives you details about her life. Do you not love her enough to share them with me? In case I could help her?”

Her jaw set at his suddenly accusatory tone. “Don’t you
ever
question my love for your sister, Evan!” she burst out, surprised by the sudden strength in her voice and in her heart. “Ever.”

He drew back and a bit of the wildness left his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know you love her.”

“And because of that I can’t betray her any more than I have already done,” she said, pushing the covers aside and searching around on the floor for her discarded clothing. He watched but made no attempt to stop her, and that stung.

“Then I must ask you a similar question to the one you earlier posed to me.” His eyes narrowed. “Is this reluctance to reveal more a way to get some twisted revenge for how I treated you as a girl?”

Josie had been tugging her chemise over her head, but she spun around to face him at that quiet question. “How dare you? You truly think I am so petty as to keep facts from you out of revenge? Is that how low you think of me?”

“No,” he said, getting out the bed. She blinked at the sight of him, still naked, his skin highlighted by the fire.

“Claire has her troubles,” she said, trying to focus on the matters at hand and not how beautiful his body was. To combat those thoughts, she tugged on her dress and began to button it. “But she
doesn’t
want to be found.”

His face twisted in anger, growing red as he stared at her. “And you get to decide that?” he snapped.

“No,” she retorted, her voice elevating. “She does.”

His mouth opened as if he had something else to say, but then he shut it abruptly. There was a part of her that was pleased she could frustrate him even a little.

And another part that wanted him to understand her position, not hate her for it.

“Listen to me, Evan, and try to understand what I’m saying to you. Since Claire left your family, she has had so much forced on her, taken from her. She will come back when she is ready to do so.”

He stared at her, his pain plain on his face. It twisted her gut to see it there.

“You don’t understand,” he whispered.

She turned her head. Here she had felt a connection to him, a true sense of belonging. And yet she was still an outsider to him, even after all they had shared.

“Don’t I?” she whispered. “I lost her too. And unlike you, she was all I had.”

She didn’t wait for his retort—she simply turned her back and left the cottage. Left him. But she couldn’t leave the searing pain that hit her belly, not only because she was reminded of all she’d lost in Claire.

But because it was clear that she had likely lost the tenuous relationship she’d begun to build with Evan too.