A Year and a Day (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Cooper, Inglath

  “Not always, no.”

  “Is this where we’re staying?”

  “Just for a few hours.”

  “And then we have to go back home?”

  “No, honey,” she said, touching his face. “Then we’re going on another airplane.”

  “We’re going to live somewhere different now?”

  “Yes, somewhere very different.” They had played this game all the way across the Atlantic, Sammy asking the same questions in a slightly different form as if he couldn’t quite believe she was telling him the truth. And how could she blame him? She had tried before and failed.

  Sammy looked up at her. “It sounds nice.”

  His sad, disbelieving smile tied a knot in her heart.

  THEY HAD a six-hour layover at Heathrow. Audrey was nearly sick with nerves. The thought of food was unbearable, but Sammy needed to eat. The airport had an enormous shopping area with a McDonald’s, Sammy’s favorite.

  He plucked at his fingers, worry wrinkling his small forehead. “Are you sure it’s okay, Mama?”

  Jonathan had forbidden her to take him to McDonald’s or any other fast-food chain, his reasoning, Audrey suspected, more about denying Sammy something he enjoyed than keeping him away from food that might not be good for him. “More than okay. In fact, bet I can eat more French fries than you can.”

  “Bet you can’t,” he said and giggled.

  WHEN THEY FINALLY boarded the plane at one that afternoon, relief pummeled through Audrey, leaving her limp with exhaustion. Sammy was already asleep with his head on her shoulder. She leaned back and closed her eyes in silent prayer. Please, God, be with us. Guide us to this new home. Please don’t let me disappoint my son again.

  She had said the words a hundred times in the past twenty-four hours until it felt as though they were on automatic repeat.

  Logic told her not to worry. Even if Ross had already reported back to Jonathan that Audrey wasn’t at home, there was little he could do about it from the Dominican Republic. She had the advantage of a head start.

  But it wasn’t until they had landed in Switzerland three hours later, gathered their luggage and boarded the train that Audrey let the smallest flicker of hope come to life. It pushed up inside her like daffodils through a spring snow, insisting on existence.

  For Sammy, she had struggled to look confident, sure of this plan. She had spent the past five months scraping up money from every source she could find, defining each step of her escape and then going over and over its weaknesses, looking for anything that might cause it to fail.

  From the moment they had driven away from the house, Sammy had never asked the first question about why they were leaving. This in itself was enough to tell her she had done the right thing. That she should have somehow managed to do it sooner.

  THE JOURNEY GREW more grueling each time they switched trains. Sammy was exhausted. Audrey could see it in the droop of his small shoulders, the heaviness of his eyes. But he never complained, and she knew that he wouldn’t. If possible, the depth of her desire to protect him deepened, became even more fierce, pulled her on when she herself felt as if she could drop to her knees and sleep for a week.

  In Innsbruck, Austria, they changed trains again, the length of the trip from here to Rome allowing them time to sleep. Audrey had purchased a ticket for a sleeper car, and she saw the visible relief on Sammy’s face when they stepped inside to find two bunk beds waiting for them.

  “Top or bottom?” she asked, smiling at him.

  “Can I have the top?”

  “Absolutely.” She unpacked his pajamas and helped him out of his clothes. He climbed up the narrow ladder. She tucked the covers around him, kissed his cheek and said, “I love you.”

  But his eyes were already closed, and he was fast asleep.

  AUDREY DIDN’T BOTHER to take off her own clothes. She lay down on her bed and fell asleep as quickly as Sammy had, as if she had lapsed into a coma, exhaustion finally getting the best of her.

  She awoke to the awful sense that something was wrong.

  She sat straight up, her heart pounding with such sudden fierceness that she felt dizzy. Light trickled through the cabin curtain, announcing daybreak.

  She sent a frantic glance around the room, got up and checked on Sammy. He was asleep. She tested the lock on the door and stuck her head inside the small bathroom. Everything was fine. They were safe.

