by Kim Law
“I picked her up one night, intending to take her to a party that one of my friends was having. It was summer, so we could stay out later. She didn’t want to go. Said she would be uncomfortable there. But I pushed her. I wanted to go. I was certain she’d have a good time.”
He paused, his thoughts going back almost fourteen years to that night. He’d been such a fool.
“I drank a few beers and that pissed her off. We argued, and she wanted to leave. So I agreed, but she had to drive. I was in no shape.” He crossed to the kitchen and tossed his empty soda can, then got a bottle of water from the fridge. “But I couldn’t have her drop me off at home and drive away with my car. My parents would have known I’d been drinking. So I had her take me to a friend’s house. He lived in an area she’d never been to before. And it was so dark that night. It had been raining.” He shook his head with regret. “I was too drunk to care the way I normally would have.”
He stood in the middle of the floor and faced Andie, his gaze meeting hers with shame.
“I didn’t find out until the next morning,” he said. “After I sobered up and went looking for my car. She never even got out of the neighborhood. She took a curve wrong. Went too fast — probably because she was still mad at me. Hit water and hydroplaned. And wrapped herself around a tree. She died on impact.”
Andie stared at Mark, unblinking, her heart aching at the agony written across his face. He’d been carrying such guilt all these years.
Guilt that he didn’t deserve.
But guilt she could tell he’d held on to tightly.
No wonder he struggled to take that final step into marriage. How responsible would he feel for a wife? Kids of his own?
Her heart bled for his pain.
“You really believe her death was your fault?” She needed to help him understand that it was an accident. He was not to blame. If she couldn’t, they didn’t stand a chance.
Dark eyes locked on hers. The grief had lessened, and all that was left was acceptance. “Of course it was my fault. I took her out that night. I was supposed to get her home safely.”
“But Mark. You were drunk. You did the right thing by not driving her home.”
“I shouldn’t have been drinking,” he stated.
Still, accidents happened all the time. “But—”
“Don’t.” He set down the bottle of water that he was still holding, untouched. “I didn’t tell you so you could try to convince me it wasn’t my fault. It was. But I’ve moved on. It doesn’t affect me. It is a part of who I am, though, and I should have told you about it years ago. Before I ever asked you to marry me. If I wanted you to share things with me, I should have done the same.”
“That was part of our problem,” she whispered. “Neither of us realized we needed to share.”
Mark nodded, the line of his mouth grim. “I’d have to agree.” He gave her a quick wink, clearly trying to ease the tense moment. “But we know better now. We’re going to do it different this time around.”
He really thought there was nothing standing in their way. But they couldn’t go anywhere if he didn’t move on from his past.
She took a deep breath, knowing he wasn’t going to like what she was about to say. But for his sake, she had to do it. “I’m with Beth on this,” she calmly told him.
Mark’s chin angled down at her and his eyebrows went up. “How so?”
“I think Tiffany factors into your issues with marriage.” She gave him a tight smile, hoping to ease the sting of the words, and stood from the couch. “With your inability to make that final commitment.”
A muscle jerked in his jaw. “I don’t have an issue with commitment, Andie.”
“Yet you walked before for no good reason.”
“I think we’ve both clarified that neither of us was ready then. We both had issues.”
She gave him a nod. “Agreed. But mine came from not being sure of who I was. Yours stemmed from the fact that you’re afraid to get married. You’re afraid to take on the responsibility of a family.”
“Like hell I am.” He stomped across the room, passing close in front of her.
Andie stayed where she was and silently watched him. They weren’t going to be able to get beyond this. She’d known it all along. It was as if she could literally feel her heart rip in two. Her eyelids fluttered closed for a few seconds, but she did not let herself double over in pain.
She was better than what he was offering her, and she was going to prove it. She would prove it to her aunt and to her mother, but more important, she would prove it to herself.
“Why didn’t you show up at the church that day, Mark?” she prodded him, wanting him to admit the truth.
“I told you, the phone. I thought you were using me.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Not good enough. You knew I loved you. Why didn’t you show up?”
“Because I heard you—”
“I said no. That answer won’t cut it. If that was all there was to it, you would have opened your mouth and asked me what was going on right then. Why didn’t you show up?”
He stared at her, furious. His nostrils flared with his breaths.
“Was I not good enough?” she asked.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“Did you not want me to have a job?”
“I already told you—”
“Then why?” she stressed.
He gritted his teeth as he fought with his emotions, a muscle working back and forth in his jaw. And then he slowly crossed the room to her. He leaned down and got in her face, his breath hot, his tone harsh. “I couldn’t take care of you, all right? Is that what you want to hear? I couldn’t take care of you. You were out all hours of the night. I never knew when you were coming home. When you would be out on the streets. I couldn’t make sure that you were okay. I couldn’t let you die like I let Tiffany.”
Mark went silent, and so did Andie. They stared at each other.
“And that,” she whispered, tears shaking her voice, “is the issue. I don’t need taking care of, Mark. I’m a grown woman. And I am not your responsibility.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You treated me that way.”
