She clutched the railing. Wind moaned across the yard and cut through her as if she weren’t even there.
Evan inched forward, overlapping footprints left in the powder-coated walkway. “Anna, I—”
“Lied to me.”
He dropped his gaze to the steps, breathed in, and slowly raised his eyes to hers again. “I’m sorry. You can’t know how hard that was for me.”
Hot tears stung, but she refused to look away. “It wasn’t hard for you to walk out of my life senior year without batting an eye. Spending a week pretending you wanted to be around me should’ve been be a piece of cake.”
Visible urgency drove him toward her. “You think it didn’t kill me to leave you that night without saying good-bye? It took everything in me to walk out of that auditorium.”
She let go of the railing and hugged her arms to her waist.
“But seeing your Mom’s empty seat at the audition, knowing it could’ve been you, that I was responsible . . .” He craned his neck to the sky and released a hard breath.
“What are you talking about?”
“I wanted to stay, Bells. To make sure Michelli never came near you. But what was I supposed to do? How was I going to fight them? I had no skills. No experience. Nothing. And if I would’ve stayed long enough to hold you one more time, I never would’ve left to change that.”
Snow landed on her skin, his words sinking deeper.
“Those first few months of being apart were the hardest I’d ever gone through.” He climbed the next step. “I wouldn’t have survived Basic if I didn’t have Harris here watching over you for me.”
Visions of Harris interacting with her the last five years threatened to knock her backward. His stopping by the rec center, checking in at her apartment, driving her home on one of his random patrols. It’d all been a job. None of it real. She thought he was being a good friend. Thought he’d genuinely cared. Had everyone been lying to her?
“I didn’t join the army as an excuse to walk out of your life.” Another step brought Evan closer. “I joined to train so I could come back to defend you.”
Frustration drove her nails into her palms. “Stop using that cop-out. I didn’t need another bodyguard, Evan. No one asked you to protect me. You left by choice.”
“I left because I made a promise.”
She advanced. “To who?”
His jaw flexed in and out as though fighting something else he couldn’t tell her.
“Who, Evan?”
A slow blink lifted an anguished gaze to hers. “Your mom.”
“What did you just say?”
Staring at the stoop, he released a long exhale. “She brought her car into my dad’s shop before the accident.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “She stayed while I did the inspection, kept talking about your future and how I belonged by your side. That she trusted me to look out for you if anything were ever to happen.”
Anna shrank back.
He took out a folded-up piece of paper from his wallet and toyed with the worn corner. “I thought she was just concerned about you graduating and the dangers of us moving downtown. None of your dad’s cases had ever shaken her up before. But I should’ve realized this one was different. Should’ve realized she was charging me to protect you in case . . .” His voice caught.
Anna stared past him. Why hadn’t he or Mom ever told her this?
Evan inched forward until she stopped him with her eyes. Deep-seated remorse bled through the tough exterior he used as a shield. “You don’t know how much I want to rewind time. What I’d give to go back and double-check her brakes, to pick up on the things I missed.”
Tears overran Anna’s bottom lashes. “What are you saying?”
His jaw rippled. “It’s my fault, Anna. I could’ve prevented the accident if I’d be more observant.” Shoulders crestfallen, he closed his eyes but then stood tall and determined as the soldier he’d become. “And I know nothing I do can make up for failing you both that day, but I swore I’d never stop trying.” He extended the paper to her.
Anna unfolded the creased, weathered page to the sight of Mom’s handwriting along the top of the inspection invoice.
Promise me you’ll always guard Anna’s heart with your life, Evan. And never lose sight of who you are.
The words shook every part of her. Anna dropped the paper to the ground. Mom couldn’t have known she was going to die. But why’d she go to Evan? And why didn’t she tell her? Torrents of unanswered questions laced the snowy haze closing in.
“I didn’t even see the note until my dad pointed it out later.” Evan reached for her but stopped himself. “When I realized what she meant, I tried to honor her wishes. I thought once I had the training I needed, I could come back and be on your full-time detail like she wanted. That keeping the promise would somehow right the mistakes I made and enable me to stay a part of your life.”
He shook his head like he was naïve. “But the realization of what that would mean didn’t fully hit me until I came back and saw you with Jack Calloway. On your detail, I would’ve been watching your life move on with someone else while standing beside you every single day—keeping things between us strictly professional, pretending I wasn’t in love with you and that the guilt wasn’t eating me alive. I didn’t know if I could do it, Anna. So, when I came home, I—”
“Home?” Confusion twisted the blade of betrayal even deeper. “You came back?”
“Every leave.” Earnest eyes held hers. “I always made sure you and my mom were safe, taken care of.”
“And never once told me? All this time, you let me think . . .” She backed up.
“I’m sorry. I know I messed up. I swear I was trying to do right by you the best way I knew how.” He faced the starless sky. “As hard as it would’ve been to be your detail, I didn’t want to let you or your mom down again. But then with my mom relying on my financial support, and my team counting on me for leadership, I didn’t know what to do. Protecting you from a distance seemed like the only way. Until the Michelli case came up, and I had no choice but to step back in—”
“Stop.” She couldn’t listen to this anymore. She braced a hand to his chest, but he didn’t back away.
