***
At supper that night, her nose, belly and the tops of her thighs were sunburned a painful lobster red, a first for her. She’d taken the twins and their mutual best friend Jenny, another of the vast and sprawling Ryan clan – Bryce still wasn’t sure on all the connections – out in a canoe, which Matthew “rented” to her for services rendered. She had spent a pleasant three hours on the lake with the kids, who pointed out every enchanting detail as they paddled sedately along, from the tall, neon-green reeds where herons fished in the evening hours, to a small inlet where lily pads grew so thick a person could have walked over them like tiles. Spiky purple water lilies bloomed in profusion, and dragonflies with tails in shades of blue so electric that they seemed to spark with their own currents flew madly along the surface, delighting the kids and Bryce. One even landed on Emma’s wrist for a few seconds.
By the time they’d made it back to the beach, shadows had begun stretching from the far shore. Matthew was waiting for them, still clad in his hat and trunks, though he’d thrown on a sweatshirt. He walked into the lake to his knees to catch the bow of the canoe and steered them in the last few yards, giving Bryce an appraising grin as he took in her messy hair and sunburned nose. The kids were damp and smelled slightly of fish, and they were all talking a mile a minute, detailing their afternoon on the lake.
“Uncle Matty! Bryce wouldn’t let us jump out of the canoe and swim!” Emma whined, the first to hop out. Jenny, whose dark hair hung in two loose ponytails, was right behind her. Cody, ever the gentleman, actually bent and offered his hand to Bryce. Matthew grounded the boat with its remaining two passengers, then scooped Cody into his arms and swung him up high, which made the boy laugh with delight. Emma and Jenny came running back, yelling, “Me next! Me next!” But he turned and Bryce, seeing his intent, grinned up at him, all she could do not to reach out her own arms. He lifted her high and held her for a split second like a bride on her wedding night, and her arms linked around his neck…and then for the sake of their three little observers, he spun her around before setting her on the damp sand.
“And they claim the service around here is second-rate,” she teased, and he swatted at her with one of the abandoned life jackets, while she giggled and darted away.
Cody bent to collect his shoes from the beach, and Emma, observing her uncle and Bryce carrying the floats and paddles back up to the shed together, kicked one toe against her brother’s leg and said, “I think they, like, love each other.”
Cody turned his head and looked, tying his sneaker. He looked back at Emma an instant later, perplexed. “Well, duh, we’re a family!”
“No, Code, I mean like—” But Emma trailed into silence, sure her brother wouldn’t understand. She squinted after them, convinced.
***
The rusty old service truck became their sanctuary, their cramped little slice of paradise. The stars had made a half-rotation across the sky by the time they managed to sneak over the lake path and through the woods, and Bryce was tucked in the crook of Matthew’s bent left arm, her skin flushed and damp from their lovemaking, her limbs limp and satisfied, tangled up with his own. From eight inches above, braced on his elbow, he studied her with a grin that lifted one corner of his lips, brushing his fingertips along her collarbone with small, tickling caresses. She was lying with her eyes closed, enjoying the sensation against her sensitive skin. With only the starlight for illumination, she appeared as creamy-pale as ivory.
“Your skin is like satin,” he whispered to her.
“Not silk?” she teased, and peeked one eye open to find him smiling down at her, his mouth half-curved in a languid grin.
“Satin,” he insisted in a murmur, and continued his gentle strokes along her neck.
She whispered, “What’s your middle name?”
“Wyatt,” he replied. “And your middle name actually is Bryce.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she murmured. “When were you born?”
“June 29, 1970. And you’re July 19. Erica told me,” he added as she opened her lips to ask him that very question. “You’ll be 21.”
She nodded again, pleased. “What’s your favorite song?”
He considered a moment, moving his caressing fingers to her right arm, while she curved against him warm and lazy, determined not to let reality intrude on these stolen moments. “I don’t know…probably something by Peter Frampton. I always loved his stuff. I like seventies rock, mostly, you know, Led Zeppelin, Cat Stevens, the kind of stuff Dad used to listen to on the eight-track player in the truck. I like country, too, some anyway,” and she snorted a laugh, making him insist, “It’s good music. To the point, speaks to the heart.”
