“It’s complicated,” he told her, pulling her hands from his shoulders and holding them tightly in his.
“Then explain it to me,” she urged, ducking her head to try to maintain eye contact.
He felt his whole body flinch. “Explain?” he asked and she nodded.
Like it’s that easy? he wanted to say. But he looked at her and realized that it actually was.
He wanted to tell her. This woman. Because she was so good. So decent and beautiful. So vulnerable and strong.
But it wasn’t easy, and the words cost him something, like taking out a chunk of his chest or a slice from his belly.
This, he thought, feeling acidic and grumpy, is why I don’t explain things.
But nonetheless, he looked deep in her sympathetic green eyes and pushed off the bottom of the pool.
“It’s not Patrick,” he said, his voice gruff, the words rising up rusty and thick. “Well, not totally. It’s my mom.”
He watched his thumb trace the hills and valleys of her hand and felt her breathe. He could smell them, both of them, and the sex they’d had rise up out of the soft sheets.
And he’d never felt closer to another person before in his life. Something like lust, something like joy filled him, bringing his head up.
This was intimacy. Those things they’d done to each other, the places they’d touched—that was sex. This was something different, a potent mix of friendship and camaraderie.
And he’d never had this with any other woman. With another person.
“I know everyone thinks it’s because I’m so hurt by the fact that he wasn’t around for my childhood, and that’s part of it.” The things he’d never verbalized fell out of his mouth and it was easy. It was welcome. “But when I was a kid my mom asked me if I wanted to know my dad. She said she would write Patrick and tell him about me, but I said no. And as the years went on I felt bad about stopping her from talking to Patrick. Not for me, but for her.” He looked at Daphne to see if any of this was registering. “She always loved him, it was obvious even to me, and I thought I was keeping them apart. But as I got older I realized it wasn’t me—it was him. Patrick with his silence rejected her over and over again.”
Daphne squeezed his hand and he realized he’d stopped tracing her palm and was instead gripping her like a lifeline when he was about to drown.
“But she’s here now. I mean, they’re in the same place and she still loves him and he’s looking at her like he never told her to stay away. Like the thirty years they spent apart never happened. I know she hasn’t told him what it was like for us—she’s so proud. But I think what’s holding her back from trying to have a second chance with Patrick is me. Me and my vocal, childish disapproval of him—”
“Oh, Jonah.” Daphne sighed and he realized that she got it. She understood and he so appreciated her, he leaned over and kissed her delicately on the cheek.
“I can tell that if I let this go, if I—” he took a big breath “—admit that this guy is my dad and Gabe and Max are my brothers, then there will be nothing keeping them apart. Nothing to stop her from trying to be a wife to him.”
“What’s wrong with that?” she asked. “If that’s what they both want?”
“He’ll hurt her,” he cried, wondering what had happened to her understanding. “All over again. And I don’t think she could take it. She spent her whole life missing him. Thinking less of herself for things she couldn’t control. And I know if I go back to the inn and call that man Dad, then she’ll forget about those letters. She’ll forget about those hard years and she’ll take whatever second chance he gives her.”
“He’s a good man, Jonah. There would be worse things in the world.”
Daphne should know better, he thought, feeling his face harden.
“I don’t have to tell you, Daphne,” he said, not wanting to be cruel, but wanting so badly to get his point across, “that nice people don’t always get it right. I’m sure Jake didn’t want to hurt you.”
She sucked in a breath, the fine muscles of her lips twitching, and he touched them, wanting to take away the hurt he’d caused.
“You’re right,” she said. “There is no guarantee. What if she and Patrick get back together anyway? They’re adults, Jonah. You can’t stop them from doing what they want.”
“I can try,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s my mother and I have to try to protect her.”
“You’re a good son,” Daphne said, wrapping her hand around his neck and squeezing, pressing her soft face to his.
“I never want her to feel like she’s less of a woman or a mother because that man rejects her again.”
“Maybe he won’t reject her,” Daphne said. “From what Gabe and Max have said, it’s like he’s been waiting for her all these years.”
“Then he shouldn’t have sent those letters. He shouldn’t have told her to stay away.”
Daphne pulled back and steadied him as if reading him. “For a man with so much pride I thought you’d understand it a bit better when you see it in your father.”
He wanted to reject her assessment, but he’d seen it enough to agree. He and Patrick were a lot alike. He didn’t want to bring this fight into the bed. Not on his one night with Daphne.
Not when there were other things they could do.
So he smiled and touched the veil of hair that fell over her shoulder, carefully spread his fingers so long strands of it fell into his palm. “You’re right,” he said. “And the truth is I see a lot of myself in those men. I actually like Max and Gabe.” He shrugged. “Sort of. But I can’t risk it with Patrick.”
She pressed a kiss to his mouth. Nothing sexy or leading, just a kiss. Warm and soft. Her lips against his. And he kissed her back.
Something had short-circuited his brain. Instead of being uncomfortable by all they had talked about, and all that he’d revealed, he found himself charged with a certain electricity. An energy.
“Any more questions?” he asked, looking at her lips, then her breasts covered by the sheet.
