Page 98 of Noble Neighbor
Although shocked, everything suddenly made sense.Oliver was certain of his decision. HeknewSunny. “I want to marry her. Who she is — was — is of no consequence to us.” He glanced at Clement, then his father. “Right?” They both nodded.
“And you’re prepared to help her perpetuate the deception?” Delaney asked.
Oliver nodded. “They’ll have a new name. Armstrong. I’ll adopt the girls,” Oliver pledged, meeting Delaney’s gaze.
The man stood. “Her husband killed your wife. Her daughters are his daughters. Blood of the father. No” — Delaney held his hand up — “don’t interrupt. You say the right words, and I can see from your expression you mean it. Now. But at one stage you actively hated her. Sleep on it and talk it over with your family tonight. I presume you have a key for Sunny’s place?” At Oliver’s nod, he continued. “I’ll stay there tonight, and tomorrow you can give me your final decision.”
“We won’t change our minds.” Clement stood and walked across to stand before the man and grabbedDelaney’s arm. “Kenzie and Molly — they’re my sisters,Mr. Delaney.” He thumped his heart with a fist. “Here.”
Oliver’s heart swelled with pride for his son, and he reached an arm around Clement’s neck and pulled his boy close to drop a smacking kiss on his head. And with his son by his side, his father moving nearer, they faced Delaney as a unit. “Just tell us this — do you know where they are?”
Delaney smiled. A wideSunnysmile. “I made some calls on the flight here, so yes, I know where they are.”
“Are they safe?”
“They’re safe.”
*
It was quiet when Sunny slipped from her bed on the sixth day without Oliver in her life. She was relieved another restless night was behind her, but wary of the many ahead. She felt more miserable, more dejected, morealone, than ever before. More than she had in that Dallas hospital after the accident.
Her feet dragged as she made her way across the room. Even the coffee from the state-of-the-art machinetasted acrid, burning a bitter trail to her churning stomach.Pushing open the sliding door, she stepped ontothe wide deck, gasping as the biting Colorado cold assaulted her inadequately wrapped body.
The low clouds, laden with the promise of snow, masked the view of the mountains surrounding her, but she resolutely closed the door and continued her path to the railing.
There she stood, holding the coffee mug between her hands, more conflicted, more discombobulated, than she had been four years ago when first coming to this cabin.
It had been her first stop after Mexico. Here she’d made many decisions about their future, certain of her way forward.
Yet that perfectly constructed life had crumbled.
Molly had not spoken a word to her since her outburst in the car. Five days ago. That silence hurt. A lot. Kenzie, on the other hand, could not do enough for her. Her eldest helped with the animals, the housework. With Molly.
And what do you do, Sunny?
Why, bless her heart, she did what she hadn’t donefor a long time — she felt sorry for herself. Ad nauseum.“Even I’m sick of myself,” she mumbled with a bitter twist.
You only have yourself to blame, Sunny. Instead of talking to Oliver, you ran.
“Because I don’t want to see his face contort with disgustwhen he looks at me, at my girls,” she muttered.
No. To see the man she loved, the man who’d loved her with such incredible abandon … to see his tenderness turn to loathing would shatter her.Because she knew, just as others thought her complicit, he did, too.
And his aversion would hurt more than turning her back on her family. How would she be able to explain his rejection,Clement’s rejection, to her girls? Her sweet, innocent daughters who worshipped their honorary brother.
And how would Oliver believe she hadn’t known of his connection to Agatha Newton?Henever changed his name. Nor his face.
But Oliver knows you, Sunny. Really knows you.
Hadn’t she said something similar to Kenzie a few months ago regarding Michaela?
“But it’s not the same,” she moaned into the bitterwind. “It touched Oliver and Clem on a deep and personallevel. Every time they look at me, at the girls, they’llremember.”
Remember what Lathan had done.
Remember whose blood Kenzie and Molly shared.
And remember how she’d been stupid enough to not know.
