Читать книгу Still The One - Michelle Major - Страница 11

“You wear a thong? Really?”

Lainey leveled a look at her sister. “One—why is that so hard to believe? And two—it’s not really the point of the story.”

“I know, I know.” Julia held up her hands. “I just figured you more the granny panty type.”

Lainey didn’t answer, unwilling to own up to how right Julia was. About ninety-five percent of the items in her lingerie drawer—if you could call it that—were of the basic cotton variety. Her work schedule didn’t leave time for dating. At least that’s what she told herself. It was easier than admitting the truth.

She’d dated a few guys casually between assignments in her early twenties. But something had changed. As her friends had begun to marry and start families, she’d drifted away from them.

Her biological clock should have stopped ticking since she couldn’t have children. Since that hadn’t happened, she’d taken far-flung assignments, spending more time on the road. It had been great for her career and much easier than watching the people around her build lives she could never have.

Her gaze settled on Julia’s round belly. “So where is Jeff?” she asked, changing the subject away from her underpants. It was odd to see Julia back in their hometown but stranger still that she was so pregnant and here alone.

With some effort, Julia hoisted herself out of the chair and paced the length of their mother’s small hospital room.

Vera had been taken to one of several daily physical therapy appointments. The doctor would come in after this latest round to discuss her rehabilitation in more detail.

“He’s in South America,” Julia finally answered. She stood at the window looking out at the hospital’s courtyard, her long fingers massaging either side of her lower back. “He had research to do, and we didn’t think it was good to spend the whole pregnancy in the mountains of Brazil. He’ll be back before my due date.”

“But you won’t want to settle in Brevia with Jeff’s job at the university. Why aren’t you at Mom’s? Is it because I was coming home?”

Julia shook her head. “I needed my own space. Mom gets a little overbearing, you know? I’m renting an apartment near downtown. Just temporary, of course.”

“That makes sense,” Lainey agreed, although something in Julia’s tone made her wonder if she was getting the whole story.

“There was nothing keeping me in Columbus with him gone,” Julia continued. “I can cut hair anywhere.”

“You still work? I thought—”

“A couple hours a week. My blood pressure skyrockets if I stand any longer. Val says I can come back after the baby’s born.” Julia shrugged. “But who knows where Jeff and I will be by then.”

Lainey’s mouth dropped open. She clamped it shut before Julia turned around. “You’re working at The Hair House?”

Julia glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “It’s almost as hard to believe as you in a thong.”

“I didn’t mean …” Lainey’s voice trailed off. Val Dupree had owned “The Best Little Hair House in Brevia” since they were kids. She couldn’t picture Julia at Val’s any more than she could see her sister in Brevia for the long haul.

She took a deep breath. Julia had only been in New York six months before returning to Brevia that summer. She’d wanted Ethan back, but Lainey had already been pregnant. Julia was so angry she’d left town again as soon as Ethan had offered to marry Lainey.

Lainey didn’t know if she had the power to fix all the broken pieces in her relationship with her sister. Since she was here for the better part of the summer, she’d give it her best shot. “Val probably realized how lucky she is to have you,” she offered, although it sounded weak to her ears.

“Why?” Julia countered. “Because most of her girls think Marie Osmond is the epitome of high style?”

“Among other reasons.”

Julia walked to the chair. “Don’t blow sunshine,” she said with an eye roll. “You got out and I was sucked back in. Mom’s already given me the ‘you should have stayed in college’ lecture. I messed up. Bad.”

The ability to disappoint Vera—at least they now had that in common. Lainey felt a twinge of sympathy, an emotion she’d never associated with Julia. “You had some decent modeling jobs at first. Maybe if you’d had more time …”

“Being voted ‘prettiest girl’ in your country-bumpkin senior class doesn’t count in New York.”

Lainey shrugged. “All the ‘nicest girl’ award got me was the assumption that I’d say yes to anyone who wanted to cheat off me. I should’ve been voted class doormat. I was always jealous of you in high school. You were popular, prom queen and had the football captain for your boyfriend.”

