All I Ever Wanted: Of Love and Madness, Book Three

by Cimms, Karen

  “No, not really.”

  “Katie.”

  Her forehead puckered. “I’m not sure how it works, but the house is mine. Apparently, it always was mine, or maybe it belongs to some corporation I own.”

  His eyebrows might have just skimmed his hairline. “You own a corporation?”

  She chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. “I guess. Tommy explained it to me, but it’s confusing. A couple of years ago, Joey bought this house for me. He wanted me to have a place of my own.”

  Still sticking it to me from beyond the grave, huh, Joey? “So you owned a house in Maine and never mentioned it?”

  “I didn’t know until after he died, and I just couldn’t process it at the time. Tom tried to tell me about Joey’s will when I first came home from New York, but I didn’t want to hear it. Not then. So he let it go. Then after I was in the hospital, I was so angry with Rhiannon—and with you.”

  Now he was angry with Rhiannon all over again. “I told you I didn’t know you were even in the hospital, let alone that you’d been committed.”

  “I know that now, and I also understand it was the right thing to do. I was a real danger to myself. I wanted to die—”

  He set the cup down so heavily the contents sloshed out onto the table. “Katie, please—”

  She grabbed his hand and threaded their fingers together. “It’s okay. I’ve been to the bottom. I won’t let myself get that low again, I promise, but you have to understand it was bad. Rhiannon did the right thing. Even Tom tried to convince me of that.”

  She looked nervous and uncomfortable, and he was beginning to feel the same.

  “Baby, whatever it is, it’s okay. Just say it.”

  “Will you listen calmly to what I’m going to tell you?”

  They had both faced so much pain already, the fact that she was preparing him for more was unsettling. He nodded anyway. “Yeah, sure.”

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I had already decided how I wanted to die.”

  He tried not to react, but he found himself opening and closing one fist, although he had no idea who he wanted to hit.

  “After I dropped you off that Sunday, I came home and I began drinking—a lot. I was trying to decide what I wanted to be buried in. I climbed up into the attic to get my wedding dress. Then I fell down the steps and nearly broke my neck.” She paused. “At some point, I cut off all my hair, and I must’ve passed out sometime after that.”

  He was holding her hand so tightly it had to be hurting her.

  “While I was out, I had a dream—or something. It was so real. I can still see the sunset, hear the birds.” She stared out the window as if she could see the scene as she described it. “I was at the top of this cliff where Joey and I used to go hiking. That’s where . . .” She cleared her throat. “Joey was there. He was so handsome. And just as sarcastic as ever. He told me it wasn’t my time yet, and—oh!” She practically bounced in her chair and the sad smile she’d worn just a second ago blossomed into a grin. “He said you did a good job with the music for the funeral. It was perfect.”

  He thought his eyes might fall out of his head.

  “Don’t judge me,” she said defiantly, her eyes flashing.

  “I’m not. Go on.”

  “Joey reminded me there was money and a place for me to go. He made me promise to see a doctor.” Her eyes locked on his. “I asked him about you, if you were cheating. He told me to listen to my heart, that it would tell me the truth. He was right. It just took me a bit longer to figure it out.”

  His throat felt thick. He was going to lose it over a fucking dream.

  “He gave me a piece of sea glass. It was the most unusual thing I’d ever seen. It was pink and shaped like a heart. Then he reminded me how it had started out as just a piece of broken glass that had been scraped against the ocean floor and battered by the waves, and that’s what made it beautiful and more prized than before. He said it was a little miracle from him to me.”

  Her hand curled open, and she stared down into her palm as if she could still see that piece of glass. “I told him I could feel him—and I could, just like I’m touching you now. He reminded me that he’d always be there for me and that I wasn’t alone. He told me again that it wasn’t my time. Then I heard Rhiannon calling me, and he was gone.” She blinked once, twice. Then her eyes found his. “I woke up in the hospital sometime after that.”

  He pulled her to her feet and wrapped her in his arms, trying to shake off the memory of how close he’d come to losing her. The thought was still frightening, even with her safely tucked against him. Words failed him.

  She rested her cheek against his chest, her arms snaking around his waist.

  “It was Joey who convinced me not to do it.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “If he hadn’t come to me like that, I might have followed through with my plans as soon as I got out of the hospital. Who knows?”

  His arms tightened, and he kissed the top of her head. “Dream or vision, whatever it was, he saved you.”

  “And the only reason Tom agreed to help me was because I told him about the sea glass heart. Turns out he was with Joey when he found it. It was real. He said Joey was going to give it to me but had left it here. Tom and I looked everywhere, but we never found it.”

  It was all a little too fantastical for him. Was Joey was some kind of angel watching over Kate? He could live with that.

  “I wish I’d been there for you,” he said when he could trust his voice.

  She placed her hands along the sides of his face. “I know. But we both had a lot of work to do this past year, and if everything we went through finally gives us our happily ever after, I’m okay with that.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  Her brows dipped. “Together, I hope.”

  “Absolutely. But you want to live here now?”

