by Darcy Burke
Kyle put his hand on her desk as he leaned down to look at the flower arrangement. “It’s a nice sentiment, but I wouldn’t do it. I’m not sure how things are between them.” They’d find out when Mom came home in a few weeks for Derek’s wedding.
“Okay, it was just a thought.” Natalie touched Kyle’s hand, catching him a bit off guard with the gesture. “I really care about your dad—about all of you. Paula does, too.” She smiled brightly.
Kyle withdrew his hand from beneath hers and moved back around to the other side of her desk. “It was a good idea. Just maybe not right now.” Dad was so uptight all of the time—Kyle and his siblings were all worried about him.
Dad’s office door opened. His slate-gray eyes landed on Kyle. “I thought I heard you.”
“Hey, Dad.” Though they had yet to discuss Kyle’s departure four years ago, Kyle knew it was coming at some point. Dad was still pissed that Kyle hadn’t accepted the job he’d offered, and Kyle was still frustrated with how Dad had meddled in his life. And if he were truly honest with himself, he was ashamed, too. A conversation would happen someday, preferably when Dad was in a more positive mental state.
“Come in here for a minute.” Dad turned from the door and went back behind his desk. When Kyle came in, he said, “Shut the door.” Uh-oh. Dad sat down.
Kyle didn’t want to sit, so he stood in the center of the office and folded his arms over his chest. “What’s up?”
Dad glanced at the chair, registered that Kyle wasn’t going to get comfortable, and briefly pressed his lips together. “Have you and Derek nailed down the details for our booth at the Ribbon Ridge Festival?”
“Nearly.” Though it was taking forever, as they were communicating almost entirely by e-mail.
“You know, things might happen faster if you and Derek actually talked.”
Probably, but the rift between Kyle and his former best friend was deep. He imagined they would’ve lost touch entirely if Derek hadn’t moved in with the Archers during their senior year of high school when his mother died and he’d subsequently become the de facto eighth Archer sibling. Now Derek was as much a part of their family as Kyle. And, like the situation with Dad, Kyle didn’t think they could ignore the past forever. But he was fine doing it for now. Better than fine. “Hey, don’t blame me.”
Dad leaned back in his chair, his gaze cool with skepticism. “So if Derek came to you tomorrow and said, ‘Let’s start over, forget what happened four years ago,’ you’d drop whatever grudge you’re holding and move on?”
Derek had betrayed him. He owed Kyle an apology, and it was never going to come. Fuck it. “We’ll take care of it.” Kyle’s response was clipped. He itched to turn and leave.
“How? I want to know how you’re going to improve your working relationship at least. When I agreed to let you fill in for Hayden, I expected you to behave professionally.”
Kyle dropped his arms to his sides. “Haven’t I? If you have an issue with how I’ve performed, I’d like to hear it.” Kyle hadn’t really known the first thing about being a chief operating officer, but Hayden had been very helpful, even from France. Kyle had worked harder than he’d ever worked in his life to try to prove himself, and he was sick of taking the brunt of Dad’s grief and anger. “When are you going to cut me some slack?”
“When you’re ready to talk about what happened before you ran off.” Dad set his forearms on his desk, which had become far more cluttered than Kyle ever remembered it being. “You never even thanked me.”
The familiar resentment gathered in Kyle’s chest, made him grit his teeth. “Because I didn’t ask for your help. I had things under control.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t, and the fact that you still don’t realize that is why I don’t cut you any slack.”
Kyle threw up his hands. “I guess my coming back and participating in Alex’s project and taking over for Hayden didn’t earn me any points at all.” He turned to go.
“Is that why you’re doing all of this, to earn points?”
Not precisely. He’d wanted to see if he could make something of himself in the face of everyone’s doubt—Alex had given him a perfect opportunity. “I wanted to come home.”
“For how long?” Dad asked quietly. “You need to regain my trust, Kyle. You need to regain everyone’s trust. And you’re not going to do that if you don’t actually engage and really come back.”