“Until my little sister stole him away. Nice girl. Yeah, right.” Julia laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I wish the voters could’ve seen that move.”

“You’d broken up with him,” Lainey said through clenched teeth, bristling at the decade-old accusation. Guilt was one thing, but Lainey only let things go as far as they had with Ethan because she thought Julia had moved on.

“We were on a break,” Julia fired back.

“Give me a break. You ditched him for the big-city modeling agent. Chewed up his heart, spit it out then ground your heel in it for good measure.” The idea that Lainey could have stolen Ethan from her sister was ridiculous. “I was there, remember?”

Julia leaned forward. “I remember. And you’re right. Ethan and I were over long before you were in the picture. Still, you did the chewing, spitting and grinding.”

“No,” Lainey whispered, finally ready to admit the truth. “That was my problem. After you left there wasn’t enough of his heart for me to hold on to.”

Julia inhaled sharply. “Are you joking?” she began. “Do you know how long he waited—”

The door banged open, interrupting her. Vera’s wheelchair rolled into the room, pushed by a strapping physical therapist who looked like he’d just left a biker bar. His bald head glimmered in the fluorescent light, the lines around his eyes etched deep as a dried riverbed as he watched Vera, his gaze filled with rapt adoration.

Even pushing sixty and ravaged by the stroke, Vera radiated energy like light from the mother ship to the opposite sex.

Vera glanced between Lainey and Julia. “Can hear you down hall.” She spoke slowly to make her pronunciation clear.

“Sorry, Mom,” both women chorused.

“Fighting no good. I need you to help.” She took a breath, but the next words she spoke were so garbled Lainey couldn’t understand them.

“Don’t push yourself,” the physical therapist said as he helped Vera back into bed.

He turned, flexing a skull tattoo in Lainey’s direction. “Your mom made good progress this morning. Her left leg is about seventy-five percent of its normal strength.”

“Stupid right leg,” Vera mumbled.

“It’ll come,” the burly man said with surprising softness as he tucked a quilt around her. “Rest now. You earned it.”

Vera smiled at him and Lainey saw color creep up his neck. Her mother could wrap any man around her finger.

Lainey noticed a bright sheen of perspiration across her mother’s forehead. Vera used every ounce of strength to get better while Lainey bickered with Julia over ancient history. She was here to help, Lainey reminded herself, not stumble down the rocky path to bad memory lane.

She stepped closer and lifted Vera’s fingers. She looked at Julia. “I guess we should stick to discussing the adoption event,” she whispered.

“And current local gossip,” Julia added. “The kind that doesn’t involve our family.”

Lainey choked out a laugh at that.

Vera squeezed Lainey’s hand. Her eyes fluttered open. “More like it,” she said and snuggled deeper against the pillows.

Lainey smiled, impressed but not surprised that even in her condition, Vera Morgan could bend her daughters to her will with a few chosen words. She’d honed that skill for years.

“Heard about your dog?” Vera asked, her eyes concerned.

“Nothing yet.”

“Ethan is best. He’ll do good.”

Lainey nodded. She thought about the care Ethan had given Pita and the tenderness he’d shown to her. A slow ache built in her heart. “I stopped by the shelter office after I left the clinic.” She needed to regain control.

“You get the box?”

Lainey pointed to a large plastic storage tub in the corner of the room. “Rest for a bit, Mom. Then we’ll go through it.”

Julia patted Vera’s leg. “I need to go.”

Vera’s left hand clamped around Julia’s wrist. “You stay.”

Her tone brooked no argument, although Julia gave it her best shot.

“I need to check in with Val, see if I can pick up some hours if my doctor approves.”

Vera’s hold didn’t loosen. “Later.”

“Fine.” Vera let go of Julia’s hand as she stood. “I need to pee first. It feels like this kid has his heel shoved against my bladder.”