“What’s Haven House?”
He laughed. “Give an inch, you’ll take a mile.”
She blushed and shrugged, his forthright Daphne. “You offered.”
“It’s a charity I’m starting with my business partner,” he said, still stroking her hair, carefully working out some of the knots he’d put in it. He could talk all night as long as he could touch her while he did it. Not that he really wanted to talk, but he found himself in the bizarre place of wanting to make Daphne happy. So, he broke his rules again. And explained Haven House.
“When I was growing up, my mom had to work so hard she didn’t have a chance to go back to school or learn skills that would help her get a better job. I know that’s something that a lot of single mothers deal with.”
“My mom did,” she said.
He nodded. “So, hopefully someday we will be able to build a school and a residence and we’ll offer scholarships so mothers can bring their kids for two weeks and both the mother and the kid can learn new skills. Skills that will hopefully add something to their lives that they didn’t have before. And not just computers but art classes and maybe some writing classes. And the kids can learn how to play sports or—” He cut himself off, realizing he’d crossed the line between explaining and waxing poetic. “I get a little excited about the idea. Gary jumped the gun a bit with that press release. Right now it’s nothing more than an idea.”
“It’s a great idea,” she said, her voice betraying her emotion, and he saw tears in her eyes.
“Oh, no,” he said, laughing, but uncomfortable. “No tears. Not in my bed. If you want to cry, you have to go back to your own room.”
“Do you want me to?” she asked, serious, careful.
“What?”
“Go back to my room?”
“God, no,” he said. It was the last thing he wanted. Tears or no, he wanted to keep her in his bed for a week. A month. As long as they could live on room serv
ice. So, he pulled the sheet free from her hands, revealing the breasts he’d been lavishing with X-rated attention.
“I thought you said you couldn’t do four,” she said, leaning back on her elbows, the trace of tears gone. Thank God.
“That,” he said, “was before I met you.” And then he jerked her legs around so he was between them. Just rough enough, just wild enough so her blood immediately rose to the challenge.
He lifted himself over her, hard and heavy against her thigh.
“How do you know what I need?” she asked, staring into his eyes. He could see right to her soul, her generous heart that she had on display.
Lie, his instincts told him. Make a joke. Don’t give yourself away.
But he couldn’t. Not to her. He stared in her eyes and let her see his own heart, battered and guarded, callused and crippled.
“Because it’s what I need, too.”
13
Daphne had expected awkward. She’d expected the worst kind of morning, followed by an even worse drive home, followed by a disaster of a goodbye scene when he dropped her off at the farm.
What she got was loving. Kind. Breakfast in bed. Joking conversations about school lunches and who had it worse growing up.
He’s good at this, she thought at one point, staring at him on the sly. He’s had more than his share of morning afters. His charm was in full force, never giving her a moment to get serious. To ask what happened next.
And finally, at the driver-side window of his Jeep, she got a kiss goodbye.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” he said. The look in his eye, as if he knew all of her filthiest secrets—which he did—made her blush.
“Eight o’clock,” she agreed, the usual time for her to either drop off the truck or go with him to deliver the lunches.
When are you leaving?
Why are we pretending?
How does this end?
Those questions were beating against her lips, screaming to get out and run amuck. But she harnessed them, muzzled them, and for once in her life, she just let things happen.
“Bye,” she said, and ducked into the open window for one more kiss to his already kiss-swollen lips.
“Ouch,” he muttered as he pulled back, touching the puffy bottom lip. “Somebody bit me last night,” he joked, smiling just for her.
“Kiss me,” she said, shocking herself, “or I’ll do it again.”
He kissed her like a man returning home from a long trip, like a man about to leave for a long trip. He kissed her like he couldn’t stand any time apart from her.
And she was afraid she kissed him back the same way. How could he not taste the truth in that kiss?
Finally he drove away and she watched the Jeep kick up dust on its way down from her mountain.
“You’re going to break my heart,” she whispered, seeing the future as clearly as if it were happening now.
Wind blew up from the valley and she felt so hollow, suddenly. Her arms and legs weightless, her chest empty, she wondered if she’d blow away on a good strong gust.
“Daph?”
Daphne whirled to find her mother, a respectful distance away, but close enough that she would have seen everything.
“Mom,” she groaned, “don’t go getting yourself worked up. It’s nothing permanent.”
Gloria stood there, the cardigan she’d worn every cool morning since Daphne was a girl, wrapped snug around her waist. The elbows were threadbare, the red color now a dull brandy, faded from the years and hard use.
Gloria’s face was inscrutable, the lines and wrinkles around her eyes and thinning lips gave away nothing. And something about Mom’s stoicism made Daphne shake. She clenched her hands together but the trembling traveled up her arms, across her shoulders and settled in her chest.
“I’m serious, Mom. He’s going to leave.” Her breath hitched as she said the word. “There will be no wedding, no babies.” Oh my God, she could barely get that word out. And why was she crying? Why was this terrible pressure burning her chest, making it so hard to breathe?
