Rob, of course, was right. She couldn’t continue indefinitely to live in limbo. She and Danny were still legally wed. She still wore her wedding ring, had never taken it off, even though they hadn’t spoken since she’d walked out the door ten months earlier. One way or the other, the situation needed to be resolved.
For days, she’d vacillated. She’d thought about what she had with Danny, and what she might have with Rob if she was brave enough to take that leap of faith. She considered their steadfast friendship, his checkered past and his disastrous history with women. Her own disastrous history with Danny. And wasn’t sure she had the courage to do what her heart was urging.
So she’d called Danny and asked him to fly to Boston. Just to talk. To find resolution to a situation they’d left hanging for nearly a year.
He’d arrived bearing flowers, stunningly handsome in a charcoal tweed jacket, neatly pressed jeans, and a shirt that precisely matched the color of his eyes. He took her breath away. He’d always taken her breath away. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.
But she had an agenda. A plan. Talking points, all laid out neatly in her head.
And then she’d looked into those blue eyes, and all her talking points vaporized, and there was nothing but Danny. Instead of talking, she’d ended up in bed with her estranged husband.
It was a colossally stupid move on her part. But she’d been making colossally stupid moves where Danny was concerned since the first time she set eyes on him. In her defense, they’d been married for thirteen years, and they’d loved each other obsessively. They’d shared, and lost, a child. In so many ways, she still loved him. Maybe not in the way she’d once loved him, but she couldn’t simply erase her feelings for this man she’d fallen in love with at first sight when she was just eighteen years old.
The sex didn’t resolve their differences. It didn’t resolve anything, beyond the welcome physical release after a year of celibacy. But they talked afterward, and she realized that Danny had changed. That while she’d been finding herself, he’d done some growing of his own. And he was still her husband. He wanted her back. He was safe and comfortable and familiar, and those blue eyes of his were so sincere when he told her how much he loved her, how much he’d missed her.
And she was a coward.
The truth had eluded her then, but she saw it so clearly now that it took her breath away. She’d been crippled by fear, knife-sharp and devastating. Fear of the unknown, fear of losing the one solid thing in her life. If she took Danny back, and they didn’t make it, at least she could say she’d given it her all. Life would go on. She’d already proven to herself that she could live without him.
It was Rob she couldn’t live without.
In hindsight, her distorted logic was difficult to understand, but at the time, in her state of utter denial, it had made sense. If she started a sexual relationship with Rob MacKenzie, and that relationship crashed and burned—and Rob had a lengthy history of crash-and-burn relationships—she would lose him forever. If she was forced to choose between having half of MacKenzie and having none of him, that was really no choice at all. She’d always believed that her marriage to Danny was the most significant relationship in her life. But she’d been wrong. Her most significant, most solid and enduring relationship, the one she’d been able to depend on for her entire adult life, was her friendship with Rob. They shared a connection she’d never experienced with any other living soul. Above all else, she needed to save that friendship, that connection, even if saving it meant going back to Danny. Because to lose it would rip her heart from her chest.
Her heart had been ripped from her chest anyway, as she’d stood at the doorway to her guest room, watching MacKenzie pack what little he’d brought with him from California. A couple of suitcases stuffed with wrinkled clothes. The briefcase where he’d tucked all the sheet music for that second album on which they’d spent so many hours collaborating. His guitar and his cat. A bag of cat food, another bag of kitty litter.
She’d helped him carry his belongings down that steep, narrow staircase to the taxi that waited at the curb. He crammed it all into the back seat of the cab, and then he turned to her, standing forlorn and shattered on the sidewalk. “Are you sure?” he’d said. “Are you absolutely, one hundred percent certain that this is what you want?”
For the first time in their lives, she’d lied to him. Because she wasn’t sure. Not at all. She’d believed she was making the right decision. But if it was right, why did it feel like this? Why did she feel like this?
“Yes,” she said.
Green eyes gazed somberly into green eyes, and then he nodded.
Heart thudding, she said, “Tell me we’re okay. Please tell me we’re okay.”
He brushed his knuckles across her cheek and stepped forward to take her in his arms. “Are you kidding? You and I, sweetheart, will always be okay.”
Why was it that he smelled so wonderful? She pressed her face to his chest and clung to him. “Then you’re not mad at me?”
His arms tightened around her and he buried his face in her hair. “How could I be mad at you? You did exactly what I told you to do. You stopped waffling and made a choice. What I am is proud of you.”
He released her then, and without looking back, he climbed into the cab and shut the door. And as the taxi carrying Rob MacKenzie away from her slowly navigated perpetually-clogged Hanover Street, Casey Fiore stood on the sidewalk, arms crossed against a raw March afternoon, and watched until he was out of sight. Fighting the urge to run after him, call him back, tell him she’d made a mistake.
But it was too late for that. She’d made a commitment to Danny, the man whose ring she wore, the man she’d loved since she was eighteen years old, and she was determined to give her marriage one final try. She’d already told him this was the last time. If they didn’t make it this time, there would be no more chances. She was a strong woman; she would simply put one foot in front of the other and march forward.
