Читать книгу This Time For Keeps - Jenna Mills, Jenna Mills - Страница 11

Two and a half years before

PINK BALLOONS BOBBED against the passenger window, straining to get free. Twelve of them, including a Mylar in the shape of little booties. The tulips lay on the front seat, beside the grape juice.

She was going to be upset. Russell knew that. She wasn’t even answering his calls. He’d tried to get away, but the meeting ran long, and as usual, he lost track of time.

Frowning, he was turning onto the narrow road that led to their house when he remembered to check his messages. He hadn’t checked before, hadn’t wanted to hear the news that way. He’d wanted to see her face, her smile. He’d wanted to be there.

Now, almost home, he wondered if she was somewhere else.

Five messages waited. The first three were hang-ups. The fourth was a former colleague. Finally, with the fifth, he heard her voice, and his heart started to slam.

“Honey…” Meg was a confident woman, vivacious, full of energy and life. But now… “I…I…” She never stuttered. She never stammered. “I…”

The sickness hit fast, spreading like a toxin in his gut.

“We need to talk,” she said, sounding so very, very far away. So small. “Come home…please.”

He was barely aware of his foot ramming down on the gas pedal, racing the last of the way home. He swerved into the driveway and threw open the door, strode toward the house. The balloons were in his hand. The tulips were not.

“Meg?” he called as he opened the door.

The shadows of early afternoon greeted him. There were no lights turned on. No music. “Meggie?”

The stillness deepened with every step he took. The kitchen, the family room, the bedroom—the nursery. All empty.

“Meggie!”

He didn’t know why he started to run. Everything was spinning…inside. Outside. Throwing open the back door, he squinted against the sun—and saw her.

And then everything stopped.

She was just sitting there. Down by the creek, with her back against one of the old weeping willows. Her knees were drawn to her chest. Her arms were wrapped around them. Her gaze was trained forward, toward the slow trickle of water in the creek.

On the breeze, he heard the choked sound of crying.

He staggered, started to run again. He thought he called out to her, but his throat was raw and she didn’t turn. She sat there, frozen.

And God help him, he knew.

His steps slowed as the sprawl of green grass down to the creek stretched. Numbly, his hand, clenching the tangle of pink ribbons, went slack, and the bobbing mass of balloons lifted toward the blue of the sky.

And floated away.

Present Day

THE RAW, NAKED EMOTION on Russell’s face congealed into something unreadable. “No. I—I can’t hold her…right now.” He ripped his gaze from the baby, backed away.

From his own niece.

“Ray’s waiting,” he said. “I—I’ll be by in the morning.”

And with that he turned and headed back to the sporty blue rental waiting in the gravel parking lot.

Meg wanted to be surprised. Angry. She was neither. Backing away, walking away, that’s what Russell Montgomery did.

The hurt and disappointment were for Charlotte. She was just a baby, an innocent in all this. She deserved better. But as Meg carried her niece through a patch of poppies, toward Ray, the pressure in her chest released, and once again, she could breathe.

Russell had talked of Ainsley’s affairs, of her house and her belongings…but not of her baby. He didn’t even want to hold her.

And if he didn’t hold her, he couldn’t take her.

TIME DIDN’T STAND STILL. Russell knew that. It’s just the way it was, a simple fact he’d always appreciated. In the two years since he’d last driven the shady streets of Pecan Creek, a child had been born, a bright light extinguished, a marriage ended.

But as he steered his rental car beneath a banner advertising the annual Wildflower Festival, it was like driving straight back into a past he knew no longer existed.

The cobblestone streets and old-time storefronts of the historic district welcomed him, just as they welcomed everybody. Park benches sat beneath awnings. Nostalgic statues stood by the street corners. Even the old gazebo still waited there in the Side Street Park, if possible a brighter white than the last time he’d seen it.

The storefronts were the same, even if some of the names had changed. The old antiques shop was now a tearoom. The independent bookseller now boasted CDs and DVDs, as well. On the outskirts of town he’d noticed the big antebellum house turned bed-and-breakfast had a grand-reopening sign hung out front. Once, the renowned Magnolia Manor had attracted visitors from all across the country.

Russell wondered how long it had been closed.

