Golden Vows by Karen Toller Whittenburg Read Free Book Online

knowing her? Even now her very stillness spoke to him in the silence. But he couldn’t trust himself to interpret the meaning anymore. She had changed and he couldn’t begin to guess at her thoughts. He might misunderstand, say the wrong thing and send her further away from him.
    He carefully shielded the gaze that, despite his control, slid to her. There wasn’t anything he could say that would send Amanda further away. She was as distant to him as the sun’s fire and yet still as near as its warming rays. Pressing his lips tight in determination, Dane turned away. If only he could make it through this confrontation with Martha. Avoid her prying, too perceptive eyes and not lose his hard-won control, maybe, just maybe....
    “All right,” Martha shattered the quiet. “Tell me why. I want to know what happened.”
    Sensing Amanda’s immediate tension, Dane tried to lighten the heavy mood. “She never puts the cap back on the toothpaste. I leave wet towels in the shower.”
    “Dane!” Amanda straightened as his name rolled from her lips on a breath of annoyance. How could he speak so ... so superficially of their marriage? “Don’t say such nonsense.” Her voice broke and she felt the threat of tears at the base of her throat. With a jerky motion she turned toward Martha. “He doesn’t mean to sound that way.”
    “How do you know how I meant to sound, Amanda? Or what I really meant to say?”
    “I know you don’t see the break-up of our marriage as a result of wet towels and toothpaste. I know you don’t and so does Martha, so stop trying to make this a humorous discussion.”
    He swept her a mocking bow. “I would never do anything so crass, but I have no intention of discussing the gory details with Martha.”
    Amanda stared at him as his eyes darkened with a hint of frost. For probably the hundredth time in the past few days she wished she knew how to talk to him again.
    “Perhaps you need to discuss the details with Amanda.” Martha crossed her arms over her ample bosom and settled back in the rocking chair. “Maybe you both need to talk this thing out.”
    The militant gleam in Martha’s eyes was unmistakable, and Amanda knew she and Dane were being maneuvered into a revealing discussion. It was time to put an end to the well-meaning but misguided interference. “The time for talking is past,” she said quietly. “Sometimes it’s important to know when to quit trying, Martha. I hope you’ll understand but, either way, it doesn’t change anything. As soon as I find a place to live, my marriage to Dane is over.”
    The awesome finality of what she was doing washed over her and Amanda wondered that she could remain so detached. Almost as if she were an observer and not a participant in the conversation. From force of habit her gaze swiveled in Dane’s direction to share this odd sensation. But she discovered only the broad expanse of his back and the strong fingers that wearily massaged his nape. She would have to remind him to get a haircut, she thought, and then closed her eyes at the inanity of it.
    “You could stay here with me.” Martha’s voice came, strained but accepting. “There’s plenty of room.”
    “Thank you.” Amanda shook her head and offered a thread of a smile. “But I think I should be on my own. I—I need to be alone.”
    “You could use the cottage,” Martha urged. “It’s been vacant for a couple of months and I’ve been meaning to call the agent about listing it as a rental again. It needs some attention, but I would love to have you close by, Amanda.” Martha pursed her lips in a self-contained appeal. “I won’t interfere. And if I forget, you can tell me to mind my own damn business.”
    Amanda refrained from mentioning that telling Martha to mind her own business and having her do so were not one and the same. Still, thoughts of the cottage were tempting. It was on the far corner of Martha’s land, nestled inconspicuously along an inlet of Chesapeake