by Alison Kent
“He’s in a permanent vegetative state. You told me that yourself.”
“I don’t care. I needed to talk to him. I needed to tell him…”
“What? What could you possibly have to tell him?”
“That I was sorry,” she yelled, her eyes growing damp.
“Sorry for what?”
“That I hadn’t been to see him before.”
Angelo scrubbed both hands back through his hair. “Luna—” It was all he got out before stopping, because he had nothing else to say. He didn’t know what she’d gone through the last ten years. What she’d suffered as a survivor. Blame, certainly, from the Gatlins, from herself. At least two years’ worth from his parents.
Had his siblings pitched in? Giving her the cold shoulder? Or, since they’d just been kids when Sierra had died, calling Luna names, or egging her car?
“I’m sorry,” was what he finally told her because it was the most honest thing he could say.
“What do you have to be sorry for?” she asked, swiping a finger beneath both of her eyes.
He’d hurt her again; what was wrong with him? “Everything you’ve gone through. The way my family treated you.” He paused. “The way I treated you.”
She shrugged as if it were nothing, when he knew better. “I don’t blame you or your family for any of it. If the shoe had been on the other foot—”
“No. You wouldn’t have done the same thing. You don’t have it in you to be cruel.”
She shook her head, gave a humorless laugh. “Oh, I can conjure up all sorts of cruelties, but you’re probably right that I wouldn’t be able to pull them off. Unlike Oliver.”
Oliver Gatlin was a piece of work. “He accused me of forgetting about Sierra.”
“What?”
“Said having you warm my bed had turned my mind to mush, or some such,” he said, glancing over in time to see color bloom on her cheeks.
Her throat worked as if she was trying to swallow something she didn’t like. “Did you tell him we’re not sleeping together? Why would he think we were sleeping together?”
“I doubt he’s the only one,” he said, and when her eyes widened, he added, “Your car’s been in the driveway every day since I showed up. Your very identifiable car with personalized PWMoon plates. And by now, most of the town knows I’m staying here.”
“That doesn’t mean we’re sleeping together.”
“It’s an easy jump to make.”
“I don’t know why. Until today, the only time we’ve been seen together is the night we ate at Malina’s. And no one who saw us there would ever think we were intimate.”
“Because lovers don’t quarrel?” Did she really believe that? After their past?
“That was an argument. A real argument. Not a… lovers’ spat.” She stopped, as if realizing the ridiculousness of her logic. She also moved a long step away.
That made him laugh. “A little too late for that, don’t you think?”
“I should probably go home. If you need me to take Frank home with me, I will, but I think he’d be a lot happier with you.”
Well, crap. If he’d known she was going to run, he would’ve kept his mouth shut. “Considering he slept on my bed last night, yeah. I’d say so.”
“You don’t have to sound so smug. You’re the one who doesn’t like dogs, remember.”
“I’m willing to have my mind changed. I just needed a reason to change it.”
“And Frank’s that reason?” she asked, even though they both knew they’d stopped talking about dogs.
“I’ve been too hard on you. About your keeping Sierra’s secrets. And I’ve been thinking I’m as much to blame for everything that happened as anyone. If anyone is to blame,” he hurried to add before she interrupted. “If it all wasn’t just a big series of events gone wrong. It started with two kids who knew well enough what they were doing. Who should’ve used protection.” His chest grew tight. His throat swelled. He rubbed at his eyes to keep them from watering. “Why couldn’t they have just used protection?”
Before she could reach for him, he walked away and into the middle of the street to make sure Gatlin’s car was gone. Then he headed across the road to see Hiram Glass. Because if a spoonful of honey could make the medicine go down, he figured a whole jar could do magic.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Are you sure about this?” Kaylie asked Luna later that night, holding Luna’s hand and squeezing as she met her reflected gaze in the salon station’s mirror. Luna could only nod. She’d never thought of her hair as a penance, a weight she carried, a connection to the past. She and Sierra had been too close for her to need a physical reminder of the three years—was that really all?—they’d had.
