Keep No Secrets by Julie Compton Read Free Book Online

from the cabinet and pours the wine. It's red, some sort of Australian Syrah. She's never cared about matching wine to the food, and he's always liked that about her. He hands her a glass and sits on a barstool.
    She slides onto the stool next to him and smiles.
    "To an early winter," she says, and raises her glass. She loves winter, especially snow. He lifts his in turn and the small sound when the glasses clink makes him feel better about everything, somehow.

    After their first sip, she asks, "So how were your meetings? Did you have to go far?" She sips again and waits for his response.
    He remembers the trip to Napa Valley.
    The first trip together, after. They both spent the summer trying to heal, but in the glare of the media, and even
    surrounded by those who meant well—
    family and friends—it wasn't easy. When her mother offered to take the kids for them to get away together, he didn't hesitate. It'd been the right thing to do, too. In the small tram overlooking the golden valley, on the way up to the gleaming white walls of Sterling
    Vineyards, she reached for his hand and gave him a look. It took his breath away, that look, because for just that moment, she'd let it go. He knew it'd be back, it was only a respite, but he thought the bottom was behind them.
    The next day, they took the tour at Robert Mondavi. Unlike Sterling, it was in the valley. What had the guide there said? You can't judge the wine until the third sip .
    "Not too bad," he says in answer to her questions—both of them. He sniffs his wine before taking the next sip, but he barely picks up anything. His memory of the other scent is too strong.
    "Not a good day?" The question is so innocent. She can read him, she always could, yet he knows she doesn't suspect a thing. She's learned to trust him again.
    "Just a lot on my mind, I guess."
    "Bedford?"

    She's asking about the new case, trying to face it head on rather than letting it become a white elephant for them.
    Unbeknownst to Claire, he answers about that other, long forgotten one.
    "Yeah, I've got a bad feeling about it.
    It's not how I want to spend the
    holidays."
    The lies aren't what he says; they're what he doesn't say.

    That night, she's all over him in bed. It's not sexual, not yet. Curled up in the crook of his arm, then almost on top of him with her face inches from his as she tells him a funny story about something silly Jamie did that day. It's the wine, and the snow. She's excited, happy about life in general, and she wants him to be, too.

    There was a time when it would have been so easy to ignore the noise in his head, to let her cajole him out of his mood. He'd kiss her, or she'd kiss him, and they'd respond to each other. Within minutes, nothing else would matter. After all the years together, she still turns him on.
    But he made a vow to her, to himself, really, that he'd break that habit. Ignoring the noise never extinguished it; it merely delayed it and, ironically, fed it.
    So instead, he speaks the question as soon as it comes to mind, before he loses his nerve.
    "Claire, do you trust me again? I mean, fully, completely. Can I tell you anything and know you'd still trust me, even if what I say won't be easy to hear?"

    There's a sudden shift in the room. He hears her breathing in the dark. He thinks he hears her swallow. Even though the bedroom door is closed, he hears
    footsteps climbing the stairs, Michael finally going to bed. He suddenly wants to take it back, to turn back time just one minute. One minute only.
    The wait is interminable. He barely sees her face outlined in the dim light seeping through the blinds. But he knows she's staring at him.
    "Do you want the truth?" she whispers, and her voice quivers. She's terrified, and he despises himself for doing this to her.
    But the alternative is even worse. He knows that now. "Or do you want me to tell you want you want to hear?"
    "I want the truth."

    She rolls away from him onto her back.
    She pulls the covers