Giving him one last goodbye hug, I whispered, “Thank you, Chris.”
His eyes were glistening when he pulled away and gave a macho shrug. “Alright. I better get the hell out of here before we both go all to shit again.”
Lacy
When Kevin’s grandmother on Andy’s side of the family died two years ago, I remembered Rhonda telling my mother that they knew she wouldn’t make it through the night once she developed the “death rattle.” I never understood that until I stood beside my father’s bed and heard his shallow, gargling breaths firsthand.
Andy had yet to rouse from his makeshift bed on the living room sofa, and Mrs. Buckner was lightly snoring in the armchair outside my father’s deathroom door. When I quietly crept up to his bedside, I knew he likely wouldn’t hang on long enough for either of them to wake up.
I sat down in the chair beside his bed and grasped his thin, weathered hand gently in my own. “Daddy?”
For a few moments, I watched his eyes for the slightest flutter. When there was none, I swiped a wayward hair away from his wrinkled, pallid forehead, hoping my touch would jar him back from the doorway of that other world long enough to bid me farewell. Wiping the steady stream of tears away with the back of my free hand, I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Daddy, can you hear me?”
His eyes finally parted, though his gaze was so glassy and unfocused that if he could see me at all, he surely thought I was my mother.
“Hi, Daddy. Do you know who I am?”
His chin drooped in an almost imperceptible nod before his voice came thick, weak, and raspy. “I’m sorry.”
Sniffling back my tears, I held his cold hand to my heart. “Don’t be sorry, Daddy. I forgive you. You were sick and didn’t know what you were doing. It’s all okay now. I’m here, and I love you, and I’ll stay with you until…”
Lowering my forehead to the edge of the bed, I choked down a sob and closed my eyes against a torrent of tears that stole my voice. How was it fair that my world was ripped to shreds again and again, tearing away all the people I loved most?
I felt my father’s fingers go slack in my own even before Andy’s hand closed over my shoulder. “He’s gone, bird.”
Lacy
Once the ambulance came to transport my father to the morgue, Andy left me alone to pack for his flight to Los Angeles.
Not knowing what to do with myself and needing to keep my mind busy, I called Susan to fill her in on everything that had happened over the last few days. My bandmates arrived a few hours after Andy left, and after receiving their tearful round of condolences, I explained the impending trip to New York. I offered them their tickets that Noah Mason had sent for each of us.
Susan’s eyes lit up. “Oh. My. God. Are you serious?”
“If you guys want to come with me, the invitation was for us all, as a band. Not just me.”
“Are you sure about this, Lacy?” asked Alex.
“I’m sure. Going solo was okay before when I had Nick, but everything has changed now. I don't want to go alone,” I admitted. “I want you guys with me. But on one condition, Alex.”
“Anything,” supplied Susan on her brother’s behalf, and Dorian nodded his agreement.
“If we go up there together as a band, just like we’ve already discussed, I want a little more creative control over the music. I write my own music and lyrics, and my stuff is good or Mason wouldn’t have agreed to work with me—with us—to begin with. If we do this, you have to agree that we can use some of my songs too.”
Alex mulled over my offer for so long that I began to wonder if he were considering turning down my terms. I tried not to panic over his mood change as he contemplated the implications of what I was asking of him. Alex wasn’t one accustomed to compromise. Gridlock was his band that he had started long before I came into the picture. It wouldn’t be easy for him to relinquish the measure of control I was asking of him. He had already said as much during our talk in the car that day three months ago.
Just when I thought he would disappoint us all, Alex turned to Susan and Dorian. “Let’s go break the big news to our folks.”
Lacy
Andy returned early the next morning, looking just as haggard and puffy-eyed upon his arrival as he had when he left.
“Hey, baby girl,” he said, joining me on the sofa after a fatherly embrace. “You holdin’ up okay?”
Instead of answering his question, I replied with one of my own. “Can I see him?”
His eyes shadowed as he shook his head. “Oh, bird, no.”
