Page 246

Two sons.

Twin boys who have lived their entire lives so far without knowing me. And until today, I didn’t know they existed.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Blaire

The café sits at the end of a narrow lane in Siasconset, far enough from the main road that the morning traffic heading toward the beaches never finds it. I chose it for that reason. There are six tables inside, a chalkboard menu no one has updated since spring, and an older woman behind the counter who took one look at my face when I walked in and decided not to make conversation.

I've been sitting at the corner table for twenty minutes with a cup of coffee I haven't touched. Erica has the boys at the beach house, and I told her I'd be back before lunch, though neither of us pretended I had any idea how long this would take.

Ross called last night at a quarter to eleven. The conversation lasted less than two minutes. He asked where and when, I told him, and he said he'd be there. He ended the call without saying goodbye, and I lay awake afterward listening to the ocean and trying to remember whether I had ever heard him sound like that. I hadn't.

The bell over the door rings at nine. Ross steps inside, and the small room seems to shrink around him. He's wearing a navy sweater and dark jeans, clothes that should make him look like any other man spending the summer on the island, but nothing about the way he stands in the doorway is casual. His eyes find me immediately. He looks like he hasn't slept, and the shadow along his jaw tells me he didn't bother to shave either.

He orders a black coffee at the counter, pays for it, and crosses the room without looking anywhere but at me. When he sits down across from me, he sets the cup on the table and leaves it there.

Neither of us speaks at first.

"Thank you for coming," I say finally.

"You didn't think I would?" he asks.

"I didn't know what you'd do."

He lets out a breath that isn't quite a laugh.

"That makes two of us. I spent most of last night driving around this island because I didn't trust myself to be in a room with anyone."

The anger is there. I can hear it beneath every word, controlled and tightly held, but it isn't the raw thing that came at me on the Pembrokes' lawn. This is colder and more deliberate, and somehow that frightens me more.

"I'm not here to fight with you," he says.

"I did enough of that yesterday. I'm here because I don't know anything about them, Blaire. I don't even know their names."

The words hit harder than any accusation he made yesterday. I wrap both hands around my cup to keep them from shaking.

"Wells and Miles," I tell him.

He repeats the names under his breath, as if he needs to hear how they sound in his own voice.

"Wells and Miles what?"

"Wilson."

Something shifts in his face, and I watch him absorb it. My name, not his. He doesn't argue with it, but he doesn't pretend it doesn't matter either.

"Which one ran to you first?" he asks.

"Miles," I say. "He never walks anywhere if he can run. Wells is the one who asked me if I was okay."

Ross nods slowly. "He was watching me the whole time."

"He does that. He watches people before he decides anything about them." I hesitate, then decide he deserves to hear the rest.

"You do that too."

He looks down at the table, and it takes him a moment to answer.