Bree seemed to find her voice, probably conditioned to respond to questions from the formidable chair. “Hello, Professor Woodlawn. This is my mother, Erica Ross, my sister, Tess Ross, and my grandmothers. They drove in from Connecticut to see me. Um, how was commencement?”
“Long. Hot.”
Aidan was aware he was standing there stupidly. He wanted to reach out to Bree, to kiss her cheek and meet her family, but he was so blindsided by her appearance, he couldn’t.
“Aidan,” Bree spoke again. She’d called him by his first name. He could feel Clarissa Woodlawn stare at him sharply. “I was going to call you—”
“To go over the details of your recommendation, right? Why don’t you e-mail me, Miss Ross?” He hated the stiffness in his voice, the look of confusion in her eyes when he forced himself to meet them. He hoped she would understand he had to play everything very professional in front of the woman who had the power to make or break his entire career.
Bree said nothing. “Ladies,” he said, and shouldered past the rest of the Ross clan to stand next to Professor Woodlawn.
“Ready to go, Aidan?” Professor Woodlawn asked.
“Right,” he said, following her outside without looking back. He could only hope Bree would forgive him.
Chapter Seven
What an idiot she’d been to think there was any real future for them. Obviously, he didn’t feel the same blinding need for her that she felt for him or he wouldn’t have dismissed her, humiliating her in front of her family. No, that wasn’t fair. She hadn’t been humiliated because they had no idea there was anything between them. But it still hurt. He’d treated her like a pesky freshman, and they’d been sharing a bed less than twelve hours before.
After Aidan and his party had left, she’d followed her parents numbly out to the parking lot and agreed to meet them all at Weston Pond to take a short walk before they drove back to Midville. Outdoor activities were one thing they all agreed upon, even her grandmothers, who’d gone backpacking together in the Berkshires only the previous summer.
Tess hopped in the passenger seat of the dreaded rental before Bree could refuse her company. All she wanted was to be alone, to think over how she was going to salvage the heart she hadn’t realize had been so completely consumed by Aidan until he’d kicked it away.
Now her sister was nattering on about her summer job interning at the Hartford law firm Baker and Roberts. Only every third word was coming through until she tuned in at the word kiss.
“It just happened. One day he was calling me Miss Ross and asking me to make copies and the next he was kissing me at the coffee maker. But, oh, my gosh, you cannot tell Mom and Dad.”
“Wait, who was kissing you at the coffee maker?”
“Mr. Roberts. I mean, Greg.” Tess blushed.
“Mr. Roberts, the partner in the law firm? He’s your boyfriend?”
“He says he feels silly being called my boyfriend since he’s thirty-five, but yeah. We’re in love.”
She took a moment to process this. Her little sister, age twenty-three, was involved with a thirty-five year old who was her boss, no less. It suddenly put her situation with Aidan into perspective.
“Wow, that’s…great, Tess. I’m so happy for you.” She meant it.
“I knew you’d be supportive. Thanks, Bree.” Tess seemed so genuinely content Bree forgot her own turmoil for a moment.
“Why don’t you want to tell Mom and Dad?”
“Don’t you think they’d freak out? And I still want to work there. Mr. Baker is like a million years old, and Greg says he doesn’t think he’d mind, but I don’t want to chance it. I’m learning so much.”
“So you fell in love with another lawyer. Just like Mom and Dad. I think they’ll come around. They know him, don’t they?”
“Yeah. We’re happy keeping it quiet for now, but I wanted to tell you.”
“Thanks.” Bree smiled at her sister, pleased they could have this moment.
“Speaking of guys, who was the hot guy at the restaurant? You obviously knew him.”
“Um, well, he was one of my old professors, Aidan Worthy. He’s in the art history department, and I asked him to write a recommendation for my grad school applications.”
“But there’s something more between you, isn’t there?”
Bree was surprised at Tess’s intuition about this. But maybe being in love made you see it everywhere.
