Murder in Mont St-Michel by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

Author:Susan Kiernan-Lewis [Kiernan-Lewis, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: San Marco Press

32

When Maggie tapped on their room door Laurent opened it as if he’d been standing on the other side, waiting. She stepped inside, but not before noticing how tired he looked. His shoulders were rounded, looking like he was bearing up under the weight of a tremendous burden. She hesitated at the sight of him, her heart reaching out to him in spite of herself.

Her emotions must have shown on her face because he reached for her and pulled her into his arms. When she felt his arms, firm and secure around her, Maggie realized with a shock that it had been weeks since he’d held her. She knew the reason for that was because he’d been ashamed and the easiest way around not feeling that way was to keep her at arm’s length. She should know him by now.

She should have understood before now what she’d been seeing in his behavior. How could she be married to him for so long and not know how to handle his occasional tendencies?

The strength of his arms around her made her want to collapse into him and let him carry the weight, just carry the full weight of the responsibility for fixing them.

But that’s exactly what he had been doing. And that was partially why they were in the spot they were in right now. To some degree this whole mess was the result of Laurent deciding he didn’t need anyone’s help.

She knew him that well. He’d wanted to fix the problem without her involvement because he felt it was his fault. And he didn’t want her hurt.

She pulled out of his arms and looked up at him.

“Sometimes I try to imagine what marriage might be like with someone who actually spoke to me,” Maggie said. “I try to imagine how things would be different if I didn’t always have to interpret your grunts or decipher your silences.”

He stepped away from her and then turned his back.

“You see? Just like that. I see that we’re having a conversation but you only see that you’re being attacked. And so you retreat.”

He stopped at her words but didn’t turn around.

“I can’t believe you have a child that we don’t have together,” she said. “I can’t believe I have two kids and you have three.”

She knew there was no point in saying these things but if communication was their main problem how wrong could talking be? Unless she was talking just to hurt him? She felt a sliver of guilt and then weariness.

How could two people be so different? She would always say the things that didn’t need to be said and he would always keep inside all the things that did.

“Whatever,” she said, knowing it was a trigger word with him.

She found she really wanted to pull the trigger.

He turned and looked at her, a frown on his face.

What was he thinking? That she had every right to be angry? He’d already said that and she’d taken his head off for it. That the words she spoke were factually true? Again, not an argument.

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