by Olivia Miles
Oh, he didn’t intend to. Disappointment lingered like a heavy stone in his chest when he thought of going back to Briar Creek in the morning, returning to the unsatisfying routine, while around him people were moving on with their lives, growing a future, planning for the next phase. He’d come back after culinary school to take care of his mother, then he’d stayed for Luke. He’d had a purpose, and now there was none. His mouth firmed when he pictured himself back behind the greasy counter, pouring coffee, chatting about town gossip. Slinging hash. Without the money from the contest, his hopes for something bigger remained on hold. It depressed the hell out of him. Anna had been a bright spot in his kitchen these past few weeks—a distraction from his surroundings. Now, there would be no silver lining. Unless he created one for himself.
A light rain had started to fall, spattering against the window of his room. The sun was still visible on its decent just between two craggy mountain peaks, but the clouds rolling in were thick and dark. Mark grabbed the sport coat he’d worn to the cocktail party last night and shrugged it on.
Minutes later, he entered the lobby, his blood pumping a little harder when he saw Anna standing near the windows, an umbrella in her hand. She was wearing a simple skirt that grazed her knees, revealing smooth, slender legs and a T-shirt that clung to her waist, defining the curve of her breasts. She was the most beautiful girl in the room—he didn’t care to look around. When he was with Anna, he didn’t need to search for a distraction, or someone to fill that empty space.
“Shall we?” he asked, crooking his arm. She hesitated, frowning slightly, then slipped her hand through.
They walked in silence under the umbrella, and he purposefully took the long way into the village, liking the feel of her warm body next to his, the soft, sweet smell of her shampoo that clung to her damp hair. They stopped to scan the menus of restaurants they passed, pointing out innovative dishes as they always had back in school. It was a little game of theirs when they went out to eat; they never ate the same meal twice, and they always chose the boldest item on the menu. “It’s how you learn,” Anna would say with that little smile. She’d challenged him—not just to learn, but to love. She’d opened his mind, made him want to experience everything, made him believe in the power of possibility. He hadn’t just closed his heart to her that day he pushed her away. He’d closed himself off from everything.
“What about this French place?” Anna asked, stopping outside the restaurant whose name Mark remembered seeing on Cassie’s card. The card that was still wedged deep inside his pocket.
“How about the bistro across the way?” he suggested instead, gesturing to a brick place with sidewalk tables and flower boxes.
Their meals arrived just as the rain stopped. The evening crowd began to fill the sidewalk; chefs Mark recognized from the contest strolled down the road, stopping to peruse menus, just as he and Anna had done. He watched as the French place across the street filled, and reached for his beer.
Anna took a small bite of food and gave him a knowing smile. “Not bad.”
Mark bit into his burger. It was overcooked and lacking seasoning, and as much as he hated to admit it, Hastings scored better. Guess he was doing something right after all. Or maybe the credit went to Vince, the line cook.
“I don’t have much of an appetite,” she said, leaning back.
“Still disappointed over not winning?” he asked, dousing his fries with salt. “You never could eat when you were upset.”
Anna’s face paled. Her eyes went dark before she blinked quickly and shifted in her seat. “What do you mean by that?”
He crammed some fries into his mouth, watching as she rearranged the silverware on the table, shielding her face from him. “Oh, I just remember you saying before a big exam how you were too nervous to eat. I used to joke that it was ironic for a chef not to have an appetite. Don’t you remember?”
She let out a long breath, seeming to withdraw into herself. “I guess I don’t.”
He took a swig of his beer, hating the disappointment that tugged at his chest. He’d hoped tonight would change things between them going forward. He’d clung to the good times, but maybe she was still thinking of the bad. “Is something wrong?”
The Anna he knew would shake her head, tell him of course not, hide behind that wall she’d built around herself. He knew, because he’d done the same.
