by MK Meredith
He was a fool for letting himself get so close to Larkin. Not only because of the untenable situation between them, but because they both had wounds that ran too deep, too raw. He wasn’t good for her, and she wasn’t good for him.
She made him want things that his heart didn’t have the capacity to withstand.
And once he was good and well sold on the idea that just maybe they could have a future together, she crushed the dream with one inarguable declaration. “There’s nothing left for me here.”
He wasn’t enough.
He’d never been enough.
“Ryker.”
He shook his head. “Leave it, Grandmother.”
A shape on one of the bricks caught his eye. Squatting down, ignoring the ache in his knees and the pain in his heart, he moved sections of brick and mortar until he got a clear view.
There amongst the rubble were Archer’s small hand prints.
Broken into pieces.
Chapter 17
Larkin stepped carefully across the grass of the cemetery, counting the birch trees that ran along one side until she stood at Archer’s gravestone. She didn’t need to count the trees but it had become a centering exercise for her since the day they’d buried her little boy. It gave her time to focus on her breaths. Time she needed before seeing his name etched in granite.
But as she stared at the scripted line that made the first stroke of the letter A, she forgot how to breathe again. She blinked a few times, surprised by how much the action burned her lungs. His name lay at her feet, the stone proof that he’d existed, but she didn’t feel him. Not here. Something Ryker couldn’t understand. Or wouldn’t.
Days had passed since the well had been crushed into rubble but the vision had played an excruciating loop in her head ever since. By now, Ryker probably had all the lots staked out and foundations poured. There was no telling if he planned to leave the lighthouse. It would be a shame to see the beautiful building torn down but she wouldn’t put it past him. His only focus was destruction.
She sank to the soft grass. The reality of failing Archer filled her chest, crowding her lungs. She wanted to rail and scream and pound her fists in the earth, but she’d made noise and now the Cape was lost. It was probably better if the universe didn’t notice her at all.
She’d tried to live, tried to find a purpose, but in the end she’d only made things worse. A teasing glimpse of the life she’d let herself dream of on the Cape with Ryker mocked her, and a tear slipped down her cheek.
She cried for Archer, for herself, for a little plot of land that had brought them such joy. How could Maxine have sold it to a man who didn’t cherish it, didn’t love it?
She ached for him, for the beautiful, profoundly broken man she’d foolishly fallen in love with, but she also simply ached.
The sun had long since passed the highest point in the sky and had begun its descent to the west. But she continued to sit in her frozen state of panic. She couldn’t face going home, seeing Archer’s empty room, or the lighthouse puzzle still on the floor where she’d left it. She couldn’t go back to the Cape.
She was stuck in a place where she had to leave but didn’t know where to go.
“I thought I might find you here.”
Larkin swiped at her tears, blinking a few times, and pushed up onto her knees.
Claire lowered next to her, mirroring her position. “I used to see you here all the time those first few months. Sitting here with Archer.” She pointed down the hill toward the little duck pond behind them. “My fiancé is buried just past that cluster of trees on the other side of the water.” Sitting back, she pulled her legs around, bending them at the knees and wrapping her arms around them.
“I used to hate you for having your son, for having had your husband. And then I noticed you never visited John’s grave.” Claire stood up and put a hand out. “Come.”
Larkin stared at the offered hand in surprise but accepted the help up to her feet.
“Where are we going?”
“There’s a reason you don’t visit John’s grave. Take me to it,” Claire demanded.
Larkin stopped in her tracks. “No.”
Claire pinned her with thoughtful blue eyes. “All this time, I thought I had it worse than you. You had memories with your son, birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries with your husband. But he took that all away from you. Well, him and my fiancé.” She pulled her shoulders back with the last sentence.
“I don’t want to talk about this.” Placing a kiss to the palm of her own hand, Larkin held it out toward Archer’s grave then turned toward her car.
“Take me to him, Larkin. I’ve never asked you for anything, but you’ve continued to ask of me.”
Nothing could have been more direct. She spun around. “I wanted to help you.” She shoved the hair that had fallen from her ponytail back off her face. “We’ve been avoiding each other for the past two years.”
“And now I’m helping you. That’s the whole point of your little plan, isn’t it?”
The numb, cold weight that accompanied thoughts of John filled her chest. She looked back toward her car. She could be home and back in her bed in twenty minutes.
“Larkin.” Claire grabbed her hand.
On a sigh, she walked down the hill a ways. “He’s buried next to his father. Over here.” She pointed to two flat stones side by side.
“You’re angry,” Claire whispered.
She shook her head but the action was a lie. And she was tired of carrying it with her. “Yes. I’m furious. I hate him.” She looked at his headstone then back at Claire. “He killed my son. Maybe your fiancé, too. We’ll never really know. Do you know how many times I warned him of his temper when he was driving? How many times he brushed it off and told me I was being naive?” She squeezed her eyes shut against the rush of anger.
“Tell him.”
Blinking, she cocked her head at Claire. Tell him? She should have made more of an effort to tell him when it would have mattered, when it could have stopped him from putting Archer in danger.
