“Yeah, it hurt like a son of a bitch. He didn’t hold back.”
“It gives you a dangerous look. Not going to lie; I kind of like it.”
“Then it was all worth it,” I said with a wry grin.
Lucy lived in a small cottage along the edge of a glade in the house she had shared with Tristan. We parked the rental car and got out, but before we even reached the front door, it opened. A tall, slender, red-haired woman stepped out onto the porch.
She held a toddler.
My steps faltered. The baby made a noise, a cross between a squeal and a gurgle. His brown hair was mixed with traces of red, but his eyes were green.
Like his father’s.
“Hello, Kai.” Lucy’s voice was weary, resolute.
I tried to speak numerous times before finally spitting out, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Lucy’s face was pale, her eyes wide. “I didn’t know for sure until after you were gone, and then there was no way to find you.”
The guilt of leaving washed over me, compounded by coming face to face with Tristan’s son for the first time. Lucy had needed me, and I’d left her. It was another reason to hate myself.
The toddler reached out, and without saying a word Lucy plopped him into my arms.
Tristan’s son.
I looked into the boy’s eyes, and my heart shattered into tiny shards of glass.
Fuck.
“You must be Sage.”
“News travels fast,” Sage said.
“Alice called, but I didn’t believe her at first,” Lucy explained. “Come in.”
“Christ,” I muttered. “If Alice called you, then she definitely called my mother.”
Sage took a seat on the couch, and Lucy made her way to an old scarred recliner and collapsed into it. I saw exhaustion in the grooves around her mouth, the bags under her eyes. How much of it was heartache, and how much of it was raising a child alone?
I bit my tongue hard, stopping myself from asking her all the questions I didn’t deserve answers to. “What’s his name?” I sat down next to Sage with the baby on my lap.
“Dakota.” She peered at her son. “He doesn’t usually take to strangers.”
I stared at her—I wasn’t supposed to be a stranger, yet I was. “I should’ve been here.”
“Yeah, you should’ve been,” she stated. Dakota cooed and turned big green eyes to Sage, luring her attention.
“May I?” Sage looked to Lucy, asking for permission to hold Dakota.
Lucy nodded and without hesitation, I handed Dakota to Sage. I became mesmerized by the sight of her entertaining the toddler. It gave me a glimpse of our future—it was closer than I thought.
“So you’re back.”
“We are, but only for a little while,” I explained.
Lucy closed her mouth, but her cheeks suddenly flushed red with anger. “Damn you.”
I looked at Sage, who nodded in tacit understanding, stood up, and took Dakota out onto the porch. The front door clicked shut, and I was left alone with Tristan’s widow.
Widow.
The word was supposed to be reserved for old women, wrinkled by time and with many years of love in their lives. Widow was not a word for Lucy. Vibrant, passionate, warrior—those were the words I would’ve called her.
“I’m so mad at you I can barely see straight,” she seethed. “How could you—”
“I had to.”
“You have no idea what the last two and a half years have been like for me.”
“You have no idea what they’ve been like for me either.”
“You should’ve stayed.”
“Why? To be constantly reminded that they’re gone?” I stood and faced her, no longer shying away from Lucy and all that I had run from—we dueled with words and hurt feelings. The years of grief burdened us both, but I wanted to claw my way out—I had too much to live for.
“When they died, everything was dark. All I saw was the next bottle of bourbon, the next place to move. I never thought I’d meet a woman I wanted to marry. She’s more than that, Lucy. She’s the reason I came back.” I sighed wearily. “She’s pregnant.”
Lucy’s ire diffused, replaced by shock. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope. We’re going back to France.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“What’s keeping you there?”
“We bought a house.”
“So sell it. This is your home.”
“No.” My voice was unyielding granite. “I can’t, Lucy. I can’t walk around every corner expecting to see my two best friends. If I moved back here, I’d never sleep well again. I don’t get how you can stand it here.”
“Where else am I supposed to go?” she demanded. “Take my son away from his grandparents? Away from the Chelsers? Away from—”
I looked at her, sharp and assessing. “Away from who?”
She took a deep breath. “Wyatt.”
The name was like being thrown into an avalanche of snow; the air left my lungs and I felt cold and buried. “Wyatt? My brother?”
Two patches of red appeared at the top of her cheekbones, only this time it wasn’t anger coloring her. “Yes.”
“I’ll kill him.”
“I love him, Kai.”
“You love Tristan,” I gritted out.
The sharp contours of her face softened. “Of course, I do, but am I supposed to be alone the rest of my life? Am I supposed to never love again?”
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long did you wait before you got together?”
Her blue eyes were stormy. “Fuck you, Kai.”
“How long, Lucy?”
“None of your goddamn business!”
We glared at one another. I wondered if learning to love again was a betrayal. But Tristan was dead; he’d left behind a wife and a son. Didn’t Lucy deserve some measure of happiness? If I’d been here, would it have happened? Thinking about the what-ifs of my life would sink me. I couldn’t change them.
“He’s loved me for years. Did you know?” Lucy asked.
“No, I didn’t.”