“I treated you like I loved you.”
“You hurt me,” she told him.
His gaze flickered, then relocked on hers.
“When you didn’t show up,” she told him. “You hurt me. Bad.”
He remained silent.
“And you took advantage of me. You thought you were more important. You always did. Your job versus my job. Your family versus my family.”
She picked her purse up from the floor, where she’d let it drop when they’d come in. Then she stood straight, her spine stiff, and said the things she should have said to him four years ago.
“Did it ever occur to you that the reason you didn’t know much about my family is because you never asked me? I asked all kinds of questions about yours. I wanted to get to know them. I did get to know them. You?” She shrugged, implying he couldn’t have cared less. “You didn’t bother.”
She shook her head slightly, forcing the pain to stay inside for a few more minutes. At least until she got out of there. “I deserved so much more from you, and I especially deserved to have you come to that church and tell me you were too chickenshit to get married.
“What I did not deserve,” she continued, getting heated and letting her voice rise, “was having Rob show up and offer me a ‘good time’ since you couldn’t make it. He said one night with him and I wouldn’t cry over you for a second.”
Mark opened his mouth as if to speak, but she didn’t let him.
“So, no …” Her voice was loud now. If Wendy wasn’t passed out asleep next door, she could probably hear every word. “I will not toss away my life and head on up to Boston just hoping you’ll grow a pair and marry me someday. I have a family, too. Maybe we haven’t been as close as yours over the years, but they’re mine. And I�
��m not going to walk away from them when they need me just because you got a whim that you might want me around.”
“Andie—”
“I need more from you, Mark,” she stated. Her voice was calm again. “Or I need nothing.”
She didn’t let the tears fall. She would not give him that.
She slipped the ring from her finger and set it in the middle of the kitchen table, then walked quietly out the back door. It wasn’t that far of a walk to the house, and with any luck, she’d have all her tears out before she got there.
As she stepped off the deck and her feet touched the sand, movement at the next cabin snagged her attention. The door had opened and light from inside spilled out.
In the frame of light stood Rob and Wendy. Kissing.
When they parted, Rob tucked in his shirt and zipped up his pants, then laid another one on Wendy and headed off the back deck and across the sand.
Son. Of. A. Bitch!
There was no way in hell Andie was letting Penny marry that man. Screw the business.
EPISODE TEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Andie sat with her arms folded in her lap, shoulders hunched in, and lowered her head to the granite countertop of the kitchen island. She turned her cheek to the cool hardness and closed her eyes, pretending she was moaning as loud as she was hurting inside. Pain hit her from too many directions.
She’d lost Mark again. For the last time.
She would never let herself get caught up in his life again. She couldn’t handle the pain. The ache in her chest was suffocating her.
And she had to cancel the wedding.
A two-second groan slipped free before she could stop herself. There was also the matter of the house…and the lack of bonus.
Reality was, Penny could choose to go ahead with the wedding. But Andie didn’t believe for a minute that would happen. Not after she told her what she’d witnessed last night. Which she would soon have to go upstairs and do.
The other reality was that she wouldn’t lose the house, either. She’d decided overnight to take her mother up on her offer of money. Only, it would be a loan. And only until she could sell the bar and pay her back. It had to be done. Because she would not lose Aunt Ginny’s house.
She groaned at the thought. It was her house.
Well, she wouldn’t lose that, either.
But it still felt like Aunt Ginny’s house, and Andie suspected it always would.
She peeked her eyes open as daylight slashed through the back windows and landed on her face. The sun had risen outside, and it looked to be a glorious day.
Soon she’d have to go upstairs and start the torture of the day to come.
She wanted to catch Penelope before she had more than the briefest moment to think that this was about to be the best day of her life.
Instead, Andie would help her face reality.
Men were jerks. They either thought only of themselves, or they were cheating bastards — who thought only of themselves.
She let a moan slip free and closed her eyes again. She rolled her head until her forehead rested flush with the countertop.
Everything hurt so much.
A soft swish registered as the side door slid open, but Andie didn’t lift her head to see who it was.
Her heart thumped hard as she wondered if it might be Mark, and she squeezed her eyes shut even tighter. Frustration choked her as tears leaked from between her lashes. She’d thought she would be dry inside by now.
She held her breath. Waiting. Hoping whoever it was didn’t see her there.
Hoping it was Mark.
He hadn’t even followed her outside last night. Hadn’t tried to stop her.
Not that doing so would have done any good.
“Andie.” The voice was soft, sounding shocked to find her bent over in the kitchen. It wasn’t Mark. Thank goodness. “What is it, dear? Are you okay?”
Andie lifted her head — with her swollen eyes — and looked at her mother. Then she cried some more.
“Oh, baby.” Her mother rushed to her side and wrapped both arms around her, holding her tight and resting her head against Andie’s shoulder. Aunt Ginny stepped into the kitchen behind Cassie. Both women were wearing swimsuits and cotton cover-ups.
“I’ll fix you some tea,” Aunt Ginny stated matter-of-factly.
