Still, an ache burned in her chest as they drove away from her grandparents. It swelled with each mile Robbie put between the Jeep and their home, stifling her ability to take a large enough breath.
That didn’t escape his notice, either. While she sat pensively staring out the windshield, he’d give a sidelong glance, ask if the music was too loud, or adjust her vents until she was getting proper airflow. He did not ask if she was okay. The guy knew better.
Keira slid the phone from her bag and logged on to Momentso. Bypassing the notifications, which were getting out of hand, she went to the messages. A dozen unsolicited messages appeared, almost entirely from men. Probably the ones she’d blocked on Saturday. She scrolled until she’d found the latest interaction with MRCustom. It had been two days since they’d spoken. Last night, she was about to write, but a text message from Robbie back at the hotel stole her attention. Instead of MRCustom, she’d found herself engaging in a playful back-and-forth with Robbie.
Robbie, who was making her feel things that scared her.
She couldn’t, wouldn’t go down that road again. She tapped on the message bar and began her keystrokes.
KAT WANDERFULL: Dear MRCustom, my heart hurts. Remember how I said I have no family? I did something brave. After some research, I found a store owned by my maternal grandparents, whom I’d never met. On Wednesday, I introduced myself to them. They. Were. Wonderful! MR, they invited me to Thanksgiving! But the idea of waiting even that long to see them again brings actual pain. It feels like my chest is caving in. And now I’m regretting ever looking them up. You see, for me
Keira’s thumbs stilled above the phone’s keyboard. She’d never told him about her past. Not the childhood abuse. Not much about her past relationships, either. She wished she had, because he would need to know it or else he’d think her crazy. And the idea of typing it all out exhausted her. For what? So he could give her advice? Cite Scripture references? That was great and all, but Keira wanted more.
As an old Monkees tune jingled, Robbie’s hand reached over the center console. The outside edge of his pinkie finger grazed her wrist. Only for a few seconds, then it was gone. It was his thing that he used to do when they were dating. When a full-on public display of affection might be inappropriate, he’d do this small gesture to remind her he was there, that she could be sure of him.
Keira clicked the X on the message.
Are you sure you want to discard this message?
She glanced at Robbie, who was mouthing the lyrics to “I’m a Believer” to her. Her thumb clicked Yes, and she replaced the phone in her bag. With a hefty sigh, she leaned her head against the window. If only she could talk to Robbie about the ache growing inside her . . .
The car slowed, veering onto an exit ramp.
“Let’s stop and fill up.”
While Robbie pumped the gas, Keira took Anabelle to the bathroom. When they’d returned to the car, Robbie was leaning against the passenger door. He watched her walk across the pavement.
To make sure she didn’t drop Anabelle’s hand? Or to find a breach in her walls? If it was the latter, he didn’t need to work too hard. Those walls looked way more like Swiss cheese now, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
He didn’t move when they neared.
Finally, with Anabelle safely buckled, Keira turned to him. “You want a break from driving?”
Robbie’s normal happy-go-lucky nature was nowhere to be found. Without a word, he opened his arms.
Also without a word, she accepted his invitation. The heat from his body blanketed her. With her face buried in his shirt, she picked up the scent of the dryer sheets his family had used since, well, forever. Up and down, his fingertips traced lines on her back. Because he knew she liked it. Robbie knew her whether she wanted to admit it or not. There was no need to fill in the details of her past with him, because he’d been right there beside her when much of it occurred.
“Aw, honey,” Robbie said. “It’s supposed to hurt when you leave the people you love. That means you’re doing it right.”
“Why, though? It doesn’t make sense that the more you love someone, the more pain it causes.” She pictured her mother, who, despite the abuse, loved her father too much to leave him. Her grandparents, who’d loved their daughter so much that her absence had caused a twenty-eight-year time of mourning. Then there was the pain of loving and losing Robbie, from which the only escape was to create a new reality where only screen names and avatars mattered. And yet, her fists clutched the back of his shirt tightly enough for her knuckles to sting.