And everything would work out the way it was meant to be.
Hands trembling, stomach roiling with nausea, she had climbed the stairs to her apartment, let herself in, and closed the door. The place already felt empty without him. Lifeless. In the silence, she took a long, shuddering breath. Swiped at a damning tear. Then she, who never cried, sat down hard on the couch in that dreary March dusk and wept into her clenched hands.
When she was done, when she’d pulled herself together and had wiped her eyes and her nose, she’d marched adamantly to the phone and called her father to tell him that she and Danny would be coming to Maine on the weekend to look at houses.
Now, five years later, as she paced her solitary kitchen on a blue and gold autumn afternoon, in the house she and Danny had purchased on that long-ago weekend, with Rob a thousand miles away on a creaky tour bus, the hard, unflinching truth struck her: That kiss on the beach hadn’t started anything. It had merely opened a door and released a flood of emotion that had been trapped inside her for years, buried beneath a solid wall of denial.
It was astonishing to realize, after two decades of friendship and fifteen months of marriage, that she was madly, deeply, irrevocably in love with her husband, and that she had been for years. Even more astonishing to realize that on a raw March afternoon in Boston five years earlier, letting him go had been the single worst decision of her life.
How could she have been so stupid?
Hands braced against the edge of the kitchen counter, she took a hard breath. Outside her window, that exquisite slanted light that could only be found on an autumn afternoon painted the world a burnished gold. For some inexplicable reason, everything looked different. Colors were brighter, sharper. Her own heartbeat seemed stronger, more pronounced. Her hands, pale and slender, their fingernails painted a soft pink, seemed unfamiliar, the bones prominent, veins tracing pathways she’d never noticed before. Goosebumps lay along her arms, her legs, her breasts. And inside her chest burned something she’d never fel
t before, something so strong, so sweet, so huge it nearly smothered her.
In the living room, the clock struck six. Somehow, she’d lost track of the afternoon, had let it slip away from her. Dusk would come soon. It was time to send the boys home, time to get ready for the weekly Saturday-night gathering.
When she shut off the stereo, the warmth he’d created disappeared, and cold silence rushed in to fill the empty space. She picked up the CD case, studied the cover photo, light filtering through a lush ceiling of green leaves and falling in dappled patterns on his face. Rattled, she dropped it, donned a jacket, and headed outside.
She heard the music before she reached the barn, instantly recognized the song, but not the voice that sang it. She knew every note of that song, knew it intimately, knew it because she and Rob had written it for Danny eight years ago, knew it because it had earned them their second Grammy and had cemented their reputation as composers, knew it because Seasons of the Heart had become Danny’s signature song, forever connected with his name.
Casey opened the door and stepped inside the studio. The kids were so involved in what they were playing that nobody even noticed her standing just inside the door, hands tucked into the pockets of her jacket, gaping at the girl who held the microphone. She sang with eyes closed, face raised to the sky, all that tangled blond hair tossed back over her shoulders. How could this be possible? This dark, smoky, Janis Joplin voice couldn’t possibly be coming from that lanky kid. It was a dark song, a song about hard living and hard loving, about loss and grief and coming out the other side still intact. It wasn’t the kind of song a fifteen-year-old girl should be singing. It wasn’t the kind of song a fifteen-year-old girl should even understand. Yet Paige MacKenzie not only sang it, but conquered it and made it her own.
Stunned, Casey watched and listened as her stepdaughter put her own fingerprints all over what was, without question, the greatest song she and Rob had ever written. The song snaked and twisted, built and climbed with a visceral force, moving toward a climactic moment when it would blow sky-high with a full-octave leap that few singers could achieve. Danny had done it without breaking a sweat, but he’d had a range that was unequaled, and they’d written the song to take full advantage of that range.
There was no way Paige was going to make it. She was going to fall flat on her face. Casey waited with breathless anticipation as the song climbed higher and higher, twisting and winding, until the girl reached that pivotal moment and, without any effort at all, tilted back her head and took the leap.
And nailed it.
Clean and clear, without scooping, without a single false step, she hit that sweet note and held it. A thrill shot through Casey’s body, and the hairs on her arms stood up, and the last time she’d felt this way she’d been eighteen years old, standing in a smoky, overcrowded bar in Boston’s Kenmore Square, and it had been Danny doing the singing.
The last note faded, and Paige finally noticed her. A mix of emotions flickered across the kid’s face: shock, embarrassment, guilt. And finally, defiance. She raised her chin like a true MacKenzie, squared her shoulders, crossed her arms. In the silence, she just looked at her stepmother.
From somewhere in the midst of her astonishment, Casey managed to find her voice. With a calm that belied her true feelings, she said, “Paige, my sweet, I do believe there’s something you forgot to tell us.”
Paige
When Mikey came into the kitchen, all the adults greeted him, but it was his Aunt Casey he enveloped in a bear hug. Hugging him back, she reached up to ruffle his hair and said, “When did you get to be so tall?”
“I was taller than you when I was twelve.”
“Who are you trying to kid? You were taller than me when you were five.”