“We sort of hooked up. Last night.”
“What does that mean?”
“Do I have to spell it out for you?”
“I mean, was it a one-time thing or what?”
“I’m not sure. I thought he wanted more, and I was ready to give him more, maybe even move here to be with him. But then he completely dismissed me when I ran into him. Maybe I misread him.”
“But wasn’t that woman his boss? Maybe he’s like Greg, not wanting to rock the boat unnecessarily.”
Bree considered this. “He is trying to get tenure. Having a romantic entanglement with a former student might throw a wrench in the works.”
“Totally.”
Bree was surprised at her baby sister’s insight.
“It would be so great if you moved back East. We could go on a double date!”
Bree laughed. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
They arrived at the pond and parked. Their father inspected the sky. “Clouds rolling in. We might be due for another shower.”
“It’s only a mile and a half around the pond,” Bree said. “We can make it.” She pulled on tennis shoes and grabbed her waterproof jacket. She knew better than to go for a hike, even an easy one like this, without the basics.
Bree let her father and sister take the lead, with the grandmothers following aided by their walking sticks, and fell into step beside her mother. She didn’t realize how much she’d missed her family, and she was suddenly fiercely glad they’d been insistent enough to drive out and see her. Perhaps she hadn’t told them she was going to be nearby because she was worried she’d get too homesick for them if she saw them. But this brief visit was far superior to nothing.
Her thoughts turned to Aidan and what Tess had suggested. Perhaps he simply hadn’t known how to handle the situation in front of his boss. He hadn’t expected to see her, let alone her entire family, right then. She could cut him some slack. But if he couldn’t acknowledge her now, when would he be able to? After he got tenure? Could they wait that long?
As they walked the loop around the pond, the sky grew darker with clouds, but the air was heavy and hot. There was no traffic sound here, only the crunch of sticks and leaves under their feet and the pleasant summery sounds of birds and bugs going about their business. The air smelled distinctly of New England—thick, wet, earthy.
“Mom, how did you know Dad was the guy for you?”
Her mother didn’t break stride. “Hmmm. Well, we were together for three years before he proposed. I had a lot of time to think about it.”
“I know, but there must have been a time before he asked you to marry him when you decided marriage was something you wanted.”
“I suppose it would have been on our second date. On our first date, I’d mentioned I hated moths, and when he dropped me off after our second date, there was a moth fluttering by the porch light. He killed it so we could have our first kiss in peace. I knew someone who would kill a moth for me was someone I could love. Plus, the kiss was fantastic.”
Bree smiled. “That fast, huh?”
“I think if it’s right, you know, and if it’s not right, you know that, too. Circumstances might be difficult, but they don’t change the essential rightness of two people who belong together.”
Bree considered this. When she was with Aidan, all her molecules seemed like they were finally aligned and pointing in the right direction. She’d never felt more right about anything. It was worth figuring out the circumstances and making sure they could be in one another’s life.
The skies suddenly broke o
verhead. The clouds were much darker than she realized and the rain, while not freezing, chilled her and came down quite hard. She and her mother picked up the pace. They were probably ten minutes from the parking lot. She hoped her grandmothers had kept their pace up and were back in the shelter of the car by now.
She heard Grandma Lucy’s voice cry out shrilly, and the cold shot all the way to her core.
“Erica!”
Bree’s mother started running, and she followed, the rain plastering her hair to her head and running into her eyes.
They came around a curve in the path. Grandma Billie sat in the middle of the path, looking suddenly small, her walking stick abandoned by her side. Grandma Lucy hovered over her, wringing her hands.
“I tripped, and I think it’s my ankle,” Grandma Billie said. She was stoic, but Bree could hear the pain in her voice.
“Not your hip?” Erica asked sharply.
“No.” The answer was definitive, and everyone relaxed marginally.
