by Alison Kent
“Yes, sir,” he said, his hands going to his hips. “I think so, only I just found out.”
“From Luna.”
“From Sierra. From the letter she wrote to Luna. She and Oscar were going to New York for their senior year”—though he didn’t tell them the part they’d played in Sierra’s decision—“and then to study music. She wanted her baby to have a full-time mother, not a nanny, or a series of sitters, or to grow up in day care. And she knew how important it was to the family that she succeed. But she also knew how much of a struggle you had with your four still at home. She and Oscar decided the baby would have a better life with parents who could give her what they couldn’t.”
“Or that damn Oscar Gatlin decided that.”
“No, Dad. They decided it together. It’s in the letters Sierra wrote.”
“Her?” his mother said, looking up. “Our grandbaby… She’s a girl?”
“Lily. They named her Lily,” he said, and that was when his mother broke.
Her sobs rent through him, tightening his chest, a boa constrictor choking him. He turned to his father, who was shaking his head, grief wet on his cheeks, but silent. “Dad—”
It was all he managed to say before his father was pointing toward the door. “Get out. Just go. Leave the box.”
“I’ll leave your letter. And I’ll make you a copy of the CD and the photo. But I’ll be back for the box.” He hadn’t talked about this to Luna, but the box belonged to the Caffey-Gatlin Academy, locked inside a glass display case, the contents hidden, the lid closed.
“Fine. But come alone. I don’t want that woman in my house.”
“Luna is with me.”
“I don’t care—”
But Angelo damn well did. “I love her.”
“After what she did—”
Enough. He returned the rings and the photo to the box with the CD before closing it with the booties still inside. “Nothing Luna did would’ve changed what happened. Sierra chose to marry Oscar. She chose to study music. She and Oscar chose to give their child to a family desperate for one of their own. Luna knew about the baby, yes, and thank God she did, because she helped Sierra through all of it. The morning sickness, everything. But she’s not to blame for any of this. And you know that.”
Angelo exited the house the way he’d come in, but found the living room empty. His heart jumped as he pushed through the front door. Luna stood in the yard, behind the car, facing away.
He couldn’t get to her fast enough. “What are you doing out here?”
“Thinking. Breathing. Nothing.” She crossed her arms as if hugging herself. “Giving you time with your parents. Trying to pretend I didn’t hear them yelling about me.”
Ignoring the latter, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her, bringing her close to his body and letting her settle there, letting her stay. How had he ever thought he hated her? How had he ever thought she hadn’t been his whole life since the first time he’d seen her?
“Those are all good things. Especially the breathing part. I’d hate for you not to do that.”
She leaned her head against him, rubbing so that her short, spiky hair scratched his shirt. He missed her long hair. He loved her short hair, but he missed threading his fingers through the waist-length strands and watching them flow. He’d done it so often years ago. He hadn’t done it enough since being back.
“How’re you doing?” she asked, nuzzling again.
“Your head’s on my heart. I can’t imagine being better than this.”
“I mean with your parents,” she said, though he felt her smile where her cheek rested on his chest. “I can’t even imagine having to deal with such news after all this time.”
“It’s going to be rough for a while. And not just on them,” he said, letting that sink in before he looked down.
She looked up, searching his gaze. “On me, you mean. Because of the secrets I kept.”
“Yeah.”
“And even more on you.”
“That too.”
She nodded, swallowed. Tears welled, and she blinked them away. “Do we need to leave now? Do you want to put me on a plane so you can stay a few more days? I know they don’t want me here.”
This woman. “No. I’m not going to put you on a plane. If we need to leave now, we’ll do it together.”
“Angel, this is your family. You haven’t seen them in ages. They haven’t seen you. I’m not going to get in the way of that, especially with the news you brought. They need time to process that. I need to go. At least find me a room somewhere. A motel. A hostel. I’ll be fine.”
She might, but he wouldn’t. He needed her with him. Her mind. Her body. All of her. “We’ll drive into town, give them some time. We’ll test the waters when we get back.”
“I’m so sorry about all of this,” she said, catching back a sob. “About everything.”
His own chest tightened, and he had to force out the words. “Luna, I love you. You’re my life now. Even if my parents never come to understand what you did, I do—”
“But you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”
“I don’t know what I would’ve done. But I did enough. Or I didn’t do enough, not coming home when Sierra asked me to.” The knife of his guilt sliced impenetrably deep.
“It helps, you know. Knowing you love me.”
“I’ll always love you,” he said and pulled her to him, wrapping her in his arms. “I’ll forever love you.”
“That helps most of all.”
“C’mon,” he said, guiding her toward her car. “Let’s go find a bed.”
“Angelo!”
“Uh-uh. Tonight you call me Angel.”
DAY FIVE
SATURDAY
The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
—Abraham Lincoln
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
This morning’s arrival at the Caffey house a mirror of last night’s, Luna and Angelo slammed their doors in quick succession, then walked toward the house. Luna, however, stopped at the front of the car to lean against the hood. Angelo, reaching the porch steps alone, frowned and came back to where she waited. “You’re not coming in?”