“Please tell me you weren’t skinny-dipping again,” Andie groaned. She did not want another argument with Phillip Jordan loaded onto her plate that morning.
“Oh, pish posh,” Aunt Ginny said. She waved a hand in the air, unconcerned. “That man needs to loosen up and try something like that himself. Maybe if he did, his wife wouldn’t go around wearing such a pinched expression all the time.”
Andie merely stared at her aunt. Oh, geez. They’d done it again.
“And no,” Aunt Ginny added as she filled a pot with water and pulled down bags of chamomile tea. “We did not go skinny-dipping this morning. Not that it should be a problem where we were yesterday anyway. We were as far away from the house and bungalows as we can get on the property. That man just has a stick up his butt.”
Yes, he did. But Andie could see not wanting to walk up on two sixty-something-year-old women in their birthday suits first thing in the morning, either.
“As soon as this wedding is over, we’re going to get you out there with us,” Ginny told her. She turned then, and studied Andie with a concerned look, her voice losing some of its no-nonsense attitude. “We need to loosen you up, too,” she added softly.
Meaning, We need to help you forget.
Aunt Ginny didn’t have to ask, she knew that Mark had broken her heart. She gave Andie a gentle I’m-sorry-but-I-still-love-you smile, and Andie was grateful. Aunt Ginny would always be there for her.
Her mother lifted her head off Andie’s shoulder and smoothed Andie’s hair back out of her face. “What happened, sweetheart?” she crooned.
Andie looked at her mother. When had Cassie become this person?
“Did Mark do something?” she asked.
Andie couldn’t speak. Her throat had closed shut. She simply nodded. Aunt Ginny joined them, and they all three spent the next couple of minutes hugging it out. Andie cried even more.
When the tears finally ended, Aunt Ginny handed Andie a wad of tissue, and Cassie found a cloth and wet it with cold water. She then wiped the tears from her daughter’s face and dabbed the cool cloth against Andie’s swollen eyes.
Andie felt as if she’d dropped through a rabbit hole. This was not the same woman who’d shown up barely a week ago.
“What are you doing, Mom?” Andie asked in a tired voice. After no sleep, and along with everything else that had happened the night before, she didn’t have the energy to work on polite.
Her mother pulled her hand back, a stricken look her face. “I’m just trying to help. Am I doing it wrong?”
Andie’s chest filled with pressure. “Oh, God. No, you aren’t doing it wrong. It’s perfect. But I mean…what are you doing? Here? You’re changing.” Andie shook her head. “I’m just…confused.”
Her mother and her aunt’s gazes met across the room before Aunt Ginny gave a slight nod to her sister. Ginny pulled the teapot from the stove and poured three cups of steaming water over tea bags, and then the two women sat down on either side of Andie.
Cautiously, Cassie reached out and took one of Andie’s hands. “Your aunt and I have talked a lot this week, Andie.”
Andie wanted to tell her to hurry it up and get on with it. Instead, she just sat there. She was too tired to speak. And didn’t want to come off more impolite than she already had.
“I want to move here,” her mother said in a rush. “Permanently.”
The world tilted under Andie’s seat. She looked at her aunt. “And you’re good with this?”
Ginny nodded. “I’d like it very much.”
Andie could see that she would. Her aunt was typically a happy woman anyway, but she’d been different this
week, too. She looked more content. Pleased with the world. It floored Andie to think that her mother had put that look on someone’s face, but she couldn’t begin to understand the power of sisterhood.
The other thing that struck her was the realization that she wanted her mother there as well.
Suddenly, there was a bright spot to the day. She may have had her heart crushed to tiny pieces, but she was going to get the chance to build a relationship with her mother. She would work on herself, and she would work on her and her mom.
And she just might get up the nerve to go skinny-dipping.
She gave her mother a hug. “I would like that, too,” she whispered.
The look on Cassie’s face was priceless. A smile that seemed more relaxed and genuine than any Andie had ever witnessed appeared, and the lines that only a week ago had made her mother seem old were now adding to her look of joy.
Andie couldn’t yet imagine the three of them under the same roof day in and day out, but it was an adventure she was willing to take on. One she found she wanted to take on.
“So tell us what happened with Mark.” Aunt Ginny redirected the conversation back to Andie’s heartache. “What did the idiot do this time, and how hard do your mother and I need to kick his butt?”
Cassie dabbed at Andie’s swollen eyes once more as if uncertain what else to do. “The way you were getting along, I’d thought you two might figure it out this time.”
Andie thought about nodding. She’d thought they might figure it out, too. But deep down, she’d known she shouldn’t get involved with him. She’d just wanted so badly to make it work.
And she had this really hard time saying no to him.
She pictured the ring he’d slid on her finger last night. She still couldn’t believe he’d bought it back then, or that he’d kept it all this time. He must have gotten it when he’d gone back to Boston earlier in the week.
She spread her hand flat on the counter and looked down at the bare ring finger. “He gave me a ring,” she finally told them. “One I wanted four years ago.”