“Even so, I don’t think we should move you,” Erica said. She pulled out her cell phone and called her husband. “Dean, my mother fell and hurt her ankle. Where are you?” She listened a moment. “Can you call for an ambulance? We’re maybe a quarter mile up the trail. I’ll send Bree and Grandma Lucy ahead and wait with Mom.”
She snapped the phone shut. Bree could tell she was stressed, and her own tension increased noticeably. There was nothing more disconcerting than your parent being worried.
Three pairs of eyes looked to Erica for guidance. The rain continued to fall steadily, and Grandma Lucy, mostly skin and bones, shivered.
“We’ve got to get out of the rain,” Erica said. “Bree, you and Grandma Lucy get back to the car.”
“Here,” Bree said, peeling off her waterproof. “You can make a little tent for Grandma Billie.” Her mother was wearing adequate rain gear, but standing stationary in the rain was different from hiking through it to a dry, warm car.
“All right,” she said. “Hurry now.”
Bree nodded and ushered Grandma Lucy down the path. The older woman was stronger than she looked, and they made good time, talking little, but Bree was soaking wet by the time they reached the parking lot. With relief, she saw the ambulance pulling into the lot. Her father and sister were snug in their car, and she turned Grandma Lucy over to their care. She met the paramedics and explained the situation. The path was too narrow for a vehicle, so the two paramedics brought a wheeled gurney that would make it on the relatively flat ground.
She volunteered to lead them to her mother and grandmother, but they were familiar with the terrain and said they could do it on their own. Bree sank thankfully into the backseat of her parents’ car, where her father had the heater running full blast.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine, once they dry out,” she told everyone.
“I shouldn’t have made us go out,” her father said. “Not with the rain coming.”
“It’s just a summer storm, Dad. We’ll be fine.” But her teeth chattered as she said it, and Tess, who was practically dry, having reached the car before the rain started, tossed her a sweater. It didn’t help the fact she could feel water in her shoes, but she started to warm up. Grandma Lucy grouched about how slow the paramedics were, but Bree was impressed with their response time.
“Maybe we should stay here in Weston Village tonight,” her father said. “I’ll see if I can get us some rooms. What hotel are you staying at, honey?”
There was an awkward silence as Bree thought. She could lie, or she could prevaricate. “Um, I didn’t get a hotel. I stayed with friends on campus. But you could try the Weston Motel…it’s near where we had lunch today.”
“All right.” He didn’t seem to notice anything unusual, probably because he was used to his older daughter’s free-spirited ways.
Still, he’d be shocked if he knew how free his little girl had been in her ways the night before.
The thought of Aidan warmed Bree. She was kind of pissed at him, but she decided she couldn’t blame him for being confused about them when she was incredibly confused herself.
She thought of her cell phone. She hoped it hadn’t drowned in the pocket of her dress. Fishing it out, she saw she had missed texts. One was from a college friend saying good-bye before he got on a plane. There were three others. The first: I’m sorry. The second: I’m an idiot. The third: This is Aidan. She laughed, and her phone buzzed again, as if he could tell she had been thinking about him.
Where are you?
Weston Pond.
She was about to send another text to explain what had happened and that she needed to help her family figure out what they were going to do, but then the paramedics emerged from the woods, carrying her grandmother on a stretcher, her bedraggled mother following behind. Her father leaped out of the car and gave her mother a huge, crushing hug. Seeing her parents so devoted to one another after thirty years put an unexpected lump in her throat.
The paramedics loaded Grandma Billie into the ambulance. The parents spoke with the paramedics then returned to the car. Tess scrambled into the backseat, as Bree climbed out.
“You aren’t going with them in the ambulance?” she asked her mother.
“No, we’ll follow them to Weston General. Grandma’s a little shaken up, but she perked up when she saw the paramedics. She said one of them had a cute butt.”
“Just like her.” Grandma Lucy sniffed, trying to hide her concern. “We better go make sure she doesn’t make a fool of herself.”
“I’ll meet you there.” Bree gave her mom a quick hug through the open window. The rain was falling softer now, but Bree was still wet and chilled.