  She nodded solemnly. “I’m whole again here. I can’t go back home and drive past Eileen’s house every day, or go to the grocery store and run into the husband or wife or child of someone who died at that meeting, or even drive past the municipal building anymore without being besieged by memories and guilt. If you’re going to be on the road, the airport is twenty minutes from here—much better than Jersey. New York’s not as close, but you can take a commuter flight. If you give it a chance, I think you’ll love it as much as I do. Plus I told you I was working. Actually, I volunteer a few days a week at a soup kitchen. I feel connected here, Billy, like I belong. And I’m doing something to help others, which is important to me.”

  Her eyes sparkled as her excitement grew. “But I think what I really want is to help children. Kids who are struggling to find a better future, especially those who are being neglected or abused and who need a safe place. I’m not sure how I’ll go about it yet, but it’s something that really matters to me. I’ll finally feel like I’m doing something important.”

  She told him about Sonja and her son and how she believed that shouting Billy’s accomplishments at the fleeing mother had given the woman the courage to leave her husband and seek help.

  “You chased a stranger down a dark alley?” That alone made him want to strap her onto the back of the bike and leave town immediately. But he was also proud of her.

  “I did!” She was beaming. “And I wasn’t scared. I did what I needed to do, and it might have saved someone. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  Her excitement was contagious. This was the girl he’d fallen in love with, the one who looked at the world as if it was filled with possibilities.

  “Oh!” she cried. “If you’re not convinced yet, I have to show you one more thing.” She grabbed his hand and led him downstairs, where she dashed into the small den off the family room and re-emerged waving a key.

  “Follow me.” She led him to a locked room at the end of the hall. “Everything in this house was designed for me—except the master bedroom, of course, but we can change that—and I’d really like my four-poster bed. And t
his room here.”

  She spoke so fast he was having a hard time keeping up with her, but seeing her so much like her old self made it worthwhile.

  “Ta-da!” She unlocked the door and flipped on the lights to reveal a large room, empty except for a box of CDs.

  He stepped inside, unsure what he was looking at.

  “It’s doubly insulated.” She pointed to the double wall. “It’s meant to be a soundproof recording and rehearsal space.”

  The concept of the room, as well as its presence in a house created for her, slowly began to sink in. Even long departed from earth, the dude was still way ahead of him.

  “Close your mouth,” she said teasingly.

  His confusion gelled into a full-on grin. “Seriously? Joey? But why?”

  She nodded excitedly. “Yep! This room was built for you. For all he did to make you crazy, he understood how much I loved you and that you loved me, and he knew that even if I ‘came to my senses . . . ’” She wiggled her fingers to create air quotes. “He knew we’d always be together.”

  He was speechless. Stunned and speechless.

  “It needs to be finished, of course. But that was left for you to decide how you wanted it.”

  He circled the room, already picturing his own recording studio. “I can’t believe he’d do this. He hated me.”

  “No, Billy, I don’t think he ever did,” she said softly. “Maybe a little in the beginning, and I guess maybe after what you’d told him about Christa, but only because he didn’t want me to get hurt.”

  He glanced over his shoulder and looked at this compassionate, beautiful woman—his wife—standing in the doorway. “Yet that’s exactly what I did.”

  She covered the distance between them. “Yeah, but I hurt you too. I didn’t mean to, and I don’t believe you meant to hurt me either.”

  “No. Never.”

  “It’s over. Today is the first day of the rest of our lives and all that happy horseshit.” She was grinning again. “I love you, and I’ll spend the rest of my life with you. If you really don’t want to live here, then we can find another place. But I can’t go back to Belleville.”

  He tried to speak, but she interrupted him again.

  “Oh!” She waved her hands madly. “One more thing before you make up your mind. The loft in Tribeca? That’s ours too, so when you need to be in the city, we have a home there as well. Tommy’s staying there for now while he runs Joey’s business—well, my business. God, what the hell was Joey thinking leaving that to me? I’ve done nothing, and every month I get this ridiculous stipend—which, knowing Tom, probably included the money you were giving him, even though I had no idea.” She threw her arms around his neck. “And thank you for that. For still trying to take care of me after what I was putting you through.”

  It was like watching a tennis match, trying to follow her multiple trains of thought, but he didn’t mind. Seeing her happy and excited? He didn’t mind at all.

  She rested her hands on her hips. “Well? What do you think?”

  When he looked into her eyes, it was a wonder his heart didn’t bust right out of his chest. He dipped his head and kissed the tip of her nose.

  “Katie, I’d live in a shoebox with you. If this is where you want to live, then this is where we’ll live.” He scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder, caveman style. Kate giggled and squealed.

  “If this is our new home, it looks like we’ve got lots of rooms we need to break in. I say we start downstairs, and work our way up.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Billy would have liked nothing more than to spend the day in bed with Kate making up for lost time, but she was scheduled to work at the resource center. Given the joy she’d expressed at her involvement there, he couldn’t ask her to skip it.

  While she was gone, he called his parole officer to let him know he was out of the state and to find out how to transfer the remaining fourteen months of his supervision to Cumberland County, Maine. He promised to return the following week for his regular monthly meeting.

