With a nod, Nathan left them alone.
"Daddy-"
"I don't have anything to say to you now, Jo Ellen. You're a grown woman, but you're living under my roof for the time being. I'm asking you to go to your room for now and let me be."
"All right. I know what you're feeling, and just how it hurts. You need time to deal with it." she kept her eyes level with his. "But after you've had that time, if you still hold to this stand, you'll make me ashamed. Ashamed that you would blame the son for the father's deed."
Saying nothing, he strode past her.
"Go ahead to your room, Jo." Kate laid a hand on Jo's knotted shoulder. "Let me see what I can do."
"Do you blame him, Kate? Do you?"
"I can't get my mind clear on what I think or feel. I know th boy's suffering, Jo, but so is Sam. My first loyalty is to him. Go on don't pester me for answers until I can sort things through."
Kate found Sam on the front porch, standing at the rail, st; out into the night. Clouds had rolled in, covering moon and stars left the porch light off and stepped quietly up beside him.
"I have to grieve again." He ran his hands back and forth over the railing. "It isn't right that I should have to grieve for her again."
"No, it's not."
"Do I take comfort that she never meant to leave me and the chddren? That she didn't run off and forget us? And how do I take back all the hard thoughts of her I had over the years, all the nights I cursed her for being selfish and careless and heartless?"
"You can't be faulted for the hard thoughts, Sam. You believed what was set in front of you. Belleving a lie doesn't make you wrong. It's the lie that's wrong."
He tightened up. "If you came out here to defend that boy to me, you can turn right around and go back inside."
"That's not why I came out, but the fact is that you're no more at fault for believing what you did about Belle than Nathan was for believing in his father. Now you've both found out you were wrong in that belief, but he's the one who has to accept that his father was the selfish and heartless one."
"I said you could go on back inside."
"All right, then, you stubborn, stiff-necked mule. You just stand out here alone and wallow in your misery and think your black thoughts." she spun around, shocked when his hand shot out and took hers.
,, Don't leave." The words burned his throat like tears. "Don't."
"When have I ever?" she said with a sigh. "Sam, I don't know what to do for you, for any of you. I hate seeing the people I love hurt this way and not knowing how to give them ease."
"I can't mourn for her the way I should, Kate. Twenty years is a long stretch. I'm not the same as I was when I lost her."
"You loved her."
her. You remember how she was, Kate, so bright."
"always envied her the way she would light up everything and hands and missed the shock that bolted into her eyes. "You always kept that light steady," he said carefully. "she'd have been grateful for the way you mothered the children, looked after things. I should have told you before that I'm grateful."
"I started out doing it for her, and stayed for myself And Sam, I don't think Belle would have wanted you to grieve all over again. I never knew her to nurse a hurt or cling to a grudge. she wouldn't have blamed a ten-year- old boy for what his father was."
"I'm cut in two on this, Kate. I'm remembering that when Belle went missing, David Delaney joined in the search for her." He had to close his eyes as the rage rose up black again. "The son of a bitch walked this island with me. And all the while he'd done that to her. His wife came and got the children, took them back with her to mind all that day. I was grateful to him, God forgive me for that. I was grateful to him.
"He deceived you," she said quietly. "He deceived his own family.
He never missed a step. I can't go back to that day, knowing what I know now, and make him pay for it."
:,Will you make the son pay instead?"
'I don't know."
"Sam, what if they're right? What if someone wants to do to Jo what was done to Annabelle? We need to protect what we have left, to use whatever we have to protect what we have left. If I'm any judge, Nathan Delaney would step in front of a moving train to keep her safe."
"I can see to my own this time. I'm prepared this time."
I The edge of the woods on a moonless night was an excellent vantage point. But he hadn't been able to resist creeping a little closer, using the dark to conceal his movements.
It was so exciting to be this close to the house, to hear the old man's words so clearly. It was all out now, and that was just anoth arousal. They thought they knew it all, understood it all. They probably believed they'd be safe in that foreknowledge.