Poor me.
By the time she reached the cottage, the sky and ocean were washed in a gray light. The Jeep was still parked near the gate, where it had been this morning. Seeing it there gave her a small burst of hope. Maybe he would be back.
Out off the point, the electronic buoy was back in working order. It almost seemed as if last night had never happened.
As soon as she stepped inside the cottage, she felt the emptiness. It was all around her. It was inside her. Not wanting to go any farther, she sat down on the church pew near the door.
Had he left because of the article? No, he’d planned to leave anyway. He’d said so last night. This morning she’d felt as if they were finally husband and wife. But their night together had meant nothing to Sonny, at least nothing more than other nights spent with other women.
Her tear-blurred gaze fell upon the lighthouse logbook. She picked it up and hugged it to her. Then she began leafing through the stiff pages, hoping to derive some small measure of comfort from the words inside. She turned the pages, not really seeing anything until something unusual caught her eye. She went back to the last ink-marked page and recognized Sonny’s strong, square handwriting. Yesterday’s date was in the left-hand column. Beside it, just below her grandfather’s name, Sonny had added a new entry, the name of the most recent keeper of the light: Emily Christian Maxwell.
Chapter 13
The next day Emily used her father’s phone to call Doreen. When no one answered, she tried Martin’s office. He was out, so she left a message with his secretary.
Two hours later Martin called back and Emily explained what had happened.
“I’m going to stick my neck out and get personal here,” Martin said. “As you’re well aware of, Sonny doesn’t talk about himself. In all the years I’ve known him, he’s never said a word about his past. I don’t think he wants anybody to know about it, especially you, somebody he really cares about.”
Emily made a protesting sound, but Martin continued. “Sonny comes from a dysfunctional family. He had no father. His mother was an alcoholic. People from dysfunctional families wear this facade that they don’t want anyone to see behind. Not because they’re private people, but because they’re afraid no one will like the person they are inside. They can give love, they just have a hard time accepting it because they think they’re unworthy.”
“How can you be so sure Sonny is like that?” Then she voiced her greatest fear. “Maybe he just grew tired of me.”
“I know because I’m like him. I came from a similar background. Here I am, supposed to be one of the best doctors in the area, but in my own mind, I’m still that little kid who wet the bed.”
She would never have guessed.
“I have an idea that Sonny saw the article and ran,” Martin said. “We’re always looking for an excuse to say—‘see, you can’t love me. I’m unlovable.’ In fact, I lost my wife because I couldn’t accept her love.”
Martin Berlin, of all people—unsure of himself? He seemed so totally confident. “What should I do?” Emily asked.
“I’d say give him a little time. If he doesn’t come back, you might have to go to him.”
Which meant waiting. And she knew that this waiting would be some of the hardest she’d ever done.
* * *
Somebody was pounding on the door.
Go away.
Sonny shifted his position on the couch, heels of his bare feet propped on the arm. It wasn’t comfortable. But he wasn’t looking for comfort.
He’d briefly thought about going to the cabin, but had quickly dumped that idea. It would remind him of Emily. So he’d chosen his apartment. Emily had never been to his apartment.
The pounding continued.
“I don’t want any!” he shouted.
But it wouldn’t stop.
“Okay, okay.” He levered himself up, trudged to the door and jerked it open.
Doreen. He should have known.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“You look like hell,” she said, shoving past him.
“What do you want?” He slammed the door and followed her to the sitting room.
“You know what’s annoying?” she asked as she shoved a stack of newspapers off a chair. “Even when you look like hell, you look good. Makes me sick.” She sat down. “So, Martin says you and Emily had a little tiff.”
“A tiff? We didn’t have any tiff.” He raked his fingers through his hair, then rubbed his stubbled chin. When was the last time he’d taken a shower?
He plopped down on the couch. Stacked precariously on top of the cluttered table were three cans of cola attached to a plastic holder. He tugged one free of the plastic ring. “Is that Ireland job still open?” he asked. He offered a can to Doreen, but she shook her head.
“Sonny, you’re a fool, sabotaging your life like this. Emily is the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“I know.” He took a swig of warm cola, made a face, and swallowed. “The problem is, I’m the worst thing that ever happened to her.” He laughed, his old bitter laugh. “Funny how that works, isn’t it?”
Doreen made a disgusted face. “I could just shake you till your teeth rattle!”
“I’m doing Emily a favor by getting out of her life. Didn’t you hear?” He pointed to the copy of Celebrity World lying on the table. “I’m a loser.”
“Doesn’t Emily get any say in this? After all, she loves you.”
He waved the words away with one hand. “She doesn’t love me. Let’s change the subject. What about that Ireland job?”
“If you’re running—”
“I’m not running.”
“—because of what that rag said, you’re crazy. If you think Emily learned something she didn’t already know, you’re wrong.”
He looked directly at her, ready to come clean for once. “I didn’t want her to know.” It was the closest he’d ever come to a confession in his life.
“Is it impossible for you to believe she might love you in spite of all your shortcomings?”
“Yes.”
“Sonny, I told her about you a long time ago. Not all of it, but most of what I’ve been able to piece together over the years. She knew about your mother and that hellhole you grew up in.”