  Audrey stood in front of the sink, turned on the water, wet a washcloth and held it to her face. Was this how it would be for the rest of her life? Terror lurking behind every closed door?

  She could not do that to Sammy. They were starting over. She would go on as if the past was gone. Over. She could not look back. Because if she did, how would she ever make Sammy believe that he was safe? That peace would be a way of life for them both from now on?

  She thought of all the things they had left behind. Her parents. Sammy’s friends. His school, what little stability there had been in his young life.

  And she thought of Nicholas. Of those few moments in the park when he had kissed her, and she had wanted something for herself.

  She put down the washcloth and stared at her reflection in the cloudy cabin mirror. She touched a hand to her lips, remembering the feel of his mouth against hers.

  She dropped her hand to her side. Those feelings had no place in her life now. Nicholas could have no way of knowing that. He had simply picked the wrong woman. What had existed between them had never passed the stage of possibility, but she had left that behind, too, selfish though it seemed.

  SAMMY AWOKE to an unfamiliar sound.

  He opened his eyes wide, straining to see in the darkness. His heart pounded in his chest, so fast he could feel its flutter in his throat. He was breathing too hard, as if he’d just run all the way around the track at his school.

  He listened to the strange chug-a-chug-a-chug. Remembered then that they were on a train. He closed his eyes.

  He was used to waking up scared and hearing noises he didn’t understand at first—then realizing they were awful things he wished he hadn’t heard. Wished he could pretend were just a bad dream.

  But his mom said they were going to make a new life in another place.

  Would it work this time?

  Or would they end up going back like before?

  He lay there in the dark, his heart settling. Sammy wished his family were like other families. Wished he had a father who thought the little things he did were a big deal. His friend Bobby had a family like that. Bobby talked about his daddy all the time. About how he took him fishing on the weekend. Or skiing in the wintertime.

  Sammy wondered what he’d done wrong. For a long time, he’d tried to be perfect. To do everything exactly how he was supposed to. But he didn’t think his daddy even noticed. And it didn’t make him any less mad at him.

  He knew his father was mostly mad at his mama. But he couldn’t remember one time when he had told him he was good at something. Or even smiled at him.

  Sammy used to love his father. Thought he was some kind of hero. People looked at him with respect on their faces. He used to think it was because he was so successful and smart.

  But he understood now that it was because he was one of those people who got their way no matter what.

  Sammy never wanted to be like that.

  He stuck his head over the side to make sure his mom was sleeping below him. He settled back in his bunk, staring at the ceiling. Now that he remembered where they were, the train’s sound was nice. The quiet chug-a-chug made his eyes feel heavy and gritty. He wanted to sleep. But he was afraid if he let himself, he’d wake up to find it was all a dream. That they weren’t really going somewhere different. Making a new life.

  Just the words made him happy. The hope he’d been trying to hold back since his mom had driven them away from their house that morning filled his chest.

  He never wanted to see his dad again.

  THEY CHANGED TRAINS in Rome.

&
nbsp; They were in a regular passenger car this time, Sammy by the window, the eagerness in his little-boy face making Audrey ache with love. She sensed the difference in him already, his young heart so willing to accept that life could change this quickly, that the bad could be left behind with only good ahead. She prayed that she would not let him down.

  “Look, Mama,” he said. “What kind of trees are those on that hill?”

  “Olives,” she said.

  “They look old.”

  “I imagine they are. When their leaves come back, they’re a really pretty silver-green.”

  “Do they taste like regular olives?”

  “Probably better.”

  A few minutes away from their stop, the train began to slow. Audrey’s stomach tightened, as it had each time they’d approached a new place, and she’d envisioned Jonathan waiting to drag them off. The train continued to slow until it arrived at the station with a muted whoosh-whoosh.

  “Firenze.” The conductor made the announcement. The doors opened.

  “Are we there, Mama?”

  “Yes, honey, we’re here.”