But at separate times during the last six months, both Will Bowman and now Angelo had asked her what she was trying to prove, or hoping to accomplish, or what statement she was making by wearing it long. She’d certainly not done it for ease or convenience. It took forever to wash and even longer to dry, and managing the tangles and knots often felt like a full-time job.
Maybe there was something to their observations. She hadn’t consciously made the decision to keep it long, to carry the weight, to bind herself to the past with the strands, but perhaps that was exactly what she’d done, keeping it the same length since the accident. And even the fact that she was hesitating seemed less an uncertainty about a new style than an attachment she was pretty sure couldn’t be healthy.
“Because if you’re not sure,” Kaylie continued, “don’t do it.”
“Kaylie’s right,” Caldwell said, standing behind Luna and lifting her hair with both hands. He held it for a long moment, then let it go. All three of them watched in the mirror as the strands fell around Luna’s shoulders like a long black cape. “But if you do cut it, I’d love to take it off in a tail to donate.”
Luna thought about Skye, wondered whether her little sister would share her coloring, the black hair she’d inherited from both her parents, her mother’s Hispanic ethnicity giving her skin its tone. Then she thought of another child somewhere, one who’d lost her hair to chemotherapy, or an illness, growing confident, feeling pretty again. Normal. Drawing compliments instead of stares.
Oh, good grief. It was only hair. She was tired of looking like her senior portrait. And it was getting in the way. “Yes. Cut it. I want it gone.”
Caldwell studied her in the mirror, his hands on either side of her head, pulling her hair one way, then another, as if trying on different styles with the shape of her cheekbones and chin. “Do you have an idea of what you want?”
“Not a single one,” she said, causing Kaylie to groan. “But I’m going to guess by that gleam in your eye that you do.”
“Free rein?”
“Anything you want.”
“Luna—” Kaylie said, groaning again.
“I trust him. But,” she said, meeting Caldwell’s gaze in the mirror, “I don’t want to watch. I don’t want to see anything till you’re done.”
He nodded. “I’ll keep you turned away as much as I can. But it’ll be up to you not to peek.”
Kaylie groaned a third time, but she settled into the empty chair in the adjoining station for the show.
“No more groaning from you, miss,” Luna said with a laugh. “Hold your commentary for the end.”
“I’ll just be over here with my phone taking pictures for your scrapbook,” Kaylie said, raising said phone and taking one.
“As long as you’re not over there posting them to Facebook before Luna can.” Caldwell swiveled her chair, and Luna closed her eyes as he gathered her hair into a tail and bound it.
“No Facebook,” Kaylie said. “But I was thinking if I had Angelo’s cell number, I could send them to him.”
Luna’s eyes flew open. “Don’t you dare.”
Kaylie grinned. “Lucky for you, I don’t have his number.”
“Lucky for you, you mean. I would have to hurt you. Badly.”
“
Angelo?” Caldwell asked, lifting Luna’s hair away from her neck. “Is this someone new?”
“No, he’s not new. He’s very, very old. Someone I knew years ago,” she said, cringing at the sound of the scissors sawing through her hair. Cringing again as Kaylie’s face paled. Then feeling as if she’d lost ten pounds when her head fell forward, freed of all that weight.
As Caldwell said, “Ta-da!” no doubt holding up the tail for all to see, gasps and cheers rising from the salon’s other clients and stylists, she resisted reaching up to touch her nape and the newly shorn ends. “Wow. That’s frightening. I wonder if I’ve done permanent damage to my neck.”
“Nothing a massage won’t fix,” Caldwell said as he walked away, she assumed with her hair, and then he was back, saying, “So, this Angelo. Does he have good hands? Could he take care of your neck? Or should I book you a session with Wendy?”
Luna would’ve shaken her head if Caldwell wasn’t holding it still. “Old friend. Very old friend. Not a masseur.”
“When did a little thing like the lack of a license ever stop a man?” Kaylie put in, and this time it was Luna who wanted to groan.