She paused before saying, “A year—nothing happened for a year. Dakota was sick and in the hospital. Wyatt had been coming around, checking in on me. I called him, and he came. I could depend on him; he’s been solid, steady.”
It didn’t sound at all like the kind of love she’d had with Tristan. Theirs had been a wild, tempestuous, burn-everything-to-the-ground kind of love.
Which kind meant more?
While I reeled from revelations, she wasn’t through giving them. Lucy took a deep breath. “He’s asked me to marry him—and I’ve said yes.”
•••
A car door slammed, and a moment later, I heard my brother’s voice on the porch. I stalked outside, ignoring Sage and Dakota, eager for a confrontation with Wyatt.
“You,” I fumed, the full force of my wrath directed at Wyatt. I heard Lucy moving behind me.
“He knows?” Wyatt peered at Lucy for confirmation, his face wreathed in calm acceptance.
“Yes.” She strode towards Wyatt to stand near him in a show of solidarity.
“Knows? Knows what?” Sage asked in confusion, handing off Dakota to his mother.
“Wyatt asked Lucy to marry him.” My voice was full of outrage on behalf of my dead friend. I took another menacing step towards Wyatt, my fists clenching for a fight.
Sage moved between us to ease the tension. Her voice was low, but solid like steel as she said, “Don’t do it. It’ll make things worse.”
I glared down at Sage, “Lucy is—”
“Not yours to defend.”
I was in no mood to be placated. Cursing violently, I stalked past my brother and trekked into the woods, wanting to leave it all behind.
“He just needs some time,” I heard Sage say right before I was out of earshot.
I wanted to hit something, but I was afraid I’d
never stop, so I let my feet carry me instead. The sound of swishing trees filled my ears, the smell of warm earth in my nose; I knew where I was headed.
The cemetery was empty of mourners as I strolled to Reece’s modest headstone. Next to it was Tristan’s, and I grimaced when I looked at it—it was a monument, colossal and grotesque, nothing like Reece’s. Appearances, I sneered. The Evanstons would never have let their son’s death go unnoticed.
My friends should’ve been buried in the mountains in unmarked graves, part of the earth they came from. It’s what they both would’ve wanted, but at least their parents had done something right, and had laid them to rest next to one another. It made it easy for me when I paid my respects. I snorted. Easy. Nothing about this was easy.
“What the fuck,” I said to the ground, knowing I wouldn’t get a reply.
Wyatt would marry Lucy, and he would be the only father Dakota would ever know. My brother was a good man, but could he love Lucy the way a woman with heartache and darkness needed to be loved?
I swam through my thoughts with a powerful breaststroke, but I didn’t find any peace.
Afternoon wore on, and I did not return. Instead, I took up vigilance, sitting with my back against a tree. The sun traveled across the sky as I talked to the ghosts of my two friends, trying to rectify my past so I could have a future.
I wondered how Sage was getting along with Wyatt. What was he telling her? Scaring her, no doubt, about what she was about to endure when she faced our parents.
A car door slammed in the distance, and a few moments later Sage ambled through the cemetery. The headstones looked bare, solemn in the green lawn. Gold rays glinted off the leaves, aiding in the serenity where bodies rested eternally, their souls long gone.
Without a word, she eased down next to me and plucked at the grass. A slight breeze played with her hair. “How are you doing?”
I shrugged, surprised that I no longer felt anger. I was resigned. “Life’s odd, you know? I should’ve been prepared for things to be different when I came back. My life is different, why wouldn’t Lucy’s be? Wyatt’s?” Looking at her, I grinned in wry humor. “Time didn’t stop while I was away.”
She stood up and reached a hand down. I grasped it, rose, and pulled her into my arms. “Be happy for them,” Sage whispered.
“I am—sort of.”
I hoped that Wyatt loved Lucy the way I loved Sage. Perhaps Wyatt and I were more similar than I had thought, and maybe our tension had no place in adulthood. We were men now, hardened in the fires of life.
Sage laughed. “No, you’re not.”
“You’ve got to understand…Wyatt is my brother. A brother I never got along with, never felt any sort of kinship with. He’s in love with Lucy, Tristan’s wife. Tristan—my brother in every way except blood.”
“He loves her, and he loves Dakota too,” she pointed out. “If you can’t be happy for Wyatt, be happy for them. Wouldn’t Tristan want this for her, for his son?”
“Part of him would want her to move on, find someone, love again,” I conceded.
“But the male part of his brain would demand she love and pine for him forever?”
“Something like that. You understand them, don’t you? My friends you’ve never met.”
“You’ve painted a vivid picture of them.” She stared into my eyes. “I’d want you to find someone.”
My arms tightened around her, unable to fathom such a horrible idea as living a life without her. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”
“You’re right.” She pressed her lips to mine. “We’re going to grow old and wrinkly together.”
I sighed in contentment.
“I told Wyatt I’m pregnant. Think he’ll tell your parents?”
“Not if he knows what’s good for him.”
She smiled. “He picked Lucy. I think he has a fair idea of what’s good for him. He invited us to a family dinner with your parents.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“You mean we’ve got a whole day before entering the lion’s den?”
