What Love Is by Lyn Cote

Author:Lyn Cote [Cote, Lyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyn Cote

Greenwich Village, the same day

After dusk, Leigh paced the kitchen waiting for Nate to come home. She wanted to tell him her news. She dreaded telling him her news. But putting it off would only increase her stress level.

To have time alone with Nate to explain everything to him, she’d already fed Michael his supper and put him to bed. She’d read him How the Grinch Stole Christmas! three times, but he was finally asleep. He wouldn’t be awake to hear the argument she was sure would come. She rubbed her taut forehead. She could have easily lain down next to Michael and fallen asleep herself. Fatigue dragged at her spirits.

Over the past week, since Carly had been airlifted to Saudi Arabia, Leigh’s nights had been sleepless and before that, they hadn’t been that good since Kitty’s funeral. Leigh glanced up at the clock for the thousandth time. Nate had said he’d be home at eight-thirty. It was now eight thirty-six p.m. She rubbed her arms, resisting the urge to rake them with her long fingernails.

Ever since earlier that year, when Kitty had moved back to Carlyle Place, the silence from the downstairs apartment had depressed Leigh. The phrase “as silent as the grave” now haunted her. Kitty would never be coming home, and Carly was in harm’s way in a war zone thousands of miles away. Tears spilled from Leigh’s eyes. Angrily, she wiped them off her face and stiffened her spine. “Deaths don’t come in threes,” she insisted to the empty room, the universe at large. “That’s just nonsense. I won’t give in to morbid sentimentality.”

But her heart longed for Kitty, yearned for the woman who’d twenty years before known Dane so well, who had stood by Leigh through her pregnancy when her mother had practically disowned her. I love you, Kitty. I always will. I just wish I’d done better. I should have left New York and come to you as soon as Grandma Chloe called, but I was a coward. I couldn’t face losing you and so I delayed. I’m so sorry for that. Please forgive me.

She heard the door open downstairs and braced herself for Nate’s arrival. At the kitchen sink, she splashed cold water on her warm face and wiped it dry with a paper towel.

“Hi, honey,” Nate said as he strode in. He glanced at the wall clock. “Just a few minutes late. I don’t have to go in till later tomorrow so I’ll take care of getting Michael off to school in the morning.” He kissed her cheek.

His kiss warmed her as always in a way nothing else could. But she felt as if she didn’t deserve his kiss. He was going to be so angry with her. “Good,” she murmured. “I’ll put your plate in the microwave.” She moved, but his arms stopped her as they wrapped around her from behind.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I miss them both, too.”

She didn’t mistake his meaning. He missed Kitty and Carly. She drew a shaky breath, dreading the impending conflict.

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