“No—stay. Just give me a minute to get my bearings.” The remote lay next to him on the bed. He picked it up and turned off the TV. In the dark room, Kira could see him silhouetted against the white pillows.
“I’ve been waiting for the chance to ask you something. It’s about Wendy.” He reached down to smooth the wrinkled quilt. “Sit down. I won’t bite you.”
Feeling uneasy, Kira pushed back her rain hood and sat on the edge of the bed. She hadn’t expected this, and she had no idea what Jake meant to ask her. But she couldn’t help feeling that something was about to change.
“I need the truth,” he said. “Will you give it to me?”
“I will if I know the answer.” She fell silent, waiting.
“When you told me about the accident, you mentioned that Wendy wasn’t drinking.”
“I told you she didn’t seem drunk. I can’t say for sure whether she’d had any alcohol.”
“Then this is what I need to ask you. Did you have any reason to believe Wendy was pregnant?”
Kira took a moment to let the words sink in. She should have been prepared for Jake’s question. But it had slammed into her, catching her off guard.
“Kira?”
“Yes,” she said, knowing that nothing but the truth would satisfy him. “I knew Wendy was pregnant. She told me the week before the accident.”
“And the father?” His voice was cold enough to be frightening.
“Nobody you’d know. She called him ‘Drake.’ I don’t even know whether it was his first name or his last name. She was going to bring him around to meet me, but . . . the accident happened first.”
“So this wasn’t just a one-night stand. It was serious.”
“Yes.” Kira was grateful for the darkness that hid his face from her as she spoke. “Wendy had divorce papers drawn up and ready to file. She was going to give them to you when you came home.”
Jake’s silence was broken only by the patter of rain on the tile roof of the cabin. Kira kept still, waiting for him to speak again.
“Was he at the funeral—this man, Drake?”
“I wouldn’t have known if he was,” Kira said. “I’d never met him.”
Silence again, and the whisper of rain before he spoke. “You can go, Kira. Don’t worry about me. . . . I’ll be fine.”
“How can you be fine after what I just told you?”
“Why shouldn’t I be?” he said. “Knowing what Wendy did won’t make any difference. It won’t bring her back.”
She rose, put up her rain hood and moved to the door. “You’re sure you’re all right?”
He dismissed her with a mutter of impatience. “I’m not one of your students, Kira. Go back to the house and leave me alone. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She left him then, closing the door behind her and splashing across the yard in her rain-soaked sneakers. Jake had insisted he’d be all right. But the kind of news she’d given him would devast
ate most men. He’d been calm and controlled, but she hadn’t missed the undertone of wounded anger in his voice.
This wasn’t a safe time for him to be alone. But as he’d angrily reminded her, he wasn’t one of her students. She had no right to make choices for him.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t worried sick.
She returned to the house, leaving her dripping shoes on the front porch. Dusty and Consuelo had gone to bed. The students were still inside: Faith and Brandon were playing games on their phones; Calvin was on the couch reading a book; the others were watching a sitcom in the den. Kira roused them, saw them into their jackets and watched from the porch as they crossed the yard to their cabins. Once they were safely inside, she went back into the house and spent a few minutes putting the rooms back in order. That done, she checked on Paige and listened at Dusty’s door for the sound of his snoring. She even checked the doghouse on the back patio, where she found Tucker curled in cozy sleep, his legs twitching as he dreamed.
Everything was peaceful, everyone safe.
Except Jake.