“C’mon, Ms. Meadows,” Caldwell said, urging her to her feet. She opened her eyes, staring at the floor as she got out of the chair, refusing to spare even a glance at Kaylie and risk catching sight of her reflection. “Let’s get you washed so I can start in on my masterpiece.”
She felt as if she could fly. That she could take off any moment and soar. And it took Caldwell what seemed like seconds to shampoo and condition her hair. There was no heavy towel wrapped around her head and threatening to fall down her back. There were only short, choppy ends dripping over the drape as she settled back into her chair.
Caldwell squeezed the water from her hair, then picked up a comb. “Let’s do this.”
Luna held Kaylie’s gaze for a long moment, the other woman snapping another photo before Luna closed her eyes and stopped thinking about what was happening. She worried about it instead. Not that changing her mind was an option with her hair already gone, but would her parents like it? Would she like it? Would Angelo like it…? And why did it matter what Angelo Caffey liked or did not?
More important, had he really changed his mind about her? Was he ready to listen to the whole story? To hear the truth of all Sierra had entrusted her with? He’d known about the pregnancy. Sierra had turned to him for help. She’d obviously expected support and guidance, but she had received such the opposite that Luna ached for her friend. To be discounted so thoroughly…
And Luna had thought Oliver Gatlin cruel. Then again, she doubted Oliver had the capacity to recognize the flaw in himself. Angelo saw it, regretted it. Had lived with such incredible guilt for a decade, while all she’d lived with was fear. Fear that her lies would be discovered. That she’d be unable to honor her friend’s wishes. That she’d hate herself when all was said and done for failing everyone around her.
For failing herself. That most of all.
Ten years. She’d given ten years of her life to something that had passed in the blink of an eye. When she closed her eyes, and even now keeping them shut against the movement of Caldwell’s snipping scissors, she could see only pieces of that night at the ravine. Flashes of blue sky and white clouds and the Kool-Aid sunset. Oak and mesquite and juniper in a spectrum of green. The red of the car. The red of her blood, darker, splattered. The red of the fire engine and the emergency lights spinning…
She wondered whether she could get all of that into a scarf, if she was ready to. If she could bear seeing it wrapped around the wearer’s neck, or if she would unravel it thread by thread once done and let it go as she was doing with her hair.
“Luna?” Kaylie asked once Caldwell clicked off the blow-dryer and started in with his fingers, spraying the short strands and working product through. “Are you okay?”
She opened her eyes and looked at her friend, Caldwell brushing off her neck and shoulders before pulling her cape away. “I’m fine, why?”
“You’re crying.”
She was? Reaching up to swipe at her cheeks, she realized Kaylie was right. And that Caldwell was standing next to the other woman, both smiling. Both staring. Did that mean…? Oh. He was finished? “That’s it?”
They both nodded, both of their expressions expectant, Caldwell’s smug with success, Kaylie’s full of amazement. She laughed. Still crying, but this time with joy, Luna laughed. “I guess I should look now?”
Kaylie nodded fiercely, her eyes misting. “You should look now.”
Caldwell stepped forward and swiveled her chair, and she looked at the woman in the mirror. At herself. At no one she recognized. Where once had flowed a waterfall, layers and angles and wedges fought over real estate, settling over her ears and her forehead, one extra long and pointed chunk sweeping against her chin. It was a mess. It was a gorgeous mess. It was art.
She covered her mouth with both hands and giggled, because she had never seen herself as this woman looking back at her. Did others see her this way? Confident? Playful? Ready for anything? Was this who she’d been all this time while frightened of the past and hiding?
Was this the woman Angelo saw when he’d kissed her? Or was she both women, the one beneath the dark veil of mourning, and the one finally free to cut away the past?
“Well? Say something,” Kaylie demanded, getting to her feet, her phone now on video recording Luna’s reaction.
Caldwell moved in behind her again, fluffing and tweaking and arranging what he’d already arranged. “If you’re not happy with this, we’re going to have to break up.”