  She could see in Sammy’s face that the words were as meaningful to him as they were to her.

  A CAR HAD BEEN RESERVED for them at the train station. Sammy asked if they could get a red one. Red it was, and so small that even their meager luggage engulfed the whole of the back seat.

  “It’s like a toy,” Sammy said, his face lit up. “I bet I could drive this.”

  Audrey smiled and unfolded the map that had been included with their tickets. She had been nervous about this part, navigating them out of the city, and so she had spent part of the flight studying the layout of Florence until the streets and directions made sense to her. She handed it to Sammy. “Will you be the map holder?”

  “Okay,” he said, beaming a little as he folded it so the highlighted path was clearly visible.

  And then they were off, pulling out of the parking lot of the train station into the midday traffic, cars all around squeezed shoulder to shoulder on the narrow streets, vying for position.

  The old fears simmered beneath the surface, and she knew it would be a long, long time before either of them could hear a door slam without jumping, a loud voice without flinching. If ever.

  What Audrey yearned for more than anything in the world was peace. For life to be made up of simple things, simple emotions. Smiles and laughter, both free of the censorship caused by someone else’s unreasonable jealousy.

  The weight that had sat on her chest since the beginning of this journey suddenly felt lighter, and it didn’t feel so difficult to breathe. Maybe deep down, she hadn’t been willing to let herself believe this could actually work, that she and Sammy could end up in a place where Jonathan would not find them. And now relief floated up from within her like a hot-air balloon released from its tether.

  The city of Florence was as breathtaking as she had imagined it might be, with so many things to look at it was difficult to keep her eyes on the road. The Autostrada Del Sole sign popped up on their right. Audrey merged into the traffic, then settled into the right-hand lane, intent on staying there. Cars whizzed by on their left, their colors little more than a blur. They followed the road for several kilometers until they reached the exit for the Superstrada, watching for signs to Certaldo.

  Once they exited, the roads narrowed, winding through the Tuscan countryside with enough hooks and angles that Audrey barely pushed the car out of third gear. Livestock munched hay in very small, neatly fenced pastures, the grass nearly nonexistent. Grapevines lined the slopes beside every home they passed.

  The countryside was incredibly beautiful, as if they had stepped into an old painting, the colors rich and muted.

  It was late afternoon when she finally spotted the name of the road on her directions. They bumped along for ten minutes or so, counting right-hand turns until they reached the fifth. This was it.

  Audrey’s heart began to pound, but she forced a confident smile for Sammy. “We’re here.”

  He sat up in his seat, peering over the dashboard, his little face caught between eagerness and fear. Audrey felt the same. What if something wasn’t as she’d thought? She’d put her trust in a woman she had never met, whom she had communicated with only by e-mail. Suddenly, the whole plan felt insane.

  A farmhouse came into sight at the end of the road. Washed old stucco walls, faded green shutters attached to casement windows that could be thrown open in warm weather, a clay-tile roof, faded and worn. The small yard was made up of more bare spots than grass. A half-dozen chickens pecked away to the right of the house. The scene was worlds removed from the life they had just left behind. And Audrey had never seen anything more wonderful.

  A woman appeared from the back of the house, smiling and waving. They got out of the car.

  “Audrey?” the woman asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And you must be Sammy.”

  Sammy nodded and slipped his hand inside Audrey’s. She gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  “I’m Celine Thomas,” she said. “Please call me Celine. I’m so glad you’re here. You must be exhausted.”

  She was American, and younger than Audrey had expected, fortyish, with shoulder-length brown hair tucked behind her ears. Her features were not extraordinary, her nose small, her lips thin. But there was something about her that drew a second glance; a look in her eyes, that said she had seen a lot of things in her life.

  She led them toward the house. They followed her to the front steps where she pulled a key from her pocket and opened the door. The walls were a terra-cotta stucco, the floors worn tile. The house had a rustic warmth to it that made Audrey limp with appreciation. Nothing had ever looked more welcoming.

