Loving Evangeline Read online

  Becky didn’t answer immediately, instead turning her gaze to the traffic on the highway. It was a delaying tactic, to give her time to think and organize her answer. He waited patiently.

  “Are you serious about her?” she asked abruptly.

  He wasn’t accustomed to being interrogated about his intentions, serious or otherwise, but he quelled his surge of irritation. Becky was asking only out of concern for Evie, an emotion he shared. In a very level tone he said, “I intend to marry her.”

  Becky closed her eyes on a sigh of relief. “Thank God,” she said.

  “I didn’t realize the state of our relationship was so critical,” he said, still in that cool, dead-level tone.

  Becky’s eyes opened, and she gave him a considering look. “You can be very intimidating, can’t you?”

  He almost smiled. If he could, it obviously wasn’t working on her. He’d never managed to intimidate Evie, either.

  Becky sighed and looked again at the traffic. “I was worried. I didn’t know how important Evie is to you, and…well, the success of your relationship is critical to her.”

  His curiosity became intense. “In what way?”

  Becky didn’t answer that directly, either. Instead she asked, “Has she told you about Matt?”

  Robert’s eyes glittered suddenly. “Probably more than even you know,” he said, his voice deepening as he remembered the first time he’d made love to Evie.

  “About how he died?”

  Sweat trickled down his back, but suddenly nothing could have moved him from the scorching asphalt parking lot. “He died in a car accident, didn’t he?” He couldn’t remember if Evie had told him that, or if it had been in the report he’d requested on Matt Shaw.

  “Yes, the day after they married.” She paused, organizing her thoughts, and again she made what appeared to be a shift in topic. “Our father died when Evie was fifteen. I was twenty, already married, already about to be a mother. A year later our mother died. Can you understand the difference in the way losing our parents affected us?” she asked, her voice strained. “I loved them both dearly, but I had built my home with Paul. I had him, I had my son, I had an entire life away from my parents. But losing Daddy shook Evie’s foundations, and then when Mother died…Evie didn’t just lose Mother, she lost her home, too. She came to live with Paul and me, and we loved having her, but it wasn’t the same for her. She was still just a kid, and she had lost the basis of her life.”

  Robert stood silently, all his attention on this insight into Evie’s past life. She didn’t talk about her childhood much, he realized. They had talked about a lot of things, sitting on the deck at night with all the lights off and the starry sky spread like a quilt overhead, but it was as if Evie had closed a mental door on her life before Matt’s death.

  “But she had Matt,” Becky said softly. “He was a great kid. We’d known him all his life, and I can’t remember when they hadn’t been inseparable, first as buddies, then as sweethearts. They were the same age, but even as young as he was, when Daddy died, Matt was right there beside Evie. He was there with her when Mother died. I think he was her one constant, the only person other than me who had been there for as long as she could remember. But I had my own family, and Evie had Matt. He put a smile back in her eyes, and because she had him, she weathered the loss of our parents. I remember what she was like back then, a giggling teenager as rowdy as Jason is now, and full of mischief.”

  “I can’t picture Evie as rowdy,” he commented, because Becky’s voice had become strained, and he wanted to give her a moment to compose herself. “There’s something so solemn about her.”

  “Yes, there is,” Becky agreed. “Now.”

  The jealousy he thought he had banished swelled to life again. “Because of Matt’s death.”

  Becky nodded. “She was in the car with him.” Tears welled in her eyes. “For the rest of my life, I’ll carry two pictures of Evie in my mind. One is of her on her wedding day. She was so young and beautiful—so glowing—that it hurt to look at her. Matt couldn’t take his eyes off her. The next time I saw her, she was in a hospital bed, lying there like a broken doll, her eyes so empty that—” She stopped, shuddering.

  “They had spent the night in Montgomery and were going on to Panama City the next morning. It was raining. It was Sunday, and they were in a rural area. There wasn’t much traffic. A dog ran out into the highway, and they hit it, and Matt lost control of the car. The car left the road and rolled at least twice, then came to a stop, on its right side, in a stand of trees. Evie was pinned on the bottom. Matt was hanging in his seat belt above her. She couldn’t get out, couldn’t get to him, and he b-bled to death in front of her, his blood dripping down on her. He was conscious, she said.” Furiously Becky dashed the tears from her cheeks. “No one saw the car for a long time, what with the rain and the trees blocking the view. He knew he was dying. He told her he loved her. He told her goodbye. He’d been dead for over an hour before anyone saw the car and came to help.”

  Robert turned to stone, his eyes burning as he pictured, far too clearly, what a young girl had gone through that rainy Sunday. Then he reached out automatically and took Becky in his arms, holding her head against his shoulder while she wept.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally managed, lifting her head and wiping her eyes yet again. “It’s just that, when I let myself think about it, it tears my heart out all over again.”

  “Yes,” he said. Still holding her with one arm, he fished his handkerchief out of his pocket and gently wiped her face.

  “She’s never let herself love anyone else,” she said fiercely. “Do you understand? She hasn’t risked letting anyone else get close to her. She’s stuck with the people she already loved, before the accident—Paul and me, Jason and Paige, and a few, very few, special friends, but no one else. If you hadn’t pulled her and Jason out of the river, she would have drowned rather than let him go, because she couldn’t have stood to lose anyone else she loves. She’s been so…so solitary, keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.”

  “Until me,” he said.

  Becky nodded and managed a wavery little smile. “Until you. I didn’t know whether to be glad or terrified, so I’ve been both. I want her to have what I’ve got, a husband I love, kids I love, a family that will give her a reason to go on living when someone else dies.” She saw the sudden flare in Robert’s eyes and said quickly, “No, she never said anything about suicide, not even right after Matt died. That isn’t what I meant. She recovered from her injuries—both legs were broken, some ribs, and she had a concussion—and did exactly what the doctors told her, but you could see that she wasn’t interested. For years, life for her was just going through the motions, and every day was an effort. It took a long time, but finally she found a sort of peace. Evie’s incredibly strong. In her place, I don’t know if I could have managed it.”

  Robert kissed Becky’s forehead, touched and pleased by this fiercely competent woman’s concern for her sister. He would, he realized, like having her for a sister-in-law. “You can put down your shield and sword, and rest,” he said gently. “I’ll take care of her now.”

  “You’d better,” Becky said, her fierceness not one bit abated. “Because she’s already paid too much for loving people. God only knows where she found the courage to love you. I’ve been terrified that you didn’t care about her, because if you waltzed out of here at the end of the summer, it might well destroy her.”

  Robert’s eyes glittered. “When I waltz out of here,” he said, “I’m taking her with me.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Walter and Helene Campbell were in their mid-sixties, retired, comfortable but not wealthy. Evie’s house was just what they wanted, well-built and maintained, but old enough and small enough that her asking price was much less than what they would have paid for a new house on the lakefront. They were both thrilled to the point of giddiness at their unexpected good fortune, for though they had asked several times