“Sweetie,” Mom cooed and wrapped Daphne up tight in her arms. The sweater, so ugly and old, felt like velvet against Daphne’s face and she burrowed in tight. “You love him, don’t you?”
The words were buried somewhere deep, somewhere scared and black and ugly. So she just nodded.
“Does he love you?”
“Of course not,” she said, stunned by the thought. He lived so far away, occupied another stratosphere, a different planet.
Her mother’s soft laughter stirred her hair. “Do you know that for sure?”
“Mom, it’s stupid to even have this conversation,” Daphne mumbled, putting her head back down on Mom’s shoulder.
Gloria rested her chin on Daphne’s head and rocked her ever so perfectly from side to side. “You know, sweetie, I hate to point this out to you when you’re obviously ready to martyr yourself, but you’ve always been very good at loving people. You just have a hard time letting them love you back.”
Daphne squeezed her eyes shut and gave herself one more moment of self-pity. Then she gathered herself up by the very fibers of her muscles, the sheer will she lived on day to day, and stepped away from her mother.
“How is Helen?” she said, wiping her tears, pushing her night with Jonah into memory and away from her reality.
“Don’t you want to talk about this?” Mom asked, sympathy breathing from her pores, radiating from her sweater.
“No,” Daphne said firmly. “I don’t.”
She was home now. Cinderella had had her night at the ball and now there was work to do.
On his three hundredth call to Gary to find out about the land Jonah got a connection for about ten seconds.
“Gary,” he whispered, standing on the hill behind the Riverview kitchen where he could see anyone coming. He didn’t need eavesdroppers to this particular conversation.
“Jonah, our phones are going nuts! When are you coming back?”
“Back?”
“To work? Remember? I know you said you’d be gone until next week, but I need you as soon as you can get here. We’ve got Haven House donations coming in from every direction. The deputy mayor wants to talk to us about funding. Every major newspaper including USA Today wants an interview. We need you back here.”
Back there.
He looked at the mountains, purple in the twilight, and something in him, something raw and new and unknown, howled no.
“I need another week here.”
“Still?” Gary cried. “Hey, wait, I’m going to lose you for a second, I’m going in a tunnel.”
Tunnel, Jonah thought. He must be heading into the city.
Jonah rubbed his forehead. And considered his reality, which, for the last little while, he’d been neglecting. He had work to do. Serious work. Hard work. Work that he loved and was important to him.
Here, he had his mother, who was acting like a stranger.
And Daphne.
His whole body contracted at the thought of her. The thought of not seeing her again.
He shook his head. It was obviously time to go home if he was having such reactions. It was time to end this relationship before he got more stupid.
It had been a spectacular night, there was no doubt about it. But it didn’t change the fact that he had to leave. There was no future for them.
The phone buzzed. “…Sorry. How was the gala?” Gary asked.
“Fine,” Jonah said, which really didn’t even cover a one-hundredth of the night. In fact, fine covered the food. That was it. The rest of the night was something reserved for the most explicit male fantasy. “But I’m calling to find out if we bought that land.”
There was a long pause. “Gary?”
Static in the general tone of Gary’s voice buzzed over his phone. “…stupid buildings. Sorry. What?”
“The land?” Jonah said, cursing Gary’s crappy phone reception. “Did we buy it?”
“…no
land—”
The line went dead.
“Gary?” There was no answer.
Relief flooded him and he tipped back his head to look up at the stars and he smiled. Thank God. It had bothered him every time they’d come up for air during the night—obviously not enough to sleep in the other room. But now that he knew he didn’t have anything to feel guilty about he felt like laughing.
Last night had been amazing. And he didn’t want anything to sully the memory of it—since memories were all he was going to have of Daphne.
And, now, in the cold evening, away from Daphne’s hot touch, he had their relationship back in perspective. It had been amazing and it had been a one-time thing.
Her life was here. His life couldn’t be.
The inn, the Mitchells…even if he was interested in being a part of this family, he couldn’t do it. Not if it meant putting his mother in the path of the man who hurt her so badly. Not if it meant risking all that he and Mom had managed to do—alone, without Gabe, Max and especially without Patrick.
A week, he thought. A week to tie up all his loose ends.
One more week with Daphne; the very thought was bittersweet.
He looked out at the cabins. Cabin four had a small light on, a beacon in the dark night.
Tying up loose ends. Beginning, he thought, with Mom.
Patrick had brought a Scrabble game with him when he went to Iris’s cabin. He’d tucked the aging red box under his arm for two reasons: one, she loved the game—they’d had all-night Scrabble tournaments in the early days of their marriage—and two, she’d asked him last night if this relationship they were floundering through was just sex.
She’d tried to be matter-of-fact, but he knew that she wanted there to be more.
Iris wanted him back, he knew it in his gut. She wanted to pick up where they’d left off thirty years ago, before they’d been torn in two by her illness.
But he couldn’t offer that. He couldn’t offer her much more, yet. Every time he thought about asking her to stay, he imagined what would happen if she left again.
He imagined the pain which made him remember that long-ago night and the way his life had been gutted and his boys abandoned and destroyed. And between the memory and the imagined pain, he was paralyzed.
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