“James, we have a problem. My legs won’t work.”
He frowned, then clambered out and walked around to the
driver’s side. As he leaned forward and placed his hands on her seat, his black
shirt flapped open, allowing a glimpse of black chest hair and the dark shadow
of a nipple. Lust socked her, good and hard. How did James Nealy kiss? Slow and
tantalizing, or fast and passionate? She shook her head.
“When you asked about fears the other day, I didn’t mention
one.” Her eyes scanned the parking lot frantically for a distraction and settled
on a license plate. “I should have, when I said I couldn’t drive, but I didn’t
want to sound silly, didn’t want you to think…I mean, no, that’s not what I
mean.” Great, she was babbling. James crouched beside her and said nothing. “I
watched Daddy die in this hospital. And then David, watching David for five
days—” Pinpricks of heat stabbed her chest. Was this a hot flash? Wasn’t she too
young for this premenopausal crap? “Hospitals,” she forced out the word. “Can’t
deal with them.”
Heat shot through her body as the parking lot shrank. Actually,
it didn’t shrink so much as break into pieces and tumble like fragments at the
end of a kaleidoscope. And her legs were tingly and heavy. Wow, this was freaky,
like being fall-down-drunk without the alcohol. Except that her hands were
trembling. And her chest was tightening, as if an imaginary vise were squeezing
her into nothing. Terror swamped her.
“No—air,” she gasped. “Can’t—breathe.” Oh God, she was having a
heart attack.
James clamped his hands on either side of her head. “Watch my
lips, breathe with me. In and out. Good. Use my lips as a focal point and keep
breathing. In and out. Think of this as a yoga exercise.”
She was dying, and he wanted to teach her yoga? “N-no!” Her
heart thumped against her ribs, struggling to break free.
So not a good idea to watch those lips: Could lust kill?
“Get. A.
Doctor.”
“Listen to me.” He increased the pressure of his hands.
Such elegant hands for a man; such long, thin fingers; such
clean, neatly trimmed nails.
“You’re experiencing a panic attack,” James said. “Something
doctors call the fight-or-flight response. Your body is merely reacting to
information from your brain, preparing to fend off a perceived threat, trying to
decide whether to fight or flee.”
“Make it—stop.” Talking was as painful as breathing.
“Okay, okay. Concentrate on my words. Do you like the
ocean?”
She nodded.
“Are you frightened of waves?” he said.
She felt the roughness of his palms, calloused from the shears.
“No— You?”
“Now there’s a short question with a long answer.” He grinned
and her body began to slow. “I’m terrified of being dragged out to sea by
tsunamis or the undertow. Of being stung by a Portuguese man-of-war or
dismembered by a great white shark. See how much better it is to have a common
fear of hospitals?”
She smiled and discovered it hurt less than breathing.
“But this is your dream,” James said. “Which means that we’re
on a deserted beach with a sparkling sea, clear to the sandy floor.” He tilted
toward her. “Close those beautiful eyes and listen to the water lap the shore.
Now walk toward the ocean. Can you smell it?”
She nodded, but all she could smell was the cool scent of
wintergreen on James’s breath.
“Good. Now head for the wooden rowboat drifting offshore, the
one with scented purple and pink flowers trailing over the side, those sweet
peas that you love. But pause to enjoy the sensations—the sea caressing your
ankles, your toes sinking into waterlogged sand, the sun stroking your
back.”
She loved James’s voice, his soft middle-America burr with the
slight lilt that she assumed was a legacy from his Irish father. Tilly was
conscious of the solid warmth of his hands holding her still, his touch as
soothing as his cadence.
Don’t let go, please.
“Will you
come into the water with me?” she whispered.
“No, because I’m not as brave as you. I’m cowering on a beach
towel doing a ritual that makes me look like an escaped mental patient.”
She managed a smile.
“But you glide through the water, feeling it swirl around your
knees, your thighs….” James fell silent for a moment. “You reach the boat and
tip in your thoughts, then push it toward the horizon. The boat floats away,
taking your thoughts with it.”
