Read Online Another Woman's Son (Harlequin Romance) by Anna Adams - Free Book Online Page B

wasn’t blaming you.”
    “It’s okay. I blame you sometimes, too. It’s easier than putting the blame with Faith and Will, where it belongs. They can’t ever tell us why they betrayed us.” He hugged her briefly, surprising her. “Forget it, and I’ll tell you the truth. Faith and I grew indifferent. I don’t know how it happened or why, and she insisted nothing was wrong—nothing had changed. So I finally stopped fighting.”
    “A man ought to fight for his marriage.”
    Ben stopped in midstride outside Will’s study. “What about a woman? Did you fight?”
    “I kept trying to make Will believe I wanted to be with him. Until he told me about Faith.” She felt her skin grow warm. “He convinced me I was the one pushing him away. And I had once, so I felt guilty.”
    “You sound as if you’re used to it. I’ve known for four days and I can’t stop wondering who else is lying to me.”
    “My husband and my sister. You think you ever get used to it?”
    He leaned on the door frame, looking aroundWill’s study. “Maybe not,” he said. “Sorry I put it that way. You’ve started cleaning in here?”
    “No.” She stood. Tony slumped over his bowl-drum, listening to different pitches as he hit in various spots. She moved around Ben to eye the papers that littered Will’s desk. “He was never this messy. Do you think someone else has been here?”
    “I don’t know. Check it out. See if you recognize anything he might have been working on.”
    “I doubt there’s anything left in here from three months ago.” She studied the desk without touching anything. “I get it,” she said. “This bears all the signs of Will’s last-minute preparations for a trip.”
    “Oh.” He stood back. “I wonder where they were going.”
    “Faith didn’t tell you?”
    “She had no reason. She considered my part in Tony’s life over.”
    Isabel put her hand on his arm to comfort him. He didn’t move and he didn’t speak, but his doubts came back full force and obvious. She didn’t like being the object of Ben’s mistrust.
    Nervously, she pushed Will’s desk chair in. Her former husband’s scent was still in the air. His favorite books lay open on the table in front of a sumptuous leather couch that had always felt cold as death to her. “I can’t stay in here.”
    “Why don’t we start in the dining room?” Ben’s relief matched hers. “You can sort china, and I’llbox it up.” He prompted his son to stand again, but then let Tony sit in front of the dining room’s doorway. “As long as he’s pounding that bowl, we’ll know where he is. Do you have boxes?”
    “In storage above the garage. I should have enough for today. I’ll order more.”
    “You could hire someone to do this.”
    “I would, but I promised Leah I’d return anything she gave us, as well as Will’s things.”
    “You were married seven years. Now, she wants her gifts back?”
    “I don’t want anything that reminds me of Will.”
    His gaze flickered as he glanced toward Tony.
    “He doesn’t remind me of Will. He’s yours.”
    Ben leveled her with a doubtful glance.
    “All right, then. I don’t mean him,” she said. “You must know that.”
    “I wasn’t thinking of Tony.”
    “You see what I’m thinking before it’s in my head, but I can’t read you at all now.”
    “You just think there’s more than I’m telling you.”
    “Do I?” She wasn’t wrong, either.
    “You read too much into my wanting Tony to have someone familiar nearby. I know you’re leaving after you finish the house.”
    “What if I move to Pennsylvania to be near my mom and dad?”
    “And Leah?” A haunted look shadowed his eyes. “That’s your plan?”
    She shook her head. It had been a test. “For now, I want to live on my own.” Tony began to sing along to his improvised solo, and they both glanced at him. “But I may want to be close to family someday.” She tried to imagine the future but saw only gray haze. “When I have