by Hinze, Vicki
Talk to Hattie about that, hmm? I’ve got a few chains to rattle.
She gasped.
Criminy, Cally. I was just kidding.
Miss Hattie claimed Cally’s attention. “I don’t want to intrude, dear heart, but you seem troubled.”
Maybe she should take Tony’s suggestion and talk with Miss Hattie. What could it hurt? “I am troubled.” Nervous at opening herself up to anyone besides Mary Beth, Cally fidgeted with the daffodil petals on the porcelain bisque centerpiece.
“If I can help, I will. I hope you know that.”
An angel if one ever walked the earth. “Thank you, Miss Hattie. I do know it. But I’m afraid there is no easy answer.” Cally made herself meet Miss Hattie’s gaze. The gentle concern there totally unraveled her. “I’ve done the most stupid thing I’ve ever done in my life, Miss Hattie. And there’s been a lengthy list of stupid things. But this is the worst. Even worse than marrying Gregory.”
“Nothing can be that awful.” She dropped her sewing into a black bag with yellow flowers on it, then set the bag to the floor beside her rocker. “You sound devastated.”
“I am devastated.”
“Whatever it is, we can work through it.”
Close to tears, Cally shook her head that they couldn’t. “I’m afraid we can’t.”
She pressed her fingertips over her lips, and a creased formed in the smooth skin between her brows. “Oh, my. You’ve taken the leap.”
The same words Tony had used. “What leap?”
“You’ve fallen in love with the children.” Miss Hattie cast the ceiling a worried glance, then looked back at Cally.
Her heart wrenched. “It’s even worse than that.”
She stopped cold, mid-rock.
“I’ve fallen in love with the kids and, God help me, with Bryce.”
Miss Hattie’s mouth rounded. “Oh. Oh, my.”
A tear slipped out from the corner of Cally’s eye. She swatted at it. “Isn’t that just the most stupid thing you’ve ever heard of? I’m supposed to be getting my life back together. Building a life for myself alone. I just got divorced, for God’s sake, and I know that loving a man doesn’t do a thing but bring a woman pain.”
“Oh, Cally. I understand you’re upset—honestly I do, dear heart—but that’s just not true. Love—”
“It is true,” Cally interrupted, her emotions exploding. “I lived it, Miss Hattie. I know it’s true—and, as stupid as I surely am, I let it happen anyway. Love just isn’t enough. It just isn’t . . . enough.”
“Sometimes it’s not,” Miss Hattie agreed. “But love isn’t always painful, dear. I know it was in your case. I mean, in your case with Gregory.”
“It wasn’t him, it was me.” She dragged her hands through her hair, slicking back the tangles. “I can’t believe I let this happen to me again. I just can’t believe it.”
Miss Hattie gave her a sober look. “Cally dear, you know as well as I do that you don’t let love happen. It just happens. If a woman could choose to love, then I’d have chosen to fall in love again and married years ago.” She sighed softly. “No, we can’t choose. When the heart knows, it knows, and nothing convinces it otherwise. Regardless of what we want to do, what our heads and logical thoughts tell us to do, we love. We just . . . love.”
Cally pulled herself stiff. Tears streamed down her face. “We just love, and the men we just love go on without us.” Bryce could never love her back. No more than Gregory could have kept on loving her. But at least Bryce hadn’t broken promises and sacred vows to her. He’d been honest. He’d told her from the start that he could never love again. For Bryce, there had been and only ever would be one woman: Meriam.
“Yes, sometimes they do.” Miss Hattie pulled her lacy hankie from the pocket of her robe then dabbed it against her soft cheek. “Sometimes they just go on without us.”
Cally permitted herself a Class A cry. So did Miss Hattie.
When she’d cried herself out, and Miss Hattie’s soft sniffles had stopped, Cally grabbed two paper towels, passed one to Miss Hattie, then blew her own nose. “I won’t do it, Miss Hattie.”
“How can you stop loving him and the babies?”