Lainey blew out a short breath as Julia closed the bathroom door. She felt her mother’s eyes on her. “This doesn’t change anything.”

“You good girl,” Vera said, reaching out to her.

Lainey pushed up from the bed. “I don’t know what you expect, but me being here isn’t going to make the past go away. I can do my penance this summer, but I can’t change what happened. What I did.” She couldn’t change who she was, how the tragedy had changed her. Forever.

“Good girl,” Vera repeated.

Her mother used the same tone Lainey did with Pita. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She tucked her hair behind her ear. “We’ll go through the plans while you rest,” she said, but her mother’s eyes had already slipped closed.

Lainey smoothed the quilt again and turned for the big box in the corner.

Work on the adoption event kept Lainey occupied the rest of the day. Julia had stayed at the hospital until lunchtime, the two sisters careful not to let the topic stray from animals needing a home.

The call came in around four o’clock. Her hands shook as she stared at the clinic’s number on her cell phone.

“Answer it,” her mother said.

She brought the phone to her ear, expecting Ethan’s voice.

“Lainey?” Stephanie Rand said. “She’s okay.”

A strangled sob escaped her lips. “Oh, thank God.”

Steph continued, “I don’t think you want your undies back, but at least they’re out.”

“Can I come get her?” Lainey spoke around the lump of tears knotting at the back of her throat.

“We’d like to keep her overnight, just to make sure she’s back to normal. You can pick her up first thing in the morning.”

Lainey made a squeaky sound she hoped passed for a ‘yes’ and hung up.

She looked at her mother. The deep understanding in Vera’s gaze almost sent her over the edge.

“Underpants,” she mumbled, her voice wobbly. “How dumb.” Stupid to make everything so personal.

“Go home.”

“I’m fine.”

“Home,” her mother said again, pointing at the door.

Lainey knew she should argue, insist on staying, but fatigue settled over her. She leaned in and kissed her mother’s cheek. “I’ll be back in the morning.” She traced the corner of Vera’s lopsided mouth.

“Bring polish.”

“What?”

Vera wiggled her fingers in the air. “Upstairs bathroom, bottom drawer. Pink polish, ‘Touch of Love.’”

Despite her jumbled emotions, Lainey smiled. “We’ll have a mini spa day.”

Vera fingered Lainey’s hair. “Julia can cut for you.”

“I like my hair, Mom.” She covered her mother’s hand with hers and pulled it away, straightening from the bed.

“Too long. Julia helps.”

Her back stiffened. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said quickly and turned for the door. Vera never approved of her hair, her clothes, her makeup—or lack thereof.

Why should it be different now?

Her mother had only one definition of beautiful: blond hair, blue-eyed with a Barbie’s unrealistic measurements. Vera had epitomized the look in her day, and Julia was the spitting image of their mother.

Lainey was a chip off the Eastern European block of her father’s family with her unruly hair and olive skin. At least she’d gotten her mother’s button nose, although it looked out of place set between her almond-shaped eyes and too-wide mouth.

She eyed the hospital exit sign like it was the finish line of the Boston Marathon. When the automatic doors slid open, a wave of aggressively humid air hit her square in the face and she slowed. Everything moved at a snail’s pace during a Brevia summer.

“No,” she told herself as she unlocked the Land Cruiser and slid behind the steering wheel. She took a few deep breaths and pulled out of the parking lot, determined to hold herself in check.

The heat did not own her.

This town would not bully her.

Her mother could not control her any more.

She forced herself on a four-mile run when she got back to the house. Better to sweat out her emotions than indulge in another pint of Chubby Hubby.

After a long, cool shower, she slipped into a pair of cotton shorts and a black tank top. She’d spent the previous night awake with Pita, so she now began unpacking her clothes into the same dresser that had once held sets of Garanimals outfits. The shadow of the bed’s ruffled canopy fell over her like a weight.

