His Rebel Heart

by Amber Leigh Williams

  She swallowed when the parallels hit her. Only, for the first time in her life, Adrian found herself in her mother’s shoes...eight years ago when the person she loved had left her. That broken piece inside her hadn’t been able to forget, even if she’d thought she’d been able to forgive. How could she tell her mother to forgive her father when she hadn’t done the same for James?

  “You’re thinking about that boy, aren’t you?”

  Adrian looked up at Van, startled, and shook her head automatically.

  Van let out a short chuckle. “He’s all over your face.” He reached down to give her cheek a fond pinch. “Maybe it’s not my place—particularly in light of what happened between your mother and me—but you’ve gotta admit that what he did, what you’re holding against him, is a whole lot more forgivable than what I did.”

  Adrian remained silent, studying some point on the wall behind her father.

  He sighed. “Think of it this way. Will you forgive me, eventually?”

  Her eyes veered up to his. She searched his face. Those gentle eyes, sober but no less adoring. She saw the lines there, the silver brows. It wasn’t just from age, she knew now. It was from waiting, enduring, all these years. After a moment’s hesitation, without a word, she reached for his hand.

  His fingers tightened around hers. They held on for a minute, two. Then he leaned down and touched his lips to her head. “We’ll get out of your hair.”

  Adrian listened as he walked to the door. Then she called, “Daddy?”

  “Yes, opossum?”

  Unable to turn around and face him because of the strain on her collarbone and ribs, she closed her eyes and imagined his face. “Thank you,” she said simply.

  * * *

  THE AIRFIELD WAS light on traffic. James had chosen it as the place to store his airplane because it was more private and further removed from the other airports that dotted the Alabama coastline.

  He’d needed an afternoon to take the Cessna out. It had been a long time since he’d flown. When he’d brought Kyle to the airfield weeks ago, he’d let the kid drive the plane around the tarmac. He hadn’t been able to go so far as to let him take off—that would come later when they were both ready.

  It struck James as he soared above the coastline that he’d never flown over the beach before. He kept the Cessna out until the sun had almost sunk below the western horizon before pointing the nose back to the airfield and taking it in for a landing.

  As he did his postflight check on all the gauges, James wished he’d taken off work an hour earlier so that he could’ve spend more time in the air. But the garage had been slammed. He’d had to hire an apprentice as well as a new tow truck driver. He would have to hire someone to answer phones. Bracken Mechanics was booming.

  He was happy for it. The immediate success wasn’t something he had expected. The garage had just been a pet venture, a dream he’d only had hope of getting off the ground.

  Now that the business was up and running, James hardly had time for a sigh of relief. He was pleased with the work. It kept him busy.

  Not busy enough, however. He hadn’t slept a full night in two weeks. Not since Kyle came rushing up to the door of his house to tell him that Radley had broken into the cottage. The sick taste in the back of his throat hadn’t faded, either. In quiet moments, thoughts of what could have been haunted him.

  He couldn’t sleep without her. He couldn’t sleep knowing she was next door alone and hurting still. Although he’d waited, not once had she called on him for help. He’d seen Briar, Olivia, Roxie, Cole, Van, Edith and even Byron all stop by in a never-ending wave of visitors. He’d waited for the phone to ring. He’d all but stalked Cole and Briar for news of her. But he’d heard nothing.

  He’d spent the weekends with Kyle after Adrian went back to work. They had been a short reprieve from the quiet, the waiting. He was grateful for the bond that was still allowed to exist between him and his son. But when it came time for Kyle to go home, he waited for her to come out of the cottage, to meet them halfway as she had done before the incident.

  Nothing. The hole inside him burned. Today at the garage, he hadn’t been able to contemplate going back to the house to wait in silence, so he’d driven to the airfield. He’d taken the Cessna out so that maybe for a little while he wouldn’t have to think about that hole inside him.

  It had worked, somewhat. Until he landed, of course, and was dreading the drive back to his empty house.

  “So it’s true,” someone behind him said. “You do have a plane.”

  James turned, shocked to hear the voice. Adrian stood several yards away, eyeing him and the plane in surprise. It took a moment for him to find words. She looked normal. There were no longer marks on her face. She wasn’t wearing the sling he knew the doctor had instructed her to use. She was wearing jeans and a light T-shirt. Perfectly normal.

  Still, his throat burned much as that hole in him did, and it took a great deal of effort to stay rooted to the spot and not go to her—throw his arms around her, hold her and feel her so that he could assure himself that she was whole. That she had recovered. She was safe. “What are you doing here?” he asked. His voice sounded like a froggy croak.

  She spread her hands to encompass the plane, ignoring his question. “Did you win this, too? In poker?”

  James frowned, lifting his hand to the back of his neck to keep from reaching for her. He turned, glanced over the tail section of the plane and shrugged. “Not exactly. It was my first trip to Atlantic City and after a while it was just me and this bigwig sitting at a card table. Finally, he threw the Cessna into the mix and said, ‘High card draw.’ He pulled a king, I turned over an ace.”