Easing along the busy street that cut the town in half, he strained against the shadows of late afternoon for the familiar green awning across from the Gazette. He’d eaten at five-star restaurants in more major cities than he could count, but all it took was the thought of Uncle Ralph’s, and his mouth started to water. If the local favorite was gone—

It wasn’t. The hole-in-the-wall sat where it always had, tucked between Ed’s Barber Shop and Dr. Harrison’s office. There was almost always a crowd milling around out front, waiting for one of the ten tables inside.

At least, that’s how many tables had been there before.

Russell had talked to Uncle Ralph about expanding or relocating, but the sole proprietor had always resisted, saying he couldn’t cook for more than ten tables at a time, so why seat more than ten at a time?

Easing into a parallel spot across the street, Russell couldn’t help but smile at the memory. Once and only once, he’d suggested that Uncle Ralph hire someone to help…

Once. Only once.

Now he made his way across the street, glancing at his phone to check the time, when he noticed no one lingering out front. A few minutes past seven. He would have expected a crowd.

At the door, he wasn’t sure why he hesitated. He’d eaten at the restaurant more times than he could count. He and Meg had come here frequently, sometimes several times per week. After work they’d walk over, sometimes just the two of them, often with Lori and Julia. The guys would arrive shortly thereafter. It had been their ritual.

Stepping back inside…

He almost turned and walked away, toward the new place down the street, Mamacitas. Instead he yanked open the door and strode into the restaurant lit by dozens of strings of festive chili pepper yard lights.

He saw them immediately, all of them, Julia and Lance and Lori and Trey. It was hard not to. His gaze went straight to their booth, the big curved one in the back right corner where they all used to sit and see who could throw back the most tequila shots. Once Meg had—

He turned to leave.

The sharp intake of breath was the only warning he got. “Rusty Montgomery!” Before he could turn—or run for the door—Ralph’s wife was across the room. “As I live and breathe,” she cried as she took him by the arm and beamed up at him. “Lord o’mercy it is you!”

And then it was all he could do not to choke on the heavy scent of gardenia—and grease. Ruby wrapped him up tight in her beefy arms, hugging him as if she’d never thought to see him again.

“I never thought this day would come,” she said when she finally released him. “You done broke my heart when you left like that, without even coming to tell me bye.”

By now everyone in the whole restaurant was watching—including the foursome at the back booth. Russell wanted the floor to just open up and swallow him, but since that wasn’t going to happen, he opted for Plan B.

“Ruby Rodriguez,” he said, rolling his Rs. “Still as pretty as the day is long.”

Her smile widened, but the glint in her eyes told him she knew what he was trying to do. “Go on with you now,” she said, gesturing toward the familiar booth. “Your friends are waiting.”

The words were casual enough, but they hit him like a rock to the gut. A big one. The foursome didn’t move, just watched, leaving the ball square in Russell’s court.

Until Lance stood. “Rusty,” his former poker buddy said, crossing to him with a hand outstretched. There was a quiet understanding in his voice—and a steely warning in his eyes. “Didn’t know you were back in town, man.”

Trey was there a step later, and as Russell extended his hand, the man he’d once run with almost every morning before the sun rose wrapped him in a quick hug. The gesture caught him by surprise…but nowhere near as much as the realization that his friend had lost a lot of weight.

Trey released him abruptly, as if just realizing what he’d done. “When did you get back?”

“This morning,” Russell said. “Need to clean out—”

“No, you don’t.” That was Julia. He’d wondered how long it would take the barracuda to march over. “There’s nothing you need to do here,” she said, angling her chin in that fierce way of hers.

Her husband looked as if he, too, wanted the floor to swallow him. “Julia—”

“No,” Meg’s cousin said before Lance could get out another word. She lifted her hand in a sharp gesture. “He doesn’t get to do this.” She kept her eyes trained on her prey, namely Russell. “You can’t just show up here like…you still belong.”

He blinked. Julia had always been a bull-by-the-horns kind of gal, but her vehemence seemed a little over-the-top. “Ainsley was my sister—”

“And Meg was your wife.” She practically spat the word at him. “That didn’t seem to make any difference, did it? You still walked away. You don’t get to—”

“Jules.” Lori materialized by her friend’s side with an icy glare as she laid a hand to Julia’s forearm. “Don’t.”

