Riders on the Storm (Waiting for the Sun #2)

by Robin Hill

  Amanda: Nope. Did Cline ever get ahold of you?

  Darian: I saw he called, but I was out of town. No signal.

  Amanda: Will you be in tomorrow?

  Darian: Yes.

  Frankie

  Jane stares back at me from the pages of our book, her mouth open wide in a candid shot, laughter frozen on her face. I wish I could remember what was so funny in that moment. It was our high school graduation day, and despite the challenges we’d faced—I, with my dad’s illness, and she, with a new baby—we made it. We were over the moon, so maybe that’s what it was.

  Tears well in my eyes at the memory, but it’s the ache of missing her that makes them fall.

  “Darian swore to me it wouldn’t be long,” she said as I hugged her goodbye on the tarmac. “A couple of months tops, and you’ll be in Texas.” She smiled then. “We’ll take him to the ghost tracks.”

  I flip to the back of the book, to the empty pages beckoning me. “July,” I say and close it against my chest. “I can make it till July.”

  “What’s happening in July?”

  My head jerks up at the sound of Darian’s voice as he rounds the corner from the family room. He’s dressed in gray slacks and a fitted light blue button-down. A matching sport coat hangs from his arm.

  “Something Jane and I were discussing. How was your day?”

  “Unproductive,” he says, tossing his coat on the back of a chair. Concerned eyes flicker from my face to the book I’m hugging. “But better than yours, apparently.” He crosses the kitchen to where I’m perched on a stool at the island and kisses me. “I know you miss her. I know you miss home.”

  I smile and set the book on the counter. “Speaking of home, what are you doing back so early? I thought you had to work late.”

  “While you were busy missing Jane, I was busy missing you.” His arms go around me, and I tuck my head into the crook of his neck. The subtle scent of Versace wafts under my nose. “So I came home to make you birthday dinner.”

  A warm, fuzzy feeling fills the hole in my chest. I sit back in my chair. “Birthday dinner? You realize this is day four of my birthday?”

  “We can celebrate your birthday every day as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Can I help?”

  “You can relax. Take a bath. Read a book.” He juts his chin toward Jane’s book. “Maybe not that one.”

  I do as Darian suggests and relax with a book—not that book—chin deep in a bath full of bubbles. But just as my muscles begin to loosen and my mind begins to clear, the scent of cumin and oregano filters through the air-conditioning vent and lures me out of the tub. I put on a pair of leggings and a long peasant top and follow my nose back to the kitchen.

  “Kinda hard to relax when you’re tempting me with…” I crane my neck from the doorway to see what he’s making. “What exactly are you tempting me with?”

  “That was fast,” he says, glancing at his watch as he turns to smile at me. He’s wearing dark-washed jeans and my favorite Doors T-shirt, and he looks as incredible as dinner smells.

  I close my eyes and inhale. “Like I said…”

  He moves to the oven, cracking it just enough to peek inside. “Cheese enchiladas,” he says and then nods to the pot on the stove. “And french fries.”

  A wide grin stretches across my face. Enchiladas and fries is one of my favorite meals. It’s what started my weird food fetish, as Darian likes to call it. “Someone’s been talking to Jane.”

  “It’s like having my very own girlfriend guide on speed dial.” He pulls the dish towel from his shoulder and swats my thigh before moving around me to check the oil. “Not much longer,” he says and gestures to the patio. “There’s a bottle of Rioja out there. Help yourself.”

  I wander outside while Darian finishes cooking. He’s set an impressive table, as he usually does, adorned with flowers from the garden and several tealight candles housed in mason jars. Smart thinking, because the breeze is strong tonight. It’s blowing in from the west, making the wind chimes jingle and drowning out the already faint music playing overhead.

  I pour a glass of wine and sit in one of the heavy iron chairs, sinking into the thick cushion with my feet tucked beneath me. From this angle, I have a perfect view of the sunset. I take a sip of the spicy Rioja, then turn my ear toward the speaker and try to make out the band.

