Prologue
Two Years Ago
Of all the dilemmas Colby Cabot-Baxter had faced in her twenty-nine years, none had tortured her like this one. It didn’t help that, unlike many spring mornings in Lake Sandy, Oregon, the sun peeked through the clouds now, causing the fine mist coating the grass to glitter. Normally she’d appreciate a reprieve from the dank air that settled beneath the skin, but today she would’ve welcomed its bite.
Although warm inside the car, Colby shivered. Through the passenger window, she watched the mourners entering the church. Heads bowed, shoulders hunched, looking as if the weight of their grief might tip them forward.
A fleeting image of Joe’s rugged face flashed—one from days earlier, just before he and her husband, Mark, had set off on a hike.
She’d grown up trading smiles with Joe across the backyard fence. His broad grin had showcased the gap between his front teeth. The gap he’d used to squirt water at her sometimes, just to be irksome. Her buddy—coconspirator, even—sneaking into the tree house their fathers had built in the nearby woods to spy on or torment their older brothers, depending on their moods.
Five years ago, Colby had been tickled when Joe welcomed her then-new husband into his circle. Of course, now she rather wished Joe hadn’t liked Mark so well.
Her eyes misted again, like the dew-covered earth, as her throat tightened.
Mark’s movement beside her snapped her back to the decision she couldn’t put off any longer.
“Wait.” She clutched Mark’s forearm as he prepared to open his door. “This is a mistake.”
“I need to pay my respects.” Mark’s baby blues widened in defiance beneath thick, straight eyebrows. Innocent-looking eyes that belied his often-convoluted thoughts. Thoughts that, when left unmedicated, had contributed to why they were here today.
“He was my friend, too.” She loosened her grip but left her hand resting on his arm. Her marriage might be running on fumes, but she wouldn’t compound his misery by arguing. At least not today. Gentling her voice, she added, “But maybe we shouldn’t add to his family’s grief by showing our faces.”
Mark’s jaw clenched. “You mean my face, don’t you?”
Reflexively, she shrugged, then wished she hadn’t. Mark’s eyes dimmed at the silent accusation.
“Mark,” she said, her voice barely audible, but then couldn’t think of what else to say.
Heavy silence, the kind weighted down by unspoken judgment, consumed the car. In the trees near the church, she noticed a black-headed grosbeak eating from a bird feeder, acting as if the world hadn’t been indelibly altered.
If only that were true.
“You can’t blame me more than I blame myself,” Mark finally muttered. “But it’s done. I dared, he jumped, and here we are. I can’t hide from it, and neither can you. I have to say goodbye to my friend, Colby, and I’d like your support.”
Tears welled in her eyes while she imagined Joe’s cocky grin just before he jumped off the cliff above Punch Bowl Falls in the Columbia River Gorge. Saying goodbye to him would be hard enough. But walking into that church to face Joe’s parents and his brother, Alec, seemed an impossible task. “My mother’s been the Morgans’ neighbor for thirty years, and even she feels awkward about coming.”
Last night at the funeral home, Alec had even kept his closest friend—Colby’s brother, Hunter—at arm’s length, so he surely wouldn’t welcome Mark or her today.
“I’m going. Wait here if you want.” He tugged his arm free and opened the door, letting the cool air rush inside.
Colby sighed. She exited the car, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin. Mark reached for her hand, which she grudgingly offered. Being dragged inside might be the only way she’d cross the threshold.
Alec and his family would resent the whole world today, and who could blame them? But she knew that deep down, they resented her husband most.
They’d barely stepped into the vestibule when Alec’s unerring gaze fell on Mark. Normally, Alec smiled at her, but today his mouth remained fixed in a grim line, and his green eyes mirrored the mossy color of Lake Sandy on a cloudy day. Grief had carved lines into his handsome face, giving more depth to his boyish good looks. His chestnut hair fell lopsidedly across his forehead thanks to the cowlick he could never quite tame.
She wrestled free of Mark’s grip when Alec began his approach. Words clogged her throat, making it tough to swallow, much less speak. She opened her arms to greet her old friend with a hug, but he brushed past her and walked straight up to Mark.
Alec stood at least two inches taller than her husband. His eyes, as intimidating as a wolf’s, glared down his finely chiseled nose at Mark. “Leave before my father sees you.”
His typically mellow voice held an edge today that scraped against her skin like rug burn.
“I’ve apologized to your family.” Mark didn’t flinch. “You have to forgive me, Alec. You know I loved Joe like a brother.”
“Lucky for me we’re not close.” He then spared Colby a brief glance. “Make him go, Colby. He shouldn’t be here.”
When their gazes locked, she noticed a cold, yawning distance that had never before existed. The loss of warmth hit her deep in her chest, choking off what little breath she still had. “I’m sorry. We don’t want to cause you more pain.”
She reached for Mark’s arm, but he shrugged her off. “I’ll sit in the back of the church and slip out early, but I’m staying. Joe would want me here.”
“Would he, really?” Alec gritted his teeth. “We wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for you.”
The flicker of heat in Mark’s eyes warned he was about to do or say something awful. Before Colby could pull him away, he snarled, “Joe’d want me here over you. If it weren’t for what you did, he might not have been so eager to go on that hike, or take that dare.”
Pain—bitter, brutal anguish—arrested Alec’s features. She had no idea what Mark had meant, but apparently Alec did. Colby reached out to comfort him but retreated when he snapped at Mark, “Get. Out. Now.”
Other mourners had started to stare at the two men despite the fact that, until Alec’s outburst, they’d kept their voices low. Colby heard whispers, saw shaking heads. “Mark, let’s go.”
She yanked his arm, forcing him to bend to her will just this once. He ripped free of her grip and stalked to the car. Before he opened its door, he punched the roof and shouted at the sky. By the time she took her seat, Mark’s head was in his hands, his shoulders shaking. Sniffling, he repeatedly banged his forehead against the steering wheel while muttering, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Colby sat beside her husband, in the wake of his suffering, and cried.
She cried for all the years Joe would miss. She cried for the Morgans’ unending pain. She cried for Alec’s tortured history with his brother. And she cried for the empathy she could not feel for her husband.
For the last bit of love that seemed to have died right along with Joe.