They all got a laugh out of that. Bill said, “Nice play today, kid.”
“Thanks.” He moved to the Crock-Pot on the kitchen counter and lifted the lid. Amazing smells poured out, permeating the kitchen. He glanced over at Paige, leaning against the counter, and said softly, “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“This stuff any good?”
“Casey made it. That should answer your question.”
He took a paper bowl from the stack on the table and spooned chili into it. Rummaged in the drawer for a soup spoon, then leaned back against the counter, next to her, and began eating. “Oh, man,” he said, “this is good stuff.”
“Everything she makes is good stuff.”
He took another bite. Said, “So how’s the community service going?”
Her face turned twenty different shades of red. “Do we really have to talk about that?”
“You know what they say. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”
“That’s a low blow.”
Those dark eyes studied her face. He scooped another spoonful of chili into his mouth. Chewed and swallowed. Said, “You’re your own worst enemy, you know.”
She squared her jaw. “How’s that, exactly?”
“You have this huge chip on your shoulder. It’s really unbecoming.”
“If it’s so unbecoming, then why are you standing here, talking to me?”
The smile took her by surprise. How often had she seen Mikey Lindstrom smile? He licked the spoon, dropped it in the sink, and tossed the paper bowl in the trash. “Maybe,” he said, “I like to live dangerously. You want to get out of here for a while?”
“I’m grounded.”
“I told you once before, you underestimate my powers. Wait here. I’ll take care of it.”
She watched as he threaded his way through the crowded kitchen to her stepmother. Casey glanced up at Paige, swung back around to her nephew, and said something. Mikey nodded, and she patted his arm.
He returned, somber of face, but there was something in those eyes of his that she couldn’t decipher. “All clear,” he said. “Be home by ten. Grab your jacket.”
Outside, she hoisted herself up into the cab of his old pickup, settled into the seat, listened as the engine roared to life. He turned on the headlights, said, “Seat belt,” and Paige reached to wrap it around her.
“Where are we going?”
He backed the truck around, changed direction, and pulled out of the driveway. “You’ll see.”
They rode in a comfortable silence, the truck rattling down the unpaved road. She had no idea where they were headed, for these back roads all looked the same to her, especially in the dark. Mikey took a series of turns, each turn gradually taking them higher until, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, he took a left onto a road that was little more than a grassy path through the woods. The climb was steep, and through the trees, she caught a glimpse of starlight. Then, suddenly, they reached the top, and came to a stop in the middle of a wide-open, grassy field. Above them, the night sky was huge, and dotted with stars. “What’s this place?” she said. “What’s here?”
“Magic, if we’re lucky. Zip up your coat. It’s chilly out there.”
He grabbed a folded blanket from behind the seat and they walked side by side to the very top of the hill. While he spread the blanket on the ground, she stood, hands in her pockets, and gazed down through the darkness to the lights twinkling in the valley a half-mile below them.
They sat on the blanket together, long legs stretched out in front of them. She studied his feet in cracked leather work boots with the laces undone. “Are we here for a reason?”
“Don’t worry. I’m not about to molest you.”
In the darkness, she felt her face flush. “I never said that.”
“You were thinking it. You warm enough?”
She was a little chilly, but she wasn’t about to admit it to him. She didn’t want him thinking she was some whiny, frou-frou hothouse flower. “I’m fine.”
In the chill night air, his body heat drifted over to her, warm and comforting. He moved a little closer, close enough that their elbows rubbed. If he’d been any other boy, she would have thought he was about to make a move on her.
But he wasn’t any other boy. He was Mikey, and she knew instinctively that she could trust him, that he was a straight shooter, that he’d never do anything to hurt her.
She cleared her throat. “So,” she said. “What are we waiting for?”
“It might not happen. There’s no guarantee. But the time of year and the atmospheric conditions are right, and—”
Above their heads, a white light flickered in the night sky. “Look,” he said, as it grew brighter, licking and darting like a flame.
“What the—”
“Just watch.”
She leaned forward, hands clasped together for warmth, and watched as the light turned red, then green. Always moving, never the same, shimmering like some giant bonfire in the heavens. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “What is it?”
“Aurora borealis.”
“Northern lights? But I thought you could only see them from Canada. Or the North Pole. Or the second star to the right.”
“When the conditions are just so, and you get lucky, you can see them from here.”
Oblivious to the cold, she sat mesmerized by the light show that Mother Nature was performing just for them. Softly, he said, “They say it may have something to do with sun flares, but I can’t explain the connection. I’m no scientist.”
“I don’t want to know the scientific explanation. I prefer the mystery.”
“Something like this,” he said, “makes you realize how small you are. And how infinite the universe is.”
“Wow,” she said. “You’re pretty deep, for a football player. Who knew?”
He nudged her shoulder playfully with his, then left it there, and they sat like that, warmth to warmth, for what seemed like hours, until Mother Nature drew the curtain and the show finally came to an end. He folded up the blanket and they climbed back in the pickup truck. Suddenly freezing, she wrapped her arms around herself, shuddering, while she waited for the truck to warm up.
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