Wild Ice (15 page)

JD
hooked his thumbs in his pockets to keep from reaching for her. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I was just making sure Mel made it home.” She couldn’t look
JD in the eye because she knew her eyes would be red from crying. Daniel didn’t deserve her tears and JD didn’t deserve the sadness they left behind.

Lauren turned to leave,
then turned back around again and finally slid into a nearby patio chair. She scraped her hands over her eyes and sighed. “I was just having a woe is me moment.”

JD
sat in the chair next to her and rested his palms on his thighs. He wanted to touch her, to reassure her, but he kept his hands to himself.

She swallowed
, looked out at the clearing and took a deep breath. The late morning sun baked the earth, releasing the pungent smell of weeds and swamp grass. “You really do have an incredible view here,” she said on a sigh. She was stalling, hoping to find the right words. Everyone in South Oakdale already knew the story, so it was difficult to tell it to someone who hadn’t been there. This wasn’t some story to tell for JD’s entertainment. This was real life and it was still more than a little painful to relive it.

“The beauty of this place hits me out of nowhere sometimes
,” she told him. “I couldn’t have come here at a better time.”

From the corner of her eye she could see JD nod.

JD knew his reason for agreeing with her, but he didn’t know hers for saying it in the first place.

“At the beginning of the year I was supposed to get married
, but things sort of…fell through.” That was sugarcoating it and she didn’t want to tell her story to JD that way. She blew out a breath and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “My fiancé left me at the altar.” There it was. The harsh, blunt truth. No sugar, no sprinkles, no icing on top. “Well, I hadn’t technically walked down the aisle yet because there was no groom there, but…you get the picture.”

“I’m sorry.”
The words were genuine and he reached over and touched the arm of her chair. His pinkie and ring finger brushed against her hand. The gentle touch caused her eyes to prick with fresh tears and she blinked them back.

“
Thanks.” She offered him a weak smile. “I came out here to get some perspective, but I still have so many questions. You know, the “why me” type of questions you have when something shitty like that happens.”

“
Didn’t you get to ask him?”

She blew out a breath.
“No. This probably sounds really stupid, but I don’t know exactly where he is. It’s like he just vanished from the face of the earth. I guess the idea of marrying me was enough to send him into hiding. I left him a dozen messages, but he never returned any of them. A month later, when he finally called me, we talked for about two minutes before his cell phone died and I haven’t heard from him since. The last I heard, he was in Atlantic City, probably hustling old ladies out of their Bingo money. It wasn’t enough for him to skip out on me on our wedding day, but he had to get as far away as geographically possible afterwards.”

“
What was his reason?”

“For what?”

“For skipping out on you.”

Lauren
snorted a rather unladylike sound, but she was too amused by the question to hold it in. “He said he wanted to know what it was like to be with someone besides me. What a horrible concept,” she gasped, “To lock yourself down with only one person for the rest of your life. You wanna know who he ran off with?” She didn’t wait for JD to take a guess. “Ashley Mortimer. The girl everyone used to talk about because she cycled through all the sports teams in the school like the Tour de France. I guess it was better for me to find out before we got married. Now
that
would’ve been humiliating.”

She looked over at the cluster of trees surrounding the cottage and thought
about how she could never tire of this view. “And it wasn’t just Ashley,” she added. “I found out he’d been sleeping around with a bunch of other women. I was so caught up in our—
my
—plans for the future that I didn’t even notice. He was the only one I’d been with and that was okay with me. It was enough. But Daniel, well, he’s always been…restless. I was too busy mapping out our happily ever after that I didn’t take a minute to make sure it was what he wanted too. Looking back, I guess all the signs were there. I fell in love with his wild side, for Pete’s sake. I don’t know why I thought he’d suddenly settle down with me just because we knew each other for most of our lives. It just would’ve been nice of him to talk to me about it before we made wedding plans, you know?”

“Some guys can be happy with one woman,”
JD said softly.

Lauren wanted to believe that was
true. “It’s bad enough having something like that happen to you, but being from a small town, you never hear the end of it. I’ll never forget the looks of all those people in the church. They all just sort of looked at me like I should have been able to prevent it. Like I knew he wasn’t going to show up and didn’t do something about it ahead of time.”

JD sighed heavily.
What kind of a schmuck left a woman like Lauren at the altar? She had made so many plans for her future and they were just ripped away from her… Much like his own.

“You don’t have to say anything.
” She shifted uncomfortably, wishing he
would
say something. What was he thinking behind that dark, clouded stare? “Jeez, I’m just sitting here whining like a parrot. Feel free to kick me off your porch at any time.”

“I’m not going to kick you out, Lauren. I think Daniel’s a moron.”

A laugh sputtered its way out of Lauren and she nodded in agreement. JD didn’t say much but when he did it was like music to her ears. Those were the exact words she needed to hear.

“Live and learn, right?” she sniffed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to unload on you. Sometimes it just hits you out of nowhere.”

“I know what you mean.”

“My mom thinks I’m running away by coming here
, but it’s not like that at all.”

He nodded. “When
I
came here I
was
running away.” His voice sounded thin and strained and he surprised himself by saying the words out loud.

Chapter Sixteen

Darla

JD opened his mouth to continue even though it felt odd wanting to talk to Lauren. For some reason he felt comfortable around her, like he could tell her stuff and she wouldn’t argue with him like his brother did or look at him blankly like some people or try to fill the silence with nothingness like others.

This was the first time he’d tried to put a voice to his feelings about Darla’s death and it scared him
shitless. He snapped his mouth shut like a rusty bear trap.