What more could he do? He was afraid he knew the answer—patch things up with Derek—but he wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. “I am back, Dad, and I’m doing the best I can. Too bad it’s never been enough.”
MAGGIE PRESSED THE button on her iPhone and watched the screen light up, but instead of punching in her password, she pushed the top button to darken the screen again. Over and over, her fingers moved around the device—screen on, screen off.
Finally, Amy’s door opened, and the friendly face of her therapist gave Maggie a much-needed wave of relief. She got to her feet in the tiny waiting room and made her way to Amy’s office.
“Maggie, come in.” Amy’s fifty-something face creased with concern. “I’m so glad I had a cancellation and could fit you in this morning. Your message yesterday afternoon was so frantic, and now, looking at you . . . I can see you’re stressed.”
Stressed was probably an understatement. Freaking out was a much better description. “Kyle Archer came to see me yesterday,” she blurted.
Amy closed the door behind Maggie. “I see.” As always, her response was calm and mellow. There was never any drama with Amy, but then, wasn’t that a therapist’s job? Maggie was able to treat her own patients with drama-free composure even while her own life was a complete disaster.
Okay, that wasn’t precisely accurate. For a while there, she’d hadn’t even been able to see patients because she’d barely been able to get out of bed.
Maggie sat on Amy’s cozy suede couch, which was situated next to a bank of four windows that looked out over some of the northern Willamette Valley’s most beautiful wine country. Grapevines marched in neat lines up the hillside, giving a sense of order to nature’s utter randomness. But then that’s what they, as people, did. They tried to make sense of the chaos. In the end, however, it didn’t matter. Disorder and unpredictability would always win out. Someday those tidy rows would be overgrown, and the grapes would go wild.
“Maggie?” Amy said softly. “Have you been meditating like we discussed?”
“Yes.” Until yesterday. “But last night I was too upset. I pruned a rosebush to within an inch of its life and then drowned myself in a book and a glass of pinot.”
Amy’s answering smile was understanding. “That’s all right. You don’t need my permission or approval. I just wanted to make sure you’re taking care of yourself.”
“I am.” Anxiety bunched through her shoulders, and she tried to push them back in protest. This would not control her. “Yesterday just threw me for a loop. I wasn’t expecting to see another Archer, let alone Kyle.”
“Why not Kyle?” Amy picked up a notepad from her desk on the other side of the office and sat in her oversized chair facing the couch.
“Because he lives in Florida. Lived. I don’t know. I guess he came home after . . .” Why couldn’t she say the words? She’d worked so hard over the past five months to get to a place where she could think of what had happened without losing her breath. But after seeing Kyle—and the familiar angle of his nose that reminded her so much of Alex—she was lost again.
“You can say it.” Amy’s tone was comforting, but firm.
“Alex’s death.” Maggie felt like she’d run a mile. “After Alex’s death.”
Amy’s lips curved into a warm smile as she scratched notes across the paper in her lap.
Maggie could imagine what she was writing. Clearly anxious. Emotional trauma. Potential relapse.
No, she wouldn’t go back to those weeks when she’d relied on a steady dose of Xanax and could barely bother to shower,
let alone eat. Just being here in Amy’s office meant that she was well enough to take care of herself, that she was able to get help when she needed it. How many times had she told her own patients that this was half the battle?
“Where are you?” Amy asked, with a hint of a smile. “I can see you’re either working yourself into a fine lather over this man’s visit yesterday or effectively talking yourself down from the ledge.”
The brief pang of relief Maggie had felt in the waiting room crested over her again, this time with a more lasting sensation. “Currently working on the latter.”
“Excellent. You’re doing well. Do you want to tell me about the visit, or is just being here enough?”
Amy was a great therapist. She got to know each patient, learned their strengths and weaknesses, and read their moods. She knew that on some occasions, just coming to her office was enough to jump-start a patient on the right path. Though Maggie was still trying to find where her path led . . . Acceptance? Exoneration? Forgiveness?
