She gasped and raised her head off his chest. “What did he tell you?”

“That he’s in jail.”

“How long have you known that?”

“A couple of days.”

“And you didn’t say anything?”

“It’s none of my business.”

She covered her mouth with her hand, and in the faint light of the moon, he could see her shaking her head. Her hand dropped to her lap. “How can you say that? I kept it from you and Alex when you hired me—”

“You have no criminal record, Hope. We checked. Whatever he did, I assume it had nothing to do with you.”

“Oh, it had everything to do with me.”

Paul’s stomach knotted with tension. “Are you going to tell me what you mean by that?”

“Could we go inside? It’s getting cold out here.”

Paul was practically naked, but he wasn’t cold at all. However, he noticed she was trembling. He doubted that had anything to do with the temperature. As he got up to go inside, he was thankful she hadn’t sent him away.

He followed her inside to the sofa, sat next to her and pulled a throw blanket over her. It took all the fortitude he could muster not to press her to talk about things that obviously caused her pain. If she wanted to tell him, he would happily hear her out, but he was not about to push her.

“Carl and I met when we were in college,” she said with a deep sigh that told him how hard it was for her to talk about this. “I was studying nursing, and he majored in sports medicine. He was so different from the other guys I’d dated. He was serious and focused and determined to make something of himself. We got married right out of college and had Ethan a year later. We tried to have other kids, but it never happened. I guess that turned out to be a blessing in the end.”

Paul had so many questions that he didn’t ask, hoping she would keep talking.

“He got a great job working for a college outside of Boston, and he coached girls’ lacrosse at our local high school. I worked for a memory care facility at night, so I was home with Ethan during the day.”

Paul wanted to ask when she slept, but he didn’t want to interrupt her.

“It was a busy life, but a nice one. We had a lovely home south of Boston. We had good friends and family close by. We weren’t rich, by any means, but we had enough left over to take a couple of vacations every year. And I was happy with him. A lot of my friends were bitter toward their husbands, always complaining about this or that, but not me. I was in love with my husband.”

New tears slid down her cheeks, and Paul brushed them away.