What harm would it do to tell Lauren about it? He’d kept it all inside and let it gnaw at him until he felt raw.
What was holding him back? If JD knew a thing or two about friendship it was defined by give and take. That was the thing though. The thoughts he had about Lauren weren’t as just a friend.

Was it pride? That
mule-headedness that had him claiming he could deal with it and take care of it himself. That stubbornness that made him insist on shunning his friends, family and the general population and moving out to the middle of nowhere surrounded by thousands of birds that didn’t speak his language.

Either way, he didn’t know what was preventing him from spilling his guts to the woman with the
green eyes and the shiny hair and those beautiful freckles on her nose… Definitely not
friend
ly thoughts.

JD
let out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry about last night. I want to apologize for what I said.”

Lauren
wanted to wave her hand and
pshaw
and say, “Don’t worry about it. It happens all the time.” But it didn’t happen all the time. Daniel had made a truckload of mistakes during their time together, but he’d never once called her by the wrong name. Instead, Lauren nodded at JD and looked down at her hands.
Who is Darla?
she thought to herself.

JD’s throat tightened. He wanted to run into the field and keep going as far as his legs would take him.
He could get lost in the wetlands and never look back. But that was what he’d done already.
Lose himself
.

H
e didn’t move. He stayed rooted in the chair, his neck and shoulders tight with tension.

If he was going to fall apart than at least he didn’t have to do it alone.

“Darla was my wife.” His voice was a throaty whisper.

Was.
Lauren remembered what he’d said when she asked about his wedding ring.
I’m not married
.

“She
died last year.”

“I’m so sorry.”
Lauren put her hand on his arm to comfort him and then pulled away again. She’d held his hand last night at the club and on the trail before that, but things felt different today. Things
were
different.

“You
know how you said that sometimes it just hits you out of nowhere?” he asked without waiting for an answer. “Well, last night it hit me. Seeing all those people laughing and dancing… Her name just slipped out before I could take it back. That was the first time I’ve had fun in so long and I completely screwed it up and insulted you in the process.”

“
It’s okay, JD. I understand.”

Lauren rested her hand on
top his and closed her eyes when his body heat spread through her fingers. This time she let her hand linger on his and neither one of them pulled away.

Mel barreled through the doggie door, his chin dripping with water. Tired from chasing butterflies, he lay down by Lauren’s chair
and got comfortable.

“Mel was Darla’s dog
,” he said.

Darla had been disappointed because she’d wanted a designer dog that could fit inside her purse
and JD had surprised her with Mel, the complete opposite, instead. JD liked the idea of a nice, sturdy, family dog and not some yappy dog that peed in his shoes. One lick of Mel’s tongue and Darla was smitten.

“We found out about the cancer
after we were having trouble conceiving.” Whose voice was this? Was this his voice, telling Lauren about the C word? JD swallowed and kept going before he could talk himself out of it. “The doctors ran a bunch of tests and found ovarian cancer. We were devastated about not being able to have children and then it hit us like a ton of bricks that she was terminally ill. Having kids was the least of our concerns after that. It’s funny how your priorities can change in the blink of an eye.”

“That’s why you gave up hockey.” It all made sense now.

“Yeah,” he answered softly. He turned the gold band around his finger in slow circles. “No one can understand why I haven’t been able to go back…”

“It would hurt too much.”

He looked at her, astonished that she understood. Of course she would. This was Lauren, the woman who could see into his soul with the blink of an eye. “Yes,” he answered. It would hurt too damn much. He squinted, looking out over the field. “Darla would have hated this place,” he said. “She wasn’t the nature loving type.”

Lauren didn’t know what to say
, so she stayed quiet. His voice sounded far away; as far away as the look in his eyes.

“Maybe that’s why I chose this place,” he continued. “So it wouldn’t remind me of her.
It didn’t work, though.
Everything
reminds me of her. She was amazing. She was the type of person who’d give someone the shirt off her back. She actually did once. I remember one winter she saw a homeless woman on the street who didn’t have a coat and Darla gave her the Burberry trench coat she was wearing. That thing must have cost two thousand dollars, but she didn’t care.”

A
dam of emotion threatened to break free from his soul. With every word he told Lauren, a brick was removed from that dam, loosening its hold on him.

“She spent her life helping other people and now
… and now she’s gone…”

Lauren
waited for him to continue and when he didn’t, she looked over and he had tears in his eyes. She went to him and stepped between the vee of his legs and he wrapped his arms around her waist. She rested her chin on his head and stroked his hair. Lauren knew she couldn’t take away his grief. All she could do was hold him.

His body trembled with the tears he’d held inside for the past two years. He didn’t cry when Darla was diagnosed. He didn’t cry when the first round of radiation didn’t work. And he didn’t cry after the second and third round
ripped through her body with the same results. He didn’t cry at her funeral or as he watched them lower her casket into the cold, dark ground. And he didn’t cry during his first night alone.

There had been no tears.
He’d been strong. Strong for Darla, strong for her family, and strong for himself. They needed him to be the rock, solid and strong. And now that rock was disintegrating and the only thing he could do was hold on to Lauren and hope she could hold him together before he crumbled away and lost himself again.

JD held
on and drew from Lauren’s strength. He didn’t hold her like he’d held Darla, gently and barely, but he gripped her tight because he knew her bones weren’t brittle and wouldn’t break at his touch. Lauren wouldn’t break under the pressure. She was the woman who laughed at butterflies even though she had tears in her eyes. She was the one who reminded him what it felt like to laugh again. She found beauty in everyday life and in her birds and in this untamed place.

JD held on for dear life.