Authors: Samantha Garman
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 studied 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?”
“I
am
an adult.”
“Well, you’re not acting like one,” Claire snapped.
“We bought a house in France.”
“Doesn’t make you an adult.”
“We are going to raise our baby there.”
It was like a vacuum had sucked all the air out of the room. The ice in the drinks clinked against glass. Kai’s breathing was heavy, like he’d run some great distance.
“Baby?” Memaw asked. “You’re having a baby?” She looked at me, and I nodded slightly. All at once they seemed to remember that I sat among them.
“Did you know about this?” Claire stared at her oldest son. Wyatt’s jaw clamped shut, but he inclined his head. Claire turned her attention back to Kai, her eyes narrowing. “You can’t live in France. Especially not now. Now that she…”
I wondered why Claire couldn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t believe it, maybe, or didn’t want to believe it. Well, if I had any doubts about what she thought of me, I didn’t need to wonder any longer. The woman couldn’t even say my name. We’d just told her she was going to be a grandmother, and yet there was no joy in her voice. If my mother had been here, there would’ve been hugs, tears, and celebration. There would’ve been so much happiness it would’ve felt like a gift from the stars.
Mom. Someone would be calling me that one day. One day soon.
“Why can’t we live in France?” Kai demanded.
Claire made a sound of exasperation. “What will you do there?”
Kai shrugged. “Whatever I want.”
I was exhausted, even though it was Kai fighting each round. No matter how many verbal fists he took to the jaw, he got up, ready for more. I fell deeper in love with the tortured man I had married. The father of my child. My husband. My strength.
“Sage, do you want to come sit outside with me?” Memaw asked. I looked at Kai who nodded and squeezed my hand. A reprieve. I’d take it.
“I’ll just…” Wyatt said, moving towards the door. “Oh hell, I’m getting out of here.”
I snorted with surprised laughter as I let Memaw lead me out of the library and through the house. The photographs on the walls were exhibits of memories from Kai’s childhood. As we walked past a pristine kitchen occupied by a private chef, I understood more about the Ferris family than I ever would from any line of questioning.
“Let’s go out back,” Memaw suggested. “It’s the only redeeming quality of this otherwise cold house.” Once we were on the porch, we settled into plush chairs and looked up into the dark purple sky; the sun had set, and the night was soft and quiet. “So, you’re pregnant.”
“I am.”
“Are you excited?”
I looked at her, and Memaw shrugged.
“Inane question, I know.”
“I am excited.” It was the truth—children no longer terrified me. I had Kai. What did I have to be scared of? I rested a hand on my belly, breathing in the heady mountain air.