“Tell him, Larkin. I’ve done my yelling. I’ve railed at my fiancé for stealing our future, for taking my dreams. Your husband didn’t kill him. The investigation proved he was as fully committed as your husband, neither applying the brakes until it was too late.”
She rubbed Larkin’s arm. “Tell him.”
She was a fool to consider such a thing, but as she stared at his name so perfectly engraved on the stone with the words ‘beloved father,’ something snapped.
Her chest filled with a heavy burn and she swallowed back the tears that threatened. He didn’t deserve the honor.
“You did this,” she said with a shake in her voice. Pointing at the stone, she stared hard at his name. “You killed our son. Your stupid pride, your stupid temper. I hate you for it, John. I hate you for killing my little boy.” She was yelling at this point. Shocked by the sound, she sniffed abruptly. Tears streamed down her face and she clamped her lips closed.
They weren’t for her husband. They were for her. For the pain of living without her son.
With a catch in her breath, she added. “And I hate myself for not stopping you.” She dropped her face in her hands and let go. For Archer, the Cape, the mistakes of her husband, the weakness within herself. For every moment she wished she could go back and do just one thing differently.
One thing.
The tension in her shoulders eased just a bit, the tight band around her chest loosening.
Claire put her arms around her. “It’s not your fault,” she whispered, smoothing the hair from Larkin’s temples. “And I was unfair for ever making you feel like somehow it was.”
Larkin stepped back, needing to stand on her own two feet. “No, you didn’t, you—
“Yes, I did. And at first, it felt good. Then I felt like a bully, but my own pain hurt too much when it was just mine. Misery loves company.” She held Larkin’s gaze. “But you came after me anyway, determined to
be friends whether I wanted it or not. I’ve also found friends in Maxine and Blayne. The Mavens never let me pass without committing to coffee or to help in the garden.” She laughed. “I can’t be alone now even when I want to be.”
With a shrug, Claire looked around the cemetery. “You did that. So I needed to do this for you. After you first approached me to talk, I started seeing a therapist. She’s helped a lot and made me face my own buried emotions. It’s a journey, but I’ve started. It’s time you did the same.”
Walking back toward their cars, weaving in and out of tombstones, trying not to step directly over where a body lay beneath, Larkin glanced at Claire. She’d turned out to be such a surprise. Losing the Cape didn’t just affect herself, their whole plan was now on hold. She’d failed more than Archer. If she didn’t continue to try, she’d be failing Claire, too. And the community.
That was unacceptable.
“We don’t have the Cape but that doesn’t mean we still can’t continue planning our outreach. We can add to this community in ways no one else can. We have a different perspective, you and I. We dream of everything we would have done for our babies, and that is what we’ll do for Cape Van Buren,” she said, twisting her hands at her waist as all the possibilities revealed themselves one by one.
Claire leaned against the driver’s side door of her car, nodding encouragingly, bolstering Larkin’s spirits with her quiet strength.
“I wasn’t able to conserve the Cape but it will still be there.” She closed her eyes as an image of the ruined well popped into her head. “If Ryker keeps the main house, maybe we can rent space for our outreach, at least until it grows beyond the walls of the place.”
Claire smiled. “You really want to do this?”
“I need to.” Larkin hugged her. “Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
As Larkin pulled out from Van Buren Cemetery, she circled Van Buren Square and made a list of all the viable locations for the new outreach center, just in case. The whole point of her project was to make services available to the community that would enhance every life. Some might find that help through art classes, some through bereavement groups, some from learning about the natural habitat they were so blessed to call home.
The fact was, there were many different ways for people to heal and to grow.
Some folks needed the chance to start fresh. She frowned. That’s what Ryker had needed.
But she’d been so intent on guaranteeing her own needs that she’d been willing to justify why he should deal with his pain on her terms. She hadn’t been fair. Maybe if she had been stronger, she could have worked with him instead of against him.
They’d already proven what a great team they could be. Why hadn’t she seen it?
All she needed to heal had been within her the whole time.
As she got out of her car, a tinkling melody came from the backyard. She rounded the corner of the house until she had a clear view of Archer’s wind chimes hanging from a pine tree in the yard. Her heart squeezed and she smiled.
He wasn’t only at the well; he was within her, always was and always would be.
He was in her memories, in her stories, in the way she cared about people, and the way she’d continue to care about people.
Looking out across the choppy waves of the North Cove, she could just make out figures moving about the property. But what held her attention were the glowing rays from the lighthouse. Ryker had turned it on. There’d be no reason to do so if he was going to tear it all down.
A small kernel of hope bloomed in her chest. If she could just keep her view of the lighthouse…it was funny how her brain grabbed onto every possible tether.
Like the possibility of love.
If she were honest, she’d fallen in love with Ryker the moment he’d shoved a plate with two cupcakes in front of her on the morning she’d come to his house with the stay on the property. And again when he held her gaze as she told stories about her son, and when he held her as she cried, and every time he challenged her views and accepted her values.
Her heart dropped.