“All my thoughts?”
“Only the ones you want to dump. The rest you can keep.”
She opened her eyes to find James watching her. Often his gaze
unsettled her, stripped her bare, and other times she drew strength from it. But
today it overwhelmed her. Her mouth was dry and her voice silent.
He tweaked her nose and then stood. “Ready to go inside?”
She dragged herself out of the car. “You’re wrong about one
thing. I’m not braver than you. You’re the bravest person I know.”
James didn’t reply.
* * *
Plastic chairs in a hospital waiting room were the pits.
Unyielding, uncomfortable, un— Her mind failed her, just as it had done half an
hour earlier, when James insisted they play Geography to keep her preoccupied.
She was crap at Geography, so Tilly had taught him The Minister’s Cat, her
mother’s favorite word game. They had reached
d
and
it was Tilly’s turn, but the only adjective her brain spat out was
dead
.
The minister’s cat is a
dead cat.
Her stomach flipped through another loop-the-loop.
“Mrs. Silverberg?” A blonde nurse strode into the room with the
air of a buxom prison guard. She crossed her arms over her clipboard, and her
diamond tennis bracelet chinked against it. Was she trying to hide her boobs
from a roomful of women clutching mastectomy pamphlets? In fact, should a woman
with a Dolly Parton shelf be working in a breast clinic? Come on, that was
perverse.
The nurse zeroed in on her, and Tilly’s mind pitched into
chaos. Another angel of death was searching a hospital lounge for Mrs.
Silverberg. Time to bolt. Tilly shot up, but James grabbed her hand and moored
her to his side. She swung around, looking down on him for once. Since when did
he start holding hands? Although this felt more like a death grip. His eyelids
flickered, and then he shook his head slowly.
“Your husband can join you,” the nurse said. “If you’d like him
to.”
James seeing her half-naked, splayed on an examination table
while members of the medical profession prodded her boobs. Wouldn’t that just
top off the day.
“Honey?” James glanced up through his eyelashes. “Should I join
you?”
Tilly burst into giggles. She could kiss him; she really could.
“No.” She stopped laughing, aware of a roomful of cold stares. “Just promise to
wait for me.”
“Always,” he said, but he didn’t release her hand.
She’d never seen him sit so still. He looked almost tranquil.
And whatever he was about to say, she didn’t want to hear.
She yanked her hand free and left the room ahead of the nurse.
OCD she could out-rationalize, but his real thoughts terrified her as much as
that one word:
always.
* * *
James watched a pair of swans glide along the River
Nene. They hadn’t spoken since she told him she would get the results in six
days. Six, that was a good sign. The best. So why was the car filled with
silence? Was she mad at him because he’d hinted at his feelings? Although he
hadn’t actually hinted. Hadn’t said anything aloud. But the static in his head
repeated over and over, You scared her off. You blew it, you troll.
A rumble of thunder tumbled toward them, and the sky crackled
with anticipation.
“Want to get drunk tonight?” Tilly said. “I think I’ve earned
the right after having my breasts pummeled, flattened between two icy sheets of
metal and stuck with a needle.”
He scratched at his thighs six times, six so Tilly wouldn’t get
cancer and die.
Tilly sighed. “I need to apologize.”
James stopped moving. Apologize for what? He was the one who’d
been a jerk.
“I’ve been selfish,” Tilly said.
Tilly, selfish? She wasn’t wired for selfish.
“Dragging you to a breast clinic, forcing you to think about
your mother and—”
“My mother wasn’t occupying my thoughts.” James stared at his
watch, his lucky watch. “You were.”
“Okay.” She hesitated, which proved how smart she was. “Do I
want to ask why?”
No, you don’t.
“My OCD was telling
me, was telling me….”
“That I’m going to die, right?”
“Yes.” James slammed back into his headrest.
“Hey, I have no plans to die. So you can tell that bastard OCD
to bog off.”
“Bog off? I like that.” He tried to find his breath. “But if
anything happened to you—”
“Wow. Stop right there. That’s the OCD talking. You don’t need
to listen.”
