Then my sister looked up at my husband, and behind the raw anguish, the fear and distress, I saw something that turned my blood cold.
Her face… melted.
Melted into an expression of complete and utter love.
I’d never seen her look that way at Paolo.
My heart just about stuttered to a stop then and there.
As I continued watching, frozen in some moment of hideous clarity, a thousand pieces from a seven-year-old jigsaw suddenly tumbled into place.
Not waiting to see any more, I stumbled back around the side of the house and started running.
I knew Bridget and Cooper loved each other. Of course they did. They’d always loved each other. Bridget loved practically everyone, and Cooper hadn’t had anyone else to love back for so long.
But then, rewind back to the point about how my sister never looked at Paolo like that.
Because she loved Paolo differently?Notas a friend?
Because Paolo wasn’t an orphan who got abused by his father and then neglected by his unfeeling aunt until ejected into the big wide world to fend for himself at eighteen?
Was it a pity look?
A friendly, caring hair tuck?
I paused to wrench open the farmhouse front door, replaying their faces in my mind once more.
Nope. That was not a friendly exchange.
I’d been to a lot of weddings in my time, and that was the look a bride gives her groom once she meets him at the top of the aisle.
Of course it was.
Of course Bridget loved Cooper.
Wasin love withCooper.
And of course he was in love with her back.
How could I not have seen it?
She didn’t tell any of us that he was working at the lab until she had to.
She took Cooper with her to try on her wedding dress!
Did she think that by us getting married, she’d stop loving him, move on, live happily ever after with Paolo?
More to the point,why the hell did Cooper say yes?
I was so angry, so distraught, that I couldn’t even think about it. Or care about the whys.
Dad, having lasted far longer in the invalids’ corner than was probably wise, was now in bed.
He must have heard me thundering up the stairs, because he was already pulling himself to a sitting position by the time I burst through his bedroom door.
‘Emma, what is it? What’s happened?’ He grappled to pull himself further upright.
‘Nothing. Nothing, Daddy.’ I held out my hand to stop him, knowing at this point that even a small action like getting out of bed could cost him dearly. ‘I wanted to come and sit with you for a little bit, if that’s all right?’