  She raised a brow. “It’s a Cessna.”

  “Well, yeah,” he said. He studied her, perplexed. Why did she look so surprised? He thought he saw her eyes dive over his hips before they pinged away and she cleared her throat, shifting her feet.

  “Huh,” she replied. James watched her feet shuffle again. She looked off balance, as though she was suddenly rethinking being here with him.

  Before she could think about retreating, he asked again, “Why are you here, Adrian?”

  She lifted her shoulders after a moment’s contemplation. “Hoyt, that new guy you’ve got working at the garage, he said you’d be here. So here I am.”

  He looked at her again, a good, long, lingering look. “Yep,” he said. “Here you are.”

  “I figure we should talk,” she went on quickly, dislodging herself from his stare. She walked to the plane’s wing, pausing before lifting her hand to the white surface. “Again.”

  Knowing just how well their last talk had gone, he braced himself. When Adrian said they needed to talk, things happened. They either took a long step forward or a long step back. “About?” he asked.

  She looked around the airfield. “Is there someplace we can go?”

  He lifted his hand to the passenger door of the Cessna. When she only arched a brow, he tried smiling. “This is about as comfy as we’re going to get here.”

  She considered, then walked to the door. He beat her there, opening it for her. He held out a hand to help her into the cockpit. She ignored it, pulling herself in by the handle above the door. He saw the quick flash of pain on her face and fought a curse. He walked around to the other door and boosted himself in. There was a gentle breeze over the airfield so he left both doors open.

  “It’s nice,” she said, after a moment.

  “Yeah,” he said simply in reply.

  “Do you take it up often?” she asked as another awkward lull drifted between them.

  “Not as much as I’d like. You wanna?”

  She turned to him, alarmed. “Now?”

  “Why not?” he asked, trying to smile again. The muscles of his face wouldn’t quite make it work.<
br />
  “I don’t think so,” she said with a shake of her head. “Dad took me up once in the crop duster. Scared the bejesus out of me.”

  “I thought you were fearless,” he said, then cursed inwardly when the words echoed back to him.

  She thought about that. “The old me was.”

  They dissolved deep down into another awkward silence. After what seemed like an eternity, she said in a lowered voice, “I never got around to thanking you.”

  “Don’t. Don’t go there, Adrian.”

  “Let me say this,” she demanded. “I’ve been thinking a lot about it. Not just about what you did for me but also...what you did to him. In that moment, I...” She trailed off, took a careful breath. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m grateful for what you did to Radley. He’s never coming back. I’m okay and I’m free of him now. And it’s all because of you.” She looked at James. “I distanced myself from you. I saw the blood on you, his blood, and...something inside me turned away. I shouldn’t have turned away from you.”

  The words grated at him, at all the guilty, remorseful pieces he’d been wrestling with since that night. “Don’t apologize, Adrian. You don’t owe me any apology. I wanted to kill him.” He finally met her gaze, wanting to make her understand. “I would have killed the bastard. I fully intended to kill him, and if it hadn’t been for Cole, I would have.”

  Her throat moved on a swallow. “But...it was to protect me. Kyle and me both.”

  He saw the earnest light in her eyes and looked away again. It took a while for him to find the words to say. “When I saw you lying there...broken. You looked broken. For a minute, I thought...” He had to swallow several times, pausing to work his emotions back. “I thought you were dead. There was so much blood. Some of it was his.” He reached up, scrubbed two fingers over his mouth. “You gave him a hell of a fight, sweetheart. But when I saw you, you weren’t moving and you had blood on you. Your skin was like glass...”

  He trailed off, unable to articulate the ruin he’d felt in that moment. “For weeks, I’ve relived that over and over and over again. I’ve been burned. I’ve been branded. I’ve been beaten. I’ve gone out of my mind. But, in that moment, Adrian...”

  As he lost his voice, he sucked in a breath. There was something bubbling up his throat. It felt a lot like what he’d felt in the exam room when his mother had cleaned him up.

  He couldn’t break down in front of her. She didn’t deserve to see that.

  Her hand touched his. In the low light of the cockpit, he watched her fingers stroke the back of his knuckles, the same ones that had pounded at Kennard’s face. Gingerly, she soothed skin where memories of the beating still ran deep. James stilled, watching her. It was the first time they had touched in...he couldn’t think how long. He didn’t want to think. He cursed. “That monster never would’ve been a part of your life if I’d stayed by your side eight years ago,” he said. His voice shook but he talked through it. “I’m sorry for a lot of things, baby. But that...I’m having a hard time living with that one.”

  She touched his face. James lifted his gaze to hers, hoping very much his wasn’t wet.

  “I’m going to tell you something,” she whispered. “Something I’ve come to understand over the last few weeks. I want you to listen, and listen carefully, because you need to hear it and believe it.” Her eyes lowered to his mouth, scanned it for a moment as she gathered herself, then she looked him in the eye again and said firmly, fervently, “I forgive you.”