“Because we’re far from Eden, I guess. It won’t always be that way. At least we can stake our hopes on that.” He rubbed his chin over her hair. “Were you telling the truth when you told them you’d call?”
Conviction needled her.
“I think you should,” he said. “Just because you can do this thing called life alone doesn’t mean you have to.”
Thoughts flashed to the young couple in the Jackson Hole restaurant, probably happily engaged by now. Unlike others, she’d never thought Robbie to be dumb. But at this moment, she thought he might be the smartest man she’d ever known.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
On the map in Keira’s atlas, Lake Tahoe was circled with a heart. In the car, she’d told Robbie about dreams of paddleboarding on the blue-green water and sunbathing on Kings Beach. Of course, neither of them had planned on a line of thunderstorms to roll through. Those two extra days in Twin Falls had thrown off their schedule and ensured she would not be seeing the sun above the lake as she’d hoped.
Although steady rain pelted the windows of the lodge’s lobby, she didn’t seem to mind. For the last hour, as they sat on the couches surrounding the board game, Keira beamed. Especially when she looked his way.
The lodge was new. A stone fireplace stretched two stories, bypassing rustic wood beams. Pine furnishings and plush upholstery radiated almost as much warmth as the crackling logs beyond the hearth. Images of a similar scene in his cabin on the river sometime in the future teased his mind. A good old family game night. Maybe Anabelle would nod off to sleep, leaving Robbie and Keira alone to enjoy marital bliss.
Too bad that would never happen.
“Prince Devin! I got Prince Devin!” Anabelle danced her carriage-shaped game piece almost all the way back to Start. With a completely illogical sense of pride, she plunked the carriage on the square featuring Prince Devin, Princess Patty Cake’s egotistical uncle. Why a kids’ show featured a chauvinist jerk like him, Robbie would never understand.
“Ooh, I wish I got Prince Devin. He’s handsome.” Across the coffee table from him, Keira got a distant look on her face. Ugh. Apparently, that was why the show added him.
“I’m, like, right here,” Robbie said.
“I mean, he’s no Owen Wilson.”
Robbie shook his head. “What would you do if I started talking about Lady Audra like that?”
On the lid of the game’s box, Lady Audra stood by King Hubert’s side. No doubt they were preparing for the two to get married in a future season. As far as cartoon characters go, she was pretty with her long ebony hair and emerald eyes.
Keira eyed the box. “She is beautiful, but I’m not worried. Robbie Matthews, you showed your cards that first day in the West Yellowstone High hallway. You, sir, have a type.”
“Chicks with forehead scars.”
“Exactly. My turn.” Keira picked up a card from the pile. “Double pink. Which means on my next turn, I’ll make it to Royal Village.”
“Simmer down. You haven’t won yet.”
The door to the lodge opened. In stepped a man soaked to the bone, holding a jacket over a huddled form beside him. When he removed the coat, he revealed a woman in a sundress cradling a swollen belly.
She looked at her beau and frowned. “You didn’t have
to do that. I won’t melt if I get wet.”
“I know, but I didn’t want you to hurry, then trip or something. It was slippery out there.”
“You’re sweet. Baby Layla and I thank you.” The woman looked around, taking in the interior of the Grand Lake Lodge, the finest inn on Lake Tahoe. “You shouldn’t have spent our money on this.”
“Nothing but the best for my girls.” The man placed his hand on his wife’s belly and gave her a peck on the lips.
Robbie drew a card. Instead of a character picture or colored squares, there were words. “Take a ride on Rainbow River with any player of your choice.” He gave his best villainous laugh, as he tapped the spot on the board significantly farther from the finish marker at Royal Village than where Keira’s crown currently sat.
“Don’t do it. I’m so close.”
“Should I do it, Kitty Kat? Should I force Keira to take a gondola ride with me on the Rainbow River?”