Something dark and uncomfortable slipped through Russell. He’d known coming back would not be easy, but the palpable tension among the foursome drove home just how long he’d been gone—and how much he didn’t know. Trey was rail thin. Lori looked sad, drawn. Lance looked fed up. And Julia…Julia looked like she wanted to bust some balls.

Namely, his.

“I don’t get to do what?” he asked.

Lori looked down. Julia’s mouth pursed into a thin line. But it was Trey who spoke. “Come on, that was a long time ago,” he said to his wife and her friend. “It wasn’t a picnic for anyone. When a marriage ends…” He lifted a hand to rub at his chest, but left the rest of his sentence unspoken.

But Russell knew. When a marriage ended, it was like a death. But the kicker was, you both still lived. You lived, while every other aspect of your life—where you lived, what you did, who you did it with, your freaking identity—went away.

Once those in Meg’s inner circle had considered Russell a friend, and he them. They’d worked together, laughed together, cried together. Now at best he was a stranger. At worst…an enemy.

Not surprisingly, it was Lori who broke the awkward silence. “Have you seen her?”

A photojournalist, Russell was a man who dealt in images. Some he captured with film. Others imprinted themselves on him, lingering long, long after time had moved on. When he closed his eyes, it was a veritable slide show of his life.

Since returning to Pecan Creek, that slide show was of Meg.

“This afternoon,” he said, feeling his chest tighten all over again. In a perfect world, he could have slipped in and out of town without seeing her. Christ, he could have avoided coming back altogether.

But it wasn’t a perfect world, and he could not do what had to be done without involving her.

“At the flower field,” he murmured as an afterthought. “She had the baby….”

Julia and Lori exchanged a quick glance. Two minutes later they’d retrieved their purses and were gone, leaving the men standing in an awkward vortex of country music and silence.

STARS TWINKLED throughout the shadowy nursery, blue shimmers of light courtesy of the funky projector in the center of the room. Beatles music turned lullabies drifted from the CD player on the dresser. It was the perfect atmosphere for sleeping, but Charlotte, despite being bathed, lotioned and fed, had absolutely no interest in sleeping.

Still Meg rocked, cradling the chubby baby in her arms as she watched the numbers on the clock slip deeper into the evening.

“What a good day you had,” she cooed, even though Charlotte was focused on the pile of blocks she’d been playing with earlier.

Meg wasn’t about to allow her back down on the floor. This was attempt number three at sleep. There would not be a fourth.

“Posing so pretty for Uncle Ray,” she went on in the same monotone. The second time had been the charm. Rejuvenated from her power nap, Charlotte had sat happily in the big patch of bluebonnets, cheerfully destroying one flower at a time.

Ray said the pictures would be great.

Meg had to take his word for it, because in truth, she had no idea. She’d tried to watch. She’d tried to pay attention. But the image of Russell limping toward her had stayed with her long after he himself had vanished.

Even now, hours later, the reality of it all kept winding through her, tighter with each minute that passed. This is what it had been like before, back when they’d come home from work each day and pretended they had a marriage. When they’d shared a silent dinner before each retreating to their own space. When they’d lain in bed with their backs to each other, faking sleep.

And so much more.

With the memory, all those old sensations knotted inside her once again, bringing with them a renewed frustration. She and Charlotte were just settling into a routine. The paper was in trouble. Circulation was down, advertising almost cut in half. With more and more folks consuming their news from online sources, interest in dailies and weeklies was at an all-time low. If she didn’t come up with a turnaround soon, the paper would go under.

She did not have time for Russell Montgomery to stroll back into town.

On a deep inhalation, she glanced down and found Charlotte’s eyes heavy, slowly blinking. Exhaling, she stopped rocking and waited.

The baby’s eyes drifted closed.

Still Meg sat in the rocking chair, looking down at Charlotte’s sweet little face. Sometimes getting her to sleep was a bear, but those first few moments of slumber were worth the effort. The innocence of it all screamed through Meg, filling her with a soft determination that would have sent her to her knees had she not been sitting.

Charlotte. Poor sweet Charlotte. Ainsley had loved her so very, very much.