  On the kitchen table were two loaves of bread, freshly made if the smell were an indication, a bottle of red wine, a bowl of fruit. There was a pot on the stove, and it smelled of sage and onion.

  “I thought you might be hungry,” Celine said. “The beds have fresh linens, and there are towels in the bathroom. Oh, and there’s bottled water in the pantry.”

  “Thank you,” Audrey said, her voice wavering as tears welled up.

  Celine reached out to squeeze Audrey’s hand. “I know how you feel. And really, I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “I don’t know what to say. This is more than I ever—”

  “I know. I’ve been in your shoes,” she said quietly. “You can stay here as long as you want.”

  “I’ll pay you rent, of course.”

  “Don’t worry about any of that right now. Just focus on the fact that you’re safe.” And with that, she slipped out the door and left them alone in their new home.

  AUDREY AND SAMMY ate the wonderful food Celine had made for them, then put on their pajamas and got into bed, even though it wasn’t yet dark. Sensing that he needed her nearby, Audrey slid into bed beside him, pulling him close and breathing in his sweet little-boy smell.

  He fell asleep immediately, and she lay there in the twilight, thankful. They had made it. For so long, she had hoped and planned, prayed and feared.

  Lying here in this quiet house with her sleeping son in her arms, Audrey closed her eyes and slept the sleep of the peaceful.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WHEN ROSS ARRIVED at the office on Monday morning, he looked as if he’d been held under boiling water for twenty-four hours. His face red, he stood in the doorway of Nicholas’s office, a rumpled, off-kilter version of himself.

  “You haven’t heard from Audrey Colby, have you?” he asked.

  Nicholas raised an eyebrow, cool, even as his heart kicked up. “Should I have?”

  Ross ran a hand through his hair. “No. I just thought…she hasn’t been home all weekend. Jonathan had asked me to check in on her. He’s calling this morning. I don’t know what I’m going to tell him.”

  “That you don’t know where she is?”

  Ross lifted a shoulder and looked at Nicholas with narrowed eye
s, as if debating how much to say. “Jonathan is a little…protective of Audrey.”

  “Is that what you call it these days?”

  If possible, Ross’s face grew redder. “This isn’t kindergarten, Wakefield. Watch your step. He’s not a guy you want to mess with.”

  “Apparently not.”

  Ross stared at him for a moment, then swung off, his Cole-Haan lace-ups pounding an angry path back down the hall.

  Nicholas crossed the office floor and stood at the window looking out at the morning traffic. He wondered where Audrey had gone, and if he would ever see her again.

  THE SOUND of laughter pulled her from sleep.

  Audrey sat straight up in bed, disoriented, and looked at the clock on the nightstand. One in the afternoon. Impossible. She’d slept the entire night and half the next day?

  She flung herself out of bed and ran to the front door. Sammy was in the yard, flat on his back, an enormous yellow Labrador retriever standing above him, licking his face with every giggle.

  Standing guard a few feet away was Celine Thomas. She looked up and spotted Audrey. “Good morning. I mean good afternoon.”

  “I can’t believe I slept this long. Has he been up—”

  “Just a few minutes ago. I came down to see if you would like to join me for lunch. I think George has found a new friend.”

  “I think Sammy has, too,” Audrey said, smiling.

  “So how about that lunch?” Celine asked.

  “Can we go, Mama? Mrs. Thomas says she lives right up that hill. And George lives there with her.”

  Audrey’s eyes met Celine’s and she saw the same compassion she had glimpsed there last night. “That sounds wonderful.”

  “Whenever you’re ready,” she said, “just follow the path through the trees there. You’ll see the house in no time. Come on, George. Let’s go.”

  George trotted off behind her, sending a woeful glance back at Sammy who looked up at Audrey and said, “Can we hurry, Mama?”

  “Bet I’ll be ready before you,” she said, racing for the door.