Page 41 of Our Little Secret

But no one was up.

Instantly alert, she rose on an elbow, her ears straining.

“You shouldn’t do that,” her husband admonished her.

She nearly jumped out of her skin.

What was he talking about? Then it hit her. Heknew?About Gideon?

She didn’t respond. Maybe Neal was just talking in his sleep, or—

“It’s not good for you.”

“What?” she asked, hardly daring to breathe, lying down again. No one was on the stairs. She had imagined the noise as she started to fall asleep.

“Smoking.” His voice was stern. “You know how I feel about it, and all the health risks it brings with it.”

Oh crap! He smelled it on her. She hadn’t taken the time to wash her face and hands, or to use any breath mints, as she always did when she snuck a cigarette. But it was so long since she’d actually smoked, she’d forgotten. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But I do, Brooke,” he said quietly.

She wondered if he was talking about more than her sneaking a cigarette. “You don’t have to—”

“I always worry about you.”

“Neal, what’re you talking about?” she asked, deciding now, in the middle of the damned night, was when they were going to actually have it out. She braced herself for the midnight accusations. He’d only moved back into the house in the last few weeks and she was just getting used to him being around again.

Hence the imminent need to break up with Gideon.

She leaned closer to her husband. “Neal? What—?”

But he was already drifting off, his breathing becoming steady. In the faint light she saw that his eyes were closed. The conversation was over and that was a good thing, right? No confession necessary.

Soon he was snoring again and she was wound tight as the spring on a stopwatch. She got up and washed her hands and face, brushed her teeth and even flossed, all in the dark. Her features were ghostly in the bathroom mirror, pale, taut skin, accentuated by the dim glow of a single night-light. She splashed more water onto her face and was on her way back to bed when she passed by the bedroom window overlooking the backyard and the view of Seattle’s lights and the dark waters of Elliott Bay beyond. Somewhere out there, presumably sleeping in the berth of his sailboat, was Gideon.

Once he’d been the spark in her life.

The hidden joy.

The little secret she’d kept hidden.

A fantasy that had become oh so real.

A dream.

And now he was a nightmare.

She leaned her head against the panes and glanced down at the yard to see him standing there, face turned up, right in the middle of the garden.

She almost cried out but bit back the scream, and as a cloud passed by the moon, allowing its luminance to play over the landscape, she realized it wasn’t Gideon in the middle of her yard but the fountain, now broken and dry, standing in its usual spot.

He wasn’t in the yard.

He never was.

“Come to bed,” Neal said groggily, awake again. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“You didn’t yell and what’s going on? I thought you were asleep.”