Meg closed her eyes against the memory, but images awaited in the darkness, as well. Ainsley on the hospital bed, weak, fading. Reaching for her baby one last time.

Inside, something started to shake. Fighting it, Meg reached for all those slip-sliding pieces and locked them away, stood and eased the baby into her crib. In the hall, she crossed to her office, but found herself heading for the kitchen instead. She just needed…

At the oven, she went up on her toes and opened the cabinet, saw the lone bottle. She’d put the five-year-old cabernet there the night after Charlotte was born. Maybe tonight was the night to allow herself just one glass….

Meg…where were ye? I was scared my wee one would get here before you did….

She closed the cabinet. Walked out of the kitchen. Back to her office. Shut the door.

That’s where she was when her cell phone rang. She picked it up, answered on the second ring.

“Open up,” Julia said by way of greeting.

Meg blinked. “Pardon?”

“We’re on the porch,” Julia said in that brisk, all-business way of hers. “Didn’t want to knock and risk waking the baby.”

Puzzled, Meg saved the business plan she’d been editing and went to the front of the house, where she opened the door to Julia and Lori, and a nondescript brown bag.

Julia brushed right by her, looking both ways as she crossed the small foyer. “Is he here? Is that his truck out front?”

Meg glanced out to see the white, late-model truck across the street. “Is who here?”

Lori stepped inside and closed the door. “We know,” she said quietly. “We saw him.”

Meg stilled as realization formed. Her friends had seen Russell. And here they were…checking on her.

Because they knew—everything.

“He’s not here.” The truck across the street had been there a few days, most likely belonging to one of Mrs. Morgan’s grown sons. “And you don’t need to be here, either. I’m fine.”

“Right,” Julia said. “Your husband waltzes back into town after two years—”

“Soon-to-be-ex,” Meg corrected. She’d filed the papers the month before Ainsley had died. All they needed were his signature.

“My point exactly.”

Lori’s eyes widened as Julia whisked into the kitchen. “You should have seen her. She pretty much let him have it.”

Meg sighed. “Julia!” Then, “What happened to ‘You have to call him’?”

Julia returned with three spoons. “Your terms,” she said. “Not his.”

It was hard to argue with that.

“And so you came over here to…?” she asked, glancing from the bag in Lori’s hands to the utensils in Julia’s.

Julia grinned. “Eat ice cream.” Tucking her arm under Meg’s, she all but dragged her to the back door.

Meg thought about protesting, telling them she was fine. Insisting that they go home. She hated that they felt the need to descend on her as if she was some fragile creature in danger of shattering.

But gratitude overrode everything else.

Over the years they’d shared a lot, from Barbie clothes to real clothes, and then real dreams. And real heartache. Julia and Lori had been there before she went off to college—and when Meg came home. They’d listened to her go on and on about the dreamy guest professor—and they’d gawked when he came after her. They knew about the night she lost her virginity. They’d helped her plan her wedding. They’d encouraged her when she and Russell had been forced to turn to medical science to conceive a child. They’d held her hand, helped with shots, held her up.

In the end, they’d been the ones to help glue all the pieces back together.

Outside, on the wide porch overlooking the yard that sloped down to the creek, she let them steer her to the top step, where they all three plopped down. Lori pulled the carton out of the bag. Julia ripped off the lid, revealing the mint chip ice cream beneath.

Lori handed over the spoons.

They all dug in.

THE PINEY WOODS GAZETTE had once been a thriving daily newspaper. Meg’s great-grandfather had prided himself on being a newsman, founding the local paper to quiet the gossip that often gripped the town. He had been a man of facts. A man of principle. Focus. He thought everyone had a right to know…everything.

It was a legacy Maxwell Landry dedicated his life to building—and passing down to his only son.

Standing outside the offices of the Gazette, Russell figured it was probably best neither man had lived to see the newspaper business slowly wither away. More and more consumers were getting their news from alternative sources, particularly online. Print was static, cumbersome. Passé. It was only a matter of time before physical newspapers became a thing of the past. He and Meg had spent countless hours working on strategies—

He frowned. No strategy in the world could stop the continuum of change. You adapted, or you became obsolete.

He and Meg had never been very good at adapting.

Neither had Ainsley. From the time she’d been just a toddler, his sister had never been able to just go with the flow. She’d seen the world through a lens all her own, and now she was gone.