“That gives us twenty-four hours to prepare.”
“Hate to break it to you, darlin’, but twenty-four hours isn’t enough. I’ve had twenty-nine years, and I’m still not ready for this moment.”
“It’s time to face them,” she said. “You can do this; I know you can.”
The faith she had in me was staggering. Nothing like the love a good woman, right? I didn’t know why she loved me, but I’d take it. “You don’t know what you’re getting into,” I warned.
•••
I open my eyes, watching the sun rise over the lake as I perch on a rock. Tristan is on the bank, fishing pole in hand, casting away.
“Any luck?” I ask.
“With life, or fishing?” Tristan answers with a question.
“Aren’t they the same thing?”
Tristan’s smile is wide, devilish. “No point in life if you can’t fish.”
“You’re so Norman Maclean right now.”
“I prefer David James Duncan.”
“You would.”
“So Lucy and Wyatt…”
“Ah, you know.”
“I do.”
“You’re not mad.”
“I was, for a while. Reece got to hear all about it. I’m okay with it now.”
“How?” I demand. “How can you be okay with it?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Explain it to me.”
Tristan’s gaze is steady. “You left voluntarily. You just…up and left. You went somewhere else, and you didn’t look back.”
“I didn’t have much to keep me here.” I defend myself, but there’s no anger in my voice.
“But still, you left. I was forced by fate. I left a wife behind. She was alone, terrified, grieving—and pregnant. If she’d been the one to die and I had to go on…” He shudders visibly at the thought. “There were countless nights she cried non-stop, curled up in our bed. Do you know what it’s like to leave the woman you love, and watch her live without you, hoping she finds the strength because you’re not there to give it to her? Only death was powerful enough to make me leave her.”
Tristan’s haunted eyes lock on mine, and I see my own heart reflected in them—twisted, ravaged, then stitched back together but barely beating.
“Wyatt gives Lucy the strength she needs to go on. He protects her, and loves my son as his own. Life never looks the way you think it will. Never in a million of my dreams did I think my wife would end up with your brother. But I never thought I’d die, either—unable to touch her, hold her, wipe the tears from her eyes. I don’t get to be there when our son grows into a man. Wyatt will have that honor. Do you know what that feels like?”
“Are you in Heaven?” I wonder, my voice gritty, my throat tight with regret and pathos.
“Technically, spiritually, or hopefully?”
“All of the above.”
Tristan’s mouth curves into a ghoulish, gruesome smile. “I’m in limbo, waiting until I can see Lucy again. But she has a long life to live first. A life without me.”
“Do you know that for sure?”
He laughs in sardonic humor. “Nothing is for sure, Kai.”
Chapter 20
Sage
The Ferris’ library was quiet, the air salted with strain and implied accusations. I sat next to Kai on a black leather couch while Claire Ferris stared at her wayward son as though she didn’t recognize him. To his credit, Kai didn’t wear the University of Tennessee baseball cap that was usually glued to his head. He had even combed his hair for the occasion. I wanted to mess it up. It made him look like someone else, someone orderly, not my Kai.
Wyatt was in the corner, clutching his drink and sending me subtle looks of support. I liked Wyatt. I liked any man that went after the woman he wanted, despite insurmountable obstacles.
George stood by the liquor cart, putting ice cubes into glasses. I studi
ed Kai’s father and I struggled to see any family resemblance. It was Wyatt who favored George in looks—blond hair, blue eyes. Kai really was the black sheep of the family, it seemed.
I turned my attention to George’s mother. She smiled wide, and I felt myself relax a bit. I recognized that smile instantly. It was Kai’s. Memaw just might be a kindred spirit.
“Can I get you a drink, Sage?” George offered.
An entire bottle of scotch, I wanted to say. Instead, I said, “Club soda, please.”
“Kai?”
“Bourbon on the rocks.”
After George handed us our glasses, he took a seat next to his wife on the couch facing us. I was in the front row for the Ferris family fight.
“So, you’re staying with the Chelsers?” Claire asked, smashing the silence.
Maybe I can hide behind that big desk over there…
“You already know the answer to that, Mom.”
“And you’ve seen Lucy?”
Kai’s sigh was labored. “Yes.”
“So, we were your last stop?” Claire’s voice was frosty, like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.
“Saving the best for last,” Kai said in a sarcastic voice.
Memaw almost spit out her drink, but managed to contain her laughter.
“What took you so long to come back?” Claire demanded, ignoring her mother-in-law.
“Claire,” George warned.
“No. I have the right to know why my son decided to visit everyone before his own parents.”
“Yeah, I know this is bad—” Kai looked pained.
Claire glared as she went on, “And why he stayed away without a single word for two-and-a-half years before coming home.”
“Home—is that where I am?”
My husband could play mean when he wanted. This wasn’t going well. Not at all.
“Kai,” I pleaded.
“No, let him speak. Are you planning on continuing your little jaunt across the world, or are you going to stay in Monteagle, be an adult, and live up to the Ferris name?”
Dandelion Dreams Page 13