“Okay, that’s true. I like Faith Hill,” she admitted.
“So what’s your favorite color?” he asked, playing along.
“Blue,” she said immediately. “It’s peaceful. Blue and green, both.”
“Blue is mine, too.”
“Song. You never said.”
“Shit,” he grumbled good-naturedly. “Okay, then ‘When I See You Smile,’ Bad English, if I have to pick one for sure.”
“Oh, I love that one.”
“I’ll sing it to you next time we hear it,” he promised. “I kick ass on that song. And I kick ass at ‘Brown-Eyed Girl,’ which is actually my new favorite song, my lusciously-brown-eyed girl.”
She flushed, and he grinned at her. Bryce asked him, “What do you mean, you kick ass?”
“I sing in the shower,” he explained. “What’s your favorite?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured, lost in his gaze. She reached gently and stroked the side of his jaw. “Wade always seems to pick—” And here she cut herself short, guilt shooting through her belly.
“Who’s Wade?” Matthew asked, turning his head to kiss her palm, cupped against his left cheek.
How could she possibly explain Wade? Bryce closed her eyes, considering her options, but in the end she knew she could never tell Matthew anything less than the truth. Eyes still shut, she whispered, “Wade is back home. We’ve been dating on and off since I was 16.”
Matthew was totally still for a moment, but then his big hand resumed gently stroking her arm. “Sounds like me and Angie Strickland,” he said quietly.
Although the subject made her want to shy away, as though from an aching tooth, she asked, “Angie was your girlfriend in high school?”
“Yeah, pretty much since the ninth grade. Everyone thought we would get married, but I knew we wouldn’t. I’ve known since we were seniors. By that time we should’ve broken up years before.”
“Does she think so?” Bryce asked then, not daring to open her eyes now. Matthew stopped stroking her arm again and instead pressed his right palm flat against her belly, a wide, warm length on her bare flesh.
“No, she thinks she still wants to be together. But that’s just because she hasn’t found the right one, Bryce.” His voice was quiet and serious, and she opened her eyes at last to find his dark gaze arrow-straight upon her own. His hair was hanging along his forehead, trailing down his temples, inviting her touch. She put her hands in it and then stroked her thumbs over his cheekbones, traced his sensual lower lip.
“That’s exactly how it is with Wade,” she told him softly, able to fully meet his gaze now, no more need to hide anything. “He wants to get married. I always knew I could never marry him, but I thought…”
He waited patiently, his palm moving in gentle circles on her abdomen.
Bryce was stunned to feel a sudden lump in her throat. Tears sparked into her eyes, and Matthew’s eyebrows lifted in concern. He shifted at once and gathered her close, curling her against his chest as tears leaked over her temples. How could she explain to Matthew what his love meant to her? There were no words to describe how much she ached with love for him; she hadn’t known she was even capable of such feelings. The tears came pouring now, and she clung to Matthew, sobbing harshly.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” he
murmured against her forehead, again and again. “It’s all right.”
Bryce breathed the scent of his bare chest, at last calming enough to draw a full breath. Matthew brushed back the hair from her right temple and then put his lips against her skin. She drew another breath, almost painfully, and then whispered, “I thought…I would never have this.” Sobs threated to overwhelm her again, but she forced them down. “That I would…never be happy.”
A fierce protectiveness burned through Matthew as he clutched her even more securely. She felt so small and vulnerable in his arms. He said, “Bryce, you are everything to me. Everything.” She made a small whimpering cry and he lifted her face to meet his gaze. His eyes blazed into hers.
“Matthew,” she whispered. “Oh Matthew, I love you. I love you with all of my soul.” She kissed his collarbone. “I got you all wet,” she added, feeling the slickness of her tears on his chest. One corner of his full lips lifted slightly, humor coming back into his dark eyes.
“It’s okay, it won’t shrink,” he told her, and was relieved to see her answering smile. He tipped his head then and lightly bit her right earlobe, making her squeak. She wound her arms around his neck, and he kissed her sweet and full as he moved his hands to her hips to end the night as they ended each.