“And if it isn’t?” James sat up. “What if this is me? What if I
were to ask you, right now, how you feel about me?”
“That’s a little forthright. Even by my standards.” Her voice
was hushed, her face pale. She braced her arms against the steering wheel and
stared straight ahead.
Now would be a good time to back off, to leave her be, but he
couldn’t. Being obsessive-compulsive meant never being able to quit. It meant
sticking with the same lousy thought, the same emotion, the same project over
and over. It meant being at the top of his class. Every. Single. Time. “That’s
not an anwer.”
“Because some things defy description, James. They just—are.
Like an eclectic planting with a handful of plants I grabbed on instinct and
bunged in a pot. It shouldn’t work, but it does. Don’t make me examine what’s
sparking between us.” She sounded angry. She was definitely pissed, and he was
an idiot. “Because my hospital phobia is nothing compared to my fear of
boy-meets-girl. The last time I went on a date was with my husband of ten years.
And afterward—” Tilly paused for effect “—we had the kind of sex that you never
forget.”
Wow. That was unnecessary. It would have been less painful if
she’d kicked him in the teeth. He almost wished she had. James tapped the right
side of his seat, six times. Six times so Tilly wouldn’t get cancer and die. And
six more times so she wouldn’t hate him.
“Don’t box me in,” she added. “You won’t like the fallout.”
He had blown it, pushed too hard despite Rowena’s warning. Why
had he asked the question when he’d known the answer would terrify him? Couldn’t
he be happy, just once, in the murkiness of uncertainty? No, he couldn’t. Not
when the stakes were this high. He was trying to change a lifetime of habits in
one sitting. Failure—the word ground into his gut—should be expected. But not
when it came to love, never when it came to love.
He should speak, reassure her that he wasn’t some petty louse
who nursed grudges.
“What’s that yellow flower by the roadside?” His voice sounded
reedy. A fake voice used to snare Tilly’s goodwill with fake interest in a
plant. See? The OCD was right. He was a creep, a lowlife who had taken advantage
of her.
“Ragwort. Deadly to horses, but pretty, isn’t it? Thrives on
neglect. Definitely my kind of plant.” She smiled, but her smile was as false as
his words had been. “What I said—”
“The fault is mine.” He didn’t mean to snap, but it was either
spit out a short sentence or keep apologizing. And Tilly knew him too well,
would classify his apology as checking, the telltale sign of an obsessive
thought, which, of course, it was.
“I saw a sign a few miles back for Green Thumbs Nursery. Can we
take a detour?” He reached for his wallet. “If we’ve been at a nursery all day,
I’ve bought gifts for Rowena.” He forced out a smile. “Although you’ll have to
plant them. And I’m pretty sure I’ve bought a spectacular rose to add to your
mother’s collection. She can take it with her when she moves.”
But the magic of distraction sputtered and died. He was so
tired of playing games, of hiding his OCD. He didn’t want to have secrets from
Tilly. For the first time in his life, he wanted another person to know every
distorted twist of his history. Maybe she did already.
“I push too hard,” he confessed. “I always push too hard.”
“I know,” she said, and returned to silence.
And James watched the broken white lines in the middle of the
road disappear under the car, marking off the remnants of their day
together.
Chapter 20
Despite the humidity, the crack that greeted Tilly as
she stepped from the car was not thunder. It was leather on willow, the sound of
cricket. With a fortifying glance at Woodend, she walked across the gravel. A
bead of sweat slithered down her temple, and she sensed James tracking her.
She passed under the rose arch and took an imaginary step
backward to quiet the hammering in her head. The beautiful man playing cricket
with her son was Sebastian, the boy with the angelic smile who had loved and
desired her when she’d felt more cyborg than human. His shirttail spilled from
his suit pants, his loosened tie flapped against his chest and his arm
cartwheeled through the air. The debt might be long paid off, but she had owed
Sebastian so much. He was a good soul—kind, supportive, loyal. And there were no
surprises with Sebastian, nothing left to discover. He was safe, familiar and
predictable. The opposite of James.