“Something is wrong,” he insisted, when she said nothing. He set down his glass, sighing heavily. “Is it last night? I told you, Anna, Cassie was just there—”
She shook her head firmly, squeezing her eyes shut. “It’s not last night. It’s… something else.”
“What is it? The contest? The loan? You know Luke will help—”
“No. No, it’s not that.” She hesitated, and Mark set down his burger.
“Anna. What is it?”
Slowly, she turned to him, her blue eyes glistening with tears. She looked younger somehow, like the girl he had chased through the tide that summer on the Cape and later taken to bed in that little one-room apartment she’d rented through August. The girl who would curl against his chest and giggle into his ear, and make him believe that life could be oh so much more than it ever turned out to be. He reached and took her hand in his. Her fingers were cold, and he frowned, gripping them tighter. He sensed her stiffen, as if she were battling with herself over whether to pull back and push him away the way he had done to her all those years ago. He wouldn’t blame her.
“I have something to tell you, Mark,” she said softly, meeting his eye. “Something I’ve kept to myself for a very long time.”
CHAPTER
26
Mind if we go for a walk?”
Mark nodded and signaled for their waitress. He settled the bill quickly, brushing off Anna’s attempts to pay for her share, and stood, understanding now what Anna meant when she said she couldn’t eat when she was upset. Weeks, if not years, had built up to whatever she was about to say to him, and he had a bad feeling it went beyond the way he’d broken her heart. Anna walked slowly, her face pensive, carefully stepping over puddles. She motioned to a wrought iron bench tucked beneath the awning of a flower shop that had already closed for the day. “Let’s sit here.”
He noticed she was trembling as she brushed water from the seat and sat down. He sat beside her, tenting his elbows on his knees, watching as she pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I’ve been thinking about last night,” she started. “Seeing you with Cassie… it upset me, but not for the reasons you think. After you broke up with me, I was… crushed.” She glanced at him, her big blue eyes searching his, and shame tore through him, gripping him square in the chest. “I thought we had a plan. I thought you would graduate and work somewhere near the college, and then I would graduate a year later, and we’d finally open our restaurant. I pictured us in the kitchen, cooking side by side, just like—”
“Just like these past few weeks?” He tipped his head at her, catching her sad smile. “Yeah, I thought that, too.” Then he had to go and ruin it.
“Something I thought I read more into than there ever was. It’s not like you ever told me you loved me or anything.”
He gritted his teeth. He had only said it when she couldn’t hear, when he could take it all back and pretend the words had never slipped. He’d loved his father after all, and that hadn’t stopped him from disappearing without so much as a glance back. They were just words. Three stupid words. But damn it if he didn’t feel them every time he looked at her, every time he saw that smile, heard that laugh, saw those beautiful blue eyes light up.
“It was real.”
“I think the hardest part for me about everything was losing your friendship. That feeling that I could always count on you and that it didn’t matter which girl you were flirting with because you were always there for me.” Her voice was so small, nearly lost in the breeze that tore down the street. “Then we dated and… I became one of them.”
Her hair rustled in the wind, and she tucked it behind her ear, gripping her hands in her lap. “I felt like I could tell you anything, you know? Like what we had was solid. Special.”
Guilt stirred his stomach. She’d been honest with him, open and willing, while he’d had a wall up all along. She hadn’t stood a chance. He hadn’t given her one.
“After… after things ended, I didn’t know who to turn to anymore. Who to share all those little parts of my day with. My sisters were busy with their own lives. You were the person I knew best at school. When you were gone, there was no one left, no one to tell…”
“Tell what?”
Tears shone in her eyes, and she blinked quickly. “I’m sorry, Mark.” Her chin began to tremble as the tears fell down her cheeks, and she clasped her hand to her mouth to stifle a sob.
Mark’s gut tightened. “What are you trying to tell me?”
Her eyes locked with his, big and bright and searching, and he felt the air stall in his lungs. He wanted to freeze this moment, capture it forever, because something told him that in the next second, everything between them was about to change.
