I clamped my mouth shut. I needed to appear calm and unfazed, just the right amount of upset and shocked.

And then, a second later, Julia was gone.

CHAPTER 10

NATE FLICKED ON THE television in Josh’s hospital room. His mom had run downstairs to grab them something to eat, and Josh was sucking his middle finger and pointer finger, sleepily staring into space.

Nate was still trying to process the fact that Emma had never told him she’d watched her father die. He shouldn’t be that surprised, he told himself. Emma could be intensely withdrawn, closemouthed about her past.

When they first started dating, she’d told him that her parents had died in a car accident when she was thirteen, but she’d never elaborated. He’d only found out the details when he’d looked up the accident report form. Her father had been drunk, double the legal limit. When a deer leaped across the dark road, he’d lost control of the car and it had flipped over an embankment.

Nate saw Emma going to the clinic every morning, working to help people, and he knew: every patient she saved mattered because she hadn’t been able to save her parents.

Sometimes he watched her, folding Josh’s pajamas or matching socks or scraping eggs off the pan after breakfast, ribbons of dark hair swaying down her back, her eyes focused and intense until they looked up and caught his. And the way they’d soften, just melt at the sight of him… he just felt awed by her. He’d pull her into his arms, running his hands over her body and pressing his lips to hers, and feel completely fulfilled. Emma meant everything to him, and he knew she felt the same.

Still, who kept the fact that her father had died in her arms from her husband? Nate knew he kept some secrets, but he also knew he couldn’t have kept something like that from Emma.

And what did it say about her that she could?

Nate tapped the remote control, finally finding something Josh might like.

“Star Wars is on, buddy,” he said.

Josh loved Star Wars—the robots, the aliens, the themes of good versus bad. But now he didn’t seem interested. He was a million miles away.

“Josh? Want to watch Star Wars?” Nate repeated.

“I don’t know, Daddy.” He sighed. “I’m a pool of sadness right now.”

He pulled Josh in for a hug. “I know. But you know what? The evil stuff in your blood is like the Empire. We just have to go to battle with it, and we’re gonna win because we’re the good guys.”

“Do the good guys always win?” Josh asked.

Nate caressed the little tin of toothpicks in his pocket as Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber flashed on the screen. “Always. Remember? Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda defeat the Empire, and Luke helps Anakin become good again.”