All of those things and probably much more. They’d only just begun to dig past the trauma of Alex’s suicide to get to the heart of Maggie’s issues. Her mom. Her ex. It was astonishing how one could provide therapy for other people and yet inhabit a life that was a complete and utter mess.
“I think . . .” Maggie’s mind turned over itself, and her thumb ran across the screen of her phone. Realizing this, she tossed the device onto the coffee table in front of her. “He wanted to know how Alex had gotten the drugs to kill himself.”
Amy’s nostrils flared. They’d discussed this many times. Maggie had also wanted to know how he’d gotten the drugs—a sleeping pill, an antidepressant, and a painkiller—that he’d used to kill himself. He’d obtained prescription-level narcotics from somewhere, and it hadn’t been from her.
“We’d all like to know that.” Amy shook her head ruefully.
“Kyle asked if Dr. Innes had prescribed them.”
Amy looked as horrified as Maggie had felt. “No psychiatrist would have, not with his medical history.”
Talking felt good. Some of the tension left Maggie’s body. “I told him that. And that I didn’t know where Alex had gotten the drugs and couldn’t help him. But I don’t think he’s going to leave it alone.”
“You think he’ll bother you? If he starts to harass you—”
“Oh, I won’t let that happen.” Maggie had experience with restraining orders after her ex-boyfriend had taken issue with her breaking up with him.
Amy nodded. “I know. You’re very capable. But Kyle Archer isn’t Mark Fielding.”
Thank God. “No, he’s not.”
Amy jotted a note on her pad and then cocked her head to the side. “How was Mr. Archer with you? Was he intimidating?”
Maggie went back over their encounter, which was easy to do since she’d replayed it a thousand times since yesterday afternoon. “He was . . . angry, but I never felt afraid.” Uncomfortable? Yes. But she recognized now that her discomfort came from his grief and her feeling responsible for it. “To get rid of him, I threatened to call security.” And that seemed to have worked, which told her he was far more reasonable than her ex.
“Did you recognize his anger came from a sympathetic place?”
Of course—the man was grieving his brother’s death. As devastating as Alex’s suicide had been to Maggie, she knew her pain paled to that of his family’s. His sister Tori had left several messages in the weeks following Alex’s death. She’d asked if Maggie had known he was suicidal and why he had done it. Maggie hadn’t returned the calls. What could she have said?
Compassion eased her anguish, and she let the emotion seep into her bones. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, knew she appeared sheepish. “Perhaps I’m overreacting.”
“Not at all. This was a traumatic event. Don’t discount your own feelings and reactions because you think they aren’t somehow worthy or earned. There is no finite amount of grief to go around here—you feel what you feel, and you’re entitled to it.”
Intellectually, Maggie knew this, but emotionally? Gah, she was such a disaster. She dropped her forehead into her hands. “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone back to work. Maybe I should be teaching or something. What’s that saying? If you can’t do it, coach?”
Amy laughed. “The very tenet of our profession. We’re all messed up, Maggie. It’s why we help others not to be. Do as I say, not as I do—there’s another saying for you.”
Maggie thought about why she’d chosen to become a therapist in the first place. She liked problem-solving and helping others. That this career path was a disappointment to her parents—they’d really hoped that Maggie and her brother would pursue their artistic sides—had been an added bonus. She’d been eager to separate herself from them as much as possible. And maybe, no probably, she’d hoped that counseling others would give her the ability to work through her own issues. She was still waiting for that part to kick in, which made Amy’s comment truer than ever. “You’re right.”
Amy went back to nodding—a default action for any therapist—and wrote on her pad. Her gun-metal gray bob swung against her jawbone as she looked up once more. “Do you think you’ll see Kyle again?”
“I hope not.” In another life, she might’ve liked to. Whenever Alex had shared pictures of his family, her eye had always been drawn to the tall, blond god whose megawatt grin surely lit up every room he entered. But the man she’d met yesterday, though still attractive, hadn’t looked a thing like the Kyle who’d always intrigued her, the brother who’d disappointed everyone and who Alex had said was his hero.