She shook her head, crossing her arms to keep from pulling him to her, holding him, rubbing her cheek to his that was bristled with the whiskers he hadn’t had a razor to shave. She’d loved his parents dearly, but she was an outsider now, unwelcome, unwanted. Unwilling to put herself through their rejection again. “I came in last night.”
“That was last night,” he said, but the smile he gave her was sadly knowing.
“I can’t imagine if I come in now things will be any different. Any… better.” She shrugged as she added the latter, her chest tight as she did.
He lifted a hand, tucked the short strands of her hair behind her ear. “I won’t be long.”
“I know.”
But he didn’t go right away. He stood in front of her, his fingers trailing from her ear to her jaw, his gaze following his hand as if creating a visual as well as a tactile memory. Or maybe she had it all wrong. Maybe he didn’t want to go in either, but wanted to stay with her. Maybe he needed her with him.
Maybe she was being selfish, when what she’d wanted to do was give him this time.
Before she could move, however, the door opened, and the screen followed, squeaking on its hinges as all screens seemed to do. Angelo dropped his hand and hung his head, shaking it while breathing deep.
“I love you,” she whispered, and he gave a nod before turning, his long stride carrying him to where his father waited. He shook the other man’s hand, and the two talked quietly, Mike Caffey’s fists shoved in his pockets, Angelo’s shoved in his, too.
Angelo was shaking his head, his gaze cast down, while his father seemed intent on holding his attention, and being three inches shorter, ducked his head to get in his son’s face, as if making demands, as if lecturing. As if making sure Angelo understood what he had to say.
> Moments later, his mother came out, hugging Sierra’s box to her chest. Then, as if he were in her way, she stepped in front of her husband to get to her son. She wrapped one arm around Angelo’s neck and kissed his cheek, tears like tattoos of her sorrow marking her face. It broke Luna’s heart to see Carlita Caffey so tormented, and her own tears burned like black tar.
But Angelo insisted on taking a stand. He understood the why of what Luna had done—understood, too, his parents’ feelings about Luna keeping Sierra’s secrets for so long. But he needed them to know he’d forgiven her, and that he wasn’t blameless in all that had come to pass.
Sierra had chosen her path. No one knew what had caused Oscar to lose control of the car. It had been an accident. A tragic, senseless accident. But that was all. Luna had suffered enough at their hands, and the ostracism had to stop. Angelo had chosen to be with her, and she hoped they accepted that she was a very important part of his life.
That, more than anything, was why Luna knew they would weather this particular storm. She and Angelo had both made questionable choices, and recognized doing so. But neither blamed the other anymore, and slowly they were coming to forgive themselves for their lapses in judgment, their terrible mistakes.
They were coming, too, to understand what the other had done, and why. The reasons meant everything. Whether good or bad, those motives could not be ignored. They came from the root of who she was, what she believed about friendship and loyalty, and from the core of what had made her fall in love with Angelo so many years ago.
And what had her loving him more than she’d thought possible today, especially after last night…
They’d spent the night in a tiny little motel, their bungalow so small it would’ve fit in her loft a half dozen times with, she was pretty sure, room to spare. There’d been a wonderfully plush full mattress, the perfect size to ensure they touched while they slept. Angelo had wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his body. At some point he’d turned over, and she’d spooned the same way against his back, her nose to his nape, breathing him in, her fingers threading through his chest hair, tugging, toying with his nipples until he groaned.
They hadn’t lasted long like that, need rising between them until neither could breathe without spilling ragged sounds into the room. She’d pulled him toward her, or he’d rolled over her, she couldn’t be sure, and it hadn’t mattered because they wanted the same thing at the same time, and the act transcended what she’d known in the past, even what she and Angel had shared in the hours before.
He was rough in his gentleness, demanding as he asked, thorough while skimming over her body with his fingertips and his mouth. The night had been all about learning, and longing, the physical desperation of a relationship that had endured the emotional wringer’s fierce battering. Neither of them had slept much at all. They’d dozed, drifted, talked in shorthand snippets, questioned, shared.
She knew so much more now about what it had been like for him growing up the oldest of six siblings. She’d seen only what she, an outsider, an only child, had wanted to see: the laughter, the beehive buzz of activity, the fun and games. What she hadn’t seen were the creative personalities clashing, the artistic moodiness that bordered on depression. How his parents had already been coming apart before losing Sierra. How more and more responsibility had fallen onto Angelo’s shoulders. She was surprised he hadn’t cracked, though he’d laughed when she’d said that, swearing football had kept him sane.
She was also surprised how well he’d hidden all of that when they were together halfway between their two worlds, but those times neither one of them had wanted to talk about home. He’d wanted to talk about school, what he was learning, how much he loved what he was learning, how much he’d looked forward to his trip to Rome, what he’d seen while there, what he’d studied, and she’d wanted to listen to every word.
