A Bridge to Love Read Online Free

the boys are in bed.”
    Kate
put down the glass. “No, I don't really feel like wine, thanks.”
    Georgia
put it back in her hand. “If you don't drink this, I'll pour brandy down your
throat and you know what a hangover that will give you.”
    Kate
took a sip of wine. “Thanks for coming, Georgia. I've been feeling so alone.”
    Georgia
turned to Clay. “Why don't you and Patrick head upstairs and let your mom and
me talk woman-to-woman?”
    The
boys agreed to her request with unusual promptness and pounded up the steps.
    “All
right, Kate, spill it,” Georgia said once they were ensconced in the den with
the doors firmly closed. “And feel free to cry on my shoulder. You look like
you need to.”
    Kate
blinked in surprise. She hadn't cried once since she read the letter. She
couldn't summon up enough strength to cry. She hadn't really thought about how
to tell Georgia the awful truth, so she just said flatly, “I found a letter
from another woman to David. He was having an affair sometime in the year
before he died.”
    “He
was what ? Jesus Christ, what a
bastard! How could he do that to you? And he saved her letters?” Georgia was so
angry she couldn't sit still; she got up and paced around the room.
    “Letter,”
Kate corrected. “I only found one. And I don't think that he meant to save it.
It was stapled into a contract.”
    Georgia
came over to Kate's chair and knelt in front of her, taking her hands. “I'm so
sorry, Kate. To find out now when there's no way to change things... it's
awful. What can I do to help?”
    Suddenly
the tears came.
    “Tell
me what I did wrong. Tell me why David needed to sleep with another woman. Tell
me that my family's life wasn't built on a huge lie.” Kate lifted her
tear-streaked face. “Tell me how I could have been that blind !”
    “You
did not do anything wrong. You were a wonderful wife. My dates always envied
David.”
    Kate
shook her head and wrapped her arms around her own waist to hold in the sobs.
    Georgia
took Kate by the shoulders and shook her gently. “Stop blaming yourself. David
is the creep here, remember? You didn't go off and sleep with another man.”
    “I
never even wanted to. That's what I
don't understand. What made him even think about it?” Reaching a decision Kate
put down her wineglass and stood up. “I'll show you the letter and then we're
going to burn it. I don't want Clay and Patrick to know about this. Ever.”
    She
brought the letter down from its dusty hiding place and handed it to Georgia.
She wanted Georgia's clear, legal mind to find the flaw in her reasoning, to
tell her that she was wrong about David.
    “Son
of a bitch!” Georgia muttered as she finished reading. “She definitely wasn't a
one-night stand.”
    “How
could I not have known? I thought that we were so close, that we knew each
other so well.”
    Georgia
sat on the arm of Kate's chair. “I remember you saying that year that David was
traveling constantly. You thought that the stress might have contributed to his
heart attack. You probably didn't see him enough to be able to tell. Stop
beating yourself up.”
    “Why
did he do it, Georgia?”
    Georgia
moved back to her own chair and stared up at the ceiling for a minute. “All
right, I'm going to give you my honest opinion of David. Promise you won't hate
me.”
    Kate
almost felt like laughing. “At this point, the worse it is, the more I'll like
it.”
    Georgia
looked relieved at this small flash of spirit and launched into her argument.
    “When
you and David met, you were both rising stars in your firms. You were a
brilliant engineer, and David was a brilliant architect. You also happened to
be poised, beautiful and great with people, the perfect up-and-coming
architect's wife.”
    “Oh,
please.”
    “David
went after you with every weapon in his arsenal. Remember how flattered you
were?”
    “How
could I not be? David could have had any woman he wanted; they were falling all
over him. Evidently even after