He indicated the four wood stools next to the counter. “Please, have a seat.” He went to the refrigerator and pulled out a water pitcher. He got a glass from one of the cabinets and poured water into it. Shakespeare, with a sigh, plopped onto the floor near my feet and closed his eyes. A moment later, he let out a tired, old man snore.
“Kevan, I avoided your question last night when you asked why I was here in Peregrine.”
He turned toward me, fussing with the collar of his T-shirt. “Well, it’s none of my business, really.”
“Turns out it is. I came here to find someone. Someone I knew a long time ago.”
He set the glass of water in front of me, his face unreadable. “Why is that my business?”
My mouth felt so dry I could barely speak. I drank some water, grateful for it. “Thirteen years ago I was in Sun Valley for a folk music festival and I met a man. I spent three days with him but I was supposed to get married to Michael the following month, so I left him and went home and went on with the wedding. But I never forgot him. When I moved out of my house last week, I found his number in a drawer and for some crazy reason decided I should call him. But the phone number no longer works. I remembered he mentioned a family summer home in this town, so I set out to find him. This morning I found out from Bethany at the coffee place that Finn died three years ago. A girl, Ashley, overheard me asking about him and gave me the address to his brother’s place. His brother, apparently, is you.” My voice broke. I held up my hands as if surrendering. “I had no idea, obviously, when I met you last night. I’m so very sorry about Finn.”
His face had changed from listening politely to a stunned expression. “Oh my God. You’re her.”
“Her?”
He shook his head, his brows furrowed. “But her name was Lou, not Blythe.”
Presumably at the strained tone of Kevan’s voice, Shakespeare lifted his head and looked over to his master. He tapped his tail, four times, with a worried look on his wizened face. “It’s okay, buddy,” said Kevan. “Go back to sleep.” Shakespeare, mollified, obeyed his master, putting his head between his front paws and closing his eyes.
“That’s my nickname. Only my old friends call me Lou. I’m Blythe Louise.”
“He never forgot you.” Kevan leaned against the bar, dropping his head between his arms for a moment. “When he came home from Sun Valley after that weekend, he checked his phone a hundred times, hoping you’d call. For weeks. Maybe months.” He raised his head, looking at me, his eyes accusing or skeptical or both, continuing without taking a breath. “For years. I thought he was crazy and told him many times, ‘You knew her for three days.’ Finally he stopped talking about you because he understood I thought it was ridiculous, but I don’t think he ever gave up hope that one day you might call.”
Tears blurred my vision. I took another drink of water. “I wanted to. Hundreds of time I thought about it but I’d committed to the marriage. I couldn’t walk away…” I trailed off but Kevan finished my sentence.
“For a man you’d known three days.”
“I loved Michael, too, and the thought of hurting him, embarrassing him, was not something I could do.” I smiled through my tears. “If I’d known how it would end with Michael I certainly would’ve done things differently.”
“Isn’t that true of everything?” He shook his head, his eyes set on the ceiling, like people do when they’re remembering.
Suddenly I remembered what Bethany had said. Finn’s sister-in-law was in the car with him. Kevan’s wife was deceased. It had to have been his wife with Finn. He must have read my thoughts by the expression on my face, given what he said next.
“Did Bethany tell you he was with my wife when he died?”
“She said he was with his sister-in-law.” I paused. “I wasn’t certain if it was your wife or not. It just occurred to me it was.”
“It was.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.”
A feeling of darkness settled into my chest. “Are you sure their deaths were an accident?”
His eyes turned sharp and darker. The image of the peregrine came to me, swooping at his great speed with his claws outstretched. “Absolutely. The roads were icy.” He went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of beer. “Suddenly I’m in the mood for a beer. Want one? A little hair of the dog?”
My stomach turned over. I put my hand to my mouth. “No, thanks.”
He popped the cap off and tipped back the beer and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “He described you as someone who lived her life with her whole body, all in.”
“That isn’t quite right.” In fact, it was completely wrong. I didn’t live my life with everything in. I was subdued and did what was expected of me. I trusted only what I saw. I took the road frequently traveled. “I grew up in a house of chaos. I’ve spent most of my adulthood trying for the opposite. I’ve been too careful.”
