by Donna Fasano
“My child…”
This term of endearment made her go quiet.
“Chay is not ready to see the truth. He may never be ready. You must understand that some things cannot be seen merely by opening the eyes. Sometimes it is a matter of opening the heart.”
A chill coursed down the length of Tori’s spine. She desperately hated the idea that Chay’s heart might be forever closed. That he would refuse to see whatever truth it was he needed to understand.
“Grayson,” Tori whispered around the knot that had formed in her throat, “I know that you’re a good man. I know you love Chay. I could see it in your eyes when we came to visit you.” She paused long enough to swallow. “What is the truth? Did you take Chay away from his father?”
Sadness rose up and over the old shaman like an engulfing tidal wave.
“I did,” he professed. “And I would do it again. Because it was all in my grandson’s best interest. You see, my oldest son, Chay’s father, was my namesake. Gray’s wife died early in their marriage, when Chay was still a baby. Gray was never able to get over losing the love of his life. He drowned his grief in alcohol.”
Although the story was terribly painful, Grayson’s gaze never broke from hers.
“I tried everything to help my son,” he continued. “I lectured. I forced him into rehabilitation more than once. But it was not to be. Gray was determined to go to the other side to be with his wife. He might not have been conscious of it, but I believe with all my heart that that was his intention. My greatest fear back then was that he would take Chay with him, for he had a habit of drinking and driving… often with my grandson in the car.”
With sorrow thick in the air, he concluded, “I surrendered my son in order to save my grandson.”
A tear of quiet distress slipped down Tori’s cheek. “You must tell him.” Her voice was husky with emotion. “Chay is angry with you. And that anger is wrongly focused. You can make this right.”
The shaman gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “What is right is that Chay is happy. If he blames me, if he’s angry with me, then he can continue to remember a father he adores.”
Grayson was a good man. Tori’s tears fell freely as she hugged him tight. She wished Chay could see Grayson for what he truly was.
Almost as if he discerned her thoughts, Grayson pulled away from her and warned, “It is not for us to change a person’s destiny. Our job is only to help those we can. Just like Brenda in there. You did not choose this hard path she’s about to take, but you are helping her in every way you can. It’s a fine line we walk in this life, don’t you think?”
Tori swiped away a tear. “Sometimes, Grayson, it’s a very fine line.”
~oOo~
Chay was in a sour mood and a party was the last place he should be. And he knew his dark frame of mind was the result of the change in Tori.
When the two of them had first met, she’d been open with her emotions. Yes, she’d been tearful that first night, fraught with distress. But after that, she’d been friendly, even flirtatious. They had enjoyed being together.
Then something had happened to change her behavior. And he didn’t have any idea what it could be. Tori became secretive.
Yes, he’d boldly pointed out the powerful allure that seemed to pulse between them. Even told her that, until he figured out the mystery behind his nightmares and the feeling he had of not being whole, he didn’t think he should be entertaining the potent thoughts and feelings he was experiencing toward her. However, he sensed that was not the cause of the change in her.
They had disagreed about the conclusions he’d come to regarding his grandfather. But she was entitled to her opinion, and she couldn’t know what he’d gone through as a child, the loneliness he’d suffered growing up without his father.
The sound of her voice drew him to the doorway, where he watched her greeting his cousin Dakota and Dakota’s pregnant wife, Lyssa. He was surprised by the demonstrative manner in which Tori was welcomed. Dakota hugged her, then kissed her cheek, as did Lyssa. It was clear that these people were close. Very close.
Why, over the weeks, hadn’t Tori explained that she knew his family on such intimate terms? Chay found it odd.
He watched as Dakota helped Tori out of her light jacket.
Great Spirit above, she looked good. She wore a red cardigan sweater with a matching top under it. Her black skirt struck her mid-thigh, accentuating her shapely legs. He’d never fancied himself a man who paid attention to fashion, but Tori looked so good his throat convulsed in a swallow.
Like radar, her clear blue eyes found him. She smiled, and every doubt that plagued him seemed to dissolve into thin air. As she made her way toward him, she greeted everyone she met. Still, that undercurrent of tension he sensed in her remained around her mouth and eyes. He just knew there was something going on that she was keeping to herself, something that was causing her a tremendous amount of stress. He wished he could say or do something that would ease the anxiety he saw in her face, relieve the strain she was under.
Remembering how she’d responded to his passionate touch in the past, he pondered pulling her to him and kissing the daylights out of her. That would startle every ounce of nervous tension from her body… and it would fill her with another kind of tension entirely.
The mere notion of doing such a thing had him grinning from ear to ear. He couldn’t help it.
Tori sidled up to him, “Is it warm in here, or is it me?”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure it’s just you.” He hoped his tone conveyed that he thought she looked quite hot, indeed. The kind of hot that had nothing whatsoever to do with air temperature.
Evidently she understood his meaning, because her cheeks turned pink.
She unbuttoned her sweater and let it slide down her arms, then draped it over the back of a nearby chair. Chay couldn’t help but notice how the red knit shell she wore underneath cuddled her curves.
“You want a glass of wine?” he offered. “Or a soda, mineral water, a beer?”
