Prologue
The end of RED SIN
Julia
Back in the kitchen, I reached for the oven mitts and opened the top wall oven, removing the turkey breast. The second oven contained the casseroles to complete our holiday meal.
“What did Butler whisper before he left?” Van asked.
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s celebrate. My parents are gone and this is our first Christmas.”
Van’s smile returned. “The first item on that list definitely deserves celebration.”
As I arranged the dishes, Van pulled a bottle of wine from the rack and brought down two glasses. My mind was on what Skylar had said.
I knew I shouldn’t give Skylar or his ideas the time of day, but what he’d mentioned wasn’t new. It was something I’d already wondered about. It was also the subject that Mrs. Mayhand had commented about, saying that some questions were better not asked.
Van handed me a glass of wine and lifted his own. “To our guests leaving.”
A smile curled my lips as I stared at him, deep into his emerald eyes, and brought my glass to his. “To us being alone.”
Our glasses clinked before we both took a sip.
A few minutes later before we were about to be seated, our food and wine already on the table, when Van reached for my hand. “I want to tell you every day that you amaze me because you do.”
“I didn’t make this meal.”
“No,” he said, the gold flecks in his orbs shimmering under the kitchen lights. “You did so much more. You stood up for yourself, and I couldn’t be prouder.”
He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against his solid strength and to the place I wanted to be. Van had become that to me. He’d become my place of restoration, whether here in this big house, in the cabin, or in the wilderness. Within his presence, I felt at peace.
And yet there was a lingering question.
I looked up. “Van, who is Madison?”
The muscles of his torso tightened as his head tilted to the side. “Why are you asking?”
“Skylar said something. I don’t want to believe him.” I shook my head, still keeping my arms wrapped around Van. “After all, I have all the reason in the world not to believe him. I believe you. Why is your company Sherman and Madison?”
He inhaled. “Once you go through all the information, you’ll learn that Madison was a friend, and I chose to honor that friendship.”
“Just a friend?”
Inhaling, he shook his head.
“I’m not asking as the writer,” I said. “I’m asking as your fiancée. Who is Madison?” I said a silent prayer that Skylar had lied. After all, it couldn’t be true. The pieces didn’t fit.
Van’s voice was deadpan as he answered, shattering our snow globe, “My wife.”
Julia
Van’s hold of me continued as he awaited my response. We were two people in the eye of a hurricane with his answer swirling around us with category-five intensity, buzzing in my ears and muting the world beyond our shattered globe. The fire in the hearth a room away still snapped and crackled, the large clock on the wall still ticked, and yet all I heard was his response ‘my wife’ on repeat, the chorus within the melody of incessant buzzing.
I closed my eyes, lowering my chin and trying to make sense of what he’d said.
The buzz wasn’t from Van’s answer.
I heard it within me, the byproduct of my increased circulation racing through my veins. I was underwater and struggling to get to the surface, to make sense of what didn’t make sense.
Staring up at the man still holding me, I took in his expression, longing for his lips to move, for him to explain what he’d said.
Still held against Van’s wide chest, I sensed a new tenseness in his stance. It was present in the way his arms tightened and the rigidity of his firm torso. I had a flashback of a story I’d read long ago where when a person gazed upon Medusa, they would turn from flesh and blood into stone.
With each passing second, Van closed himself down.
The image before me suddenly reminded me of the pictures I’d seen of him from a decade earlier. The sadness I perceived in those photographs was returning, materializing before my eyes. The man I knew, the one who saved me from the cold, fed me, and showed me what physical love was meant to be was slipping away, disappearing behind a mask that I didn’t recognize.
His chiseled jaw clenched tight, and his lips pressed together, forming a straight line. Only his eyes spoke to me, talking to me in a way his words couldn’t or wouldn’t. They searched me, looking for understanding. The longer I stayed silent, the duller the emerald green became.
Taking a step back and bumping into the table, I broke free from his embrace.
Van reached out, seizing my arm. “Julia, you’re not leaving.”
My face snapped toward his.
Leave?
“I don’t want to leave. That never occurred to me.” I hesitated. “Is that what you think I’ll do?”
Releasing me, Van took a step back and raked his hand over his handsome face. When his green orbs opened, a spark of light returned and yet he offered nothing more in the way of explanation.
My fingers grazed the edge of the table as the warm and appetizing aromas lingered around us. My focus went back to him. “I need more than what you said, Van. Tell me. Are you married? Is this” —I motioned around the large kitchen and to our uneaten meal— “all some kind of a joke, some grand plan to play me and my family? Are you ly…have you…?”
“No,” he answered definitively as he stepped closer and reached for my hand. “This isn’t anything like that. And I’ve never lied to you if that’s what you’re asking.”
I was. I just couldn’t make my mouth say the final word.
“I would never lie to you. That’s why I told you the answer I did.”
“That Madison is your wife, present tense?”
“No.” He stood taller. “We never married, not legally.”
“You proposed?”
He shook his head once. “No. I didn’t lie to you about that either.” He lifted my hand that he was holding and brushed his firm lips over my knuckles. “You, Julia McGrath, are the only woman to hear me say those words.” A spark of light returned to his eyes. “And you are the only woman who has answered in the affirmative.”
“I don’t understand.”
He exhaled. “I promise to explain it another time.” He tilted his chin toward the table. “Are we going to let Mrs. Mayhand’s delicious holiday dinner go to waste?”
I couldn’t ignore the ache in my chest. The place that only a short while ago was filled with hope and promise now had a void I wanted gone.
Who was this woman whom he named his company after?
Would she come in and irreparably shatter the snow globe I desperately wanted glued back together?
“Is Madison around?” I asked.
Van shook his head.
“Is she…passed…no longer alive?” When he didn’t answer, I went on, “Van, I get it. I do. I would understand if you’d married before. After all, I saw the picture of you in your office, the one with you and the beautiful blond woman in a wedding dress.”