Chapter Eleven
Rose Lake, Minnesota – Friday, June 23, 1995
“Bryce, phone’s for you!” Evelyn called up the stairs before breakfast, and Bryce prayed, Please let it be Trish. She called through the door, “Thanks, Ev!” and lifted the receiver beside the bed with dread dragging at her belly. She heard Evelyn hang up downstairs and brought the phone to her own ear, forced some cheer into her tone, and said, “Hello?”
“Bryce, what the hell?” she heard next, and her belly seized up even more. Shit, shit, shit.
“I’m fine, thanks for asking, Wade,” she said. No time like the present, she thought, and tried for a deep breath past the ball of guilt in her throat.
His voice softened as he said, “I’m sorry, Bry, but I miss you. You said you’d be back yesterday, and I didn’t get the message until after I already went to the bus station and waited all afternoon.”
Fuck. She sank back against her pillow, chewing her bottom lip. “Wade, I have to tell you something,” she began lamely.
“When are you coming back home?” he interrupted, and she pressed her free hand to the top of her head, wriggled her fingers into her hair.
“Wade, I have to tell you something!” she repeated in her bitchiest tone, and he yelled right back, “Well then say it! Christ!”
“We need to break up.” There, it was out, and her heart was clanging. Dead silence met her ears across the wire.
Then, “What the hell did you just say?”
She was no stranger to his temper. “You heard me!”
“No, goddamn it! You’re doing this over the goddamn phone?!” His voice rose a pitch with each word, and she thanked the powers that be he was over a thousand miles away from her.
“Wade, listen, I know it’s shitty, I do, but there is no good way to say this. I need some space right now.” She could hear his angry breathing, and sputtered at him, “Like you’ve been so faithful to me, Wade. Please. It would take both hands to count all of the shit I’ve let you get away with over the years!”
“Bryce, we are NOT DONE!” he roared at her, and she opened her mouth to fire back, but from his mother’s basement in Middleton he hung up with a bang, then turned and punched through the drywall five times, until his hand was bleeding.
Bryce replaced her own receiver, stunned by the force of his anger. From down the stairs she heard Erica call, “Breakfast’s on, honey!” and she buried her face in her hands for a moment, breathed in and out and finally composed herself enough to join Erica and the kids.
***
At the Pull Inn, Wilder asked if she wanted to ride along to Fairfield, the next town over, and pick up a new paddleboat he’d ordered. For the second time that morning her stomach sank and she thought, Cornered again. She wanted nothing more than to jog over to the beach and watch Matthew in the sun, but there was no way she could refuse this request. Before she knew it she was climbing into the passenger door of the service truck, flustered, her face hot as she let her thoughts linger for a moment on the last time she’d been in the cab of this truck, not six hours ago as dawn crept into the sky, her arms and legs wrapped around Matthew as they made love one last time before morning, quickly, wordlessly, holding each other tight.
Now, just a handful of hours later, she was planted on the passenger seat and Wilder was humming along with the Eagles tape in the cassette player. He seemed to be in a good mood, and the day was clear and bright, inviting cheerfulness. So it caught her off guard when he lowered the volume just outside the Rose Lake city limits and said, “Bryce, I don’t know who your father is. I thought you might think that Erica and I do, but we never knew. I didn’t even know that Shell was pregnant until long after she left that night.”
Bryce, who had clenched her jaw unconsciously at his words, lit a firecracker of her own. “What about Bar Taylor? Didn’t they date in high school?”
Wilder didn’t seem taken aback at all; Bryce was studying him intently from the corner of her left eye. His hair was in a low ponytail down his back and his shoulders seemed relaxed under a faded tan t-shirt. He drove with his right hand hanging casually at six o’clock, exactly like Matthew. After a moment, in which the song on the tape switched from Witchy Woman to Lyin’ Eyes, he said, “We all thought that too, honey, if you want to know the truth, but I asked Bar straight out after Lydia’s funeral. He wasn’t there, but Shell was…Bryce, that’s the last time I saw my own sister…it kills me. And you. You were this tiny little thing with huge eyes, staring all around so solemn. Shell wouldn’t tell us anything, and I found Bar that night, at the Lodge of course. He was married to Leslie already back then, and when I found him that night he was drunk as shit and crying, Bryce, actually crying, because he’d missed seeing her, didn’t even know she was in town. Hell, she left just as soon as the funeral was done. Never even said good-bye to any of us.”