The Angelo she’d known who attended Cornell had been neither the Angelo who’d quarterbacked the Hope Springs Bulldogs, nor the man in the car beside her now. That Angelo had been less boy than man, though not yet with this one’s presence. Fitting, she supposed, since the two years between Sierra’s death and his family’s move hadn’t seemed to belong to either of her lives—the one where Sierra was, the one where she wasn’t. They’d been magic years, drifting years, years spent trying to escape their shared loss by not talking about it at all.
A part of her wanted to go back there, to float down that river, eyes closed, knowing nothing but freedom and bliss. But there was a reason it was called real life, and she’d much rather go through this current heartache with this Angelo, because these were feelings she could trust. Feelings she would always remember. Feelings that would mold her and shape him and make them into something true.
Three hours after leaving the Caffeys’ home, and the solemn good-bye Angelo had shared with his parents, Luna took her passport from Angelo’s hand. After the border patrol agent waved them through, she watched in the passenger-side mirror as the crossing disappeared behind them. Once it was nothing but a speck, swallowed up by the shimmer of heat rising from the road, she turned in her seat, tucking her feet beneath her.
“What are you going to do when we get back to Hope Springs?”
Angelo shrugged without looking over. “I’m driving your car, so I figure I’ll go to the house. You can stay, or you can head home. Up to you.”
That wasn’t what she’d meant, but he was so typically practical male that his response didn’t surprise her. “Let me try that again. Tomorrow. The day after. What are your plans?”
He waited several long seconds, then glanced in the rearview mirror and slowed the car, pulling to the side of the road. There was nothing around for miles. No houses. No gas stations. No billboards. Not so much as an intersection with another road to take them someplace else. No car but hers traveled the long, straight highway that would return them to the civilization she called home. The sky reached miles to the horizon, leaving her with a sense of insignificance, and yet with Angelo for company she felt more vital than she ever had in her life.
Dear God, she loved this man.
Pulling the keys from the ignition, he opened his door and climbed from the car. She watched through the windshield as he came around to her side, and reached for her own door as he approached. Once she was out, he took her hand, leading her away from the road and into the scrub brush and dirt. She held tight and followed, apprehension creeping down her spine like a scorpion—a thought that had her watching carefully where she stepped, and then her nerves had her laughing.
“I’m guessing you’ve got a destination in mind here? Because I’d hate to think you decided this would be the perfect place for the buzzards to pick my bones clean.”
He let her go but kept walking, throwing his arms out wide before lacing his hands atop his head, turning in a circle, and howling as if driven by demons. In the distance she saw a shimmer of light, a reflection, a mirage. The sound of Angelo’s call echoed, and then he came back to her, a great purpose in his hurried steps, and she heard him muttering beneath his breath.
“I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to say this. I just don’t—”
“Angel, stop. What’s wrong?” she asked, her heart burrowing deep in her chest to keep from getting broken. Please don’t let something have gone this terribly wrong!
Hands on his knees, he leaned forward, his shaking head bowed. “I never thought I’d do this in my life. I’ve never wanted to, never felt I needed to…”
“Angel, tell me what’s going on,” she said, her voice a painful whisper in her throat. What in the world was going on?
“Luna Meadows,” he said as he straightened, his cheeks wet, his eyes bright, his expression hopefully solemn. “Will you marry me?”
Her heart. Where was her heart? It wasn’t beating. She was going to die. Had he really just proposed? “You want me to marry you.”
“I don’t know why you w
ould want to,” he said, but she knew exactly, and she smiled. “It’s not fair for me to think you would when I can’t manage to get my head screwed on straight. And the road with my family won’t be easy—”
“The road with mine will be,” she said, walking toward him, moving his hands away from his waist and pressing their palms together, then lacing their fingers, folding hers down to hold him tight and waiting for him to do the same. He did, and she smiled. Joy found where her heart was hiding and yanked hard, throwing it into the sky to burst and rain down confetti.
She’d never known happiness could feel like this. “I love you, Angelo Caffey. You’re in my blood, beneath my skin. You fill my thoughts with only good things and my days with so much beauty and my life with hope. Those are the reasons I want to marry you. But only some. There are many, many more.”
He pulled their joined hands around his back, bringing their bodies close. “Like the way I fill your body?”
“That would be one,” she said, lifting high on her toes for his kiss. “And this would be another.”
She pressed her lips to his, then parted them, taking his tongue into her mouth and loving it with hers, loving him with her hands against his back, loving him with her heart that fluttered around them in tiny bright pieces. Being happier than this… She couldn’t imagine any moment of her life being better than this. Except one.
Holding his biceps, she pulled back to look at him, getting a frown for her troubles. “When?”
“When?” he asked, obviously confused.
“How soon can we get married?”
“Well, we’ve got a car,” he said, looking over her head to where he’d parked. And then he grinned. A wicked flash of teeth and dimples cut deep in the scruff covering his chin and his cheeks. “As long as we’ve got money for gas, we can head back to Hope Springs by way of Las Vegas, if you’d like.”
“I absolutely, positively, one hundred percent like.” This was their time, so long in coming. Later they would celebrate with family and friends, a reception on the farm perhaps, or a party at Two Owls. But becoming Angelo’s wife… It was a moment too intimate to share. She wanted it with him. Just him.