Pulling under a weeping willow that was so huge she could barely see past it, Seth stopped the Bronco. He settled back in his seat and looked out at a field of weeds that was occupied by a bunch of poorly dressed kids kicking a soccer ball around.
“Do you regret the decision you made back then?” Seth asked quietly.
“I didn’t regret it then.” Not completely. “At least, I didn’t regret not leaving Halliday’s. I never wanted the divorce. I tried to talk Michael out of it.”
“You did?” Seth turned toward her, surprise lighting his dark features.
“Of course I did,” she said. How could he have expected anything less? “I loved him. Our marriage was a good one. I saw no reason it couldn’t continue. We could afford to travel back and forth between Chicago and Cincinnati.”
“So Michael was the one who wanted the divorce?”
Susan shook her head, following Seth’s gaze out to the field. “I don’t think so. He just didn’t see any other option. Said long-distance relationships never work. He was afraid of the damage we’d do to each other if we tried to hang on.”
“Maybe he was right.”
“I guess I thought so at the time.”
“You don’t now?” Seth’s eyes were following the kids around the field as though he knew something about them.
“No. I think we’ve proven over the past three years that we could’ve made it work.”
The kids on the field ran over to a man dressed almost as shabbily as they were, and Seth started up the Bronco.
“Mind telling me why we were here?” she asked him as he pulled around the corner.
He pointed out a dilapidated gray structure with dirt for a front yard. “See that house?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“There’s a woman who lives there alone with two kids. Her husband left her a couple of years ago, but not before he’d beaten the life out of her.”
“You know her?”
“I did.”
“And those kids back there, they’re hers?”
“One of them is,” Seth told her. “His name’s Jeremy.”
CHAPTER TEN
SUSAN WATCHED her little brother, the muscle twitching at the corner of his mouth as he tried to act unaffected by what he was telling her. She had a feeling she might have stumbled on the woman. Michael thought was responsible for Seth’s sudden drinking. Michael just hadn’t figured in the kids.
“What happened?” she asked softly.
“I couldn’t be a proper father to the kids, being out of town as much as I am,” he said, telling her far more than he probably knew. He must really have loved those kids if he’d even considered being a father to them. “They’ve been deserted enough in their lives. They need someone who can stay around. Someone who comes home at night.”
“Oh, Seth,” Susan said, her eyes full of empathy.
“I’ve been thinking about quitting my job, finding something here in town,” he shocked her by admitting.
“But...” Susan scrambled for words. “What would you do?” Seth was one of the best structural engineers in the business. He’d not only trained for years to do what he did, he loved his work. And he was in demand all over the country. Not to mention the fact that he made a damn good salary and by the looks of things those kids could use a lot of help in that area.
“Good question,” Seth said, sullen again. “Engineering’s all I know and I have to travel if I’m going to make enough money to support the four of us.”
The four of us. Seth was really serious here.
Making up her mind, Susan whisked up a quick prayer for her mother’s forgiveness and decided to tell Seth something nobody but Michael had ever heard.