If Ever I Fall (Rhode Island Romance #1)

by Sophia Renny

  She gave him a look of distress. “That’s terrible!”

  He reached out as if to touch her face, but quickly drew his arm back. “Good thing you walk here every morning then,” he said in a light tone. “You can make this your mission for the summer. Willa to the rescue.”

  “I will,” she avowed. “Look, there’s another!”

  He walked alongside her to the water and, together, they watched the creature swish along the sand bottom. It paused, turning as if to thank them before swimming away.

  Joe stood close, his arm brushing against Willa’s shoulder. She stared silently into the water, not willing to move just yet.

  “It’s kind of like life, you know,” he said after a few quiet minutes.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sometimes we’re swimming happily along, or playing in the sand. And then we get knocked over, turned around. Stuck on our backs. You think everything is hopeless, until someone or something will come around and make you right again, put you back on your feet and bring you to where you’re supposed to be.”

  She looked up at him. “Have you ever felt hopeless?”

  Looking straight ahead, he nodded slowly. “Many times,” he admitted gruffly.

  She released a shaky breath. “Like when your parents died,” she murmured. “You must have felt so alone.”

  “I didn’t have time to think about the way I felt. Not then. There were too many things that had to be done. Looking back now, it’s all just a blur.”

  “You were only eighteen. I couldn’t imagine taking on all those responsibilities when I was that age. Did you ever feel like giving up?”

  He gave a firm shake of his head. “Never. No matter how hopeless things got at times.” He met her curious, troubled glance. “There are things you do without question, Willa. You never stop to wonder why. I had to take care of my brother and sister, to make sure they were safe and secure. I never gave it a second thought. They’re my family. Nothing is more important than that.”

  Her heart squeezed at the fierce conviction that shone from his eyes. “I envy them,” she said in a wistful voice. “Having a brother like you.”

  “You don’t have any brothers or sisters?”

  “No. I was an only child. My mother died when I was five years old. It was just me and my father. He…wasn’t a good father.”

  Joe inhaled sharply, his concerned gaze scrutinizing her upturned face. “Did he…hurt you?”

  “No. Not in the way I think you mean. He was always very stern. After my mother died, he became even more cold and controlling. He held that control over me until the day he died. He made me believe that I wasn’t able to manage anything on my own. Every decision made about my education, my career, my living arrangements, was his, not my own.”

  Again, Joe seemed on the verge of touching her. This time he folded his arms across his chest, hands clenched into fists. His mouth compressed in a harsh line. “He sounds like a bastard.”

  Even as Willa continued talking, she was astonished by how much she’d revealed to Joe already. She felt so attuned to him, as if he were the missing piece that made her feel whole. Words never spoken aloud poured from her mouth like water from a rainspout. “I could only read the books he wanted me to read. He took away the children’s stories my mother had given me. I wasn’t allowed to play with the kids in our neighborhood. He didn’t want my mind cluttered with what he called childish things.”

  Joe’s scowl grew more severe. “And no one stepped forward to put a stop to this? No one spoke up for you?”

  “No. Because I was…special.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She swallowed. “If you do an internet search on Wilhelmina the Whiz Kid, you’ll find out all about me.”

  “Wilhelmina? That’s your full name?”

  “That’s the name my mother gave me. She was German. It’s an old family name. My father only called me by that name. Most often it was spoken in anger or impatience, never in the sweet way my mother said it. I grew to hate it. My Aunt Pauline is the first person who called me Willa. Away from my father, that’s the name I went by.”

  “Bastard,” Joe seethed. “To make you hate your own name. It’s a very pretty name. Unique.”

  The tiny thrill of pleasure she felt at his compliment was overpowered by stronger, deeply painful emotions. She had to take calming breaths and look off towards the Providence skyline for a moment, afraid that she was on the verge of losing complete control.

  Joe kept silent and still for a few minutes, then encouraged softly, “Tell me about her. This Wilhelmina.”

  Her mouth quirked in a wry smile, her eyes flitting briefly back to his. How strange that he chose to speak of Wilhelmina in the third person; that’s how Willa, herself, viewed the girl she used to be. It helped keep the pain at bay. Maybe he’d sensed that, just as he seemed to know the very heart of her.

  “She could read when she was only eight months old. She can still remember the first time she understood what the black symbols on the white pages meant. She could solve complex mathematical problems at the age of four. At her mother’s insistence, she went to pre-school and kindergarten, just like any normal child. But, when her mother died, her father homeschooled her. He bragged about his daughter, his child prodigy, to the local media. The story was picked up nationally, and it took off from there. She was paraded around the country, made to show off her skills in front of the camera like she was some kind of circus performer.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “When she was ten years old, her father enrolled her in a degree program at Berkeley. She graduated summa cum laude at twelve with a degree in Applied Mathematics. From there, she was taken to Stanford to complete her PhD. When she was nineteen she became one of the youngest full university professors in the world.”

  “Jesus… Willa.”