“A soda would be great. I can’t drink alcohol this evening. I’m driving.”
“You could have drunk like a fish,” he quipped, “if you’d have let me pick you up tonight.”
She chuckled, but didn’t respond. Chay went to the refreshment table to pour two glasses of soda. From where he stood, he watched as another cousin, Mat, approached Tori. Mat’s fiancée was with him—Julie, a fiery-haired beauty who, he’d learned, was a schoolteacher. The three of them greeted one another like old friends, with hugs and kisses all around. It was clear that Mat, Julie, and Tori were more than casual acquaintances.
The three of them talked for a bit and then slipped out the door that led to the patio. Chay waited until the fizz in the sodas died down, and then he made his way across the room to where he’d been standing with Tori.
Mat, Julie, and Tori were clearly embroiled in a serious discussion. Then Mat did the strangest thing. He pulled out his wallet and gave Tori several bills, which she slipped into her purse.
Something odd was going on. Something very odd.
At that moment Chay had the thought that Tori was a great enigma so deep, so profound that figuring her out would take a man a lifetime of trying. And she would be worth every second of the endeavor.
As he went closer to the door, his hip brushed against the chair there and Tori’s red cardigan slipped to the floor. Chay set down both glasses of soda, bent, and reached for the sweater. Without thinking, he lifted it to his face and inhaled Tori’s rain-fresh scent.
He paused, his gaze locked on the scarlet, finely knit fabric. As he crouched there beside the chair, his mind began to churn with troubling thoughts.
There had been a discernible difference in Tori over the course of these past couple of weeks. The change in her, and the fact that he couldn’t figure out the cause, was what had put him in such a gray mood. From what he could recollect, the change had occurred after the night they’d had dinner together at Freedom
Trail.
Images raced through his head as he remembered the times they had spent together. Since the night she’d cooked that fabulous meal for him, since they’d shared that sizzling kiss on her deck at sunset, he realized he hadn’t been back inside the inn.
The day he’d come to tell her about having used the herb his grandfather had given him, Tori had suggested they take a walk. She’d led him away from her B&B even though she’d still been wearing her nightgown.
And she’d insisted on postponing work on the carriage house with the flimsy excuse that she wanted to wait for the building permit to arrive, even after he’d told her it was common practice in the construction business that, as long as she’d filed for the permit, the work could begin.
He found it more than a little odd that she knew his family so well. That she was friends with Dakota’s wife, with Mat’s fiancée, yet she had never felt the inclination to tell Chay this information. Facts that would seem quite ordinary and common to relate in everyday conversation.
And Tori had defended his grandfather so fervently when Chay had angrily declared Grayson had separated him from his father. She’d have to know Grayson pretty well to endorse him so zealously, wouldn’t she?
He thought about their meeting earlier today when he’d delivered the plans he’d drafted. Before Tori had arrived, the hair on the back of his neck had risen and he’d had the definite feeling of being watched. Someone had been inside the inn. Someone other than an innocent guest who was visiting the New England mountains. This person had been hiding from him, or from someone. Intuition made him feel sure of it.
He’d already attempted the route of out-and-out asking her what was bothering her. More than once, in fact. But she’d remained mulishly vague.
Then there was the matter of the money Mat had just given Tori. That confused the hell out of him. Their conversation seemed so serious, the passing of the bills surreptitious. Chay rubbed at his chin. It was as if he had the pieces to a huge puzzle, but for the life of him, he couldn’t seem to make them fit into any order… into any identifiable picture.
Curiosity was what made him fold Tori’s sweater up neatly and tuck it behind the chair, where it would be easily overlooked by everyone… but him.
He stood, picked up the sodas he’d poured and headed for the patio. But that soft red sweater never left his mind. It would afford him the opportunity to seek her out later. To find some answers to some immense and disconcerting questions that were stacking up like so many bricks in a wall.
For the next thirty minutes Chay and Tori chatted with other guests, laughed at Mat’s stories of the antics of his six-year-old daughter and oohed and aahed over the gifts Lyssa had asked people not to bring but graciously accepted when they were presented to her.
Chay couldn’t help but notice how Tori kept glancing at the cell phone she would pull the pocket of her skirt. As they enjoyed a moment alone in one corner of the living room, he teasingly asked, “You have someplace you need to be?”
Her blue gaze didn’t waver as she replied, “Actually, I do. And I should make my excuses to the hosts.” She set her empty glass on the coffee table and made to stand up, but he stopped her by placing his fingers on her forearm.
“Wait, Tori,” he said. The moment his flesh contacted hers, it was as if someone had doused him in a flammable liquid and tossed a match at him. He was on fire for her. “I want to ask you something. Something important.”
She relaxed into the chair, waiting.
“I know,” he began haltingly, feeling unsure of what he wanted to say, “that I told you I wasn’t interested in… well, in getting involved in a relationship until I’d found some answers. Until I found the reasons behind these dreams. But I believe I’ve made some discoveries. I think I—”
“Stop a minute, Chay,” she said.
Discomfort fairly vibrated from her.
“I can’t help but point out,” she continued softly, “that we disagreed about the so-called discoveries you made.”
