One Secret Night (9 page)

“Families shouldn’t keep secrets,” she replied emphatically. “At least not from one another.”

A hint of pain showed on her face and his protective instincts flared to the forefront of his mind. What, or more important,
who
had put that sorrow in her soft blue eyes? A parent? A sibling? He had to ask.

“Who kept a secret from you?”

She took her time before answering, and the sudden gleam of moisture in her eyes took him completely by surprise.

“My mother. My father. They conspired to keep mum’s illness from me. She suffered from a rare and fatal lung disease, but they never told me once they found out she was sick. She was always just tired or having a bad day. They sheltered me so thoroughly that by the time she was seriously ill, I still barely knew it. Worse, they never gave me a chance to understand
why
she was always unwell.”

“How old were you when she died?” he asked softly.

Isobel swiped impatiently at her eyes with one hand and frowned slightly, as if she couldn’t bear to show him this weakness. When she continued, her voice was hard, harder than he’d ever heard it and his heart ached a little for the pain she was shielding behind her obvious anger.

“Sixteen. I’d only learned the truth a few months prior. I felt so stupid, as if I’d been deliberately oblivious to her illness. But they never let me understand it. Mum developed complications right at the end. I was only allowed to visit her once in hospital but even then they withheld the truth from me, leading me to believe she’d get well again and come home.”

“They were trying to protect you,” Ethan said, trying to allay some of her anger and frustration.

“They were keeping a secret from me. Do you honestly think it was fair of them to keep me in the dark like that? I wasn’t an idiot, nor was I an infant. I should have had time to understand what her illness could do to her, been given a chance to truly cherish the time we had together. I never even got to say goodbye to her. Dad arranged for her to be buried without a funeral, without a celebration of her life or the woman she was, or anything.”

Tears ran unchecked down Isobel’s cheeks now and her voice shook as she continued. “The morning after she passed away, he woke me up and told me she was gone. Then he instructed me to pack a bag with no more than what I could comfortably carry. We went to the airport and that’s the last time I saw home. We traveled together until Dad died about four years later. He never really got over Mum’s death and I always felt as if he was running away from facing a life without her right up until he passed away.”

“Isobel, I’m so sorry you went through that. But Tamsyn’s and my situation is different. We’re adults now. We’ve grown up believing one thing all this time. I don’t even know what to do with the information about our mother. How can I expect Tamsyn to shoulder that, too?”

“You have to at least give her a chance,” Isobel insisted, getting up and finding a paper towel in the kitchenette to dry her tears with. “Like you said, she’s an adult. She’s quite capable of reaching her own decisions about what to do with the knowledge that your father lied to you both all this time. Is that why you don’t want her to know? You don’t want her to remember your father any differently than she does now?”

“Maybe,” he admitted carefully, surprised at her perceptiveness.

“It won’t make her love him any less, you know.” Isobel sat back down on the sofa and pulled her knees up under her chin. “For all that my parents kept such an important secret from me, I still love them deep in my heart—I always will. I just wish they’d trusted me with the truth. I was a young adult, but they never respected me enough to share their fears with them. Sheltering me from it all wasn’t the best thing for me and it’s not the best thing for Tamsyn, either. This is something the two of you should be sharing. You need each other now more than ever.”

“I don’t agree, but—” he held up a hand when Isobel made to protest once more “—I will give it some more thought. Either way, I need to know I can rely on you to keep the information to yourself. I should never have told you in the first place....”

“But you never expected to see me again. Nor I, you.” Isobel sighed. “You know, my mother always loved the poetry of Charles Péguy. Her favorite opening line was ‘
The faith that I love best, says God, is hope
.’ It’s what keeps me going—
hope.
Hope that something better, brighter, happier—
anything—
is just around the next corner. I am still angry with my parents for so many reasons for what they did, what I feel as if they stole from me—the chance to make the most of every second with my mother rather than being a bratty teenager. The chance to prepare for a life without her rather than have it thrust upon me. The chance to say goodbye to her and tell her how much I loved her—but I still have hope. Not for a chance to make things right with my parents, obviously. That ship has long since sailed. But I can make a difference for other people. Give them hope, y’know? And you and Tamsyn have that, too. You have a fresh chance with your mother, if you’ll only allow yourselves.”

“No.” His response was absolute. “I don’t believe in second chances. I am really very sorry for what you went through, Isobel, but your circumstances are vastly different from ours. And I think, on that note, I should go. We’re never going to agree on this issue. Thanks for the wine.”

He stood to leave, surprised that Isobel seemingly had no more to say on the subject. At least until she saw him to the door.

“Trust Tamsyn,” she urged as he walked away into the chilled night air. “Trust
her
to know what’s the right thing to do about your mother.”