She’d said awful things to him, unfair things. But she’d been hurting and panicked when she failed to win the conservation. By the time the backhoe was backing toward the well, she had reached her breaking point and couldn’t see past her own heartache.
Making her way back around the house, she sighed. She’d accused him of still being afraid of his father, of not standing up to him as an adult, when she’d been guilty of the same thing with her husband.
Even worse.
She should have been standing up for Archer.
In the end, she and Ryker weren’t meant to be together. Too much pain separated them in a way an ocean of water never could.
But thanks to him, she’d loved again. And that was living, even if losing it caused such awful pain.
Archer would be proud.
Mitch headed toward Ryker’s front door. “Starting the project late is worse than the stay on the property, man. You need to pull your shit together.”
If only he knew how. He missed Larkin so much he felt like he was going mad. Five days. Five long days had passed since the woman he loved collapsed to the ground because he was a complete and utter ass.
He believed in his plans for the Cape, but losing focus on-site and not stopping the backhoe was unforgivable. And now he hadn’t been able to stomach having his crew on the property. They were all holed up at South Cove Bungalow, waiting to start.
He grabbed his bee suit as he showed his buddy the front door. “I’m getting really tired of pandering to their egos, to be honest. Maybe Van Buren Enterprises needs to be the sole entity funding this project.”
Mitch spun around on the front porch. “You can’t be serious. One thing goes wrong and you’ll be ruined. You need to think about this, Ryker.”
“Don’t question my business sense.” He spoke in a low tone that brooked no argument and narrowed his gaze in a way that had his crew in New York stepping back.
But the middle finger his buddy gave him demonstrated the fucker couldn’t care less. “Don’t be a dick. I’ll question you all the hell I want. You’re being a jackass. And jackasses make bad decisions.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the lighthouse. “Hell, you’re making the damn lamp operational before you have a means of paying for it.”
Ryker moved past him and down the steps. He had to light the lamp. After what he let happen with the well, he hadn’t been able to sleep, couldn’t concentrate. One night, he’d climbed the stairs he’d once taken with Larkin until he found himself cleaning the windows and wiping down the lens. Remembering the first sensation of her lips against his, the soft weight of her against his chest as he carried her down the stairs, and her look of utter hilarity at the whole situation once she was safely grounded with no bees around.
Then he lit it.
Larkin would be able to see it from her house and, for some reason, the knowledge let him sleep finally. It killed him not to see her, not to go to her, but all he brought her was pain. It was time he thought of someone other than himself. So he’d stayed away.
Jerking his chin toward the drive, he ground out, “You can see your way out.”
Mitch studied him. “You know, you need to figure your shit out and soon. What the hell do you want? Do you even know anymore?” He walked backward toward his truck. “Let me know if Maxine needs any more help getting her things from the attic.”
“I’ll help my grandmother.”
“Yeah? Well, when are you going to let her help you? ‘Cause I don’t think you really want to go through with your plan anymore. You’re just too damn stubborn to see it. You don’t have to be afraid. Your dad’s no longer a threat. You know this.”
Ryker shook his head. “I’m not afraid.”
But Mitch wasn’t listening. He slid behind the wheel and gunned his engine.
Like he had any room to talk about life decisions or being afraid. The guy ran thr
ough women like flatlanders did lobster tails. The only thing he’d ever committed to was his job, and even that was solely dependent on him as an independent attorney. He had no firm, no one to report to.
Ryker sighed and let his head fall back as his buddy’s truck disappeared down the drive. What he needed now was a bit of peace. He needed to go work with his bees.
Approaching the hives on the north side of the Cape rather than where he’d run his hands down Larkin’s naked body, he slid on his hood. The bees would help center him, allow him to make a plan and get his project back on track.
Because Mitch didn’t know what he was talking about.
He rubbed his chest as he took in the activity of the super. The hum coming from the bees grew louder. Sliding the lid to the side, he gave a quick inspection to the honey frames. There was a bit of burr comb build-up to take care of but the bees were all over the place.
Grabbing a brush, he gently moved a few from the top, only increasing their irritation. A bit of smoke didn’t work either. What the fuck was wrong with him today?
Suddenly a burning sensation in the middle of his back made him drop the smoker and spin around. Goddamn bastard stung him through this suit while the fabric had pulled tight. The buzz grew louder and no amount of deep breathing was calming him or the bees down.
His one place of peace was turning against him. He slid the lid back in place then grabbed his tools, ignoring the lie he told himself and the pinpoint of fire on his back.
Beekeeping wasn’t his only peace.
Larkin grounded him like no one ever had before. He was centered with her. And he’d never say the words out loud but she made him feel safe. Swallowing the derisive chuckle that attempted to bubble up his throat, he made his way across the grounds toward the house just as his grandmother pulled up.
As she got out of her car, he called to her. “I really need to get a lock on that gate.”
“Pfft! I’d just climb over it,” Maxine said.
And he believed it, too.
“Besides, you’ll have your locked gate for your high-end community homes anytime now, won’t you?”