“Please, Andy, I need to,” I insisted. My heart needed to see him with my own two eyes. I feared that the only way to move beyond the desperate hope I still hadn’t let go of yet was to see him.
“Sweetheart, you can’t. The accident was just too bad. It was so bad that instead of bringing him home for a funeral, I made arrangements with a crematorium out in Los Angeles.”
I suddenly felt faint and dizzy. I couldn’t breathe. Tears were so sudden and thick I couldn’t see through them.
Andy took my hand to soothe my growing panic and guided my head to his shoulder. “Honey, Nick wouldn’t have wanted you to remember him like that. It would haunt you. You have to deal with losing Jerry too. I know you’re strong, bird, but you’ve been through too much in too short a time. Seeing Nick like that would’ve been too much for you, I’m afraid. It’s better this way. I don’t think any of us are up for a double funeral at this point. I know Rhonda isn’t. She’s spent most of the past two days under sedation. And Kevin. He’s trying to be strong for his mother, but I’ve heard him crying in his room.”
Rationally, I knew that Rhonda and Kevin were hurting, too, but on a selfish level, I resented what their emotional collapse was costing me. It seemed incomprehensible that anyone could grieve as endlessly as I over Nick. They didn’t love him the way I did. They hadn’t been loved by him the way I had been. They didn’t need him the way I did. The way our unborn child did. It was unfair that I was being robbed of a final goodbye because of people who didn’t need the same closure I desperately needed.
“I just wanted to see him,” I said quietly, trying to regain control of my sorrow.
“You’ll be able to say goodbye, bird. There will be a memorial service. And we’ll put up a headstone in the family cemetery so you can bring flowers and visit.” I sniffled back my tears and nodded against his shoulder.
Andy gave me a few moments to collect myself while he formulated his next words. “Lacy, I know it’s your choice. I know you’re hurting and what I’m about to ask might be hard, but I think it might be best if Kevin doesn’t know the truth of where you’ve been this whole time. About you and Nick. We’re all dealing with enough pain already.”
Through a deluge of tears, I had lain awake all night trying to decide how to handle Kevin, and the answer had finally come to me with the clarity of dawn. He had never intended to tell me about his night with Claire. If I hadn’t caught him, the course of my life would be on a very different road. After all the havoc his night of debauchery had inadvertently caused me, surely, I was entitled to keep this secret from him. Before, I would have had Nick there beside me to justify the pain our love would cause Kevin. Now, to tell him would only cause senseless cruelty and tarnish his memories of Nick.
I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand and nodded. “I know. I wasn’t planning to tell him. Or Rhonda either, if you wouldn’t mind.” Andy smiled in understanding. I glanced at the clock then. “I should get down to the funeral home soon. Daddy’s attorney called last night to let me know daddy made all his own arrangements when he first found out he was sick, but I still need to go down to make sure everything is in order for the wake tomorrow night.”
Andy rose and pulled me up with him. “I need to go check on Rhonda and let her know I made it back. Give me a few minutes and I’ll come back over to drive you.”
Lacy
Avoiding a confrontation with Kevin proved easier than I imagined
. What with a constant battery of phone calls and visitors, there just hadn’t been a moment to talk privately. My reprieve ended when we returned home from my father’s wake the following evening.
When Andy and Rhonda both bid me goodnight and retired to their own house, Kevin took advantage of the opportunity to corner me.
“Good night, Kevin,” I said awkwardly, crossing the driveway toward my back porch, trying to make a clean getaway. “I’ll see you in the morning before the funeral.”
“Wait a minute.” He caught my hand and turned me back around to face him. When I couldn’t lift my eyes to meet his, he took my chin and forced me to. “Why are you avoiding me?”
“I’m not,” I answered lamely, defiantly tilting my chin out of his grasp.
“Yes, you are. I thought you came back to me, but I was wrong, wasn’t I?”