Cally’s chin trembled and, though she felt bone-dry, she feared a fresh surge of tears would come anyway. “I don’t know.” She stiffened her shoulders, then tossed the soggy paper towel into the trash bin, in the cabinet under the sink. “But I’m going to do something. I have to do something.”
Chapter 10
Suzie rapped lightly on the bedroom door, then peeked inside. “Cally?”
“I’m over here, sweetheart.” She looked up from the desk and the list of affirmations she’d been constructing, plans on getting her life in some kind of order. Her life alone. Without Gregory. Without the children. And, God help her, without Bryce.
Worrying her lower lip with her teeth, Suzie stopped beside the desk, crushed her red skirt in her hands at her sides. “Are you mad at us?”
Cally’s heart wrenched. She put down her pen. “Of course not, Suzie.”
“Then how come you don’t want to do anything with us anymore?”
She did. Oh, but she did want to, which is exactly why she couldn’t. “It isn’t that, Suzie. It’s complicated.”
“Selena says just say what you feel. That’s not complicated.” Suzie looked soulfully into Cally’s eyes. “Did Daddy hurt your feelings?”
“No, honey. Honest. All of you are just perfect.”
“Then how come you don’t like us anymore?”
“I do like you. All of you.” She liked them too much. “It’s important to me that you understand this, Suzie. It isn’t that I don’t like doing things with you, it’s that it’s not good for us—any of us. See, I came up here to figure out some things. But I haven’t been doing that because—”
“We take up too much of your time.” She let her gaze slide to the floor. “We did that with Meriam, too. But we don’t mean to, Cally. Honest.”
“No. No, sweetheart. You’re worth all my time. But I need to work out some things inside my mind. That’s all. And you and your dad came here so that you could spend some time together. Just you kids and him. And you can’t do that if I’m always there.”
“But we like your being there.”
“I’m glad.” Suzie inched under her guard, and Cally’s resolve took a nosedive. She had to end this conversation before she lost sight of why it was important to handle this situation the way she’d chosen to handle it. Before her emotions could cloud up the reasons until even to her they seemed irrational. “But you need to spend time with each other. Your dad needs you, Suzie. And you need him. So do Jeremy and Lyssie. You’re a family, honey, and you need to be close, you know? Without an outsider interfering.”
Suzie stared at her for a long moment, then turned away and headed toward the door. Her hand on the knob, she paused and leveled Cally with an accusing look. “You just had to say you don’t want us.” Her chin trembled, and she fought tears hard. “That’s all you had to say.”
Cally grabbed the desk’s ledge to keep from running to Suzie and locking her in a protective, loving embrace. An empty ache inside her cut so deep, but she had to stay put. To not move and do any of them more damage than she’d already done. She’d suffer—God, but she’d suffer—but she couldn’t cause any of them more pain.
Her heart ripping apart in her chest, she pressed her hands over it to help hold in all the hurt. Tears flooding her eyes, she stumbled over the rug to the little turret room, then plopped down onto the window seat. Damn it, why did love have to hurt so badly? Why?
She shoved aside the filmy white curtains billowing in the breeze, then stared through the open window out onto the angry, dark blue ocean. Boats rocked on huge swells and whitecaps streaked over the water’s surface like jagged lightning tearing through a storm-swollen sky. Being lonely royally sucked. Sometimes life did, too. Sometimes doing the right thing felt so wrong, and it tore you up from your to
enails to your earlobes, but you had to be strong enough to do what was right anyway, because it was right, because it was the only thing you could do without hating yourself. And sometimes you had to hurt people you love, people you’d rather die than hurt, because only by hurting them could you help them.
You didn’t have to like it. But you had to do it. All of it.
For them.
And for you.
Cally swatted at her tear-soaked cheeks. But who was there to help her? To reassure her that what she was doing was the right thing? Who would talk to her, hug her, hold her, and keep the demons of fear and doubt from sinking their razor-sharp talons into her soul and ripping it to shreds? Who would ever be there to help her?
Not Bryce. Never Bryce.