“I’m happy,” she said, and laughed, her eyes brimming. “I’m absolutely giddy. I’m in love.”
“With the new you? Or with this mysterious Angelo?” her stylist asked.
Both, she wanted to say, because it was true. The new her was… sensational. Absolutely stunning. And she’d loved Angelo Caffey since she was fifteen years old. “I’m in love with you,” she said to Caldwell, “because you’re a genius. And I’m in love with you,” she said to Kaylie, “because you let me go through with it instead of talking me out of it, which I know you wanted to do.”
Kaylie opened her mouth and feigned insult. “I never thought once about talking you out of it.”
“I know,” Luna said. “You thought about it ten thousand times.”
“That’s closer to the truth than you think.”
“You know what I need now? New lipstick. And earrings. Pairs and pairs of earrings. I think they’re going to be my new favorite accessory, now that they won’t get lost in my hair.”
“I told Ten not to expect me till late, so…”
“Just give me five minutes to settle up with Caldwell.”
“Perfect. Five minutes is all I need to upload this video to Facebook.”
“You do that, I won’t invite you to my housewarming party.”
“Ooh. Housewarming. I hope you’re ready to shop for more than earrings, because I know all the best kitchen stores.”
And she would. “You, Kaylie Flynn, are a woman after my own heart.”
DAY FOUR
FRIDAY
Bear and endure: This sorrow will one day prove to be for your good.
—Ovid
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When Angelo woke, he smelled coffee. Not Folgers. Starbucks. The rich, earthy aroma of espresso, and that of warm milk. There wasn’t a Starbucks, or any coffee shop for that matter, in Hope Springs. The old coffeemaker in the kitchen had, amazingly, still worked, and since Luna had turned on the power and water his first day here, he’d been making do with drip, like he did at home. Though since he ate breakfast at the diner on the way to work, he paid for his coffee by the cup. But espresso…
He pulled on the same jeans he’d worn yesterday, tugged on a clean T-shirt and clean socks, shoved his feet into his boots and tied them. He’d showered before hitting the sack last night, and he couldn’t be bothered with shaving this
morning, or running more than his fingers though his overly long hair. Definitely a perk of the life he lived, looking like a bum and getting away with it.
On the other side of the bed, Frank stretched and yawned, then sat up and shook his head, his ears flapping, short white dog hair floating in the morning light before settling onto the navy comforter. “Nice one, Frank. I really love crawling into a bed covered in your mess.”
Frank gave a quick couple of yappy barks, then ran out of the room, his nails clicking on the stairs as he made his way to the first floor. Angelo jogged down behind him, turning the corner into the kitchen and glancing at the countertop, where a new and pretty pricey-looking espresso machine gleamed in some sort of crowned stainless-steel majesty.
Then he looked down at Luna where she squatted in front of Frank, scratching his head. And looked again. And frowned. “What in the hell happened to your hair?”
“Nothing happened to my hair. I had it cut,” she said as she stood.
Cut until there was nothing left of it. “I can see that. Why?”
Grabbing her mug from the counter, she crossed the room and opened the back door for Frank. “It was time.”
“Because I asked you about it recently?”
“You don’t have anything to do with my hair.”
He wanted to believe her, but the evidence said otherwise. “If you say so.”
“I do,” she said, turning away from where she’d been watching the dog. “Now, can we get back to doing what we’re here to do? There’s almost nothing left,” she said, and he swore he heard disappointment in her voice. “We should probably be able to finish today.”
And then what? Was he going to leave? Go back to Vermont and build cabinets and porch rockers for the rest of his life? Leave her here to manage the Caffey-Gatlin Academy on her own? With Oliver Gatlin stopping by at every opportunity to harass her?
Get real, Caffey. Luna could handle Oliver Gatlin. The question was whether or not Angelo could handle walking away. A question that shouldn’t have been so hard to answer. “Sure, but first… You going to show me how to use this machine?”