  “Who is this?” I ask Darian when I hear the french doors open behind me.

  He sets our plates on the table and takes a seat. “Before your time.”

  I point to his shirt. “The best bands are.”

  My hungry eyes sweep over Darian’s creation. I pick up a fry, twist it in gooey cheese and enchilada sauce, and pop it into my mouth. My head falls back against the cushion.

  Darian laughs. “I take it I did okay?”

  “More than okay. This may be your best yet.”

  Focused on our food, we eat quietly as the music floats above us. A new song comes on, and I tilt my head to him. “Are you going to tell me who this is?”

  He sits back in his chair. “We’ll get to that, but first I want to talk with you about something.”

  I make a face.

  “What’s that look for?”

  “I think I know what you want to talk about and I’d rather not.” I pinch the stem of my glass and slowly spin it on the table. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  “I know you are,” he says, his voice gentle. “But it still bothers me that it happened at all, so will you just humor me?”

  I nod and fold my hands in my lap.

  “For the rest of my life, the anniversary will haunt me. And it will always fall one week after your birthday. We can’t escape it.” He pulls my hair away from my face and tucks it behind my ear. “I want you to be open with me, Francesca. No more hiding…for either of us.” He picks up my hand. “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I have something for you,” he says, pushing back from the table. He sets his napkin beside his plate and removes a small silver box from his pocket.

  “That looks a lot like a present,” I say as he sets it in front of me.

  “There’s a reason for that.”

  “You flew my best friend and godson to Florida. On a private jet. I think you’ve covered all my birthdays.” I look up to find him staring at me, his lips quirked in a grin. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Darian’s gaze softens. “I like the idea of spending all your birthdays with you.”

  My cheeks flush and I pick up the box. “So, should I open it?”

  “That is customary.”

  “Smart ass.” I carefully lift the lid, and my hand flies to my mouth, catching a gasp. “Oh God, Darian…it’s…wow.” A gold sun pendant, almost as big as my thumb, sits nestled inside a cloud of satiny fabric. Tiny gemstones—crystals or maybe even diamonds—cover the surface, trapping the light above us and sending it in ribbons across the pool. My eyes prick with tears as I look up at him. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I love it.”

  “It’s vintage.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  He takes it out of the box and pushes to his feet. “Julia liked new,” he says, stepping behind me. “New construction, new cars, new jewelry, new everything. She wasn’t pretentious, she just wanted a thing to be hers and hers alone…or ours, as the case may have been.” I hold up my hair as he clasps the chain around my neck. The pendant falls to my breastbone. “My mother was the opposite. She liked old. She liked the idea that a particular item had a history. A life before it found her.” He returns to his chair. “You remind me of my mother in that way. Your cabin, your truck…” He cocks a brow. “Your taste in music. You have an old soul, much like she did. It’s one of the things that drew me to you.”

  I cradle the pendant in my palm. “Why a sun?”

  “Because that’s what you are to me, Francesca. My
life was shadowed by something dark before you came along. I wouldn’t call it a black cloud; it was more like an umbrella because I held on to it—I carried it like I needed it. But then I met you.” He smiles. “And I was finally able to just…let it go. You changed everything. You brightened everything.”

  He reaches for the remote and aims it at the stereo, turning up the volume on the music I’d all but forgotten about.

  “This is me,” he says, “or For Julia, rather. And the song is ‘Halcyon Girl.’ It was written for Annie and it was our biggest hit.” His voice is brittle as he speaks, and I feel my chest cracking open just listening to him. “I went to great lengths to wipe it from the internet, but I’m sure with a little digging…” He swallows.

  “It’s okay. I don’t need to hear it.”

  With a single nod, he powers off the music and picks up my hand, lacing his long fingers through mine. “Will you do something with me?” he asks after several minutes have passed.

  “Anything.”

  “I should have done this a long time ago,” Darian says, climbing onto the bed beside me. He places his wooden box—the box—between us. “I know how unfair this is—asking you to stand by me while I mourn a past life, one I should have mourned already. You’re forcing me to face something I never intended to face.”

