Free The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand Page B

They had been drinking.”
    Addison pictured Tess and Greg on the deck of the boat, drinking champagne, eating strawberries, kissing. Talking—about what? There was so much anger between the two of them, so much suspicion and confusion about what had happened the previous fall with April Peck. Greg had never come clean; he stuck to his preposterous story. Addison had asked him once when they were both very drunk: “Tell me what happened, man. The truth.”
    And Greg had hesitated, as if thinking about it. Could he trust Addison? He and Addison were very close friends. But in the end, the answer must have been no. He said, “Man, I already told everybody the truth.”
    It ate away at Tess. Her trust in Greg had been destroyed. She didn’t believe in anything anymore: not marriage, not friendship. She had fallen in love with Addison. Or she claimed to have fallen in love. Addison worried that Tess was using him unconsciously (God, of course unconsciously, the woman didn’t have a mean bone in her body) to get back at Greg. She still cared what Greg thought; she worried what Greg did, where he went, whom he saw.
    “The Coast Guard retrieved their things. Greg’s guitar, the picnic basket, their shoes…”
    “He killed her,” Addison whispered. He said this to himself. He was in such agony he couldn’t help it, and he didn’t care if they knew what he thought. They did not hear him.
    The Chief said, “Greg thought he was a better sailor than he was. He had no business trying to get them to the Vineyard. I should have stopped them.”
    “I should have stopped them,” Addison said. He had been dying to tell her not to go; he had wanted to give her an ultimatum.
If you love me, you won’t go.
But at the time he hadn’t seen that this would accomplish anything besides upsetting Tess and, possibly, learning some things he didn’t want to know. Such as that she still loved Greg, despite her anger and distrust. Such as that if Addison forced her to choose—him or me—she would choose him.
    But if he’d insisted, she might still be alive.
    “I’m going downstairs now to tell the kids,” the Chief said.
    “Or I could do it,” Jeffrey offered.
    “I had pictured this as Andrea’s territory,” the Chief said. “But she isn’t capable.”
    “And neither is Delilah,” Jeffrey said.
    “I’m their uncle,” the Chief said. He took an audible breath, and Addison noticed how old he looked—a bad sign, since he and Addison were the same age. Forty-nine. “I’ve done a lot of crappy duties with this job, but…”
    “This is the worst,” Jeffrey said.
    “The worst,” Addison echoed. He was so, so upset, but there was no way for him to express it. Should he be the one going down to tell Chloe and Finn their parents were dead? Absolutely not. And yet he and Tess had been so intimate. For the past six months, it had been just the two of them in a make-believe world, a carefully preserved fantasy, touching, kissing, experiencing unprecedented tenderness. They were simpatico. He held her while she slept, he listened to her, he bought her cookies and marzipan and truffles for her sweet tooth. He tickled her, they laughed, he combed her hair, she rubbed his back, and when they parted, she cried.
I don’t want to go back to him
.
    After Easter, they had begun to talk about running away. Living together. Addison was the one who broached the subject first. He had loads of money, he could make anything happen, he could pay lawyers, he could leave Phoebe the house and they could buy a new house together. They could buy the cottage. Then they would never have to leave, never have to say goodbye.
    Tess played along, but not wholeheartedly. Addison sensed she was repeating his words back to him because she knew it made him happy.
Never have to leave. Never have to say goodbye.
    He loved her more than he had ever loved anyone else, including fiery Mary Rose Garth, including Phoebe, including his own daughter. Tess unlocked