Pete Pryor had been in love with Helen for as long as he could remember, which was around the same amount of time she'd been married to Pete's older brother, Jack.
Helen was the perfect wife and mother to Jack's children, and she was beautiful, and she was a better person than anyone he'd ever known.
Most importantly, she was good to him. She was one of the only people who'd ever believed in him and treated him with any respect. Not that he'd done anything to deserve the respect, but it was nice anyway. She didn't think badly of him, and gave him chance after chance after chance.
He was a screw up, he knew it, but she either didn't see it or refused to believe it. That was why, when it came right down to it, he couldn't marry Nancy, he just couldn't. Nancy wasn't Helen, that's for sure.