“You must’ve thought I didn’t love you enough to tell you, or I didn’t trust you enough. After you shared everything with me. What you must’ve thought.”

“What I thought is that you went through a terrible thing and maybe you just couldn’t talk to me about it no matter how much you loved me or trusted me. But I hoped you’d tell me. When you were ready.”

“He threatened my babies, Aidan,” she whispered. “He said he’d kill one of them if I told anyone.”

He wiped away her tears. “I know, honey. I know.”

“He could’ve said anything else. I could’ve lived with anything else.”

Aidan held her and rocked her as she cried.

“I never told anyone, and when that car was coming at me, all I saw was a way out. I did an awful thing to my girls by letting it happen right in front of them.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Clare.”

“I didn’t even remember any of it until a couple of months after I recovered, when I had the same dream I had last night.” She wiped at the tears rolling down her face. “I had to confront all those memories of the attack and the accident on top of the fact that my husband of twenty years was in love with someone else and expecting twins with her.”

“I can’t imagine.”

“I was really, really mad. For a long time.”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“But once I stopped being mad, I actually thought I could do it. For a while, I thought we could go on with our lives, and I’d just eventually accept that he had children with another woman.”

“But you couldn’t?”

“I might’ve been able to, but he loved her. Really loved her.”

“So you let him go.”

She nodded sadly. “I wanted better for myself than a life with a man who wanted to be somewhere else. In a way, I wanted better for him, too. He would’ve stayed with me. I have no doubt about that, but we would’ve ended up hating each other. As heartbroken as I was, that would’ve been worse.”

“What’s his wife like?”

“She’s lovely. She was wonderful to my girls, and they love her very much. I can see why he does, too.”

“What brought you to Vermont?”

“I found that being home without him was just unbearable. What seemed like such a good idea when I was still in the hospital wasn’t so great when I got home. My brother needed help with the house, so as soon as Kate left for Nashville, I came up here. I felt sick about leaving Maggie, but I knew if I didn’t get out of there for a little while I’d never get over losing Jack.”