The salt-tinged breeze chilled her skin to ice and dried her angry, hopeless tears almost before they fell to her cheeks. The peace and comfort she’d felt during her stay here eluded her now, when she needed it most. And swearing she was cried out, that she just didn’t have another tear left inside her, she propped her elbows on the window ledge, then cupped her chin in her palms, and cried some more.
She’d been a crazy fool to dream—even for a second. And crazier still for letting herself forget even for that short time the truth about who and what she was. It’d snuck up on her, not that there was solace in knowing it. It’d just been so damn easy to let the feminine side of her flourish under Bryce’s tender touches and open smiles; to leave herself wide open to his gentle requests spoken straight from his heart that proved him every bit as vulnerable as she herself. No woman with blood in her veins could have staved off the torrential flow of feelings his kisses inspired. They were too powerful and strong. Too fantastic. No woman could have done it. On feeling her touch, he’d trembled with pleasure. On touching her, he’d sighed his satisfaction. On looking at her, genuine desire had glazed his beautiful eyes. What woman could not dream on looking into his eyes?
Cally sighed. Certainly not her.
“So the moral of the story is, you just don’t gaze.” Just off the shore, a gull dived for a fish. “You just don’t gaze. That’s your only way out.”
A burning ache hollowed her insides until she felt empty. She was doing the right thing. She was. Suzie had looked abandoned, discarded. Cally felt as if she had abandoned them all. The guilt was crushing, but she had no choice. She’d thought about it until she’d dropped, and there wasn’t any alternative. Total severance. No contact. That was the only thing she could do. And she had to trust that it would prove the best thing for them and for her.
Oh, Mary Beth. It isn’t only loving a man that can kill a woman inside. It’s loving anyone. Everyone. Yet life without love, well, what’s it worth? It hurts. They hurt. I hurt. Do you know how it’s killing me inside, knowing I’ve hurt them? I’ve wanted children all my life. I wanted to love and care for them, to nurture them. I lost everything once. Why, damn it, must I lose even more again? Why?
Tony cleared his throat. Have you considered that maybe you hurt and they hurt because this decision is wrong?
Tony. Cally thought over his question, though she could have answered right away. “I’ve considered it to the point of exhaustion. More than once. It’s not wrong, Tony. I wish to God it were, but it’s . . . not.” She let her fingertip glide along the bead of caulk seaming the window ledge and the window. “When I made this decision two days ago, it wasn’t wrong, and it’s not wrong now. And tomorrow, when I ask myself it again, it won’t be wrong then, either, though I’ll foolishly pray it will be. It won’t be wrong because it’s right.”
Maybe you’ve figured this all out, but I haven’t. Care to enlighten me?
“Not really.”
Do it anyway. I’m testy because of Thanksgiving, so I’m not really as compassionate as usual. And I’m tired of seeing Suzie hurt. Getting her back on track and over these nightmares is my responsibility, and your interjecting what’s certain to prove a major setback is destined to cramp my style. So, if disassociating yourself from Bryce and the kids is the right thing to do, how come it hurts all of you so much?
“I can’t believe I have to explain this to you. Of all people, you should know the answer, Tony. Hell, after fifty-one years of disassociating but staying near Miss Hattie, you still mourn not talking with her, not holding her. And she still mourns, too. I know you know that. So why don’t you tell me? If it’s right, then why does it hurt?”
This isn’t about me and what I think. It’s about you and Bryce and the kids, and I want to understand your situation from your perspective. Enlighten me, Cally.
She smiled, but there was no joy in it, only sadness. “Because love hurts. It hurt me with Gregory. Bryce with Meriam. You and Miss Hattie. Now, it’s hurting me with Bryce and with the kids. It’s hurting Bryce and the kids, too.”
Pausing to collect herself, she let her words flow out unchecked. “I didn’t expect to love the kids, Tony. But I do. And that only reinforces the lessons I should’ve learned already. No matter how good it starts out, or how innocently, in the end, love always hurts. I’ve hurt all the people I intend to hurt. And I’ve hurt all I can bear for love, Tony. It’s that simple.”
Is it? Aren’t you forgetting something important here?
“No.”
