by Ann Evans
“How do you feel about Las Vegas?” Eddie asked as he polished off the last of his beer.
“Hot. Touristy. Why?”
“I have a friend who knows Wes Sanderlin.”
“The actor?”
He frowned at her, looking disappointed. “Of course, the actor. How many Wes Sanderlins are there with two Academy Awards, six ex-wives, a boatload of money and every studio producer in Hollywood in his back pocket?”
“What about him?”
“They’re shooting his new movie in Las Vegas. All the trades are saying it’s going to be a contender next year. The studio is looking for some early coverage, and a buddy of mine brought our names up as possibilities. I thought we might be interested.”
“I don’t know, Eddie… Can I think about it? I haven’t been home in a while…”
She stopped because he looked surprised by her hesitation. It wasn’t like her.
“Sure. We can talk about it later.” He tossed his beer bottle into a nearby trash can. They walked up the two flights of stairs that led to their rooms. In the corridor, Eddie said, “I’m going to take a shower and change for dinner. Thirty minutes. Okay?”
She nodded and went to her own bedroom. The shower felt wonderful, and she let the water run longer than she needed to. Even if you weren’t on a boat, when you were this close to the ocean it always seemed as if the breezes left a fine film of salt on your skin.
She dressed and did something simple with her makeup and hair. Eddie would knock on her door when he was ready to go down to the restaurant.
With a little time to kill, she sat on the bed and pulled her father’s journal out of her backpack.
Since leaving Colorado, she’d spent long hours in the night dissecting every passage. It had only been in her possession four days and already she knew whole parts of it by heart.
This journal was the only one she’d ever have. She didn’t know what had happened to all the others. None of them had turned up in her mother’s things after her death. Kari suspected that Laura Churchill, filled with bitterness and anger toward her late husband, had destroyed them.
So this was the last. The one Kari had given him the Christmas before his death. And now it was hers again, forever.
She leafed through the pages, going past the beginning of the book quickly since more than half of it dealt with the creation of Hours of Glass. Then the tone of the writing changed. Every day of the trip into Elk Creek had been detailed down to the tiniest leaf and rock, even after the snowstorm hit. But then finally, a week before her father had been found and airlifted to the hospital, the tone changed again, to a diary.
Reading it had been difficult. It was clear to Kari that Madison Churchill had known his chances for survival were slim at best, especially after he had fallen on an ice-covered patch of ground and broken his leg. From there his writings had gradually spiraled down to grim acceptance of his fate. Her father might have been a dreamer, but he was realistic enough to know that what he wrote on those final pages of his journal might be his last communication.
Most of it was addressed to her mother. Passages from the last few pages stood out to her, making her stomach kick and tighten as she read them:
I know now that I have frittered away my time on earth, searching for a life that was fuller and richer than any I ever deserved, thinking that everything unknown must surely be new and glorious to me. That I have hurt you in unspeakable ways until there is nothing left in common between us now but our incompatibility.
I have felt homeless in my own home, but this has been a result of choices I made—none of them were yours. I have never stretched out a hand to you again for fear of being bitten, and in doing so I will never feel your hand stretched out to me again in love…
Most of what matters has taken place in my absence. Our sweet Kari has paid the price. I know that you loved me, Laura, but I was not worthy of it and no love can survive neglect…
And finally, with her heart beating hard and rapid in spite of the numerous times she’d read it:
I will tell you now that you and Kari will be in my life forever and hereafter, that personal relationships are the important thing, the only thing, really, not this life of distance and regrets that I have so foolishly chased after. I hope with all my heart that you can find it in yours to forgive me…
Tears filled Kari’s eyes. No matter how many times she read them, these words filled her with sorrow. All those wasted years. When her mother’s love for her husband had turned to bitter stone. When her father, so careless and wrong-headed, had squandered their love. How could two people have allowed it to happen? Why hadn’t they tried to find a middle ground? Surely that had not been impossible?
And now, it was too late.
“Are you coming?” Eddie’s plaintive voice came through the bedroom door, followed by a sharp rap. “There’s a piña colada waiting with my name on it.”
Quickly, Kari wiped away a tear and closed the journal with a soft snap. “Right behind you,” she called.
THE RESTAURANT WAS crowded and stuffy, but the food was delicious and a steel drum band played enthusiastically in one corner.
Afterward, feeling too full to sit any longer, Kari allowed Eddie to lead her for a stroll around the pool. The moon was out, but the ocean was no more than a soft, rushing sound as small waves gathered and spilled on the shore.
The light on the pool water made it sparkle and dance. Pretty, but it didn’t move her somehow. She couldn’t help thinking about King’s Creek Falls, where Nick had shown her what real magic could be like.
A waitress in an outfit that looked more Hawaiian than Caribbean found Eddie. He’d ordered the house specialty before they’d left the restaurant.
He frowned down at the trio of flowers and fruit that covered the top of the glass. “Good Lord, I don’t know whether to drink it or plant it,” he said. He plucked the decoration out of the glass and tossed it away. “You want one?”