His heart pounded under her palm. “Bells, please . . .”
“Don’t.” She recoiled, desperate for his embrace, yet too hurt to trust it anymore.
A storm of regret blazed in his hazel eyes. “I’m so sorry. For not being honest with you. For causing you any more pain. I wanted to tell you so many times. You have to understand—”
“Leave.” Anna looked away. “Please, just go.”
A passing car rumbled around the curve behind him. He didn’t move. Stillness pressed in until nothing but the sound of breathing stood between them. “I know I lost the right to ask you to believe me, but I love you, Bells. I always have.” A hoarse whisper tore at his voice.
The patter of snow landing onto the porch from the rail drew her gaze up from the ground as he strode down the stairs toward the driveway.
As soon as his taillights faded, Anna slid down the door, cradled her knees to her chest, and waited for the numbness spreading to her bones to reach her heart.
Chapter Twenty-three
Choice
Cramped in his mom’s Ford Focus, Evan reached into the empty cup holder for the twelfth time since they’d been driving. Of all things, he left his cell back at the hotel. Not like it made much difference. The only person he wanted to call him wouldn’t. Ten days of not hearing from Anna made it clear she wasn’t ready to forgive him. Would she ever be?
The question stung, but he wasn’t running away this time. He’d been a coward for too long.
Anna had every right to resent the way Evan had gone about protecting her through all this. She could even shut him out of her life for good. He’d always known that’d be a risk, and maybe he deserved it. But if he had to do it all over again, he’d still sacrifice the right to be with her for the assurance of her safet
y.
Michelli’d been indicted and his business shut down, justice was served for Mrs. Santos’s death, and Chicago’s streets were one black market operation cleaner than they’d been in the last ten years. And more than anything, at least Anna knew the truth now.
A soft whimper came from the passenger seat as Mom adjusted her seat belt.
Evan glanced over. “You all right?”
“Better than you.”
He cast her a sidelong glance.
“I lost a lung, honey. Not my heart.”
Please tell me we’re not back to this again. “We’ve been through this, Mom. I’m fine.”
“Mm hmm.” She pointed ahead. “Make a right at the light.”
A truck on their left merged into their lane and sprinkled the windshield with muddied overspray. Evan snapped on the wipers. Though the snowstorm ended a week ago, its remnants continued to brand the streets with reminders of a night he’d probably relive forever.
They turned off the main road. He knew the area but still wasn’t sure where they were headed. Somehow, Mom’s vague, “a needed stop” didn’t bode well.
“Are you sure you’re up for being out today?”
She waved off his question with a flutter of her hand. “Take a left at the corner.”
He peered past the cars parked along the street toward a glimpse of some kind of park. His foot slipped off the gas pedal. The dark wrought iron fence up ahead all but speared right through him. It wasn’t a park. It was a cemetery. She couldn’t be serious.
Mom’s cold hand covered his arm. “It’s time, sweetheart.”
The heck it was. He tightened his grip around the wheel. “Dad didn’t even deserve a proper burial. What makes you think he deserves our respect?”
“He’s your father.”
Evan grunted. “He gave up that right a long time ago.” The anger festering inside him collided with the undeserved compassion coloring Mom’s eyes. “How can you possibly want to come here?”
Her gaze returned to the entrance. “Being cooped up in the hospital has a way of interrupting your routine. After missing three Mondays, I was starting to miss it.”
His hands slid down the wheel and dropped to his lap. He had to have misheard her.
A honk from behind them set him on edge. Still lost for a response, Evan inched the car off the road and into the cemetery.
“Up here on the right.” Mom gestured ahead. “Just past that statue.”
He parked and turned the keys in the ignition. His body moved on autopilot, but it felt like he was trudging through mud-coated trenches.
He blinked away from the glare on the snow-crusted ground. “I don’t understand. You’re saying you come here every week? Why?”
An aged smile stood in for her reply. She opened the door. “Can you give me a hand?”
Reluctantly, Evan unloaded a wheelchair from the back and helped her into it. Her overall recovery had been progressing faster than he’d expected. But her gentle wisdom seemed to know when not to push it.
She bunched the front of her scarf over her neck while he wheeled her to Dad’s plot. The engravings on the headstone glistened in the sunlight and seared into him. He turned away.
Mom stretched behind her shoulder and patted his hand. “Your dad was a good man, Evan. A good man who lost himself.”
The disdain heating his body mocked the bitter wind stabbing from both directions. “You think that’s an excuse? You think half of America doesn’t deal with disappointments in life every day? Drinking was a cop-out.”
“Any more than pride?”
His jaw twitched. “Nothing justified the way he treated us.”
“You’re right.”
And yet she’d endured it all those years. Guilt tore into him and shook his grasp around the wheelchair’s handles. “I should’ve gotten you out of there a long time ago.”
“Oh, honey.” She brought him to the front of the chair. “I stayed because I had hope in the promise your dad and I made to each other. To our family.”
“He forfeited that promise, Mom. You had every right to leave him.”