Tilly swallowed and tasted bitterness. Or was that guilt? She
wove her fingers together and held her arms rigid in front of her, trying to
fend off the sensation of having been caught out. Hardly a legitimate reaction,
but her body seemed to think otherwise. Heat rose in her cheeks and her pulse
picked up speed. Was this the fight-or-flight response James had mentioned
earlier?
Isaac whacked the ball with a banshee wail of delight and Monty
tore after it, accompanied by hoots of
no
from Isaac
and Sebastian. They hadn’t noticed her; she still had time to tiptoe away.
Uh-oh, Monty had spotted her. With a yip of delight, he skidded
around and tore across the herbaceous border, flattening the sweet peas. Tilly’s
leg shot out to restrain him, but the reflex came too late. He crashed into her
like a runaway bulldozer, and she collapsed under the brunt of him.
“Hey, Monty,” she wheezed. “Miss me, did you?” His reply was a
drool-drench that stank of rotting carcass. “Yuck. Stop!”
As she tried to wriggle free, she glimpsed James’s black
sneakers, the hem of his black jeans and the long fingers that picked up a
partially masticated tennis ball and lobbed it into the hedge. Monty yelped,
rocketed into the air and hurtled after it.
James had done that? Despite his fear of dirt, he’d picked up a
revolting object that she wouldn’t touch? Goodness, he really was the bravest
person she knew.
“Thank you,” Tilly said, but James didn’t respond. He was
scrubbing his palm against his thigh and watching Sebastian saunter toward them.
Tilly tugged down the hem of her sundress, hoping she hadn’t flashed anyone in
her fall.
“Mom!” Isaac ran forward and burrowed into her. “How was the
gardening place?”
Baby sparrows tweeted from their nest in the guttering,
demanding food, and reality crushed her. She hadn’t rehearsed an answer, hadn’t
spun a plan. What kind of mother didn’t protect her child with a plan? Her mind
was empty, closed for business. A shut-up shop without a single thought, not
one—
“Your mother has practically bankrupted me,” James said,
inspecting his palm and then scrubbing it some more.
Sod everything; she would have to hug him. But Isaac beat her
to it.
James stopped wiping his hand. “Sebastian.”
Sebastian paused to shove his shirttails into his pants.
“James.”
“Never go plant shopping with this woman.”
“I don’t intend to,” Sebastian replied.
In three years Tilly hadn’t looked at a man. Not one. And here
she was sprawled on her mother’s lawn watching two men square off, secretly
thrilled at being the cause. Or rather, the possible cause. Worse, she was
trying not to picture herself having sex, although her partner’s identity was
fuzzy. Was this some midlife deviancy, the result of three years of celibacy, or
was she so worried about losing her sexuality along with her breasts that she
had transformed into a pubescent schoolboy mainlining testosterone?
Sex wanted, partner unknown.
Sebastian gave a sigh. Faint but not disguised, it was the kind
of sigh David used to terminate a conversation. Then he held out his hand. James
hesitated and Tilly tensed. Sebastian would be insulted if James didn’t shake
hands, when really, it was incredible that James was still standing there, that
he hadn’t run inside to find the nearest bottle of hand sanitizer.
“I don’t think you want to touch my hand.” James stared at his
palm, his lips curled back in revulsion. Oh crap. Had he ever looked sexier?
“Can we work on the tree house now?” Isaac clung to James.
“Pretty please, before it rains? Grammy says it’s going to storm, for sure.”
Sebastian hauled Tilly to her feet and kissed her on the
mouth—a firm, dry kiss that felt like a brand of ownership and bequeathed a
stale aftertaste of tea.
“What are you doing here?” Tilly asked him.
“London’s a sauna today.” Sebastian moved his hand down to the
small of Tilly’s back and kept it there. He smelled of overheated train carriage
and diesel fumes. “I decided to skive off work and come talk to your mother. I
was hoping I could surprise the children with the news this weekend.”
So, unlike Tilly, Sebastian had a plan. Unlike Tilly, he’d been
organizing, lining up his assets, turning her daydream into his reality. And
what had she been doing? Surviving.
