Christmas at the Cove by Jessie Newton

Author:Jessie Newton [Newton, Jessie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JEN Publishing

Chapter Nineteen

Kristen hated the distrust running through her bloodstream. She’d never considered herself a jaded or distrustful person. Her default wasn’t that someone was lying to her. When Joel had come home late at night and said he’d been up at the lighthouse going over their quarterly reports, she’d believed him.

She hadn’t even thought he’d lie to her.

Since his death and all the secrets that had come to light, though, Kristen found herself questioning everyone and everything. She hated the doubt circling through her, especially when it was herself she couldn’t believe.

She’d spoken to Tonya on the phone with everyone listening in. Everyone had heard the phone call, even AJ. She hadn’t detected anything nefarious or alarming about the woman’s voice, her delivery of the news or finer details—which, as she listened to AJ and Kelli chat, hadn’t really been very fine at all—or her request to meet on Diamond Island that afternoon.

She’d gotten a text just like everyone else. Her phone had simply been on silent, and she hadn’t alerted the group to it the way Matthew Hymas had. She sat next to the man, who watched AJ and Kelli too. He didn’t say anything, and it wasn’t until Kelli asked, “Do you think we shouldn’t go?” that Kristen decided to join the conversation.

“I think we absolutely should go,” she said. “The only way to get more information is to show up to get the information.”

“I feel like I need a handbook of questions to ask,” AJ said, and Kristen felt that deeply. She’d have loved a manual of what to ask when her husband came home late, or left early, or didn’t want her to go with him when he had to go out to the claw to check the lantern.

Sometimes he went in rough waters, and Kristen worried about him the whole time. Sometimes he’d gone during calm seas, and he’d spend a few days there stocking their emergency supplies, topping off fuel, and fixing the shelter.

The claw was just a patch of sand out in the water shaped like a rooster’s foot, and there was a lantern there to guide boats into the right waters to reach the docks on Diamond Island. There was a rudimentary shelter, but it was waterproof and had a bed and plenty of food and emergency supplies.

He could’ve met any number of women out there and Kristen would’ve never known. She’d never asked. She’d never suspected anything.

Familiar foolishness ran through her, and she pressed against it mentally. She was tired of feeling like she was the one who’d done something wrong by not suspecting that her otherwise devoted husband was cheating on her.

You didn’t do anything wrong, she told herself for probably the hundredth time since Joel had died.

“So we’ll go,” Kelli said, her voice strong enough to pull Kristen out of her damaging thoughts. “Let’s make a list of questions before we go, and let’s commit to asking anything we can.”

“I should’ve brought out my laptop,” AJ mused, and Matt reached across the table and covered her hand with his.

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