A hysterical laugh burst from her and she slapped her hand over her mouth, shocked. Had she really just thought that? She was a compassionate human being. She valued kindness above almost all other qualities, possibly because her encounters with it had been rare. And yet here she was thinking that if she’d seen his car hovering on the edge of a ravine she might have given it a hard push.

What did that say about her?

Her legs were shaking. Why were her legs shaking? She sat down hard on the nearest chair. Dead. Her journey with Cliff had been bumpy, but she’d known him for half her life. She should be sad, shouldn’t she? She should feel something? Yes, Cliff Whitman was a liar and a cheat who had almost broken her, but he was still a person. And there had been a time when they’d loved each other, even if that love had been complicated. There had been good parts. At the beginning of their marriage he’d brought her breakfast in bed on Sunday mornings, flaky, buttery croissants he’d baked himself and juice freshly squeezed from the citrus fruit that grew in their home orchard. He’d listened to her. He’d made her laugh. She’d organized his chaotic life, leaving him free to play the part he enjoyed most—being Cliff. He’d said they were a perfect team.

She stood up abruptly and fetched a glass of ice water. She drank it quickly, trying to cool the hot burn of emotion.

Whatever had happened between them, death was always a tragedy. Was it? Was she being hypocritical? She should probably cry, if not for him, then for the woman who’d made the bad decision to get into the car with him. Joanna sympathized. She was never one to judge the bad decisions of another. She’d made so many bad decisions in her life she could no longer count them.

She thought about Rita. Would she be shocked to discover she hadn’t been the only woman in Cliff’s life? Why was it that a woman so rarely believed that a serial cheater would cheat on them? They all thought they were different. That they were special. That they would be the one to tame him. When he said, You’re the one, they believed him.

Joanna had believed that, too. She’d needed to believe that. When she’d met him she’d been vulnerable and heartbroken. She’d wanted so badly to be special to someone. To have someone whose love she could rely on. She’d thought love meant security, and it had taken a long time—too long—for her to understand that they were different things.