Because he was fearless.
Yes, he’d made mistakes, which Alex hadn’t delved too deeply into, but Kyle did everything with gusto and a love for life that most people never had. The envy in Alex’s voice when he’d spoken of his brother had always pierced Maggie’s heart. Probably because she had no idea what living one’s life with that sort of joy felt like.
“Where’s your mind at right now?” Amy interrupted Maggie’s total rathole train of thought.
Maggie shook her head. “Sorry. I was thinking about Alex and Kyle’s relationship. Kyle left Ribbon Ridge rather abruptly a few years back. The family took it hard, and from what Alex said, they pretty much treat him like a massive disappointment.”
“Ah.” Amy made a note. “He’s looking for some approval and acceptance then.”
“Should I have tried to help him? I’d actually like to know how Alex got those drugs, too.” Maybe solving that mystery would appease some of her guilt. The person inside of her wanted to cling to that even while the therapist told her it didn’t work that way.
“If you do, you’ll need to do it for the right reasons.”
Maggie finished what Amy didn’t say in her head: Don’t expect it to alleviate the pain. It might push it away for a while, but only one thing will ease your grief: time. How she hated telling patients that, even though she knew it was true. She was particularly glad Amy hadn’t said it out loud to her.
“I’m not saying I’m going to help him.” But she was thinking it. Geez, the more she thought about it, the more she was interested in helping him. “Would it be bad if I did?”
Amy shrugged. “That depends. If you’re doing it to find some healing and comfort for yourself and for him and his family, then probably not. But, Maggie, I have to wonder if any association with the Archer family is a good idea. You closed your practice in Ribbon Ridge and moved out of that bungalow you loved because you said you couldn’t face the Archers.”
Right. And they owned over half of Ribbon Ridge. Hell, they owned a good part of the entire county and had for over a century. “I did love that bungalow.” Especially the garden—the English daisies would be in full bloom right now. “You’re right. The Archers have every reason to despise me.” The animosity in Kyle’s tone yesterday pinged in her memory. “I don’t want to cause them any more pain.”
He’d told her she’d t
hink of something to help him. Was he waiting for her to call him with information? She didn’t know anything.
“So you’re going to leave it alone?” Amy asked.
“Yes.” There was nothing she could do anyway, even if she wanted to. And she sort of did. Careful, Maggie . . .
They spent the rest of the fifty-minute appointment discussing Maggie’s transition to the new practice and whether some of her former clients had followed her. They had—which had surprised Maggie. One of her patients had killed himself. She would’ve thought people would steer clear of her brand of treatment. However, Amy and a handful of friends from grad school had persuaded Maggie to not only start again, but to stay in the same area. They’d been right—the patients who had followed her needed her, and they didn’t blame her. What’s more, the consistency of staying with them had done wonders for her own sense of self-worth.
By the time she left, she was feeling much better and had convinced herself that things were never as bad as they seemed.
Then her phone buzzed in her purse. She’d left it on silent after the appointment. Sliding it from the front pocket as she used her key fob to unlock her ten-year-old Jetta, she glanced at the caller ID on the screen only briefly before sliding her thumb across it. Damn, was it too late to simply hang up and pretend the call had dropped?
No, she’d just call back.
Maggie forced a smile into her voice. If she didn’t, there would be an inquisition. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hello, my little flower bud. Haven’t heard from you since dinner last week. We haven’t had a chance to discuss Rowan’s new girlfriend. She’s a little uptight, don’t you think?”
Maggie slid into the car and closed the door. “Mom, you think everyone we’ve ever dated is uptight.” Though in this case, Maggie agreed that her younger brother’s latest was at least high maintenance. Designer purse? Check. Immaculate hair and nails? Double check. Name dropping, need to impress, and overly touchy with Rowan? Triple check. But it was natural that he’d go for either someone just like his mother or the polar opposite. Rowan was definitely a polar opposite guy. Not that Maggie hadn’t done the exact same thing with Mark.