  She continued in a rush of words, wanting to throw it all out there, fling all the hurt and regret and anger out into the universe until it dissolved into a million powerless fragments. “When she was a little girl—when her mother was still alive—her books were her friends, the words on the pages her companions. She read about faeries and dragons and faraway lands. She loved getting lost in her imagination. But her father didn’t like her to daydream. He took that joy away from her. He pushed and pushed for her to excel. His dream was for her to win the Nobel Prize.”

  She caught her breath, hysteria bubbling to the surface. “But that wasn’t her dream. She was like a robot, a drone, just going through the motions. She got ulcers and headaches, had panic attacks. She saw no way out. Her father made her believe that she couldn’t survive outside of academia. That that was the only world that would accept her, the only kind of world she could live in. And then her father died.”

  Tears came to her eyes, rolling down her cheeks before she could stop them. “I laughed when he died. I laughed, and I danced around my office. What kind of daughter does that?”

  “God. Willa.” Joe unclenched his fists, reached out and hauled her against his chest, holding her tight. “He didn’t deserve anything from you. I would’ve danced on his grave.” His hands pressed her even closer, his voice a rough whisper in her ear. “He’s gone. He’s gone, and you’re here, a strong, bright, beautiful woman, able to make your own decisions, to live your own life. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  The floodgates opened, and all the anguish she had borne for too many years surged forth. Her body heaved in gut-wrenching sobs. She clutched the front of Joe’s shirt, her fingers twisting in the soft cotton fabric as she rested her head against his chest.

  His hands rubbed up and down her back in soothing motions. “Cry it out, Willa. Let it go.”

  After a while, she gave a hiccoughing sob. “I’m getting your shirt all w-wet.” She made a half-hearted attempt to pull away.

  She felt his hand touch the back of her head, guiding her to place her cheek against his chest once more. “It’s just a shirt.”

 
; “This is the only place I’ve ever felt l-loved,” she confessed between her gasping sobs. “Here. That summer I s-stayed with my Aunt Pauline. She let me read any book I wanted. I c-could play with the neighbor kids if I wanted. She made me feel like I was special just because I was W-Willa. Not because I was smart.”

  She felt his warm cheek against the top of her head. “She was a wonderful lady,” he said, his touch and his tone encouraging Willa to take all the time she needed to navigate her long-buried emotions.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours to her, the tears stopped. She felt drained empty. All that remained were spaces that ached for things that she knew didn’t belong to her. She had no strength or will to move out of Joe’s arms.

  He had one arm wrapped around her lower back, the other curved around her shoulders. His embrace was relaxed, but she felt the steel beneath his touch. She sensed that he didn’t want to move away either.

  “No one can hurt you like that anymore, Willa,” he promised, his chest rumbling against her cheek. “I won’t allow it.”

  Something in his voice made her stiffen and pull back. His grip tightened, and she was only able to draw back far enough to look up at him. She frowned. “I’m not Sylvie or Tony. I’m not another orphan you need to take under your wing.”

  His eyes flared. His cheeks turned ruddy. “Is that what you think this is?” he asked fiercely. “Is that really what you think?”

  Her heart lurched at the strange mix of emotions storming across his face: anger, guilt, confusion and an unmistakable desire—the same feelings that were tumbling around inside of her. “No,” she whispered. “But what I’m thinking. It’s not right.”

  He took a step backwards, but his hands still gripped her forearms as if he didn’t have the power to let her go. “I have been in hell since you opened the door that first day,” he said. “Absolute hell. And there’s no way out.”

  With this starkly spoken confession, he abruptly released her. He took another step back. He rubbed his face with shaking hands, and then slid them into his hair, fingers clenching his skull. He stood like that for a few breathless seconds before pivoting away from her, hands braced on his hips, his harsh features in profile as he glared into the distance.

  Shattered, Willa kept silent. Without conscious thought, she lifted the collar of her shirt to dry her eyes. A breeze kicked up, ruffling across the sand, carrying the scent of the ocean and an underlying odor of kelp.

  “I’ve known Julia all my life,” he said after a while, his voice calmer. “We played in the kindergarten sandbox together. We had our first kiss in third grade. She was my first in everything. It was a given that we’d get married someday.”

  “Why have you waited so long?”

  His chest rose and fell on a long drawn-out breath. He flashed a brief, mirthless smile. “I had big plans for myself. I’d go to college. Get my degree in engineering. Take a year off after graduation to travel as much of the world as I could. Then I would get an amazing job. I saw myself working as an environmental engineer, maybe even putting my skills to use in third-world countries. Once I was firmly established, once I felt that I could support a wife and family, I’d get married.” He shook his head, swinging around to look at her with a cynical expression. “Then life hit me in the face like a sledgehammer. Everything I’d taken for granted vanished just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “You never went back to college?”

  “No. It was impossible. The first five years were brutal. I almost lost the business. I made sure Tony got into college, then Sylvie.” He raised his hands. “Like I said before, I did what I had to do. And I’d do it again. No regrets.”

  “And you had Julia there to help.”

  “Yes.” He rubbed one hand across the nape of his neck, the other fisted on his hip. The look he gave Willa held sadness and self-derision. “That is something I regret. The burden I put on her. She wanted to help, but I took advantage of her generosity. I became used to her being there every day. We fell into this routine. But after a while, for me, it became too much of a routine. I got restless. It reached a point where I had to tell her to back off. I couldn’t…breathe.”