She shook her head, having barely made a dent in her own small goblet of white wine. “Too sweet. I’ll stick with this.” She lifted her glass, enjoying the way moonlight caught the liquid and turned it golden. “‘Wine makes a symphony of a good meal,’” she quoted.
Eddie gave her an odd look. “Where did you hear that?”
She hid a smile, thinking of the day Rose had tried to teach her about all the different wines offered on the lodge’s menu. Her brain had spun for three hours afterward. “Just a friend,” Kari said.
After the waitress departed, Eddie lifted his face skyward, inhaling deeply. “Look at that moon. You can’t tell me you get views like this in Florida. Not since the developers moved in and started running things, anyway.”
“Not many,” she agreed.
She realized suddenly that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone down to the beach in front of her condo. Or even stood on the balcony and watched the sunrise. When had she forgotten to appreciate the beauty around her own home? And why had it never been enough?
Eddie must have sensed her mood. “Come on, Churchill. Liven up. If I wanted to be around someone this gloomy I’d have brought my accountant.”
She turned toward him. “Do you ever think about what we do, Eddie? This career—always living out of a suitcase, jetlagged all the time, never putting down roots. Never spending the holidays with family.”
He made a scoffing sound. “Come and spend Thanksgiving with my parents. That will cure you of that wish once and for all.”
“I’m serious.”
“Of course I think about it. And you know what? I think I’m the luckiest guy in the world.” He took a sip of his drink. “Okay, so there are a few drawbacks, but think about it. We get to travel, meet new people all the time—interesting people, famous people. The money’s not bad.” He gave her a sharpened look. “You’d be miserable with some white-bread, middle-class life built around a passel of kids and the neighborhood block party.”
“With the right person—�
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Eddie shook his head quickly, as though he’d finally lost patience with her. “There is no right person for people like us. Sure, I’m crazy about Buzz, but he knows the job comes first because that’s the way I want it. As for you, you need to remember that this is the life you chose for yourself. And it’s a good one. You’re building a fine reputation as a journalist.” He winked at her. “You have a great partner, so what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know—” She broke off, aware of Eddie’s eyes on her.
She felt cross suddenly, and a little lost, because she had always counted on him to give her good advice. But nothing Eddie had said to her felt right anymore.
“What don’t you know?” he asked with a long-suffering sigh. “You wanted what your father had, and now you’ve almost got it—well, except for the bestselling novels part, because you stink at writing fiction—but you’ve found your niche. Freedom and adventure and excitement—you’re Mad Churchill’s daughter, all right.”
Instantly she could see those last pages of her father’s journal as though she held it open in her hand. “In the end, it didn’t bring Dad happiness.”
After giving her a sour look, Eddie took a couple of swallows from his snifter glass. “You know what I think?” he asked, his voice rife with suspicion.
“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“I think this is Mr. Wonderful screwing with your psyche.”
“Mr. Wonderful?”
“The guy in Colorado with bad judgment. You’re still moping over what might have been, when what you need to do is thank the fates for looking after you. You would have hated all the responsibility of a home and family. You should be glad he rejected you.”
“He didn’t reject me exactly. Not in those words, I mean.”
He did a funny little double take. “Well, in what words, then? Did you talk about marriage?”
“No.”
“Did you say anything about being in love?”
“No.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, really. We slept together. You called to tell me to come down here. He knew I was leaving. I asked if we needed to talk, but he said he always knew that our time together was temporary. End of discussion.”
Eddie blew a gusty breath. “So you never told him how you felt?”
“No.”
“Then can you please tell me how you know he didn’t want a relationship?”
“It was just something…I knew.”
“When did you get psychic?”
“Don’t tease me,” she said, looking away in discomfort and then back again. “I feel bad enough as it is. You weren’t there. You don’t know how humiliating it is to realize you love someone and they don’t love you back.”
One eyebrow rose. “So you love him?”
“Yes, damn it! I do.” Her voice shook far more than she liked. This discussion invited pain, but it felt almost a relief to say those words. To have them out in the open at last, where she could mourn them and then pack them away like treasured pictures in a dusty scrapbook.
More calmly she said, “But I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t want to get hurt any more than I already was. I couldn’t see the sense in laying my heart out on the ground for him to do a tap dance on it. So in the end, I didn’t say anything, and he didn’t say anything. I didn’t look at him, and he didn’t look at me, and that was that.”
Eddie scratched one cheek thoughtfully. “Well, that’s one way of handling it, I suppose,” he said in a careful tone. “Although next time you decide to fight fire with fire, you might want to remember that the fire department usually uses water.”
“Your point?” she asked, her tone pure acid now.
He sat his glass on a nearby patio table. Gently he took her arms in his hands. In all the years she’d known him, Kari didn’t think she’d ever seen Eddie look so sweetly concerned. “My point being, you might have considered swallowing your pride and telling him how you felt. Just laid it on the line to see what he had to say.” He shook his head, giving her a sad little smile. “You couldn’t have ended up any more miserable than you are right now, could you?”