“I was pregnant, Mark.”
Was pregnant. Was. The word punched him in the gut, stealing his air. He almost didn’t trust himself to speak. “What do you mean?”
She shook her head, running a shaking hand over her face. “I was pregnant with your—our—child.”
He closed his eyes, waiting for his pulse to slow, but his mind wouldn’t turn off. Anna had been pregnant. What had happened to the baby?
Anna dragged in a breath and shifted on the seat, hunching forward, eyes focused on the gravel under her feet. The tears continued to fall, steadily tracing their way down her cheeks, dripping off the edge of her nose.
His thoughts reeled. “When?”
“The day I saw you with Cassie. The day you dumped me.” Mark winced on the word. It was appropriate, even if he didn’t want to hear it. “I was coming to tell you.”
“And you didn’t get the chance.” He ground his teeth, exhaling slowly, wishing he could turn back time and recapture that moment. She’d looked so eager as she’d come around the corner, a hesitant but hopeful smile curving her lips as they locked eyes. She’d raised her hand to wave, halting when she saw Cassie. He wanted to call out to her, but instead he’d planted himself to the ground, forcing his eyes back to Cassie, seeing his chance to get out, to put an end to anxiety that had been gnawing at him all summer, always there, a shadow on their time together. It was callous, cold, downright cruel in retrospect to flirt with Cassie in front of her like that, but it was the easiest way to ensure that Anna didn’t fight for them, that she didn’t give him a reason to continue on, even though he wished he could. God, he wished she could.
“You took me to that coffee shop, and I knew you were going to break up with me. It didn’t make sense to tell you then, so… I just went home.”
He remembered the tears in her eyes, the way he had to clench a fist under the table to keep from reaching out and wiping away the tears that fell. He’d tried to downplay it, tried to tell her she’d move on, find someone else, that he wasn’t the guy for her, not in the long run. She’d barely said a word. From that day on, she fell silent.
And all this time, all these years, she had kept this to herself. Their child. He never knew.
“What happened?”
She turned over her palms. “I had a miscarriage.”
Relief coursed through him, quickly replaced with a wash of sadness. “I didn’t know if—”
She turned to him sharply. “I couldn’t do that. I mean, I considered it, but no. I… loved that baby. Just like… I loved you.”
Mark ran a hand over his mouth, hating himself.
“That night, I came home and took a second test, just to see if the first one had been an error. I waited, and I hoped and I prayed and I cried that it would negative. Some horrible mistake.” She shook her head. “I knew I should tell you, but I didn’t know how. You rejected me, Mark. I couldn’t stand the thought of you rejecting the baby too.”
That was the man she saw him as, and maybe it was even the kind of man he was, but it sure as hell wasn’t the man he wanted to be. That was his father. Not him. “I would never turn my back on my child,” Mark nearly spat.
Anna’s eyes snapped in surprise and she shifted backward, flinching. “I was afraid of this. You’re mad.”
“Mad?” He knew anger. He knew disappointment. This was something altogether different. Grief, he realized, for a child he’d never known, for a life he’d thrown away. For a person he’d let down when she needed him the most.
An image of his mother, lying in that bed, with his father nowhere in sight, flashed bold and bright. He closed his eyes tight, just for a second. Just until it was gone.
He reached out and took her hand, giving her a reassuring smile when she gave him a hesitant glance. “I’m not mad.”
She looked skeptical. “I should have told you. I kept thinking there was time. I’d figure out a way. Then it was too late.”
He pictured her alone, leaving as she did that day from the coffee shop, her shoulders drooped, tears welling in her big blue eyes, knowing all the time that she was carrying his child.
“I wish you had told me,” he said, and her frown deepened. He gave her fingers a squeeze, leaned in to brush a tear from her cheek. “I wish I could have been there for you. I’m here now, Anna.”