“Why can’t you just trust me to know what’s best for my sister!” he snapped, and turned sharply on his heel to stride away into the darkness.

He simmered with anger all the way back to the house where, unable to help himself, he stood at his window staring down at Isobel’s cottage—watching as, one by one, the lights went out, leaving the dwelling in darkness. Why the hell had he gone there? It certainly hadn’t been with the intention of arguing about Tamsyn. So what had led him there? Had he wanted to warn her off Cade? Or was it simply to stamp his own possession upon her? Or maybe even to root out the source of his fascination with her so that he could attempt to control it, to control his reaction to her.

Whichever way, he’d failed.

Ten

“T
hese are fabulous!” Tamsyn squealed, her face brightening. “Have you shown Cade and Cathleen?”

“Not yet. I’ve got an appointment to see them and their restaurant staff later this afternoon.”

Isobel leaned back in the chair at Tamsyn’s office desk, and watched the slideshow of shots she’d done to date for The Masters new catalog as they slipped across her computer screen. She couldn’t help but feel an immense sense of pride in the quality of the work she’d done here. Despite Ethan’s remark about mall photos and grumpy babies and toddlers, she felt she did her best work featuring people, and she’d tried to incorporate that here within the guidelines set by Tamsyn and the marketing team.

Even the shots of Raif and his father, tending vines in the distance in what were indisputably her best landscape shots ever, still lent that personal family touch. The body language between the men spoke volumes as to their relationship and how close they were, how much respect they tendered for one another. Of course a lot of the art of that was lost on most people, but it still gladdened her heart to see that she’d captured it, even if from a distance.

Had Ethan and his father been like that? she wondered.

“I love that one.” Tamsyn interrupted her reveries. “I know it’s the vineyard and all that and the way the sun’s dropping over the hills looks fantastic, but I really see Raif and Uncle Edward in that shot. Can we crop it around them more?”

“Sure,” Isobel agreed and hit the necessary keys. “Like this?”

“Yeah. Any chance I could have a print of that? I reckon Uncle Edward and Aunt Marianne would love it.”

“No problem. I’ll put the image on a CD for you and you can have it printed any way you want it.” To Isobel’s surprise, a look of sadness washed across Tamsyn’s face. “Tam? Are you okay?”

Tamsyn gave her a watery smile. “Just missing my dad, I guess.”

“That’s only natural.”

“His death was so sudden, it took all of us by surprise. And now it’s just me and Ethan, I feel like I need to hold on to something, you know? We’ve lost that connection in our lives,” she said, gesturing to the cropped photo on the screen. “I don’t want to lose it completely by forgetting a thing about Dad. I’ve tried to talk to Ethan but he won’t even discuss him at all. It’s like now he’s gone, for Ethan, he’s really gone. End of story, move on. Dad was the same way, when it came to our mom. I was so little when she died that I barely have any memories of her at all. And now we’ve lost them both, I...I just wish I had more of them to hold on to.”

Tears spilled over her lower lashes and traced silver streaks down Tamsyn’s face. Isobel pushed out of her chair and pulled the other woman into her arms, rocking her silently. She felt Tamsyn’s grief like a sword in her gut. It didn’t need to be this way. It was wrong of Ethan to withhold the information about their mother. Totally and utterly wrong.

Tamsyn spoke through her tears. “I don’t understand the way Ethan’s dealing with it. Family means so much to him. But Ethan’s just moved on from Dad’s death so quickly. I miss Dad, but I don’t think my brother does at all. I just don’t understand how he can pretend losing our father is nothing to be upset about.”

“Everyone grieves differently,” Isobel murmured, biting back the words she really wanted to share with Tamsyn.

“I know, and I’ve read about the different stages of grief. To be honest, I think Ethan is locked in anger—he’s mad at Dad for something. What, I don’t know. Whether it’s the fact that he died so unexpectedly or something else...he just won’t talk about any of it with me.”

“All you can do is keep trying. He’s not the kind of guy who shares his feelings easily, is he?”

A strangled laugh fell from Tamsyn’s mouth. “No, he’s not. He’s always been very staunch, even when we were kids. Some people think he’s unsympathetic, but I think it just comes down to the way he shoulders responsibility. He was always the ringleader when we were growing up, and he seemed to think that meant that he wasn’t allowed to ever get scared or upset. He wanted to be like Dad—and Dad was always steady and in control. But now he’s gone even beyond that. It’s as if he’s not allowing himself to care at all. He’s gotten more distant with our aunts and uncle...and with me. I just wish I knew why.”

“You miss your brother—the way he was before your father died,” Isobel said with sudden clarity.

“Yes, it’s exactly that. We grew up without a mother, we’ve lost Dad. I feel like I’m losing my brother, too.”

