The words sank between them like stones dropped into a still pond.
Of course, Raellyn had known this moment would come. Lita was sharp and painfully observant. Even without hearing the full story, she could sniff out history like smoke lingering on old fabric. But that history… wasn’t it supposed to be buried by now? Wasn’t it just another relic of a life she had already left behind?
“Ah…”
A hollow sound slipped from Raellyn’s lips as her fingers tightened unconsciously around the hem of her dress. What was she supposed to say? That Gilbert had once looked at her with the kind of longing that had felt suffocating rather than flattering? That she had turned away from him without ever giving him the closure he sought? Or that, in some strange, twisted way, a ghost of that memory still mad