“Yep!” Anabelle said.
“No way. You can ride that gondola by yourself.”
“Haven’t you seen any movies? Gondolas aren’t meant to be ridden by yourself. Then there’d be no one to kiss when you go through the Unicorn Tunnel.”
“I think you’ve watched one too many episodes of this show.” Keira locked her hands in a cage around her game piece.
Robbie set to work wrenching her fingers free.
Anabelle hugged Keira’s arm.
When that didn’t work, he looked at his daughter. “Annie . . . Zerbert.”
“What’s a zerbert? Is that code for something?” Keira’s eyes grew large as Anabelle moved closer. “What are you going to do to me?”
After the world’s slowest approach, Anabelle pressed her lips to Keira’s cheek and blew a raspberry with all her might.
The noise, combined with Keira’s squeal, turned every head in the lodge’s main room.
Someone else might’ve been embarrassed. Not Robbie, though. This was the moment he’d waited years—scratch that, his whole adult life for. He breathed in the sight like it was oxygen to his soul.
“Fine, fine, fine. I’ll take a ride on the Rainbow River with you.” Keira pushed her trinket into Robbie’s hand. She glowed as Anabelle hugged her neck.
“You guys are the cutest family ever.” The pregnant woman settled back into an easy chair nearby.
After an exchange of glances, Keira and Robbie said “thank you” together. “From the looks of it, we may lose that title soon. When’s the due date?” Keira asked.
The young woman’s sandaled feet, which she had propped on the ottoman, looked swollen. “Five weeks. My husband thought this babymoon thing would be a good idea. But after a few hours in the car, my feet and back are telling me otherwise. It gets worse from here, doesn’t it? Was she a summer baby?”
The woman directed her questions to Keira, whose jaw simply hung slack, every blink of hers adding to Robbie’s existing boulder of guilt.
“No, she was late May,” he said. “Hang in there. Now’s when it starts to get exciting. False labor. Eating spicy food to get things going. But the best part? Driving fast to the hospital because you have an excuse.”
“Tim will love that, for sure.”
The woman’s husband kneeled by her side. “They said our room’s almost ready. Can I get you anything? Water, ice for your feet, back rub?”
“Some sun?”
“Just say the word, babe. I’ll go fight off the clouds like Don Quixote with his sword.”
On the table, Robbie’s phone buzzed an incoming call. Ryann. “Hey, Ry,” he said, reclining against the sofa cushions.
“How’s the trip? Mom said you’re in Tahoe? Ugh. I’m jealous.”
“It’s great. Tahoe’s nice but rainy.”
“You know what Mom says. ‘Rain makes flowers grow and . . .’?”
“‘Rain makes the time go slow,’” Robbie said.
“Maybe that’s what you guys need. How’s Annie?”
“Losing horribly in Patty Cake Land.”
“She is your daughter, loser.”
“Brat.” Robbie caught Keira’s eye and winked. “How’s business been?”
“Terrible. The latest review claimed to have seen a mouse in the café.”
Gut-wrenching. If he ever discovered who was leaving these fake reviews, he’d smash their computer, smartphone, tablet, typewriter, and anything else they could use to compose a message.
Wait, could it be Vivian? No, probably not. They’d started long before she reappeared.
“If they’re offended by a live mouse, they should probably avoid Emil’s sausage gravy.”
“Oh, ha ha. He’s gotten better. Only a few cigarette butts in the eggs.”
Robbie silently took his turn in the game. A purple. He moved his token—the king’s noble steed—to the next purple square.
The hotel’s desk clerk approached the expectant couple. He apologized for the delay and handed the man and woman each a key card. With some help from her man, the soon-to-be mother rose from her seat and gave a small wave to Robbie, Keira, and Anabelle. Together, they crossed the lobby hand in hand.