  “Tony said your relationship with her was off and on.”

  Joe gave a wry shake of his head. “Tony told you a lot.”

  “He loves both of you. He doesn’t want to see Julia hurt.”

  “Neither do I.” He ran his fingers through his hair again. “Damn it. Neither do I.”

  “When you asked her to marry you… You must have felt settled by then. Not…restless anymore?”

  “I thought so. I really thought so. I’d dated other women. And I pushed her to see other guys. But we always circled back to each other. She’s always been my best friend. I thought that I would never share a deeper bond with any other woman. Until you.” He took a step closer, his eyes intense, piercing into the deepest heart of her. “The second you opened that door, it’s as if something opened up inside of me. Something I didn’t realize I’d kept closed all these years. There’s just something about you, Willa. Your eyes are so clear and direct. There’s no pretending with you. You don’t hide anything. When I’m with you, it’s very hard to keep my eyes off of you.”

  Her pulse went wild as he moved close enough to bring his hands to her face. He cupped her cheeks with his warm, calloused palms, his thumbs softly brushing her cheekbones. “I’ve told you things this morning that I’ve never told anyone. When I talk with you, I feel this peace inside of me. Like… God, I don’t even know how to describe it, except that you make me feel like all these hungry, lonely places inside of me that I’ve been fighting to ignore have finally found a home. Does that make sense? Do you feel it, too?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. Fresh tears sprang to her eyes. “I do. But that still doesn’t make it right.”

  “Christ,” he hissed between his teeth. He squeezed his eyes shut; when he opened them again, his gaze was rife with pain and longing. His fingers tightened against her skin. He lowered his head, but only to rest his forehead against hers. His shaky breaths feathered across her skin. She clutched his forearms, her legs threatening to collapse beneath her.

  “I’m torn,” he whispered. “Torn. I have no right to say these things to you. I tried to push these feelings down, to keep cool and distant with you. But it’s impossible. I can’t hide anything from you. One look from those gorgeous blue eyes and… Damn. I cannot break Julia’s heart. And I’m not being fair to you.”

  “No,” Willa agreed, a fresh agony tearing at her heart. “It isn’t fair, and it’s not right.”

  He gave a short, harsh laugh. “So direct. So honest. You speak my conscience.”

  He drew in a long, deep breath. His hands slid down her face in a tender caress, one thumb rubbing briefly across her trembling mouth, his eyes seeming to darken as he fastened his gaze there. Then he sighed heavily, dropped his hands and stepped back.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and tried in vain to calm her agitated breathing.

  They stood there for several moments, just looking at each other.

  “I had no intention of having this conversation with you,” he finally said. “I only wanted to see you alone this morning to apologize for the way things were left on Saturday. We weren’t able to talk much after your friend joined us. I wanted to talk about the bakery, to see if you were planning to move forward and if you wanted my help. And now…” He gave a curt shake of his head. “Now, doing the right thing means I need to keep my distance from you. I can’t be in the same room with you and hide the way I feel. We both need space from…this.”

  She frowned. “What about the show?”

  “I’ll talk with Veronica. I’ll tell her that I need to focus on the North Providence project and have Tony take the lead on this one. She can get shots of me working behind the scenes on some of the design elements. I’ll have to be here for the final reveal in a few weeks. But, maybe by then…this…these feelings between us will
have faded.”

  She could tell he had no more faith in that happening than she did. “What about the bakery?” she asked.

  “Are you moving forward?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’m glad. Your face lit up the minute we walked into that room.”

  “Do you think Sylvie will want to help me? I’d like to hire her as an assistant manager.”

  His expression became less grim. “I think she’d love that. I’ll ask her to call you. And I’ll have her pass along my recommendations on who can do the interior work for you.”

  Willa was thankful for the mundane turn in their conversation; it was all that kept her from crumbling to the sand in a pathetic heap. Even so, her heart was wailing.

  “What about the wall unit?” she managed to ask, striving for lightness in her tone.

  “Do you still want to keep some part of it in the house?”

  “In the kitchen, yes. And something in the bakery?”

  “I can do that. I made a promise to you, and I’ll keep it.”

  She straightened her shoulders. “Thank you. I guess…there’s nothing more to say.”

  “I’m sorry, Willa,” he said softly. “I—”

  She raised a hand, putting a stop to whatever he was about to say. “Don’t. Don’t be sorry.” She took a tremulous breath. “You see, for the longest time I thought I’d never connect with anyone in this way. I’ve always been the girl who gets the funny looks, the pointed fingers. The way I can be sometimes… It can make some people uncomfortable.” She forced herself to look him straight in the eye. She even managed a shaky smile. “But you’ve shown me that it’s okay for me to be who I am, that I don’t need to change myself for anyone. You accept me. You encourage me. And for that, I’ll always be grateful.”

  Chapter Eight

  Later, she couldn’t recall much of that week, only random bits and pieces that rushed into her thoughts and dashed quickly out again, like the flash cards her father had held in front of her face before she could even walk.