Anna tried to blink back the tears but they flowed freely, down her cheeks, salting her lips and blinding her vision. She hadn’t let herself cry since the night that she’d lost the baby.
“I wish I could have been there for you,” Mark said. “I wish…”
I wish, I wish. How many times had she said the same thing to herself? How many times did she replay those two weeks after she discovered she was pregnant? The worry that plagued her as she went over it again and again, wondering what to do. So many times she thought to tell him, but all it took was another sighting of him with Cassie to send her running back to her dorm, putting it off for another day. She forced herself to eat, but she stopped sleeping. She started spending more and more time in the kitchen, working long into the night, testing recipes, honing her skills. She dropped off the food at the local soup kitchen; there was no way she could stomach it herself. She was sick nearly every morning, and it lingered into the afternoon. She knew she should call someone—one of her sisters, her parents, her friends—but they would tell Mark, and he was gone.
And just like that the baby was, too.
“I feel so guilty,” she whispered, the words escaping her in a rush. There. It was out.
“You feel guilty?” Mark leaned in, brushing another tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb, pushing the hair from her face, trying to get her to look him in the eye. She couldn’t. Not after what she’d done. “Anna, I failed you—”
“No.” She turned to him sharply. “I failed. I failed our baby. I didn’t take care of myself. I didn’t eat or sleep…”
Understanding flattened his eyes. He jutted his lower lip, nodding sadly. “Because you were upset. Because of me.”
She could neither confirm or deny it. She’d been upset, scared to the bone. They had a plan—a plan to graduate and open a restaurant. A breakup had never been part of that plan. Neither had a baby.
“I’m sorry, Mark.”
“No.” His voice was insistent, but gentle. She stiffened as he leaned in closer, clasping his other hand around hers. “I’m sorry, Anna. For everything. I ran; I shut you out. All my life, I’ve lived with what my father did to me. I thought I could prevent it, protect myself from that type of pain by never getting close and ending things before they could even begin. I was wrong.”
He was telling her what she wanted to hear, but she knew he meant every word. Her chest ached for the two people they once were. For a friendship that had been made and los
t. For laughter that had turned to years of silence.
“It wasn’t your fault you lost the baby,” he insisted, but she shook her head, unable to shed the weight she’d carried for so long. “I’m sorry, Anna. I’m so sorry.”
Ever so lightly, his lips were on her cheeks, kissing the wet stains of her tears. He released her hands, wrapping his hands around her waist, pulling her close to the hard wall of his chest. She wanted to resist him, to push him, to beat on his chest for what he’d done to her, the horrible, awful position he’d left her in, but the fight was gone. The walls had come down, and everything she’d been holding inside her all this time was finally released.
She curled into his chest, letting the heat of his body envelop her. He stroked her hair, whispering into her ear, saying the words she’d longed to hear—words she hadn’t thought she ever would. Not from him. Not after this.
His lips skimmed hers softly, and she parted her mouth, lacing her tongue with his, finding warmth in his touch. He kissed her slowly, stroking her face, and held her close when they finally broke free.
“You’re cold. Let’s go inside.” He took his hand as they stood, leading her the short distance back to the hotel in silence. It was Saturday night, and Cedar Valley Village was alive and bustling; couples walked hand in hand in search of a romantic restaurant, and a few teams of chefs she recognized from the contest strolled down the path. The hotel was lit with glittering lights: a beacon against the stark, dark mountain range towering above them. Inside, the hotel lobby was quiet and relaxed, and they retraced their steps to the elevator. Anna pressed the button for her floor, and Mark made no signs of doing the same for his.
They’d learned to communicate without words, and she was grateful for the understanding. She wasn’t ready to be alone right now. Too many thoughts and memories had come to the surface. She’d tried to distance herself from them, but now there was nowhere to hide. The only person who could understand, the only one who stood a chance at making any of it better, was at her side.
Anna slid her keycard in her door and flicked on the light. An audible gasp released from her lips when she took in the sight.