Page 59 of Winter at Wishington Bay
‘That’s what I like about you, Sophia. You’re honest.’
‘Huh?’ I jerked my head up from my momentary drift in concentration.
‘You. You were honest – brutally so, in fact.’ He gave me a look and my mouth curved automatically, with no intentional input from my brain. ‘When we first met. It was…’
I raised an eyebrow, half dreading whatever was coming next.
‘Refreshing,’ he finished.
I gave an unladylike snort. ‘I bet that wasn’t what you thought at the time.’
His lack of immediate reply gave me his answer.
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘To be fair, it was all a bit of an adjustment. I was still jet lagged, and completely unconvinced that coming over here was the good idea my brother, not to mention my parents, insisted it would be.’
‘And then I was rather blunt with you.’
‘With good reason. I think I’d probably spent far too much time on my own in the preceding months, outside of work. My job deals in facts and figures and quantifiable statistics. I never sugar coat anything at work. It is what it is and we’re trying to keep people safe. When Serena left, it was a shock. I mean, I knew things weren’t right. Anyone could see that, but I couldn’t see a way to make it right. Everything I tried seemed to make it worse.’ He glanced across at me. ‘Oh man, don’t give me that face.’
‘What face?’ I asked, frowning.
‘That, aww, poor sad bloke. What a drip.’
‘I am not!’
‘Yeah. You are.’
‘This is just my listening face!’
His expression suggested that he didn’t entirely believe me, but I gave him my best snooty look and he gave me a resigned one in return. Good to know some of my previous skills could still come in handy.
‘Carry on,’ I prompted him.
‘There’s not much else to say. One day I came home and she’d gone.’
‘That was it?’ I frowned. ‘You didn’t talk about it?’
Nate smiled but there wasn’t any humour in it. ‘Serena isn’t really a big one for discussing things. Basically, it’s her way or nothing.’
‘That can’t have been an easy foundation to build any relationship on, let alone a marriage.’
He sat back, relaxing into the sofa, Bryan still snoring on his lap. ‘I didn’t see it as a problem for a long time. I didn’t really see it at all, I don’t think. Others did, which caused friction, but you can’t tell a person in love stuff like that, can you? At least you couldn’t tell me. I didn’t want to hear it. As far as I was concerned, Serena was as close to perfect as I thought a woman could be, and frankly I was just amazed that she was interested in me.’
‘Seriously?’
‘What?’
‘Oh, come on. We’ve had this conversation already – you’re kind of hot.’
He looked away and I smiled. ‘I’m not sure about that. Gabe’s always been the one the women fell over themselves about.’
‘Or maybe you only saw those ones.’
He pulled a face. ‘Anyway. I was frantic when she didn’t come home. Stupidly, it never even occurred to me that she might have actually left me. I guess that sounds kind of arrogant, but it wasn’t like that. Like I said, I’m not great at explaining stuff sometimes unless it’s to do with my work. I’m shit hot at that.’ He grinned, lightening the moment.
‘I’m sure,’ I grinned back. ‘But I know what you mean. You get into a routine. It’s not happiness but it’s life. This is how it is. How it’s going to be and after a while you just accept that. Until you, or someone else, does something to change it.’