Not Doreen. He couldn’t believe Doreen would betray him like that. He’d never said it in words, but over the past several years he’d come to think of her as a friend. And now… now to find she’d stabbed him in the back like this…
“Get the hell out of here,” he told her quietly.
“I’ll leave. But before I do, I have something to show you.” She dug through the big leather bag of hers and pulled out some curled black-and-white proofs. She stood, tossing the proofs on the table. “I took those pictures thinking to show them to one of the magazines and possibly get Emily to do some modeling. But when I developed them I realized they were too personal, too revealing. To have allowed anyone outside Emily’s family to see them would have been an invasion of privacy.”
She moved to the door. “Emily has the most wonderfully transparent face I’ve ever seen. It’s as if every thought can be seen in her expression.”
Sonny picked up the pictures. Three in all. All of Emily. They’d been taken at the same time. In every shot, she was watching something off camera, staring into the distance, her hair in sea-damp tendrils about her face. And in her beautiful, magic eyes was a longing so deep and so haunting that he could feel her pain. Feel her love.
“When were these taken?” Sonny asked, amazed that his voice sounded anywhere near normal. He felt sick inside. His stomach muscles tightened as he fought to stabilize his emotions, fought to push aside the grief and deep sense of loss, fought to ignore the jealousy he felt toward the unknown person who had all of Emily’s attention. Who had Emily’s love.
“I took them a few weeks ago.”
He had to ask, had to know. “Who…who is she looking at?”
Doreen turned th
e doorknob, poised to leave. “You, Sonny. She’s looking at you.”
Chapter 14
The weather had turned warm. A breeze blew in from across the ocean, tugging at Emily’s sundress, whipping it around her bare knees as she worked in the garden. Even though her hair was tied back, she could feel damp curls escaping around her face. Absent-mindedly, she pushed them away, only to have the wind push them back.
She was picking leaf lettuce and spinach, laying the leaves in an oblong basket—making a contrast of light and dark green.
As she worked, the smell of damp earth drifted up to her, taking her back to another day, to the day she’d found Sonny planting onions upside down. She’d had a heart full of hope that day. She’d been a child that day.
“I can wait,” Sonny had told her. She’d believed him because she’d wanted to believe him, because she’d needed to believe him.
Martin said Sonny cared for her, but Emily was plagued with doubt. Martin wasn’t aware of what had passed the night before Sonny returned to the mainland. He didn’t know that Sonny might have left for a totally different reason than fear of love.
She was new to love between a man and a woman. And Sonny had known so many gorgeous models. She was afraid that she had seemed an inexperienced child to him.
He’d been gone but five days. It seemed like five months. Martin had told her she might need to go to Sonny, but she wasn’t that kind of person. She didn’t have that kind of confidence. If she could be sure Sonny cared for her, then she would feel differently. But she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure at all.
And deep down she wanted it to be his choice. She wanted him to choose to come back to her.
She straightened, her gaze drawn to the yellow sloping hills that flanked the lane leading to the village. Normally early summer, when the hillsides were covered with huge, teacup-size dandelions, was her favorite time of year. But today the sight of the vivid yellow hills failed to warm her heart.
Far off in the distance, her eye caught a silhouette against the cloudless blue sky. Someone had crested the hilltop and was walking through the yellow field, coming her direction.
Poor Papa.
He came to check on her every day. She hated to have him worry, but there was nothing she could do. It was only natural to worry about the ones you loved.
But as the figure drew nearer, she saw that the stride was not her father’s stride. And the shoulders were not her father’s shoulders.
And then she saw sunlight glinting off sun-lightened hair.
Sonny.
The basket slipped from her fingers. She took a few steps, then stopped, unsure. Why had he come? Was he here to stay? Or was he here to tell her goodbye?
Her heart hammered madly against her ribcage. Sweat broke out on her skin to be instantly dried by the wind.
Wait, she told herself. Wait and see what’s in his heart.
She’d almost forgotten how beautiful he was, how effortless his movements. As he neared, she could see the wind making ripples across his white shirt. It lifted his hair, tossing it across his forehead.
She loved him so much.
Please don’t let this be goodbye. Please don’t break my heart.
And then he stopped a few yards from her, close enough for her to feel the grayness of his sorrow, to see that his eyes were clear and intense, and that the remoteness that often filled them was gone.
But—oh, Sonny— He looked so sad, so haunted, that she wanted to cry for him.
She could sense a deep longing swirling about them. But was it his longing she felt, or only her own?
“I forgot something,” he said quietly.
She could only stand there, frozen, stunned. Too hurt to speak, too numb to move. So, he hadn’t come back to her. He had simply forgotten something.
What would she do? How would she face the rest of her life without him? In her mind, she visualized where she’d written his name beside hers in the logbook. In ink. She shouldn’t have written it in ink.
She turned away, hurried back to the garden. On her knees, she gathered up the basket, picking up the leaves that had scattered.
Bruised leaves.
“Emily—”
His hoarse voice, sounding deeper than deep, came from nearby, penetrating her black despair, but did nothing to alleviate the pain. Then his hand was there, stopping her frantic struggles.
