Free Cottage by the Sea by Ciji Ware

poignant finish, but the late Mrs. Teague, whoever she might have been, didn't betray her husband with his—
       "I have some idea what you've been put through," Luke said quietly.
       "No, you don't!" she cried, slamming her fist against Luke's desktop, unable to prevent the angry outburst that had been boiling just beneath the surface.
       "Blythe," Lucas said, crossing quickly to the desk that stood between them. "Did you notice that satellite dish the size of a dinner plate attached to Mrs. Quiller's kitchen window? We may not have adequate cell phone service, but we watch CNN even in this remote part of the world, you know. And then there're those dreadful tabloids whose headlines scream at one in the food shops. So I do have some notion of what you've been subjected to." He perched one hip on his desk and leaned forward toward the chair where Blythe sat utterly still. "Your former husband's films are splendid, of course, but his behavior has been appalling."
       "Well, can you beat that?" she drawled sarcastically, feeling a mild form of hysteria rising in her throat. "A Cornish guy with his boots on the right feet!"
       Looking puzzled, Luke suggested uncertainly, "I suppose he felt compelled to marry so soon because of the child…"
        The child… the child… my child…
       "So I gather you caught that CNN broadcast about the ever-so-talented Christopher Stowe marrying my sister Ellie Barton, whose talents are mostly limited to those she can perform on her back!" she declared, her eyes drawn with loathing toward another antique TV set in Luke's office that stared blankly back at her from the corner. "You Brits are all so discreet," she added acidly. "All this time you knew who I was and what had happened in my life, but you never mentioned it, of course!" She wondered if humiliation was a disease you could die from.
       "I assumed that what you'd come here for was anonymity—and a long rest," he replied quietly.
       "I came here to escape!" she cried. "To hide out… to try to forget that my husband screwed my sister, up close and personal, on a couch I special-ordered for his director's trailer!" Moisture bathed her cheeks, and her voice sank to a raw whisper. "I came here to mourn my grandmother… and to get as far away from those two monsters as I possibly cou—"
       Her voice cracked and she was finally speechless. She shifted her gaze to the damask walls that seemed to pulse in concert with the pounding in her chest. She could see that Lucas was earnestly speaking to her, but for some reason she couldn't actually hear what he was saying. That was because she couldn't think coherently. Instead she began to weep. Not a ladylike whimpering, but a wounded animal's keening cries that were so shrill, they made her throat sting. Her loud, attenuated wails were not at all the response that a paying guest should be making in front of her well-meaning host.
       Blindly she rose from her chair to make her escape but was halted midway to the sitting-room door. She fought the stranger's arms that were suddenly wrapped tightly around her shoulders, but Lucas Teague's grip was too strong and his determination to comfort her too great.
       "I'm so sorry… I'm so sorry," he kept repeating.
       "He married her… he married her!" she shouted, her voice reaching a frenzied pitch as the weight of the double betrayal bore down on her. "The baby … my baby—"
       Then she gave herself up to deep, racking sobs and stopped struggling, allowing Lucas Teague to rock her in his arms.
       "You'll sleep here tonight," he announced softly, "in the guest wing."
    ***
    The following morning—spent from her ordeal, and embarrassed by her unrestrained outburst in front of her well-mannered host—Blythe woke up in a cheerful yellow guest bedroom and promptly began to weep again. Between bouts of sobs and attempts to get a grip on her emotions, she wondered where she would go next.
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