You are. He sounded impatient. You’ve felt a lot of joy in loving Bryce, and the kids too, Cally. I know you have. I’ve seen it. Felt it. Sensed it. And I’ve had a lot of joy in loving Hattie—even with our special circumstances. A lot of joy. I’m not going to stand here and let you forget that or deny it.
“Miss Hattie sure didn’t look joyful the other night in the kitchen. She cried her heart out.”
That’s different.
“The hell it is. She hasn’t seemed joyful since Bryce wrenched his knee.”
I said, that’s different. Something else is happening here that you know nothing about.
Cally turned toward his voice and gasped. Tony stood there, just off the edge of the braided rug. “Oh, God.”
Don’t faint. He held out a hand, as if that’d keep her from it.
“I’m—I’m not. Just—just next time give me a little warning, okay?”
Sorry. I got emotional. He ran a forked finger through his golden-brown hair. The sun set the brass buttons on his Army uniform to winking. “I know Hattie’s hurting. This is a rough time for both of us.”
Thanksgiving was coming fast. Cally knew from Bryce that Tony had proposed to Miss Hattie on Thanksgiving night, but she didn’t mention it now. Tony looked ready to crumble, or explode. He needed to talk, and he lacked having a lot of options on listeners. Knowing how much a friendly ear could help, thanks to Mary Beth and Bryce, Cally couldn’t not offer to listen. “Care to enlighten me?”
He leaned a shoulder against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest, much as she had, to hold all the hurt inside. “Sometimes I wonder if Hattie would’ve been better off without me.” He shoved away then stuffed a hand down into his pocket. “You know what I mean.”
Cally turned, folded a leg up under her, and watched him pace. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”
He shrugged, looked over her shoulder out onto the cliffs. “Maybe she would have fallen in love again and married and had children.”
“She wouldn’t have.”
“She might have,” he insisted. “Vic’s been in love with her for more years than I can count.”
“He loved you too, though. He couldn’t have married Miss Hattie. Not loving both of you.”
“He might have.”
“I don’t think so.” Cally cocked her head. “I’ve heard about you and him and Hatch being the Three Musketeers of Sea Haven Village. He wouldn’t have. Vic’s too proud to be a substitute in the heart of a woman he loves.”
“Someone else, then. She’d have had all she dreamed of having. A life with a family and children. I’m ashamed to admit this, Cally, but it’s only just occurred to me that by vowing to always be with her, and keeping that vo
w, I’ve robbed Hattie of a life.” Tony’s expression twisted. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You love her.”
“Yes.” His eyes grew glossy. “I always have.”
“And you always will.” Cally sighed wistfully. “That’s the thing about this love business, Tony. It does what it wants, regardless of what we want.” Miss Hattie’s words, the night of their crying jag, came back to Cally. And finally she fully understood them. “It wouldn’t have mattered.”
He slid her a questioning look.
“If you’d stayed or broken your vow and gone away. It wouldn’t have mattered,” Cally said. “Miss Hattie loves you, Tony. It’s that rare kind of love, like Collin and Cecelia had. The one that started the legend of love surpassing death because it’s stronger and lives on.” She paused to collect her thoughts. “Whether you were here, or somewhere else, it wouldn’t have changed anything. She wouldn’t have married. She’s not the kind to marry without love, and that she couldn’t give to anyone else because she’s felt it only for you.”
Tony turned his back to Cally and swallowed a knot from his throat. Now, because he had interceded in Suzie’s dream, because he continued nightly to intercede in Suzie’s dream, it appeared he and Hattie were going to lose what little they did have together—if Sunshine proved right.
He’d broken the rules. Had willfully breached the chain of command. And he had attempted—and still was attempting—to alter what would be Suzie’s personal history.
It was wrong. He knew that. And yet to live with himself, he’d had to do it. Just as he had to keep on doing it.
I know you’re upset, but remember your duties.
Sunshine. Tony held off a grimace. I know my duties.
Well, far be it from me to interfere, but—
Then don’t interfere. Who are you, anyway?
It doesn’t matter any more now than it did the first time you asked, Tony. Just help Cally muddle through this. That’s your job.
I know my job.