I couldn’t bear to break his heart by admitting he was right, but I couldn’t betray my love for his brother by denying it either. With my thoughts and emotions too jumbled to condemn myself by answering on impulse, I stood there like a coward, not answering at all.
“Dammit, Lacy, you owe me an explanation! This may not be the right time or place for you, but if I left it up to you, there would never be a right time. I deserve to know why you left, where you’ve been, who you’ve been with this whole time. Because I know you weren’t in New York like Jerry said. Mark Cary told me he saw you playing with a band at some club over in Asheville.”
For a few moments, when I saw the hurt and accusation in his eyes, I waffled over telling him the truth, but decided that Andy was right in supporting my decision to lie.
Taking his hand, I led him on over to the porch and pulled him down beside me on one of the night-shadowed steps. “Kevin-”
“Once the funeral is over you’re leaving again, aren’t you? For good this time.”
As much as I wanted to stay, for all the reasons I had ever wanted to leave were gone now, to give up would mean that Nick had died in vain. If I hadn’t been willing to give up everything to be with him, he would still be here. After all he had sacrificed, I would do everything that I had ever dreamed of and more, just so I hadn’t lost my heart and soul for nothing.
Taking a deep breath, I finally faced Kevin. “Yes.”
“Alone?”
“My bandmates are coming too.”
“You know what I meant.”
“I’m going alone,” I assured him, not bothering to fight back the tears that came with that painful reality. Losing Nick and my father, both in the span of days, all while the scars from my mother’s passing were still so thin, in my heart was a devastation the likes I feared I might never overcome. There was no way to disguise it with false bravado. Kevin knew me so well there was no point in trying.
Or, at least he thought he did.
I had changed over the past six months. He didn’t know this Lacy, the one with all the secrets and lies and unforgivable betrayals. Part of me didn’t want him to know this Lacy, but it would be impossible to keep her hidden. I might be able to hide my pregnancy; I wouldn’t be able to hide my child.
And I wouldn’t want to.
I loved Nick’s baby growing inside me as much as I loved its father. This flesh in blood gift was my world. It was the only tangible part of Nick I had left. The only part of him that would always be a constant reminder that there had once been blissful happiness in my life. That child was my only hope that there ever would be again someday. My baby would be cherished. I wanted it to feel every ounce of my love, enough to make up for Nick’s share that he or she would be denied. I refused to hide that.
Kevin finding out about my baby was unavoidable. My father had left me my childhood home in his will. Claryville was my home, no matter where destiny found me. It was where both my parents were—or, would be—buried, along with all the Dalton and Martin ancestors. Nick’s ashes would eventually be buried here too. I would come home to visit their graves and remember them. I would come home to visit Andy and Rhonda—and Kevin. Whether they knew each other as flesh and blood or not, I wanted Nick’s baby to know his or her family. Rhonda and Andy would always love me as though I were family, and even if they never found out that my baby really was their grandchild, they would love it as though it was.
However, coming home brought risks. My child could possibly—hopefully—look like its father, enough to make hiding a family resemblance difficult.
Kevin would be hurt to know I’d given myself to another man, but he was reasonable and would accept it in time. Perhaps he would even forgive me someday. But if he ever suspected the truth… If Kevin were willing to throw away our future over one misunderstanding over Mark Cary, I would be dead to him if he ever found out about Nick.
Now that Nick was gone, I knew in my heart that I would never love another the way I had loved him. But I had loved Kevin once too. So much that I had spent the past few years planning a future with him. Besides Nick, he would likely be the only man to ever hold a place in my heart. Kevin still loved me. He still wanted to marry and start a family with me. He might even love my child as though it were his own.
Especially if he never had reason to suspect it wasn’t.
Hating myself for the path I was about to embark on, I took a deep breath and lay the groundwork for what would be the biggest lie of any I might ever tell.
“I’m going alone. Unless you’ve changed your mind about coming with me.”
