Silver Bells: River's Sigh B & B, #5 by Ev Bishop

Author:Ev Bishop
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance
ISBN: 9781772650129
Publisher: Winding Path Books
Published: 2018-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

The cabin was toasty warm and smelled deliciously of freshly cut pine and brewed coffee. Sean glanced around, unable to believe the changes in the cabin from the last time he’d seen it, just that morning. It was still gorgeous and cozy, but it looked… lived in, cared for, appreciated—and by some sweet homemaking goddess with great taste.

Bryn, though obviously just stashing stuff she’d planned to take to her family, had wrapped and stacked things in a way that would’ve suited any glossy magazine’s “Home for Christmas” spread. He agreed she needed a tree though. Maybe when she got whatever was bugging her off her chest, she’d let him help get one.

As she peeled off her coat and boots, he tried to express his admiration of her talent. “You’re an amazing homemaker, so how come you don’t have a family of your own by now? Didn’t you want one?”

He would’ve given his left hand to take the words back when he saw the expression that crossed her face. Then she laughed bitterly—the first such note he’d ever heard from her mouth—and changed his mind. He would’ve given both hands.

“Ironically, that’s what I need to tell you, what will explain why seeing each other is a waste of time.”

Without asking if he wanted one, she poured them each a coffee and fixed his how he liked it. She must’ve been paying him more attention earlier that morning than he thought.

She held her mug in a tight two-handed grip, but didn’t take a sip. Instead she explained her failed marriage and what she blamed for its demise: herself, her inability to conceive and carry a child.

Sean had taken a throat-scalding gulp of coffee when she first started talking, but now, though his beverage had cooled to a drinkable temperature, he couldn’t swallow a mouthful. He set the mostly untouched drink down on the coffee table and began to pace.

He recalled how Bryn shifted away from him in the night and understood that his words had been as terrible a blunder as he feared—but it wasn’t his jest about marrying her that put her off. It was his thoughtless line about having a bunch of babies. He had inadvertently hurt her.

As he tried to think of the best way to apologize, he wondered how stupidly often people were hurt by other people’s casual comments and assumptions. Back when his sister had been undergoing treatment, he’d been enraged by people’s ignorance. How people who didn’t know Marnie had cancer would “compliment” her for losing so much weight and getting “so skinny.” There they were raving about how great she looked, when she wasn’t sure she was going to survive. One especially imbecilic woman had even said, “I’m sooo jealous.”

When Marnie, tired of bizarre weight-obsessed comments from people she barely knew, explained she wasn’t trying to size down, that she was sick, she had cancer, more than one person, instead of being embarrassed or apologetic, came back with some stupid line like, “Oh, well, you look great.

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