THE PROBLEM WITH WEDDINGS and receptions, Nick decided, was that they lasted too long.
Bad enough that it took months of preparation to put on a decent one, with a flurry of tears and panic and confusion from everyone involved as the days wound down to the big date. So when that day finally came, when you’d listened to the pledges of undying love and trembling “I Do’s” exchanged, the darned thing ought to end right there and then.
But no. Then everyone had to stand in line to congratulate the happy couple, listen to a bunch of silly toasts, eat until they popped, dance until they dropped, and finally, see the bride and groom off in a snowstorm of confetti.
Such determined, choreographed gaiety was ridiculous as far as Nick was concerned.
Sour, man. You’re way too young to be this sour.
With arms folded across his chest, he leaned against one of the stone columns near the portico and watched the festivities.
Chuck Graybeal, the bride’s father and the D’Angelo family dentist, had booked the entire lodge and was spending thousands of dollars to make this wedding memorable. The gazebo—decked out in blue netting and bows—had made a pretty backdrop for the ceremony. The dining room had been too small to hold this many people, so the reception was being held outside, too, on probably one of the last pretty days of autumn they were likely to get at this elevation. Maybe next year, Nick thought, if things went well, they could add a small banquet room to handle this kind of function.
A dance floor had been set up near the grassy clearing that overlooked the trails to Lightning Lake. The band, with shimmering gold aspens making a curtain behind them, had gone into a set of old standards. What they had lacked in talent, they’d made up for in noise level, so it was nice to finally hear something that didn’t make his ears bleed.
He became aware of movement behind him and turned his head. It was Pop, wheeling down the front ramp Nick had added last year.
Crap. In the bad mood Nick was in, he didn’t want to talk. Of course, considering his mood lately, if he waited for a better time, it might never come.
The old man spent a few moments watching the crowd on the dance floor. “They look beautiful, don’t they?” he said, indicating the happy couple, who also happened to be friends of the family.
“Uh-huh.” Frankly, Nick thought the bride looked wilted, and the groom seemed downright shocky. Maybe reality had finally kicked in.
“Weddings are such a renewal of hope for the future.”
Nick didn’t say anything to that. The relationship between the two of them had been edgy of late, and he didn’t want to make it worse. But he had a feeling he knew where this conversation was leading.
To distract him Nick asked, “How’s Mom making out in the kitchen?”
His mother and the Zias had put on one heck of a feast. Everything from antipasto to Mussels Tarantino to Pollo Marcato to Wandas—little Italian pastries in the shape of bow ties.
“It’s winding down now that the cake’s been cut,” Sam said. “Even Addy had to pitch in for a while. She’s getting very good at managing that sling, but we could have used an extra hand.”
Again Nick didn’t respond. His father was as subtle as an anvil falling on your foot. Nick knew perfectly well whose “extra hand” he was referring to.
“When do you fly them to Steamboat Springs?” Sam asked. The newlyweds had planned an elaborate honeymoon.
“Tomorrow at nine. They’re spending tonight in Number Twelve. Should be memorable. Aunt Sof’s got champagne and chocolate waiting. The sheets are covered with rose petals flown in from California.”
“Chuck has spared no expense, it seems.”
Nick made a face, his gaze falling momentarily on the groom, Danny Myers. The silly ass was trying to dip the bride, but he kept tripping over her train. She di
dn’t look a bit happy about that. “Hope the marriage lasts longer than the credit card bills Chuck’s going to be faced with.”
He heard his father sigh heavily. “You know, son, if losing Kari makes you this bitter, then I really think you ought to do something about it. Before it poisons you for good.”
Nick glanced down at his father, frowning. “I didn’t lose anything. She has a career, remember? And she couldn’t wait to get back to it.”
“You don’t know that.”
But he did. He had only to recall the sound of her voice on the telephone when she’d spoken to her photographer buddy. Thrilled. Eager. And if Nick thought he’d misread that attitude, all he had to do was remember the actual conversation. Her side of it, anyway.
Hearing those words had brought a halt to any foolish ideas he’d been entertaining. Who could compete with a life like that?
“Did you even ask her what she wanted?” Sam’s features conveyed disdain, as though Nick had behaved very badly.
“Didn’t have to. It was pretty clear. And I didn’t see any reason to try to convince her otherwise. No sense in embarrassing us both.”
“Idiot! Why not? Do you think your mother said yes to me in the beginning? Some women need convincing. The good Lord provides a worm for every bird, Nick, but He doesn’t throw it in the nest.”
Nick held up a hand. “Pop, don’t. There’s nothing to be done about it now. Even if I wanted to. And I don’t.”
Sam brought his balled fists down on the arms of his chair. “Well, of course something can be done about it. It’s never too late. You could call her. Tell her how you feel. I’ll tell you the truth, son. When you face death as I have, you finally know what life is all about. Sleeping alone may be quieter, but it’s not warmer.”
As much as he wanted to refute that fact, Nick suspected his father was right. Nick had slept alone for years, and he hadn’t thought for one minute that he could actually miss having a woman in his bed. But when that woman had been Kari…