“Well, even for those of us who live less carefully—as we grow older and more disappointments come our way—the less bold we become.” A bitter edge I hadn’t heard before crept into his voice.
“The only crazy thing I ever did in my life was that time with Finn. Besides many, many moments with my children, it was the happiest time I can remember.” I took in a deep breath to keep from crying, then glanced back up at him, wondering what to say next.
Shakespeare rose to his feet and came closer. He let out another sigh and licked my bare calf. “Thanks, Shakespeare.” I patted his head, moved by this sweet dog. He once again plopped to the floor, this time curling into a ball.
Kevan gazed at me over his beer. “Coming here looking for him was pretty crazy. I mean, after all these years.”
I smiled, wiping a tear from the corner of my eye. “It’s the second craziest thing I’ve ever done.” I took a long sip of water, hoping it would soothe the punishing hangover and all the feelings flooding my body. “I wasn’t sure I’d even contact him if I was able to locate him. Knowing small towns like I do, I thought I’d just ask around until I found someone who knew what happened to him. I fully expected he was married with children and hadn’t given me a thought for thirteen years.” I drank from the water again before asking what I needed to know. “Was he happy? Did he have a woman he loved? Please say yes. At least give me that.”
He looked at me for a long moment before answering. “Not to my knowledge.”
“What do you mean, not to your knowledge?”
“Finn and I were at odds in the several years before his death.”
“Why?”
“Over money. The family business. And other things.” He gazed at me again with that same scrutiny. Was it accusatory or merely curious? I couldn’t be sure.
I decided to tell him a truth of my own. “I had no idea until today that Finn’s family was Lanigan Trucks.”
His mouth twitched, like an involuntary response to pain. “Yes, he wouldn’t have told you that. He never wanted anyone to like him or dislike him because of how much money he was worth—said people treated us differently after they knew.” His eyes hooded, he tore the label from the bottle of beer. He looked at me again. “Did the town gossip tell you it looked like Finn and my wife were leaving town together?”
I shook my head, no, before averting my eyes.
“She had several bags in the car. Large suitcases.” He drank the rest of his beer and set it down hard on the counter, then went to the refrigerator and pulled out another.
“Had you fought?”
“No. We didn’t fight.”
An awful idea had come to me. She had been in the process of leaving her husband for his brother. I watched his face closely, wanting to ask for more details but knowing I couldn’t.
“I assume Meredith was leaving me. She said she was going on a girls’ trip for the weekend and asked me to take Friday off to be with Rori here in Peregrine. We lived in Boise during the week so Rori could attend school but she and Meredith had been coming
here for years to stay—I had this house built when Rori was still in diapers. My brothers also built houses—all of us in our own styles, on our favorite spots—so we could all be together, so our children could have the kind of summers we had as children. That was our dream ten years ago, before things fell apart. Except for my sister Teagan. She never wanted any part of it. When my dad died four years ago, my mother surprised us by tearing down the old summer home and moving to San Francisco, claiming she’d always hated Idaho.”
I interrupted him, curious about the sister. “Why doesn’t Teagan want a house here?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I understand complicated.” For the first time that day, I smiled.
He did not return my smile. Instead he let out a sigh similar to Shakespeare’s and ran a hand through his hair, causing it to stick up on one side. “When Teagan became pregnant out of wedlock six years ago, she and my father had a falling out. He was old-fashioned and appalled by many of her choices, including having a one-night stand and getting pregnant. She was his precious little girl, his youngest, and they were close when she was a little girl. She worshipped him until she started living on her own and learned how to think for herself. From then on they had conflict. Regardless, my father loved her very much. He didn’t cut her out of the will—despite his bluster. He would never have done that to his princess. But she refuses to take any of her inheritance and lives her own way, on her own terms, supporting herself. She’s as tough as they come and as stubborn as my father was. She lives in Seattle and works as an assistant to this rich guy, which is basically a reenactment of her childhood with our father.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “Anyway, my wife and Rori came here most weekends. Sometimes I joined them, sometimes I stayed in Boise to work. That week Rori had some kind of school holiday and they’d been here since the weekend before while I stayed in Boise. Finn told me he wasn’t coming here to his house that weekend either. He told me he was staying in Boise to see some band he liked. But he and Meredith died on the road out of Peregrine. Together.” He tore the label off his second beer. “I’ve gone round and round in my mind, back and forth on what I believe, trust me. I did not think Finn was a man capable of having an affair with his brother’s wife. Family meant a lot to him, more so than to any of us, actually. I didn’t think Meredith was capable of leaving Rori. Me, yes, but not Rori. The facts tell me they were together in the car at the end, which meant that they both lied to me about what they were doing and where they said they’d be that weekend. So what am I to think?”
