Loved by Beauty (Harper's Mill Book 4)

Author:Summer Donnelly [Donnelly, Summer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-02-17T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Three

“I haven’t just been a hermit, Belle. That’s an unfair accusation,” Nick began. They sat across from each other in a small sitting room, a chess board between them.

“What do you call it?” she asked, moving her knight.

“Being in hospital. Healing from surgeries. Having more surgery. Lots of physical therapy. Weight training to learn how to walk on only a fraction of my calf muscles. Working with Miss Tyler, trying to keep my businesses afloat.”

“But you haven’t seen Sloane in almost two years,” Isabelle protested. “You two are still neighbors and you work with her father.” And you haven’t seen me in almost three, she thought.

“You’re right. Do you know why?”

Isabelle shook her head.

“You were a Candy Striper as a teen, right? What do people do when they visit hospitals?”

“Sit and talk to the patient.”

“Exactly.” He rubbed his hand over his jaw. “I had stitches in my jaw and smoke inhalation scars. I couldn’t talk. It sometimes still hurts to talk. Any visitor would have just sat there and looked at me. Talked at me. Cried over the way I looked.” His hard green eyes bore into her with an intensity that was new. “How comfortable would that have made you?”

“But Sloane is like your sister.”

“What could she have done?"

“Friends don’t abandon each other, Nick. You aren’t an island. You are part of our lives here in Harper’s Mill and you disappeared.”

“So did you,” he challenged.

“I got a job and moved away. That’s completely different.”

“Is it?”

It wasn’t and she knew he was right but she refused to be backed into a corner when she was trying to make him see the fault of his actions.

Not hers.

“You hurt all of us. You denied your friends the ability to comfort you. You cut us all out, saying you didn’t need us. But we still needed you.” Seeing that he still wasn’t understanding, she continued. “If I were injured, wouldn’t you want to see me? Make sure I was okay. Help me if my strength waned?”

Nick sighed and rose to pour himself two fingers of whiskey from a decanter in one corner. “You may be right,” he said finally. He lifted the decanter in a silent invitation and Isabelle nodded. He returned with two cut crystal tumblers and handed one to her.

"But tell me this. How is it I was the one injured but you all felt hurt?”

Well, Isabelle thought, put like that, maybe he had a point, she thought. But she persisted.

"The six of us were unstoppable once upon a time," Isabelle said. "And then everything just went away. Poof. Gone. What happened?"

They stared at each other, unspoken knowledge burning between them. "Do you want me to say it? Fine, I will. I broke us. Whatever we were — the six musketeers, the cul-de-sac six, the Decker kids and their friends. I broke us when I left and hurt you. You left in response and the rest. Well, I guess except for Miles and Diana, the rest were just collateral damage."

Tears stung in Isabelle's eyes at his heart-felt admission.

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