“Tilly! Is that you?” Her mother bellowed from an upstairs
window. “Sari’s on the phone! Something about a broken mister head in the
greenhouse?”
“Brilliant! Be right there!” Tilly backed toward the house
while Sebastian and James glared at her. Well, Sebastian didn’t glare, but she
was pretty sure he was as ticked off as James, who was practically steaming with
repressed anger. And making no attempt to hide it. “Just be a sec. Make
yourselves at home. I’ll rustle up a pot of tea, shall I?” She tottered over a
tub of geraniums. “Silly me. Tea? Much too late for tea. Drinks anyone?”
Then she ran inside before either man could answer.
* * *
Sebastian held up both hands as he squeezed past her in
the kitchen.
Anything to avoid touching me.
What had
happened to the old Sebastian Tilly had glimpsed the weekend before, the man
with the seductive glint in his gray eyes? If not for Rowena and James, last
Saturday night would, undoubtedly, have ended in a bedroom at Manor Farm, not in
a flurry of cheek-pecks in the pub carpark after Tilly had refused a lift from
Sebastian or Rowena and, despite James’s disapproval, had walked home alone to
clear her head. But tonight Sebastian was skittish, the intimacy from that
evening lost.
“Shall we try another night out?” Sebastian hacked up a
cucumber on the kitchen table. If he made the pieces any smaller, they’d be
drinking gazpacho, not Pimm’s. “How about next Friday?”
“Sure. I’d like that.”
Sebastian chopped furiously. “Any idea when he’s leaving?”
“I assume you mean James. And no, I haven’t a clue.” Tilly put
her hands on her hips. Enough of this schoolboy jealousy crap. If Sebastian had
feelings for her he should come out and say so, as James had done. Or not as
James had done. Bugger. She was utterly lost in this man-woman malarkey. Was it
time to tug her widow weeds back on and be done with it?
The knife clattered to the table and Tilly jumped.
“Christ, I’m being a complete prat,” Sebastian mumbled.
Silently, she agreed. But beauty and contrition were quite the
combination. How could a girl resist? She walked over and eased him into her
arms.
Tilly wasn’t sure how long they stood together—Sebastian
slumped against her, hands dangling by his sides, head bowed like a penitent
sinner. Pulling away was unthinkable; holding him felt too much like a
homecoming. But when the hair at the nape of her neck bristled, she lowered her
arms and turned toward the doorway. It was empty, but his echo remained. Isaac
had seen them, she was sure of it.
* * *
Was that the moment the evening went horribly wrong? Or
was it when her mother toasted Sebastian and Woodend to the accompaniment of a
thunderclap, and Tilly’s mind screamed no? Or was it when James asked, “Is he
buying you, along with the house?” and she slapped him. She’d never slapped
anyone before, which proved she should stop flip-flopping and decide that she
was not in lust with James Nealy. Or was it her child’s announcement that he was
too tired for reading, so could she please shut the light and let him go to
sleep, thank you very much?
Isaac’s rejection eclipsed everything. When she and Isaac were
lost in the pages of a book, Tilly was content. And as she lay alone on her
childhood mattress, the worn sheet under her so wrinkled it felt like a
pincushion, she craved that reminder of life at its richest.
She considered creeping into Isaac’s room and sneaking out with
their current read,
Arthur: The Seeing Stone,
a
historical novel with language so lyrical it made Tilly want to weep. She loved
the substance of words. Words stayed with you, no matter what happened. But
where was the joy in discovering the story without Isaac?
An owl hooted outside and a car chugged up the High Street.
Pretending sleep would come was pointless. Tilly kicked the duvet aside and
crawled to the window. There was no glimmer of moonlight over the garden, no
neon glow, nothing but blackness and a silence that felt solid. Cool, damp air
squirmed under the open sash. She gathered her sloppy T-shirt around her body
and shivered. In three weeks she and Isaac would be at Creeping Cedars,
surrounded by the symphony of nature that croaked, screeched and buzzed every
night until Thanksgiving. And her mother, Rowena and Sebastian would be
eavesdropping on silence.