“I know that, but I’ll always love the man I married. I’m not saying his actions were excusable. Or even that he deserves forgiveness.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I made a choice. Whether right or wrong.” Tear-filled eyes looked up at him, and his knees nearly gave way at the silent plea they held.
“And you want me to change mine?”
“That’s not for me to ask. Come here.” She tugged him down so he knelt to her eye level. Lifting her hands to his cheeks, Mom studied his face. “You were always such a fiercely protective boy. Always took on more responsibility than was yours to carry. So much so, you ended up shielding this big heart of yours from any pain.”
Her gaze roamed past him to Dad’s grave at the same time her hands slid to her lap. “But also from love, from seeing how much you have to offer. It’s there, Evan. What I’m asking is for you to give yourself permission to see it.”
A slow tremor built behind his ribs. Huffing, he rose. “Don’t worry about me knowing my worth. Dad made sure I never forgot exactly what I amount to.” He gripped the back of his hair to keep down the words she didn’t need to hear him say.
“Evan David, look at me. Self-worth isn’t something anyone can give or take away from you. It’s something you choose to live. Same as self-doubt.” She took his hand. “We all get a say in what rules our lives.”
He’d essentially told Megan’s mom the same thing not long ago. But now that the choice was in front of him, he realized the costs.
Anna was right. She and Mom both were. He’d run away, thinking he was valiant, when really it was fear. Shame. He’d let his dad’s words choke out his self-esteem like the weeds winding around the headstone. But after so long, he didn’t know anything else. Didn’t know how to change it.
Mom squeezed his hand and inclined her head toward the car. “I’ll give you a minute.”
As she drifted in the opposite direction, Evan stood between one parent and the other—between two entirely different responses to pain and heartache.
A pricking sensation burned behind his eyes. He stood against the wind, a soldier of resolve coming apart, piece by piece. His greatest battle might begin with confronting his dad. But ultimately, it’d end in facing himself.
He wasn’t sure how long it would take or if he even could. But as minutes passed in that quiet cemetery, he wrestled for a place in his heart willing to start.
In the distance, a Bulls coat caught his eye. Was that . . . ? He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Shaun?”
The kid popped his head up, and Evan jogged over.
Shaun clasped his hand. “What are you doing here?”
Evan hooked a thumb behind him. “Just, uh, having a few words with my old man.”
A level of empathy no kid his age should have flashed over his face. “At least you know where your pops is.”
Unlike a majority of the kids who went to the rec center. Evan hadn’t thought about that until right now. Was the pain of abuse worse than the pain of abandonment? His stomach knotted with a glance around the graveyard. “You visiting someone?”
Shaun pulled his book bag straps together across his chest. “My grams.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
He shrugged. “Around here, you get used to saying good-bye to peeps.”
Maybe it was time they changed that. He’d probably assumed Evan had bailed on him, too. “Hey, listen, I’ve been brushing up on my three-pointers. You mind if I come by the rec center tomorrow?”
He raised a brow. “Thought Miss Madison was still mad at you.”
“Yeah, well.” Evan scratched his jaw. “I’m kinda hoping she won’t stay mad forever.”
“Good luck with that. My cousin says girls are like cats. Once the claws come out, it’s over.”
Evan laughed. “Thanks for the relations
hip advice.”
“Free of charge.” Shaun sported a lopsided grin way too telling for his young age.
Evan pulled him into a headlock and rubbed his knuckles over his head. “All right, Dr. Phil. How ‘bout you just worry about bringing your A game to the courts tomorrow, ‘kay?”
“Psh.” He shoved away from Evan and resituated his backpack. “I always got game, old man. You’re the one who needs to be worried.”
If Anna was gonna be there tomorrow, he was probably right.
“We can ball right now, if you want?”
“Actually, I have a few errands to run.” Out of habit, Evan patted his pockets for his cell. Empty-handed, he looked back to where Mom sat patiently in her wheelchair. “Tomorrow, though. Promise.” Evan extended a hand, and Shaun leaned in to give him a half hug.
“A’ight. Later.”
Evan hustled over to the car and helped Mom into the passenger side.
“Who was that?”
He looked across the field to the plot that must’ve belonged to Shaun’s grandma. “A new friend.” And with any hope, the possibility of new beginnings, too.
The smell of acrylics swirled around Anna as if Mom were flitting throughout her workroom with a paintbrush in hand.
Hunter wedged his snout through the tiny opening in the door and butted inside. With an assertive hiss, Bailey bounded off the windowsill and scurried under the daybed along the back wall. Unfazed, the dog trotted over, planted his chin on Anna’s thigh, and raised his sappy brown eyes at her.
She laughed and rubbed him behind the ears. “I know, buddy. I miss Mom, too.”
Sunshine filtered through the blinds and splashed warm colors onto the canvas in front of her. Canary yellows and burnt oranges blended into the forest greens and indigo blues. Vibrant. Vivid. The painting Mom started years ago came more to life with each brushstroke Anna added.
Seated on the stool, she took in the power of art. She didn’t have Mom’s knack for painting, but it didn’t matter. That was part of its magic. As long as an artist created from her heart, her work carried soul, impact. The kind that colored over the world’s gray with hope.
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