  “I don’t want to force you to do anything.”

  “I know,” he says. “It isn’t intentional, it just…is. And I need to face it. I need to let them go because I want a life with you.”

  I take his hand and squeeze it. “Are you sure you’re ready? It’s okay if you aren’t.”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  He removes the lid, and I have to will myself not to react. The box is a mishmash of memories thrown together in haste, and I can’t help wondering how it looked before I yanked it off the shelf. I doubt it was anything like this, and the thought turns my stomach. I haven’t met Evelyn, but some of these things belonged to her daughter and granddaughter. Surely, she would have been meticulous. And from the way Darian stares at it now—like he doesn’t know what to look at first—I can tell he wishes he’d been meticulous too.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “If I hadn’t dropped it…”

  “If you hadn’t dropped it, we wouldn’t be here now.” He takes out a couple of pictures and sets them carefully on the bed. “This is what I think. Let’s not look at anything now, let’s just sort it. Piece by piece. When the box is empty, we’ll put everything back and maybe by then, it won’t be so…hard.”

  So that’s what we do. His gaze lingers on an image here or a trinket there, but for the most part, he sticks to the plan until the box is empty and its contents are neatly stacked between us.

  “How do you feel?” I ask him.

  “A little strange,” he says, turning sideways to face me. “Disconnected, if that makes sense. Like I’m sorting through someone else’s memories.”

  “Do you want to keep going? Because you don’t have to. Now that everything’s separated, we can easily put it back.”

  “No, I want to try,” he says, lifting a picture from the top of the closest pile. He smiles and turns it toward me. “This is Annie.”

  We go through dozens of photos—and he cites each one as if no time has passed. My heart aches to watch him remember.

  “Oh, wow,” he says, picking another and passing it to me.

  “Oh, wow,” I repeat. My gaze fixes on Julia, radiant in her wedding gown—then shifts to Darian in his tux. A laugh bursts from my throat. “I’m so sorry.”

  Darian scrunches his nose. “I know. I was um…”

  “Terrified?”

  “You could say that.” He takes the picture from me and studies it. “But it wasn’t cold feet; it was nerves. I was afraid I was going to lose my lunch all over her white dress. But she was completely unruffled. Even though it rained. Even though we had to move everything indoors at the last minute. Even though I saw her before the wedding. There were so few of us, everyone had to help. I figured she’d be pissed or stressed or something, but she wasn’t.”

  A pensive look settles on his face, and he sits there quietly for a moment before placing the picture inside the box and climbing off the bed, careful not to disrupt the remaining piles.

  “She did get pissed when her mom’s shop sent over the wrong flowers,” he says, the corners of his eyes crinkling with the memory. “Julia specifically requested calla lilies and got lilies of the valley instead. She was convinced her mom did it on purpose.”

  “Did she do it on purpose?”

  He shrugs. “They were beautiful, much nicer than the calla lilies would have been, though I never admitted it.” A slow smile spreads over his lips. “Yeah, I think Evelyn knew what she was doing.”

  “She sounds like a bit of a spitfire.”

  “She’s something else,” Darian says, crossing to the dresser. He rummages through the top drawer until he finds what he’s looking for, then returns to the bed. “This was Julia’s…or it was going to be.” He opens a small box and takes out a stunning princess cut solitaire engagement ring. “When I proposed, I promised myself the ring I gave her was temporary. It looked similar to this one, but the stone was tiny and couldn’t possibly convey how I felt about her. It was all I could afford on my own, but it wasn’t enough.” He returns the ring to the box. “I was going to replace it on our trip. I guess I shouldn’t have waited.”

  “It’s a wonderful gesture,” I say, “but I’m sure she loved the ring she had because it came from you.”

  I know I would have.

  He smiles softly, setting the small box in the larger wooden one. “I think that’s all I can do for now,” he says and begins to gather the remaining items.