  When he started to look away, she stopped him, cupping his face in both hands. “I forgive you, James. For everything. I forgive you for leaving. I forgive you for not being there for me or Kyle. There’s no need for me to forgive you for everything with Radley because that was my decision. He was my choice, not yours. I forgive you for coming back into my life when I didn’t want you. I forgive you for Dusty. And, most importantly, I forgive you for making me fall in love with you again. Because, aside from the child we made together all those years ago, that’s been the miracle of my life—finding the courage to fall in love with you all over again.”

  As it slowly began to sink in, James couldn’t help but look at her. Just look.

  “Now,” she continued, “you need to forgive yourself. Because you deserve that. We both deserve the right to be able to move on with our lives.”

  He let loose a sigh. Letting his eyes close, he nodded slowly.

  “Good,” she said and kissed him.

  He made a noise in his throat in surprise. When she pulled away seconds later, it took him a moment to catch up. “You’re not...you’re not saying goodbye,” he realized.

  She let out a laughing sob. “No, you idiot. I’m trying to tell you that I want you to come home. The three of us...I want us to be a family. I want you to be there when Kyle wakes up in the morning—not just tomorrow morning but every morning for the rest of his life. And I don’t want to go to bed one more night without you beside me. I want us to have a thousand breakfasts and dinners together. I want to argue over what movie to watch on Friday nights, how much butter to put on the popcorn.

  “James, I’m tired of living without you. You’re my first love, my only love. I don’t give my heart easily, but I gave it to you—on the night we first kissed and then again when you stood in my kitchen and told me you were there for me. You told me that you came back to Fairhope so that maybe you’d remember what it was like to have a home worth coming back to again. So I’m telling you—it’s here. It’s time. Come home.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed without hesitation, smearing the tears on her cheeks and smiling wider than he thought he could. Lowering his mouth to hers, he gave her a quick, hard kiss. Then another. “God, yes, I’ll come home to you, woman. And you can throw away the key once I’m there.”

  “No, that’s just the point,” she insisted. “You have the key. It’s yours. Go wherever it is you need to go...just so long as you come back to us.”

  “Adrian, baby, why would I go anywhere when all I want, all I’ve ever needed, is right here?”

  She tipped her head to his shoulder and he held her. They stayed that way as the light began to disappear from the sky. Content. Dear God Almighty, this was what contentment felt like. He closed his eyes, savored it, then spread his hand over the nape of her neck, touching words to the hair over her ear. “I will never leave you again,” he whispered. “You hear me? I’m not going anywhere. I love you. I’ve always, always loved you.”

  She lifted her face back to his, lifting her fingers to trace the nautical star on his throat. “Marry me?”

  He cursed. “Now wait a minute. I was about to ask you to marry me.”

  “I can’t help it if you’re slow,” she said, a teasing light entering her eyes.

  James laughed. “Would you let me ask?”

  She squirmed a bit, impatient, but smiled nonetheless. “All right. But make it quick. This has been a long time coming.”

  “Damn right.” His mouth hovered above hers as he grew serious. “When I came back, I came looking for home, but I wouldn’t have bet big on finding it. Not only have you given me that, you saved me. You forgave me and you saved me. A lifetime won’t be enough to thank you for that, but it’s a start. So, Adrian Carlton, will you belong to me? Because I want nothing more than to belong to you every day for the rest of our lives.”

  “Yes,” she told him. “Yes, James Bracken—I will marry you.”

  “Thank God.” Swallowing her laugh, he kissed her, lingering this time.

  They got swept away in it. His hands spread in her hair as she hummed, tilting her head so he could delve deeper.

  He pulled away quickly, letting their mouths part. “Wait a minute—you don’t like butter on your popcorn?” he asked, shocked.

  She groaned, gripping the lapel of his shirt and bringing his mouth back do
wn to hers. “Shut up and kiss me, hot rocks.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, grinning, and kissed her once more with everything in him.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from TWICE IN A BLUE MOON by Laura Drake.

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  Twice in a Blue Moon

  by Laura Drake

  The Hollywood Informer

  Hollywood was rocked last week by the death of our beloved Harry Stone. Undoubtedly one of the most influential personalities in the history of film, Harry was Hollywood’s best-known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world. We’ll miss him not only for his sparkling genre-bending movies, but for his iconic bigger-than-life personality.

  But apparently Harry’s not done rocking the town.

  In our EXCLUSIVE interview inside, Harry’s daughter and reality show superstar, Brenda Stone, reveals the juicy details of Harry’s will! And guess who’s not in it? Harry’s four-decades-junior wife, Indigo Blue. Apparently the opportunistic ‘masseuse to the stars’ will have to hit the road with her massage table, because she got nada.

  The Informer is gratified to see that sometimes, even in this town, Karma works. Blue dug for gold and came up with rocks. We sincerely hope this is the last time we have to mention her name within these pages. Like Townshend wrote, “Let’s forget you, better still.”