The walls seemed to hum with long-ago conversations and emotions. She couldn’t watch television without imagining her father asleep in his faded leather recliner and didn’t want to soak in the tub that held the smell of her mother’s perfume.

She finally got in her car and drove until she saw the lights of Piggly Wiggly. She didn’t need groceries but flipped through magazines, studying the layouts and lighting of the photos, until she felt sleepy.

She bought Cosmopolitan, In Style and a box of dog biscuits. As she put the bag into the cargo area, something cold and wet nudged her thigh. She spun around.

“Pita.” Lainey’s heart thudded against her rib cage. She dropped to her knees. “Oh, sweetie. How are you? How did you get here?”

Glancing up, she had a brief glimpse of a dark head before Pita’s front paws slammed into her chest. She went over backward in a tangle of arms, legs and dog limbs.

“Easy, girl.” Ethan’s deep voice cut through the quiet. He grabbed Pita’s collar and hauled the dog off her.

Lainey lay flat on her back, legs splayed across the asphalt. Ethan loomed over her, fingers curled around the dog’s collar. Under the bright parking lot light, one corner of his mouth kicked up and his eyes danced, sending sparks flying in their deep centers.

“I guess she’s better,” Lainey managed to say, wheezing a little as she tried to gather her wits. At least she had the good sense to close her legs.

“Yep,” was his only answer.

“How did you find me?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d want to wait until morning, so I was driving out to Vera’s when I saw your car. Not a lot of fancy SUVs in Brevia.”

She lifted a hand into the air. “You want to help me up?”

He cocked his head to one side. “I kind of like you down there. I imagine you groveling for forgiveness at my feet.”

“Fine,” she mumbled and looked away. She started to drop her arm, but he released his hold on the dog and grabbed her wrist. He hauled her to her feet so fast she stumbled forward into him. It was like falling against the side of a mountain.

She pushed out her breath, not wanting to inhale his scent, and tried to step away. He held her close.

“I fixed your dog,” he said, his voice rough against her ear. “I guess you owe me an apology and a thank you. How do you want to settle your debt?”

A hundred wicked images flashed across her mind in the space of a second. A shiver of anticipation traveled the length of her body, starting at the top of her head and leaving a trail of goose bumps from the base of her neck to the tips of her toes. She shoved away from him and crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly aware that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

His eyes gleamed black as night as he stared at her shirt.

She dug in her heels and blurted, “I already apologized. I left you the letter. Right after …” Her voice faded as a murderous expression crossed his face. “I thought you would …”

“I burned it.”

The words slammed into her with the force of a hurricane. “Did you even read it?”

He looked away for a few beats then jerked his head. “Before I burned it.”

Her eyes widened. She’d poured her soul onto those pages, hoping he’d come after her. She’d spent days in that hotel room in Charlotte waiting for him, wanting to start over and make a life together. Hope had faded into uncertainty and finally a despair that had left her curled on the floor of the hotel bathroom, the blood vessels in her eyes broken from crying so hard.

“Do you know what it took for me to tell you those things? You never …”

“Do you know what it took,” he shot back, “for me to stand at the front of that church waiting for you? Half the town watched me get dumped on my wedding day.”

Her anger melted away as fresh waves of guilt washed over her, filling her lungs until her entire body ached with it. “I didn’t dump you,” she whispered.

“Pardon me if I don’t get the terminology right. What would you call it? Jilted? Screwed over? Left behind?”

Is that what he thought? That by leaving she’d abandoned him? Maybe he couldn’t understand how it had hurt her to watch the pity in his eyes as he’d said he’d still marry her. She’d been so grief-stricken and ashamed, she couldn’t face him and the letter had seemed her only option.

If he’d burned the letter after what she’d written, she knew without a doubt she’d done the right thing. All these years later there was no comfort in that fact.

“Things happen for a reason,” she said, not believing it. Acid rose in her gut as she forced a smile. “The way I see it now, you should have been relieved. Didn’t I let you off the biggest hook in history?”