  “Darian, maybe it’s time you…I mean, can I go get…” Placing my hand over his, I feel a faint tremble, and I can tell he knows exactly what I’m about to ask. I swallow hard. “Can I go get Anabel’s Minnie Mouse from the pantry?”

  “It’s in the dresser,” he says without looking up. “The same drawer I was just in. In the back.”

  I retrieve the PEZ dispenser from the dresser and bring it to him.

  “Thank you,” he says, his hand squeezing mine before taking the toy and putting it in the box. “You’re right. It’s time.”

  My Wild Love

  R. Cline: I’ll be back in town Thurs. Can you meet?

  Darian: I’m not available Thursday. Is this about Cross or World Music?

  R. Cline: Cross. Still waiting on the other.

  Darian: Call the office and schedule with Amanda. She’ll fill me in.

  R. Cline: Will do.

  Frankie

  I should have known going through the box would trigger a nightmare. This time it’s a single cry that wakes me—deeply pained, low and guttural, yet over so quickly, I wonder if maybe I imagined it. But one glance at Darian’s face, barely visible through the combined glow of our alarm clocks, tells me I didn’t.

  “Darian,” I say softly, stretching to turn on the lamp.

  My voice doesn’t register, nor does the light, in spite of its harshly lit bulb. He’s lost to his dream, eyes shifting beneath closed lids, features twisting and contorting. Laying a careful hand on his shoulder, I say his name again and he finally wakes, jerking upright against the headboard.

  “You were having another nightmare.”

  He clears his throat. “Yeah.”

  I don’t ask if he wants to talk about it because he never does, but I do ask him to stay, even though he never does that either.

  “I need some water,” he says, bending to grab his boxers off the floor. “I’ll come back.”

  But, of course, he doesn’t.

  I’m awakened a second time by the traffic report blasting through the speakers of Darian’s clock radio. I reach across his side of the bed to shut it off and find that the sheets are still warm. The sound of running water spills into the quiet bedroom
, and my spirits rise, knowing he’s still here. I hate waking up without him, but it’s worse when he’s already gone.

  A yawn tears from my throat as I drag my tired self out of bed. I dress in Darian’s discarded T-shirt from last night and a pair of leggings before heading downstairs to make breakfast.

  Darian enters the kitchen wearing dark jeans and a short sleeved woven shirt. Stopping in the doorway, he retrieves his vibrating phone from his back pocket and frowns when he looks at the screen.

  “Bad news?” I ask, plating the fried eggs and ham I made him for breakfast.

  His frown morphs into a grimace when he notices the food. “Shit. I’m sorry, Francesca. I don’t have time today. Rain check?”

  “Give me a sec and I’ll turn it into a sandwich that you can—”

  “I can’t, really. I’m sorry.” He bends to kiss me and then grabs his laptop off the counter. “But save it for me,” he says on his way to the garage. “I’ll eat it tomorrow.”

  “Consider it saved,” I reply, mostly to myself since he’s already out the door. I turn back to the stove and scrunch my nose. Who eats leftover eggs?

  After making myself a plate, I wrap up the rest and stick it in the fridge, where I know it will sit untouched until I think to toss it out. Exhaustion settles in, and I can barely hold my head up to eat. Darian’s nightmares are beginning to affect my sleep as much as his.

  When I was single, I loved the idea of working from home, where I could keep my own hours and set my own schedule. If I wanted to sleep during the day and work at night, I could.

  But now that I’m in a relationship, napping feels like a guilty pleasure. When Darian’s here, the last thing I want is to be tied to my laptop. So I push through my fatigue and check off as many to-do list boxes as I can.

  At noon, Darian calls. “I’m sorry about breakfast,” he says, sounding as tired as I feel. “I had a lot of shit to do, and I barely got any sleep. I hope I wasn’t a dick.”

  A small smile pulls at my lips. “You weren’t even a little dick-ish,” I say, sliding back on the barstool. “Did you make it on time?”