Page 76 of The Library of Borrowed Hearts

“Moriarty,” she echoed. She even managed a smile. “‘The spider at the center of the web.’”

With a name like that, how bad could the town possibly be? Granted, she’d looked up the population and found it to be a painfully small seven hundred residents, and she was pretty sure the only thing people did for fun around there was paint scenic backdrops of the surrounding desert, but she’d be busy anyway.

Raising this child.Lovingthis child.

William McBride blinked. “Spider?” he asked. “What spider?”

“The Sherlock stories?” Catherine prompted. “Moriarty? Professor of mathematics? Master of crime?”

“Oh. You’re talking about books.”

Catherine tried not to let her sudden wash of depression show. She might have even managed it, if William hadn’t suddenly brightened and pulled out a flat rectangular gift and handed it to her.

“Speaking of, I got you this. I know how much you love to read.”

Something almost like a flicker of hope touched her as she slippedthe ribbon off and eagerly tore in, but it was a short-lived sentiment. As soon as she saw the blue dust jacket, she knew she was done for.

“America’s Housekeeping Book,” she said flatly.

If he noticed the sudden plummet of her spirits, he didn’t let it show. Instead, he scooted his chair forward, the legs scraping across her mother’s carefully waxed hardwood floor. “Since I’ll have a higher position at this new post, we’ll have to do a lot of entertaining. I’m sure the other officers’ wives will be able to pitch in, but this should give you a good solid start.”

She let the book sit heavily in her lap, its weight pressing down on her spirits much more than the baby that was starting to show flutterings of life low in her belly.

“Of course, we’ll have to live in base housing for a little while, just until we get settled in, but it’s never too early to start learning.” He flashed his many teeth. “There’s a whole chapter in there about getting rid of spots in the laundry. It even has an alphabetical table for stain removal. Can you imagine? All there in one little book.”

That was when she ended it. She wished she could have said that she did it with kindness and dignity, that she let William McBride down with the respect he deserved, but it would have been a lie. She stood up so fast that the book fell to the floor with a thud, the pages falling open to something that looked an awful lot like a diagram of a formal place setting.

William jumped with her, ready to come to her aid, but she flung up a hand to stop him.

“No, don’t,” she cried. “I can’t. We can’t. I’m sorry.”

Her parents came running into the room then, drawn by the sounds of the book falling and the sudden wailing of tears that Catherine could no longer keep back. To their credit, their first instinct was to rush to her aid, but they stopped when they saw her tugging the ring from her finger.

“Catherine, don’t be hasty,” her mother pleaded.

“Catherine, you need to go to your room and calm down right this instant,” her father ordered.

“I don’t understand,” William said, his glance moving over the inhabitants of the room. The chocolate on his lip finally gave up and fell to the floor, where it landed on the fluttering pages of the housekeeping book. “What’s going on?”

Catherine could hear her parents getting ready to intercede, so she forestalled them by holding the ring out in one shaking hand.

“What’s going on is that I’m giving you your ring and your promise back,” she said. Her voice shook, too, but she had no other choice. She could no more marry William McBride and shackle herself to the same dreary life her mother led than she could marry Jasper Holmes and shacklehimto a lifetime of self-blame and regret.

Because that was what it would be for Jasper. She knew it just as much as she knew that the Catherine inA Farewell to Armshad to die in order for Hemingway’s stupid book to have any value. She hated the ending to that book, hated it with a passion she usually reserved for small-minded men living in even smaller-minded worlds, but there it was. If the Catherine in that book had lived—and her child lived with her—then what was the moral? That life could be simple and easy and still worth living? That a man’s story didn’t have to end when he gave up everything for the sake of an unwanted child?

Catherine had read enough books to know that a happily ever after like that wasn’t really possible. Not for people like her, and definitely not for people like Jasper.

“I’m sorry, William,” she said, and meant it. “I wish I could be the wife you deserve, but I’m not. And no matter how hard I might try or pretend otherwise, I never will be.”

“Catherine Winifred Martin—” her father began, but Catherine only shook her head and pressed the ring firmly into William’s hand.

“You’re a good person,” she said as she squeezed her fingers againsthis. “And I have no doubt that you’ll make some other officer’s daughter a wonderful husband. But I don’t want to be married to anyone right now. Possibly ever.”

“You should’ve thought of that before you got yourself in trouble with—” her father began again, but this time, it was her mother who stepped up to intervene.

“Perhaps it’s best if you walk Lieutenant McBride out, dear,” her mother suggested to her husband. She did it in her deceptively sweet way—the way that used to get Catherine’s back up, but that now only made her feel sad. Her mom had so much more to offer the world than a clean house and a nicely browned pot roast. In another lifetime, she could have been leading a military installation of her own. “We’ll sort through all the details later.”

The phrase sounded vaguely threatening, but the moment Catherine caught sight of her mother’s expression, she knew it would be okay. Her mom might be angry and would probably try to send Catherine away to a convent for the rest of her life, but she’d never force her down the aisle and into the arms of a man she didn’t love.