My mind raced, trying to piece together everything I’d just heard. “In the car, did Finn have bags?”
“No. But that doesn’t mean anything. They could’ve been on their way to his house in Boise to pick up his things.” He set his beer on the counter, just inches from the empty bottle. He folded the torn label into a square and flipped it, using his thumb and middle finger, between the bottles, like a field goal in a football game. “I wasn’t a perfect husband, by any means. A lesser woman would have left me years before. I chose work over her, refusing to come here with her and Rori many, many weekends. I was impatient and selfish, consumed with work. I didn’t help enough when Rori was little. And Finn? Well, he was always the better man of the two of us. Maybe she finally realized that.”
“When I left Finn that night he slipped his phone number into my hand, making it clear he would not ever contact me, wouldn’t disrupt my life should I make the decision to go forward with the wedding. He had honor, Kevan. I know that even though I only knew him for three days.”
His eyes flickered. “Do we ever really know someone else? Even the people we think we’re the closest to? What dark secrets do they harbor?” He paused, taking a sip of beer. “You, for example. Would your husband have ever guessed about your feelings for Finn?”
“He had no idea.” Shame rolled in like the fog did in the foothills of the Cascades where I lived, insidious and all encompassing. I could not see through it. I’d kept Finn’s number in the bedside table all these years. All the nights I’d slept next to Michael, Finn’s number lay in waiting just a foot away, like a lottery ticket never cashed. What woman in her right mind did such a thing?
Kevan’s eyes were sharp again, peering at me. “I enjoyed last night.” He set down his beer, carefully, never taking his eyes from mine. “It was the first time I’d had fun since Meredith and Finn died. And it turns out you’re Finn’s girl. You’re Lou. Not Blythe.”
I flinched. “I’m not Finn’s girl. I made my choice thirteen years ago. And now I don’t know who I am, except a mother. Neither Lou nor Blythe seem real anymore. Everything interesting about me faded when my children were born. I’m a minivan-driving soccer mom whose husband left me. I have no skills, no life of my own other than the kids. That’s who I am. If Finn were here he’d be disappointed to see what I’ve become.”
“No.” That was all he said, just an emphatic no, with this stubborn, determined look in his eyes. Shakespeare startled and opened his eyes, looking up at Kevan.
“I shouldn’t have come here chasing a past like it would take away all this regret, all the mistakes, all the time I invested in the wrong things, the wrong man.” I stood, knocking over my glass of water. It clanked and spilled, running down the side of the counter and onto the floor, near the dog. Shakespeare rose to his feet, seemingly unalarmed, and began licking up the spill, just as I said, “Oh, crap, I’m sorry.” I stumbled backward and put out a hand to steady myself on the back of the barstool. Kevan whipped from behind the counter and caught me, with both his hands on my shoulders, looking down into my face. I closed my eyes. Please don’t cry, I ordered myself, taking in a deep breath. Kevan let go of me. When I opened my eyes, Kevan kneeled, wiping the spilled water with a rag, inches from my bare legs. Shakespeare ambled over to the table and went back to sleep. I stood motionless, his scent overwhelming me with the desire to put my mouth against his skin and breathe in until all the hollow spaces of sadness, all that impenetrable regret, might be extinguished. The back of his neck was tanned and smooth, his brown hair peppered with gray hung over his face. I wanted to reach down and touch the soft strands, move them back with my fingers. His hand holding the towel went still and he looked up at me, his eyes meeting mine, unflinching. I imagined his hands sliding up the sides of my legs, reaching under my shorts. In the space between us, something akin to electrical currents sizzled. My skin hardened with pinprick-size bumps.