It still hurt like hell.

Hating what had to be done, he pushed open the door and strode into the outer office, as he’d done hundreds of times before. And just like all those times before, the scent of vanilla and orange greeted him. His office had been down the hall to the left, across from Meg’s. Sometimes he’d worked there, but more often than not, he’d roamed the vacant space upstairs. He could think better there, without walls everywhere he turned.

Lori sat at the front desk, flanked by two ficus trees. Her role had expanded beyond being a receptionist, but with limited budgets, staffing had become an issue—and someone needed to sit out front.

Lori, with her warm smile and inherent gentleness, was the obvious choice.

She looked up from her computer screen, and again, all Russell could think was how tired she looked. Dark smudges ringed her eyes, the glare of the overhead lights making her look even more pale. She and Meg were roughly the same age, which put her at thirtyish. But she looked far older.

“Hi,” she greeted, and he couldn’t help but smile. He’d always had a soft spot for Lori.

“Hi, yourself,” he said. “You okay?”

She smiled, and the shadows seemed to recede. “Just tired,” she said, downplaying his question. “Busy day ahead. Trey has an—” She broke off, shook her head. “You’re here for Meg.”

They were simple words…true. But not true at all. “I need to get the keys—”

She picked up a small retro Magic 8 Ball from beside a picture frame on the edge of her desk. From it dangled two hot-pink keys. “Got ’em.”

Lori had the keys. Meg had given them to her. Obviously she had no intention of seeing him.

The quick burn in his gut surprised him.

“I expected her back by now,” Lori said, “but the festival meetings almost always run long.”

With two long strides he was across the cozy reception area. He reached out, almost grabbed the keys. But this was Lori, not Meg, and she’d never been anything but kind to him. Jaw tight, he forced a smile and took the keys, made the requisite small talk before returning to his rental car.

How like Meg to avoid what she didn’t want to face.

The drive across town took less than ten minutes. He pulled off the quiet crepe myrtle–lined boulevard and wound his way through a few side streets before arriving at the small frame house.

Flowers bloomed. Everywhere he looked, a rainbow of colors screamed back at him. Pink and white from the azaleas, red from geraniums, yellow from daisies and daffodils. Even the trees rained colors, a veritable parade of dogwood and redbuds, all shimmering in the late-morning sun like something straight out of a picture book.

Once he would have grabbed his camera and gone down on his knee, searching for the perfect blend of light and shadow and color. That’s what Ainsley had always loved, the contrasts in life. The unexpected.

The house had been drab when she’d first showed it to him, gray in the dead of winter. He’d thought she was making a mistake, but she’d seen the promise, and she’d insisted.

Now she was gone, but the color remained.

Russell pushed the car door open and stepped into the seductive warmth of Texas in April. He was a man who thrived on the periphery, the complete opposite of his baby sister. No matter how much he did not want to go inside, he owed her. This, and a whole lot more.

Striding up the walk, he made his way between the armies of petunias lining the walkway, up the two steps to the screened porch, and yanked open the outer door.

Meg rose from the porch swing, the baby on her hip. “Hey,” was all she said.

He stopped, stared at her standing there in a fall of sunlight, her jeans faded, her scoop-neck olive shirt wrinkled. Her hair was soft, loose.

“Meggie.” Goddamn his voice for breaking.

She shifted little Charlotte on her hip. “Lori called, told me I’d just missed you.”

His hand tightened around the key.

“My meeting ran over,” she said as Charlotte fisted her hand in Meg’s hair and yanked. “I must have been crazy signing up to chair. You wouldn’t believe how many last-minute details there are.”

The edges of the key dug into his palm. “You always were one for staying busy.”

Her smile was lopsided, and with it about a thousand years fell away. “That’s one way of putting it, I suppose.”

The tension spun out between them, the stillness and the silence pushing in like invisible walls. Once he’d known this woman as well as he’d known himself, her body—her heart. Or at least, he’d thought he had. She’d been his wife and his friend, his coworker and confidante, his lover. They’d bought a falling-down house and turned it into a home. They’d shared meals and dreams, their bodies…

Now they stood in the cramped confines of the small front porch, without a freaking clue what to say to each other.