Gentle fingers touched her jaw, tilting her head up. Tears swam in her eyes. She blinked and swallowed, staring into his gray-blue sorrow.
“Don’t you want to know what I forgot?”
She shook her head, unable to speak.
“I’ll tell you anyway.” He pulled her to her feet so that she stood facing him, her skirt billowing, tangling with his legs. And then he said, “I forgot to tell you… that I love you.”
Her mind stopped its anguished rampage. She feared she’d simply wished the words, imagined them in the chaos of her mind. “What?”
“I didn’t leave because of you,” he said. “I left because of me. I was ashamed. I was afraid. I didn’t think somebody like you could ever love somebody like me.”
“Oh, Sonny. How could I not love you? I wish you could understand just how special you are. There is nothing you could have ever said or done in your past that would change who you are right now, nothing that would ever make me stop loving you.”
“It’s hard for me to believe… to trust…”
“Trust me, Sonny. You can always trust me.”
“I want to. I need to.”
But he didn’t move to hold her, seeming unsure. Emily had to say what was in her heart. “You can leave if you grow tired of me,” she said. “Leave if you need something more in your life. But don’t ever leave for fear that I’ve stopped loving you. No matter how far you go, or how many times you run, I’ll always be here, waiting. I’ll always love you.”
The eyes that looked at her were filled with so much love that they took her breath away.
“You and our life together are all I want,” he said. “It’s more than I ever dreamed, more than I deserve. I could no more grow tired of you than I could grow tired of sunshine. I need you. You are the best, the most real thing that’s ever happened to me. I’ll love you forever, Emily. I’ll need you forever. Next time I won’t run away, I’ll run to you,” he said, his deep voice cracking with emotion.
Wondrous, wondrous magic.
He wrapped his arms around her and pressed her to his chest, holding her tightly, as if he couldn’t get close enough. Slowly he lowered his head. Then his lips, soft and warm, moved over hers, making it all true.
Epilogue
Emily and Sonny stood in the middle of the dandelion field. Emily looked over at her husband. He was wearing a blue-gray sweater that perfectly matched his eyes. Last week he’d worn it to the photography showing Doreen had arranged. He’d told everyone that Emily had made it for him, seeming more proud of the sweater than of his beautiful photographs.
Now his head was bent as his long, pianist’s fingers worked with the kite string. He looked up. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
Together they had built a dragon kite that was four times as big as Emily’s original. Sonny had devised a way to fly it using two sets of string. Now he handed one spool to Emily while he took the other.
“We have to let the string out at the same speed.”
She nodded.
They stood side by side. Emily gripped her spool with both hands, feeling a heavy tug as the wind breathed life into the huge dragon. The kite lifted, the string singing as it fed out.
Excitement vibrated around them.
“It’s working!” Sonny shouted.
She laughed in unrestrained joy. “I told you it would!”
He looked over at her and smiled, a smile as pure as sunlight. Then the wind circled, whirling the kaleidoscope of his colors around her.
~~~
About the Author
Theresa Weir (a.k.a. Anne Frasier) is
an award-winning, USA Today bestselling author of twenty-three books and numerous short stories that have spanned the genres of suspense, mystery, thriller, romantic suspense, paranormal, and memoir. Her titles have been printed in both hardcover and paperback and translated into twenty languages. Her memoir, The Orchard, was a 2011 Oprah Magazine Fall Pick, Number Two on the Indie Next list, a featured B+ review in Entertainment Weekly, and a Librarians’ Best Books of 2011. Going back to 1988, Weir’s debut title was the cult phenomenon AMAZON LILY, initially published by Pocket Books and later reissued by Bantam Books. Writing as Theresa Weir she won a RITA for romantic suspense (COOL SHADE), and a year later the Daphne du Maurier for paranormal romance (BAD KARMA). In her more recent Anne Frasier career, her thriller and suspense titles hit the USA Today list (HUSH, SLEEP TIGHT, PLAY DEAD) and were featured in Mystery Guild, Literary Guild, and Book of the Month Club. HUSH was both a RITA and Daphne du Maurier finalist. Well-known in the mystery community, she served as hardcover judge for the Thriller presented by International Thriller Writers, and was guest of honor at the Diversicon 16 mystery/science fiction conference held in Minneapolis in 2008. Frasier books have received high praise from print publications such as Publishers Weekly, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Crimespree, as well as online praise from Spinetingler, Book Loons, Armchair Interviews, Sarah Weinman’s Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, and Ali Karim’s Shots Magazine. Her books have featured cover quotes from Lisa Gardner, Jane Ann Krentz, Linda Howard, Kay Hooper, and J.A. Konrath. Her short stories and poetry can be found in DISCOUNT NOIR, ONCE UPON A CRIME, and THE LINEUP, POEMS ON CRIME. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and International Thriller Writers.
www.theresaweir.com
Title List
Writing as Anne Frasier
Hush, USA Today bestseller, RITA finalist, Daphne du Maurier finalist (2002)
Sleep Tight, USA Today bestseller (2003)
Play Dead, USA Today Bestseller (2004)
Pictures of Emily Page 13