The silence in the room grew thick, and then Billie, who had turned away from him, hugging her arms to her body, said in a very small voice, “I should go to bed.”

“Are you crying?” he asked, coming quickly to his feet.

“No,” came her too-quick reply.

He could not bear it. He took a step forward without even realizing it. “Don’t cry,” he said.

“I’m not crying!” she choked out.

“No,” he said gently. “Of course you’re not.”

She dragged the back of her hand inelegantly across her nose. “I don’t cry,” she protested, “and I certainly don’t cry because of you.”

“Billie,” he said, and before he knew it, she was in his arms. He held her against his heart, and he stroked her back while her tears dropped one by one from her eyes.

She cried delicately, which seemed somehow unexpected. Billie had never done anything by half measure, and if she were going to cry, he would have thought she’d have done so with great big sobs.

And that was when he realized—she had been speaking true. She didn’t cry. He had known her for twenty-three years, and he had never seen her shed a tear. Even when she’d hurt her ankle and had had to climb down that ladder on her own, she had not cried. For a moment she’d looked as if she might, but then she had steeled her shoulders, and swallowed her pain, and got on with it.

But she was crying now.

He had made her cry.

“I am so sorry,” he murmured into her hair. He didn’t know what he could have done differently, but that didn’t seem to matter. She was crying, and every sniffle held the sound of his own heart breaking.

“Please don’t cry,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to say. “It will be all right. I promise, everything will be all right.”

He felt her nod against his chest, a tiny little movement, but one that somehow was enough to tell him that she had turned a corner. “You see,” he said, touching her chin and smiling when she finally raised her eyes to his, “I told you, it’s all right.”

She took a shaky breath. “I was worried about you.”

“You were worried?” He hadn’t meant to sound pleased, but he couldn’t help it.

“And angry,” she continued.

“I know.”

“You left,” she said baldly.

“I know.” He wasn’t going to make excuses. She deserved better.

“Why?” she asked him. And when he did not reply she stepped out of his embrace and said it again. “Why did you leave?”

“I can’t tell you,” he said regretfully.

“Were you with her?”

He did not pretend to misunderstand. “Only briefly.”

There was but one three-pronged candelabra in the room, but there was light enough for George to see the pain flash across Billie’s face. She swallowed, the motion trembling through her throat.

But the way she was standing, with her arms wrapped protectively around her waist . . . She might as well have donned a suit of armor.