He’d been about to explore the possibility that they might have a chance together. But here she was wanting to argue. The obstinate expression on her features told him she meant to have her say, yet at the same time she seemed to be choosing her words carefully.
“If your grandfather really is the horrible person you think him to be,” she said, “why are you still at Misty Glen? Why haven’t you told him exactly what you think of him and gone back to Boston where you’ve been all these years?”
Before he could even think of an answer to her startling questions, she ever-so-softly plowed ahead. “I think it’s because you really aren’t certain about those conclusions you’ve reached.”
She looked down at where his fingers still rested on her arm, and when her gaze rose to his, her eyes were clouded with what he perceived to be a poignant sadness.
“I really do have to go, Chay.” She stood up then. “I need to go say goodbye to Lyssa and Dakota, but if you’ll walk me out to my car, it will give me a chance to tell you something. Something that… I hope… will help you to understand me just a little more.”
Chay followed her to where his cousin and wife were standing in the kitchen. Tori kissed them both and apologized for leaving so early.
In a normal situation, Chay would have expected the hosts of any party to attempt to coerce a guest not to leave early. But that wasn’t how Dakota and Lyssa acted at all. They accepted Tori’s regret, and wished her well, their tones holding what Chay could only describe as a grave quality.
Odd to the point of being peculiar, Chay thought. He got the distinct impression that they were all privy to some secret that they were intent on keeping to themselves.
Whatever this mysterious matter was would be reaching some climax tonight. A turning point was about to be made. Chay knew that because Tori had invited him to begin work on the renovation project tomorrow.
As he helped Tori into her jacket he thought of the red sweater. The honorable thing for him to do was to remind her she’d left it in the living room, fetch it for her before she left. But he didn’t do either. That sweater was his only chance to discover what she was involved in.
He was prepared to get a little reckless in order to uncover Tori’s secret.
Chapter Eight
Guilt hounded Tori as she made her way to her car. Chay was so close she could feel the heat of him, could inhale the woodsy scent of his cologne. She was lying to him by omission, keeping from him the truth about herself, about her work, and that made her feel ashamed.
Tomorrow will come, a tiny voice piped up optimistically. Brenda and Scotty will be safely on their way to Albuquerque. The term of your pledge to remain silent will be over. You can confess everything to Chay. You can lay your soul bare.
Tomorrow.
Until then, Tori realized, there was something she could offer him. Something that was terribly important to her.
Tori looked up at the inky velvet of the night sky, let her eyes rove over the thousand points of glittering lights as she gathered together the inner strength it was going to take to tell the story of her past without getting upset. Tears were the last thing she needed tonight.
“When we first met,” she began slowly, “you asked me about Susan. About my sister.” She stopped, turned to face Chay, resting her rear on the driver-side door of her car. “I know you realized that I… well, I changed the subject back then.” Her chagrin was expressed in a light chuckle. “And not very fluidly, either.”
The sigh she emitted came from deep inside. “It’s difficult for me to talk about Susan. What happened to her had a huge impact on me. On everyone who loved her.”
Evidently sensing her trepidation, Chay reached out to her, smoothed his palm down along her arm.
“If it upsets you,” he told her, “then you don’t have to talk about it, Tori.”
“But I do. I want you to better understand me. Who I am. What I stand for. Why I do the things I do. Where my life is destined to go.
”
Seeming to grasp the enormity of what she was about to explain, he let his hand fall to his side, then balled his fists before slipping them into the pockets of his black trousers.
“Susan was my older sister,” she said. “By almost five years. I looked up to her as we grew up.” Despite the terrible ending that she knew was coming, Tori couldn’t help but smile as she thought of her childhood here in these Vermont mountains. “My parents were busy making a go of the B&B, and Susan and I were pretty free to roam around wherever we pleased.
“I was devastated when she went off to college. Boston seemed so very far away. And when she came home to visit, she was changed. She didn’t have time to hike to the lake. She was too full of stories of parties and boys.”
Tori braced herself, for now was the point where she had to introduce the man whom she was still striving hard not to hate.
“Jim was the captain of the football team,” she continued, relieved that her brother-in-law’s name rolled off her tongue with nary a hitch. “He was attending college on a full scholarship. He was smart. And funny. And Susan fell for him so hard that she couldn’t say which way was up.”
The breeze was cool against Tori’s cheeks, but she was oblivious to it. “Jim’s family was from up north, in Burlington. His father had a successful business taking fishermen on trips around Lake Champlain and up into Canada. It seemed natural when Susan and Jim married that they settle in Burlington, where Jim worked with his father.”
The breath she dragged into her lungs was shaky. This was where the story became hairy.
“The first time Susan came home with bruises—”
The horror of the memories silenced her. Her gaze slid from Chay’s and she pressed her fingers to her mouth. The silence of the New England night sounded deafening.
Keeping her eyes averted, letting her fingers drop an inch to curl at her chin, she forced herself to continue.
“Jim had beat her something awful,” Tori whispered. “She had cuts and abrasions all over her body. But the worst part about it was, she told us… Mom, Dad, and me… th-that hadn’t been the first time it had happened.”