Bryce tried to absorb the details, not wanting to view this picture he was painting of a man loving her mother so much, and her mother leaving him behind. It seemed unreasonable that Michelle would leave her hometown just because she was pregnant; her mother seemed like the type to at least stick around and collect child support. Bryce still wasn’t convinced that Bar wasn’t her father; maybe Michelle hadn’t loved him back, maybe she’d been cheating on him. Finally she asked, “What did he say that night?”
“He said no, you weren’t his child. I wanted to believe him, but he was broken to pieces over not seeing you or your mom. Shit, I was practically still a kid myself, hardly even 18. I didn’t know what the hell was happening.” He cut himself off and gave her a sidelong glance, sheepish. “Sorry, honey, I don’t normally curse this much.”
“Like I mind,” she returned, not intending to sound quite so flippant, but he gave her a half-grin. She added, “So that’s where it ends?”
Wilder shrugged. “I guess Shell is only one who can answer it for you. I used to think I knew my sister pretty well. But now I realize I never knew her at all. I probably wouldn’t even recognize her if I passed her on the street.” He cleared his throat a little roughly, shifted on the seat. “Dad should have gone to see her, Bryce, and I should have too. We didn’t realize it would be like this, that Dad would pass so quickly. I’m still reeling from it, and now he’ll never have the chance.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“I hate to admit this, but I never knew that either. Dad was gun-shy when it came to talking about Shell. Like he knew something but wouldn’t admit it…and he knew that Shelly hated Lydia. Hell, I disliked her, not that I’d ever admit that to Matty in a million years, but I didn’t hate her like Shell did. Shell never told me why exactly. There was a tension there, between the two of them. Dad always resented that.”<
br />
“How did Lydia die?”
“She had cancer. Bone. She suffered for about four years, got really bad there at the end. Matty doesn’t remember much of that time, thankfully.” Bryce was touched at Wilder’s tender tone when he mentioned Matthew. She heard herself ask, “Why do you guys call him ‘Matty’?”
Wilder chuckled, switched hands on the steering wheel. “I know it seems hard to believe now, but Matty used to be this tiny little sensitive kid who cried over stuff a lot. He was Erica’s pet for so long, and she spoiled him rotten. Believe me, once upon a time the name fit. Now, it’s just habit. He doesn’t mind, told me once he wanted a little boy to call the same.”
Bryce’s heart slammed against her, hard and fast. Her entire body down into her soul wrenched at the thought of another woman giving Matthew that little boy. But of course another woman would, someday. It was a twisting, gouging pain and her vision swam mometarily, erasing the image of the two-lane stretch of road. Instead she saw the truth, glaring into her eyes. How in the hell could you bear him a child?
For a moment she thought she might be violently ill all over the cab of the truck, and she tipped her head back against the seat carefully, as though her neck were spun from glass, drawing a deep breath. Wilder misunderstood and said, “Hey, I’m sorry, honey. I hope you don’t mind me talking to you about your mother.”
“No,” she managed to say. She swallowed again, and the bile in ther throat eased a bit. “There’s so much neither of us know. My mom isn’t exactly…forthcoming.”
“How is she, Bryce? What does she say about all of us?”
“Well, she never told me that you had children, or that Matthew even existed.” The bitterness in her tone made Wilder pause a moment and glance at her from the corner of his eyes. On the bench seat two feet away, his older sister’s child sat stiff and tense, her lovely, long-lashed brown eyes fixed directly ahead, down the empty road. Wilder thought, I am a goddamn fool for thinking I knew her even a little. I don’t know her at all, and she deserves better than that. Shit.
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