He let out a ragged breath and lowered his head, apparently steeling himself for the same fight that had been the root of everything gone wrong in both our lives. “Are we going to get married like we planned?”
“Do you still want to?”
He let out a derisive snort. “You’re the one who disappeared without a word or explanation. I’ve been here the whole time waiting. I think this is your call.”
I toyed with my mother’s ring that Nick had placed on my finger, now on a chain around my neck. I studied it with swarming indecision.
“Kevin, here’s the thing,” I said, turning to face him, holding his hand tight in my own as though his touch would give me the strength to maintain my resolve. “We’ve both said and done things to hurt each other. If we do this, we need a clean slate. No questions asked.”
“Oh, so now I’m not even supposed to ask where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing this whole time?” He let out a bitter laugh as he stood up to pace in front of me, shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s not fair and you know it!”
I stood up proud and strong, prepared to fight for my dreams the way I had always done. “Life isn’t fair, Kevin. If it were, all the people I loved and lost would still be here. If you can’t agree to this, then it all dies right here, tonight.”
In profile, his jaw muscle flexed in frustration and stubbornness. “Why?”
Because if we don’t do this right now, there will be no way to hide the fact that this isn’t your baby, I thought. What I said was: “Because I’m leaving whether you’re with me or not. You knew it was coming, and now it’s here. This isn’t something new. It’s the same decision you’ve always had to make. Only now, your time to make it is up.”
When he wavered too long in stubborn indecision, I turned to go inside to deal with the rejection privately. “Goodnight, Kevin.”
“Wait,” he said softly, taking my hand to keep me with him. He leaned his head back and let out an exasperated sigh. The weariness and regret in his eyes matched that of my own when he finally looked down at me. “No questions asked?”
“No questions asked,” I said, my spirits flaring with a glimmer of hope for my bleak future.
Perhaps, with Kevin, I could move past the grief and heartbreak. With Nick’s child in my arms and my best friend by my side as my husband, perhaps the dark cloud that had settled over my heart would drift away in time. As long as Kevin believed that the child growing inside me was his, our lives could be all that we had spent the past few years dreaming they would be.
; He gave a resigned nod, and then pulled me into his arms for a warm embrace.
“I love you, Lacy. I’ve always loved you and I always will. I lost you once and it scared the shit out of me. I can’t go through that again. I’ll go wherever you go for as long as you love me and want me there with you.”
Lacy
Monday morning, two days after my father’s funeral, Kevin and I said our vows in a small ceremony at the Justice of the Peace in town. We decided to spend our wedding night at my house.
My old bedroom was the only room in the house that felt comfortable enough for either one of us to sleep in. It was after coming from the bathroom next door when I finally faced my husband and prepared to initiate the ultimate betrayal.
Kevin waited, already undressed, in my childhood bed. I crossed the room, nervously pulling together the robe lapels of the silk peignoir set that Rhonda had given me earlier. The pale-blue style was much sexier than I felt comfortable wearing in front of Kevin, but I had to swallow my guilt lest he suspect I was anything but a willing bride. Believing that our marriage was something I wanted, he wouldn’t understand my desire to postpone consummating our vows indefinitely, and being almost a month into my pregnancy already, I didn’t have the luxury of time for bashfulness.
Stepping up to the vacant side of the bed, I bit back tears as I let the robe fall away, wishing that I wanted to be taking it off. The dim moonbeams filtered through the window, allowing my husband to partake in a slow visual feast before he held out his hand to draw me onto the bed beside him.
“This is how I always expected it would be,” he murmured, tentatively caressing a path from my shoulder on down my arm, sliding the thin gown strap down along the way. I closed my eyes and fought back the tears. When I opened them, his eyes were there, pleading for me to relax and give myself to him, to do something—anything—to convince him that my desire matched his. Gritting my teeth to choke down a sob, I gave him the most believable smile I could muster and lowered the other strap of my gown for him. His brow relaxed in relief.
Breaking Lacy (Nick & Lacy Book 1) Page 27