“Talk to him,” Isobel urged, letting Tamsyn go and grabbing a box of tissues off a nearby shelf. “Make him listen to you. He loves you.”

“I know.” Tamsyn blew her nose, then turned away from Isobel and wrapped her arms around her body as if shielding herself from her grief. “I just feel like I’m stuck on the outside, y’know? As if I’m on the outside of my own life, looking in like some kid with their face pressed on the glass at Haigh’s Chocolates.”

“Oh, yeah, that place on the corner of Rundle and King William? I am so that kid!” Isobel laughed at Tamsyn’s analogy and tried to lighten the mood, but even so she could still feel her friend’s pain emanating off her in waves.

“I think we’re all that kid.” Tamsyn smiled through her tears. “I love Ethan dearly. He’s my rock, and always has been, but he’s so determined to be strong for me that he won’t let me in. He won’t show me what he’s really feeling when all I want is to be able to share our grief and help each other work through it.”

“Can you talk to Trent about it? After all, you are going to be married to him. He should be helping you through this, too.”

An expression Isobel couldn’t quite put her finger on appeared in Tamsyn’s eyes.

“We’re both always so busy with work that we barely see each other. Then, when we do manage to coordinate our schedules and get together, I can see he’s stressed with the demands of his job and I really don’t want to burden him with anything else.”

Just privately, Isobel thought that to be pretty unfair. If you couldn’t unload to your partner, who the heck else could you unload to?

Tamsyn sighed and sank into a chair. “I just feel so alone sometimes. I always used to be able to talk to Ethan about virtually anything, and now I really feel like he’s holding something back from me.”

“He is,” Isobel blurted before she could give a second’s thought to the ramifications of what she’d begun.

“He what? What do you mean?” Tamsyn asked, her face creased in confusion.

Isobel took in a deep breath. Too late to take back those two insignificant words now. In for a penny, in for a pound, she decided. “He is holding something back from you. You need to ask him about it.”

“What? What is it, Isobel? And how come you know about it, if it’s such a big secret?”

Oh, God, Isobel thought, she’d really opened a can of worms now. “When I came here that first night, it wasn’t the first time I’d met Ethan.”

“I knew it!” Tamsyn said. “I knew there was something between you two. I could feel it. He’s usually so polite and accommodating when we have a guest and he was so not that way with you. So come on, give up the details.”

Isobel cringed inwardly but there was no way she could fudge the truth. Tamsyn deserved that, and more.

“We actually met, by chance, the night before. We, uh, we were intimate with one another.”

Tamsyn’s eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “You guys had a one-night stand? But Ethan never—”

“Nor do I, but we did. I also never expected to see him again, so coming here and being brought face-to-face like that was a little disconcerting for us both.”

The other woman looked at her, assessing what she’d said and narrowing her eyes slightly before speaking. “That’s not all, is it? That’s not what Ethan’s holding back from me.”

Isobel closed the short distance between them and squatted on her haunches in front of Tamsyn, reaching for her hands and holding them firmly. “No, it isn’t. Ethan confided something in me, something I have no right to tell you but it’s something you most definitely deserve to know. Since it appears he has no intention of sharing it with you—and since it’s obviously creating a rift between you—I’m going to tell you what he told me.”

Tamsyn paled. “It’s got to be something awful. Do I really want to know?”

“Maybe not. I know your brother thinks you don’t. He’s trying to shelter you, keep you from getting hurt. But you need to know, Tam. You deserve the chance to decide how you want to handle this yourself.” She squeezed Tamsyn’s hands, then spilled the truth.

“Your mother is still alive. Your father hid the truth from you all these years. Ethan only found out that Friday he came to the city. If he’s angry at your father, that’s why. He’s had to battle with the discovery on his own.”

For a few moments, Tamsyn was stunned silent. When she finally spoke, Isobel was surprised at the anger in her voice. “He didn’t have to, not on his own. Never on his own. He could have had me, if he’d been willing to trust me.” Tamsyn’s pain was evident in every word she uttered.

“He’s your big brother. He just wanted to protect you.”

“Oh, don’t go making excuses for him.” Tamsyn pulled free from Isobel’s clasp and stood abruptly, her movement sending her chair skidding backward on the polished wooden floor. “In case either of you hadn’t noticed, I’m a grown woman. He had no right to keep that information from me. Neither of you did.”

Before Isobel could utter another word, in her own defense or otherwise, Tamsyn was gone, the door slamming behind her. Isobel sat down in the chair that Tamsyn had so rapidly vacated. Her hands shook and her stomach churned uncomfortably. Ethan would be livid. He’d never understand why she’d found it necessary to impart the news he’d been so determined to keep to himself.

A tremor rocked her body at the enormity of what she’d set in motion. What on earth had she done?