her husband, Brandon, he didn’t want to return to Santa Fe. Once it had held so many painful memories that no amount of booze could erase them. He knew because he’d tried. Thank goodness he’d finally figured that out before he went down so far he couldn’t find his way back.
If not for Faith, he might have.
The palm of his hand brushed the stinging from his eyes. No matter how stinking drunk he was when he dragged his sorry behind home, no matter how much he yelled at her to leave him alone, she never did. She just loved him, took care of him, and cried with him when the pain of losing his wife to another man was too deep to push away.
If she had to manage the hotel and couldn’t be home at night, she hired someone to be there. She intuitively understood that coming home to an empty house was just as agonizing as walking into the bedroom he’d once shared with the only woman he’d ever love and seeing their bed.
A week after his ex-wife had left town, he’d torn that bed apart with his bare hands. Once Faith made sure he was all right, she had moved him into Duncan’s old bedroom. Paul never set foot inside his bedroom again.
He’d been a pathetic excuse for a man. He hadn’t known a man could feel such emptiness, such anguish and still live. If not for Faith, and Cameron and Duncan taking turns to fly in weekly, he might not have made it. They just kept telling him over and over how much they loved him. The one thing that finally got through to him was hearing them talking when they thought he was asleep.
Mama is gone. I’m not sure we could make it if we lost Daddy, too .
Paul had realized he was letting his children down, turning his back on them the same way his wife had turned her back on him. The next morning he’d poured the stashed whisky down the drain.
It hadn’t been easy turning his life around, but each day had been a little bit better than the one before. Yet, staying in the house he’d once shared with his ex-wife, knowing she was now married to another man, had been too much. Without telling the children, he’d sold the house, hoping to finally be free of the past.
He hadn’t been. He quickly learned the memories were in his mind, his heart. He could no more forget them than he could forget or stop loving the woman who’d betrayed him.
Paul stopped at the signal light outside the city limits of Santa Fe. He hadn’t been back since Faith’s wedding. He wouldn’t be back now if she hadn’t asked him to come visit this week, if he had the time. She never badgered, never made him feel guilty for all the times he’d stayed away because his ex had been visiting. That wasn’t Faith’s way.
The light turned to green and he pulled off. He could now admit to himself that he’d been selfish enough and injured enough to want his children to hate their mother for what she’d done to him as much as he’d tried to hate her. They might not have attended her wedding in New York, but he’d been well aware that they kept in touch with her.
He’d been angry when they hadn’t turned their backs on her. It was almost like another betrayal. If he hadn’t heard them talking that night, he might have kept being mad at them.
He had to admit that before his ex-wife asked him for a divorce, she’d been a wonderful wife and mother. The hotel was making a profit, but most of it went back into operations. She never complained, just worked hard and put him and the children first. At least until that snake Trevor had slithered into town.
Paul’s calloused hands clenched on the steering wheel. The anger was just as fresh and just as useless. She could have said no. Lord knows he’d begged her to stay. He’d never forget her reply. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
Four words ended thirty years of marriage. For what? He’d tossed her aside for another woman. Soon afterward she was back in Santa Fe, as beautiful as ever. He’d seen her first. He’d walked past her as if she didn’t exist and