“But the real reason I called is Vivian again,” Ryann said. “She was here this morning. With two lawyer types and a woman dressed like a sitcom mom. Dad thinks the lady might’ve been a social worker, but we aren’t sure. They were walking around the resort, taking notes and pictures and stuff.”
A slideshow of disrepair scrolled through Robbie’s mind. Upkeep tasks that he’d not completed over the years while he worked on their cabin. The resort was in rough shape.
And apparently, Vivian, her lawyers, and Carol Brady knew it.
“Did they say anything?”
“Not really. Dad ran them off before I could take a spatula to them. I think he offered them a mouse omelet.” Ryann’s joke fell flat. “Kidding.”
“Thanks for telling me.” With Anabelle so close, he had to be careful with his words.
“Remember, you don’t have to fight this alone. Me, Mom, Dad. We’ll all do what we can to help you.”
Anabelle had climbed in Keira’s lap and was moving her carriage the length of two white squares. Afterward, Anabelle settled back against Keira’s chest, those strawberry curls of hers fanning Keira’s eyes and changing their color a bit. Keira’s eyes always reminded Robbie of Yellowstone’s Sapphire Pool—the deepest part where the blue was the most concentrated. Now he saw the faint tinge of green in them, like the shallow edges.
Those eyes trailed from the game board to Robbie, then over to the expectant parents by the elevator.
The man bent down and kissed the woman’s baby bump.
Keira looked away.
* * *
* * *
The lightning that cut through the sky illuminated the lake and its surroundings. With Anabelle sleeping in the room’s bed, Robbie and Keira sat on the balcony’s porch chairs. Behind them, the sliding glass door remained partially open so they could hear her if she woke.
Robbie’s gaze bored into the darkness. “It wasn’t like that for us, you know. Me and Vivian.”
Just as when the woman had assumed she was Anabelle’s mother, Keira froze. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Why hadn’t she accepted Robbie’s offer of a bottled water?
“You can’t force feelings that aren’t there. I thought I could. Like if I chose to love her in action, my heart would follow suit. It didn’t, though. And she saw through it anyway.”
Keira held up a hand. “You don’t have to—”
“I want to. I need to.” Robbie leaned forward and dug his elbows into the muscle above his knees. “I think if you hear it, you may understand a little bit more about why things went the way they did.”
A brilliant flash of lightning lit the sky connecting heaven and earth.
&
nbsp; One, two, three, four, five, six—
Thunder cracked.
Look at him. The voice came from somewhere deep within her.
I don’t want to, she argued and stood. Keira peered at Robbie, his form contrite. Careful not to scrape the legs on the wood, she moved her chair next to Robbie’s and reclaimed her place at his side. “I’m listening.”
“After you left, I lost my mind. You can ask Ryann. I was a mess. I slept in your cabin in case you came home in the middle of the night. I didn’t know where you were. No one knew. I pictured you getting abused, raped, murdered.” Light flashed on his face. “I didn’t think you could survive without me protecting you, keeping you safe, holding your hand.”
“I didn’t exactly give you reason to think I could survive on my own,” Keira said.
He laughed a little. “But look at you now. Anyway, after a couple months, I would’ve done anything to dull the pain. Against Ryann’s advice, I went up to Bozeman to hang out with my old teammates. They threw everything at me, thinking they were helping. I was so dumb.”
Keira cringed. “Don’t say that.”
“But I was. I don’t even know what I put into my body that night. Then Vivian showed up. I don’t remember much else.”
Keira buttoned her lips as long as she could. After several moments of his silence, the thoughts burst forth. “With me, you were adamant about keeping those physical boundaries we set, even when I wasn’t. Why did you sleep with her?”
“Why did I do anything that night? It felt like an earthquake tore into me, creating this head-to-toe canyon. I was trying to fill it with anything I could find.”
Guilt seized her. You caused this. It was not the Holy Spirit’s voice this time. It was her father’s.
She shook her head. “If you don’t remember, then how do you know—?”
This Wandering Heart Page 18