Her dad waited until she was safely out of the path of the Subaru before flooring it. It wasn’t until she tried the door of her car and realized her keys were in the jacket she’d given her mother that she turned and looked, but they were gone.
Aidan’s heart hammered and then tried to escape his body through his throat when he pulled into the parking lot at Weston Pond and saw the silver sedan, a sodden figure propped against the driver’s door.
He’d been berating himself for the asinine way he’d behaved at the dim sum restaurant. He should have manned up and called Bree immediately, and made her see him so he could explain and apologize. But he hadn’t wanted to interrupt her family time. She hadn’t mentioned her family coming to town, but they were clearly there to visit her. So he’d sent her an array of pathetic texts instead.
Her two-word response had given him hope, and he’d hopped into the car and made the quick drive to the pond. They’d talked about hiking around here, so maybe this meant she’d forgiven him.
But when he saw her alone and wet, he worried he’d hurt her so much she’d come here to brood, or worse yet, cry.
She looked so small and alone, and he didn’t think before hastily throwing his car into park and jumping out. He rushed to her and folded her against him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pressing kisses all over her face. “I’m so sorry.”
She was sobbing—or was that laughter?—and pushed him away. “Aidan, you’ll get all wet.”
“I don’t care.” The rain was stopping anyway.
“Well, I do. I’m soaked, and I’m freezing.”
“Oh, my God.” He pulled her along, opened the passenger door to his car, and thrust her inside. He took up position behind the wheel and turned up the heat. “You didn’t fall in the pond, did you?”
“It’s a long story. Can you take me to Weston General while I tell it?”
“Why? Are you hurt? What’s wrong?” Aidan couldn’t bear the thought of her harmed or being the cause of her pain. Then again, she didn’t seem much worse for wear besides being cold and wet. She was actually smiling, as if she thought his concern was cute or something. Maybe she wasn’t mad at him after all. Before pulling onto the main road, he took off his cardigan and handed it to her. “Put this on.”
“I’m fine, but it started to ra
in, and my grandmother hurt her ankle while we were walking around the pond, and the paramedics came and took her to the hospital. My keys were in my rain jacket, which I had given to my mother…. I’m not having very good car luck this weekend.”
“Caught in the rain,” Aidan said, experiencing infinitely less pressure in his chest now he was convinced Bree was unharmed. “Good thing I was around to rescue you again.”
“Is that what you’re doing? I thought you were groveling,” she said with a playful note in her voice.
“Absolutely,” he agreed. He drove carefully; Bree was the most precious cargo he could be carrying. “Let me explain.”
“Let me go first,” she said, as she started peeling off wet clothes. He refocused on driving, noting only a blur of skin as she traded her soggy dress for the dry sweater. “I’m sorry I was kind of distant this morning. I think I was scared at how fast things were going. When you woke me up, I was actually dreaming about you, and I was a little overcome when I realized it wasn’t a dream. You were there and I had you.”
“You have me,” he said. “I’m an idiot. I’ve wanted this tenure position for so long, and it’s finally happening, and I didn’t quite know how to handle it when you and Clarissa came face to face. I didn’t handle it well at all, as you know.”
“It’s okay. This is an unusual situation. For both of us. I didn’t exactly know how to introduce you to my parents, either.”
“I’d like to meet them.”
“Brave man,” she said, warming her hands over the heater vent. “Well, you’ll get to if you come into the hospital with me.”
“Grand.”
“I have to warn you, they’re very…involved. Supportive, yes, but also a little nosy. I’ve grown used to it because they mean well and I let them say their piece and then I do what I want anyway.”
“I think I’ll manage,” he said, hoping he spoke the truth.
“My sister and grandmothers are easy. Just don’t make any of them fall in love with you.”
He laughed. “How would I do that?”
“By being yourself. It worked on me,” Bree said quietly.
He replayed the sentence over in his mind. “Bree?”
Passionate History Page 7