  With a few hours left to kill, he did his usual workout, took Charlie for a walk, and sketched out some ideas for the recording studio. When he couldn’t find anything else to keep him occupied, he stretched out on the living room sofa and promptly fell asleep.

  “Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Wake up.” Kate stood near his feet, grinning.

  He peeked up at her. “I have a better idea. Lie down and nap with me.”

  “Nope. Get up.” Her grin grew wider, and he found himself smiling along with her.

  “How was work?”

  She nudged him with her knee. “Good. Sit up. I have a surprise for you.”

  It was then that he noticed her hands were behind her back. Grunting, he pulled himself up. She pivoted, revealing a very familiar silver-blue Thorn custom SoCal solid-body six-string.

  He ran his hand along the maple neck. “What the hell?”

  She was practically bouncing. “I know you have umpteen guitars, but you don’t have any here. I went to that music store in Falmouth. The guy remembered you, of course, so I asked which guitar you liked best, and he said this one. So I bought it.”

  He whistled. “This isn’t a cheap guitar.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve never been able to give you anything this special before. I know eventually you’ll have all your stuff here, but you probably feel like you’re missing an arm or something. There’s an amp in the car.”

  “I feel like a kept man.” It was a feeble attempt at a protest.

  “You’re in luck, then. Go unload that amp while I get changed. Then I’ll take you to Freeport so I can buy you something pretty to keep you warm.” She stopped bouncing. “Unless you’d rather stay here and play with your new toy.”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “How about I play with this now and play with you later? Shopping can wait until tomorrow.”

  * * *

  That evening over dinner, Billy told Kate about his plans to fly back to New Jersey on Monday, pack up some of his clothes and equipment, and drive back up Tuesday after meeting with his parole officer.

  “I hate to leave you for even one day, let alone two. I don’t suppose you’ll come with me.”

  She visibly tensed. “Not yet.”

  “It’s okay, but I’ll miss you. I’ve been without you so long that it’s hard to leave again. Going on tour is going to be tough. Maybe you can come with me?” he asked hopefully.

  “I thought you didn’t want me on tour with you.” Her eyes sparkled. “Except for those booty calls.”

  “Oh, those were booty calls all right, but those were also the times I needed you the most. Those were the days I wanted to cash it in and come home. Seeing you helped me keep going.”

  “And the last few years, when I was working and couldn’t drop what I was doing to fly all over the country?”

  “It was hard. The drinking and the drugs got worse, obviously, but that’s my fault. No more.”

  “So what will be different this time?”

  “Me, for starters. I’m clean and sober for the first time since I was fourteen. It’s my show, my tour, and I call the shots, which includes no drug use at all by anyone—not even pot, no alcohol at the show, and no unauthorized women backstage. It’s in everyone’s contract. C.J.’s put together a list of AA meetings in every city where we’re playing so I can stay on track. I also have my workout and my martial arts training, which helps me control my temper. I think it’s a pretty good start.”

  “It’s a great start.”

  “I know you got your own thing going on here, but if you can come for a little bit, it would mean a lot to me.”

  “When are you going and where?”

  It was hard to contain his smile. “The tour actually starts here in Portland on the twenty-fifth.”

  “You’re kidding! How ironic.”

  “Not really. I remembered how much you said you loved Maine. When C.J. started planning the tour, I told him to book me here. I wa
s hoping if you were here, maybe you would come.”

  “With no TV, no radio, no newspaper, I never would’ve known,” she said sadly.

  “I think somehow you would’ve known. If you believe that Joey came to you in a dream to save you, I believe you would’ve known I was here. And I would’ve known you were close. In my gut, I would’ve known.”

  She set her fork on her plate and linked her fingers with his. “I think you’re right.”

  When she asked where he would be playing, he rattled off the cities he’d be touring over the next two months, playing up each and hoping she’d want to join him.

  “Maybe I’ll come to the first few gigs and see how it goes.”

  Before he could answer, the grandfather clock chimed several times. It was 6:52. The face she made was laughable.

  “And first thing tomorrow, I’ll call someone to come and fix that clock. I promise.”

  * * *

  They spent the better part of Wednesday in downtown Freeport and then at the Maine Mall, where they dropped what Kate declared was an obscene amount of money. Considering she’d paid almost four grand for a guitar a day earlier, that was saying something.

  With her help, Billy bought enough clothes, shoes, and outerwear that he wouldn’t ever need to go back to the house in Jersey if he didn’t want to. And he’d insisted on spending an equal amount on her. The first things they bought were pairs of large, dark glasses and a knitted slouch beanie for Billy. With his hair pulled back into a ponytail and tucked into the hat and the collar of his new jacket turned up, he wasn’t quite so recognizable. As for Kate, no one would know or care who she was, but it was fun to play along. She draped a scarf over her head and around her neck like an Italian movie star. They held hands and kissed, and to her it felt the way it had when they first met. They could have been mistaken for newlyweds.

  They were on the highway heading back to Cumberland when Billy’s cell phone rang.

  “Maine is hands-free only,” she said. “You can’t answer that and drive.”

  “It could be C.J. Would you check?”