Page 75 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

He frowned. “I had the impression he was a professor.”

“Yeah, philosophy,” she said. “But really, he’s a ski bum at heart.”

His brows rose. “Really. What does he think about your traveling with Mariah?”

“Uh ... wow,” she said, and laughed. “I haven’t told him, I guess.” She pressed her lips together. “I’ve been pretty pissed off at him, and I didn’t want him to stand in my way. But I wonder if—” She broke off.

“If?”

“He would be nicer if he knew. He’s done some money things while I’ve been traveling that are—” She shook her head. “Mean.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“That’s probably too personal. Sorry.”

“Not at all. Too bad we don’t have time to get to the d’Orsay tomorrow.”

“Another time. This is a pretty packed trip.”

“You’ll have to come back.”

She nodded noncommittally.

“You don’t think you will?”

First I have to pay my rent,she thought. “We’ll see. There’s a lot going on back home.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she said firmly. “Where do you live now?”

“In Denver.”

“What?” She stopped dead. “I thought you were based in Europe or something. You met us at the airport!”

“Has this not come up before? I was in Europe, but when Mariah was so badly hurt, I came to Denver to help out. I ended up really liking the city.” He paused. “Ironic, because it was a sticking point between Rachel and me. She didn’t want to leave her sister, and I didn’t want to live in a sprawling Midwestern city.”

“It’s not the Midwest!” she cried. “It’s the mountains.”

“That’s what she said.” He gave her a regretful smile. “In my world, there are no other cities in the US besides New York, and maybe LA.”

“Oh, so a place snob, huh?”

“Guilty. The sad thing is, that stubbornness probably cost me a good relationship.”

“You loved her?”

“I did. I think you would have liked her, too. She was funny and bohemian and, well, she raised Mariah. You can see a lot of how she was right there.”

“Mariah’s pretty mighty. I can imagine how she was before the injuries.” She looked up. “I’m sorry, though, that you lost a good relationship over stubbornness.”

“I’m probably romanticizing. It’s easy to look back and think,coulda, shoulda, woulda.”

“Yeah.” The idea rolled around in her mind. Had she romanticized her marriage? She honestly didn’t think she had, but what, then, had gone wrong? What had turned him into this caricature of a bad ex? “I feel like I made a lot up about my marriage, but maybe I didn’t. It’s just so hard to know.”

“Maybe all of it is true,” he said.

A sense of spaciousness blew through her at that. Maybe he really had been a good husband, and now he was a really bad ex. She didn’t have to decide right now.