For His Brother's Wife

How could she have been so wrong about him? Why had she allowed herself to believe he cared for her as deeply as she cared for him?

Clutching her pillow, she sobbed into it as she realized another one of her dreams had died at the hands of a Richardson brother. For ten years Craig had taken her hopes of having a family away from her. Then, just when she learned she was going to finally have a baby, Cole had shattered the dream that she would also have the love of a good man as they raised that child together.

“Paige?” She heard Cole call from downstairs.

Why hadn’t he listened when she told him to go away and never come back? Was he so determined to destroy her life as it seemed his brother had done that he came back just to ensure he had accomplished his goal?

Before she could collect herself and get up from the bed to face off with him again, she heard his footsteps as he entered the room.

“Please don’t cry, Paige,” Cole said as his strong arms wrapped around her to lift her to him.

Lost in her misery, she hadn’t had the strength to move fast enough to evade him. “Turn me loose and leave or I’ll—”

“Yeah, I know. You’ll call Nathan Battle and have me arrested,” he said, making no move to let her go. Nor did he sound all that concerned about his impending trip to jail.

“Why are you doing this, Cole?” she demanded, unable to stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks. “Haven’t you humiliated me enough? What else do you want from me?”

“Paige, there’s no reason to feel embarrassed or betrayed,” he said, his tone as gentle as she’d ever heard. “All I want is for you to hear me out. I swear to you that what you think you know isn’t what really happened.”

“Please, just leave me alone, Cole.” She hated that she couldn’t stop crying. She didn’t want him to see how badly he had hurt her.

“You need to listen to me,” he insisted.

When she pushed against his wide chest, he finally released her. “Go away, Cole.” She scrambled to the other side of the bed and out of his reach. “There’s nothing you have to say that I want to hear.”

“You have to know I would never hurt you, Paige,” he said, his voice deceptively sincere.

“And just how would I know that?” she asked, her anger beginning to chase away a bit of her devastation. “Everything I thought I knew about you and your brother has turned out to be nothing but lies and deception.”

“That might be true for Craig, but not for me,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve never lied to you, nor have I ever done anything that I thought would hurt you in any way.”

“You’ve never lied to me?” she scoffed. “That’s not the way I remember it.”

He stubbornly shook his head. “If I’ve said something to you that wasn’t true, it was completely unintentional.”

With the evidence she had discovered, she had a hard time believing him. “Really, Cole? If I remember correctly, you’ve lied to me as long as I’ve known you.”

“How do you figure that?” he asked, frowning.

“You promised that you were going to ask me out as soon as I graduated from high school.” She shook her head. “We both know how that turned out.”

“I’m sorry about that, Paige.” Surprisingly, he still had the nerve to look her in the eyes. “I fully intended to do what I’d said. But I had good reason not to keep that promise.”

Whatever it was, she didn’t think she wanted to hear it. “I waited for you that entire summer and the only reason I finally went out with Craig was because I got tired of him asking all the time.” From the expression on his handsome face, she could tell Cole was holding something back —something he wasn’t telling her. “What was your reason, Cole?” she asked, deciding she did want to hear his lame excuse just before she kicked him out of her life for good. “And before you answer, keep in mind that I’ve had a lifetime of lies. I want the truth this time.”

He took a deep breath and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I was trying to protect you from Craig.”

“How on earth could you possibly think that by not asking me out you were protecting me from your brother?” she demanded.

Cole stared at her for endless seconds before he spoke again. “Let me tell you something about Craig you probably don’t know. He had a mission in life and that was to try to make me miserable or to take anything away from me that I valued or cared for.” He took a deep breath. “After we got out of high school, Craig found out that I had a crush on you and told me he intended to not only make you his girlfriend, he was going to take your virginity.”