Just get out of here, I told myself. This had all been a mistake. I just needed to go home and start over, instead of chasing ghosts. I’d opened up too much, for me, for Kevan.
But I didn’t move. I stayed perfectly still. I remained thus, as he rose to his feet and tossed aside the towel. He moved back a lock of my hair from where it had settled over my cheek.
“I see now why Finn never forgot you. Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”
Neither of us spoke. I held my breath. Finally, I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, breaking the spell between us. “I should go.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding, but neither of us moved.
“I can show myself out.”
“Fine. Yes. Have a good trip home and all that.” He moved away from me, a few inches at first and then to the other side of the counter, resting his hands on the edge and bowing his head.
With blurry vision I headed toward the front door, fumbling with the handle. Once outside, I walked quickly to my car, finding my keys at the bottom of my purse after some searching with shaking hands. In the car, I started the engine, taking in deep breaths as I headed down the dirt road and then onto the highway toward town. I was a mile down the road before I realized I hadn’t said goodbye to Shakespeare.
CHAPTER 10
BACK IN MY ROOM, I grabbed Belinda Bear and flopped face first on the bed. After a good cry, I fell asleep. I awoke to the sound of someone knocking on the door. I looked at the clock. It was nearly three in the afternoon. I would h
ave to stay another night and head out in the morning. I checked my appearance in the mirror next to the desk. My smeared makeup made shadows under my eyes. The pillow had made an indentation on my cheek. I ran my fingers through my hair and ran a finger under my eyes. I figured it was a housekeeper bringing towels or something, but I opened the door to a thin teenage girl with fair skin and jet-black hair, obviously dyed. Her sleeveless blouse revealed a tattoo of a dozen roses on her left shoulder. Multiple piercings adorned her ears. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you Blythe?” Black eyeliner framed almond-shaped light blue eyes.
“I am. May I help you?”
“I’m Rori Lanigan. Kevan’s daughter.” Her voice was surprisingly soft and sweet but she spoke with no inflection whatsoever. “Can I come in for a moment? Or we could go down to the lobby.”
“Hi, Rori. Come in, of course.” I gestured for her to move past me, which she did. I sat on the bed and indicated she should sit in the chair. “Have a seat, please. What can I do for you?” I tried to seem polite but I sounded wary, even to myself.
“I heard you and my dad talking.” Her monotone expression continued. “That’s what I do. Eavesdrop.”
I waited, unsure what would come next, aware suddenly of something under my left leg. It was Belinda Bear. I pulled her from under me and set her against the pillows before looking back at Rori.
“Uncle Finn wasn’t what we all thought he was, you know.”
“It’s none of my business. I knew your uncle a long time ago.”
As if she didn’t hear me, she continued. “They were running away together. Leaving me. Leaving my dad. Not that I blame her, really.”
“What do you mean?”
“My dad’s hard on people. No one can meet his expectations. My mother always said the egos of the Lanigan men are unparalleled, except for Uncle Finn. Uncle Finn was the kindest, Uncle Ardan’s an old soul, Uncle Ciaran’s the best looking, and my father’s the smartest—this is all according to my grandmother. She loves to compare people.” She said this with a mixture of sarcasm and awe, a strange juxtaposition but there it was just the same. “It’s practically pathological. Not to mention she’s a bitch.” Rori pulled her long bangs farther over her forehead so only her right eye was visible. She shifted in the chair, playing with one of the silver rings in her ear. “I came by to give you this.” She blew her bangs off her left eye with a quick breath and reached into her pocket, coming up a few inches off the chair to pull it from skintight pants that covered legs the same width at the top as the bottom, like a young maple tree’s trunk. She handed me a tattered photo of Finn and me at the music festival, taken the second day we were there, after Nanci Griffith performed. The sun set in an orange and pink sky behind us. An older man had taken it for us with Finn’s cheap camera. I’d left mine in the room that day.
Blue Midnight (Blue Mountain Book 1) Page 10