Tilly’s forehead flopped against the windowpane, her mind a
mess of rotting thoughts: Should she forget about Piedmont Perennials and fight
for Woodend, even though she couldn’t afford it? Was this where her heart lay,
in Bramwell Chase? Was she ready for love the third time around? If so, with
whom? Could she afford to make another mistake, or was she all out of redemption
cards? If only she could hear David say, “This is what you should do, babe.” But
he had been quiet for so long, and it was time she listened for her own
voice.
She closed her eyes and concentrated, the shock of the cold
glass on her skin refreshing. Only one question mattered: What did she want at
this point in her life? And the answer was obvious: to live, so that she could
whoop and holler at her son’s college graduation and cry an embarrassing amount
at his wedding.
The landing floorboards groaned and feet paddled up the steps
to her room. The door creaked open and light from the dim bulb at the top of the
stairwell stole across her bed.
“Mommy?” Isaac’s face, muffled with Bownba, appeared around the
door. “I can’t sleep.”
“Me neither, Angel Bug.” She patted the mattress. “Want to try
a story?”
“No, thank you.” He leaped into her bed and circled like a dog
trying to nest. “I have a question.”
“Then I’ll try to have an answer.”
She snuggled in beside him and wrestled the duvet over
them.
Isaac curled his legs up into her chest, as if trying to steal
back inside her womb; Tilly wrapped her legs under his as if aiding him in the
journey. They had been lying this way since Isaac was a toddler. If only she
could lie here forever—forget that the future would deprive her of these
moments. But then Isaac spoke, and she knew a fissure had opened between them
already.
“Are you going to marry Sebastian?” Isaac said in a stiff,
oddly grown-up voice. “Because if you do and he buys Woodend—” He tugged on
Bownba’s ear. “Woodend’s your place of memories, but it isn’t mine. I want to go
home, Mommy.” He rubbed his eye with his fist. “I want to go home.”
Tilly chewed a flake of dead skin from her lip. “I’m not
marrying anyone, my love. The truth is, I still feel married to your
father.”
“Mom?” Isaac wriggled against her. “Do you miss anything about
home?”
“Tons.” And it was true. “I miss our garden so much it
hurts.”
“I miss the fireflies.” Isaac sniffed.
“Me, too!” Could she let go of Woodend? Could she force herself
to say yet another goodbye? She looked at her child, his face puckered with
uncertainty as he stared up at her. Yes, for Isaac’s sake, she could. “We are
going home, my love. I promise.”
“Will Sebastian be mad if we leave?”
“Sebastian? He doesn’t do mad. It’s not in his genes.”
“Is he your boyfriend?” Isaac pouted. She’d never seen him pout
before.
“No. He used to be, a long time ago. But that was before I met
Daddy.”
“I saw you hugging.” Isaac’s bottom lip quavered. “And it made
me feel funny inside. Don’t you love Daddy anymore?”
“Always and forever.” There it was again, the word James had
tossed at her:
always.
She stroked Isaac’s back
using the firm, downward strokes that had soothed him as a baby. Was she capable
of loving someone the way she’d loved David? No, but that didn’t mean she
couldn’t love someone else in a different way. When people asked if she had a
favorite flower bed, she always replied that each one was unique. And wasn’t
that the same with relationships?
“I will always love your father. But I also believe that the
human heart is like a pie.”
“Can it be pumpkin?” Isaac shimmied closer. “With Cool Whip on
top?”
“It can be anything you want. Mine’s blackberry and apple. With
English double cream.”
Isaac yawned. “What do we do with our pies?”
“Slice them up and share the pieces. You can never reclaim a
piece, but there’s always more to give. I gave you and Daddy the biggest slices,
and one day I might give away more, but right now, there are only two things I
know with certainty.” She brushed back his tousled hair and kissed his forehead.
“I love you to Pluto and back, and our life with Daddy will always be precious.
Nothing, and no one, will ever change those two facts.”