Best Kept Secrets (Complete Series)

by Kandi Steiner

  Time slipped away like a silk thread through the eye of a needle as Reese played, one song drifting easily into another. I watched his arms, his fingers, sometimes letting myself focus on the crease between his brows. Every note seemed to pain him in a way, like he had to peel away a layer of skin each time he discovered a new string of chords that fit perfectly together. I loved how he gave himself to his music, how he felt it from the inside out.

  He was beautiful.

  After a while, his fingers stilled, and an overwhelming silence fell over us. Reese eyed me for a moment before he reached up for my hips, sliding me over until I was dead center in front of him. With his arms around me, he bent forward, his head to my chest, and I held him there.

  So many questions existed between us in that moment, but he only asked one.

  “Why did you come tonight?”

  I blew out a long, pensive breath, debating how to answer that question. There was more than one answer, or rather, one long, tangled web of answers that somehow made one full picture. It hadn’t just been one reason, and the pieces on their own wouldn’t have made sense.

  “Jeremiah’s house burned down this week.”

  Reese stilled in my arms, and he pulled back enough to lift his eyes to mine. “Oh, Charlie. I’m so sorry. Is he okay?”

  Already, my heart ached at how he reacted to the news. It was such a contrast to Cameron.

  “He’s hurting,” I said honestly, lacing my arms around Reese’s neck. “So is his family. And I didn’t take the news well. Jeremiah was just so sad all day, you know? He wasn’t himself. And then when his mom told me what happened, I just felt helpless. He might not be able to come back to Westchester.”

  Reese’s brows bent together, but he simply rubbed my lower back, encouraging me to keep talking. He was listening intently, hanging on my ever word.

  “I just… I freaked out, Reese. I called Cameron and begged him to come home.” Reese’s jaw ticked a little at that. “He was already there, thank God, and I just ran to him. I needed him. And I know that’s hard for you to hear, but he’s been my partner for ten years. I needed him in that moment.”

  “No, it’s okay. I understand.”

  “But the thing is,” I said quickly, catching his eyes with mine. “Cameron was there. Physically. But he wasn’t there in the way that counted most. He said I was acting crazy, and he kept reminding me that Jeremiah wasn’t our son, and that it wasn’t my job to fix any of it.”

  Reese’s expression hardened. “It doesn’t matter if he’s your son, he’s important to you. And you care about him. And you treat all your kids in your class as if they were your own. It’s who you are, it’s how your heart works.”

  I sniffed, my eyes blurring a little.

  He gets it.

  Just hearing those words out of his mouth assured me that I’d made the right choice coming to him, that it wasn’t some fantasy all in my head. Reese Walker understood me — maybe more than I understood myself. And he loved me.

  How long had I yearned to be loved and understood?

  “Cameron said he knew how to fix it all,” I said after a moment. “And his solution? To buy me another bird.”

  “No…”

  I nodded.

  “Edward just died,” he pointed out. “And anyway, what does a new bird have to do with Jeremiah? Yes, it might have been a distraction, but it’s not a solution to what’s hurting you.”

  “I know. It’s how he shows his love,” I tried, defending Cameron. “Or at least, how he tries to. He doesn’t understand, you know? He doesn’t get where my hurt is coming from. So he just thinks about what he can control, what he can do. And he can buy me a bird.”

  Reese just shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “It seems silly, now that I think about it, that this was my breaking point. But I was just sitting there in his arms, not feeling comforted at all, only feeling crazy and like I couldn’t be myself with him anymore. And when he suggested buying a new bird, I just… Reese, I snapped. Maybe I was a little crazy in that moment.”

  I paused, a chill sweeping through me.

  “Everything has just been compiling, you know? For so long. And I’ve tried to convince myself I was fine, tried to tell myself that I was happy and okay. Every couple has their problems, right?” A soft, sad laugh left my lips as I dropped my gaze to Reese’s chest. “It’s hard to admit you’ve failed, especially at a marriage. But I have. And so has he. We have.” My eyes found his again. “But I didn’t come to you because he failed me.”

  Reese searched my eyes, and his next words were barely a whisper. “Then why?”

  “It’s hard to explain…”

  “Try.”

  I brought one thumb to my mouth, slipping the nail between my teeth as I combed through my mind for the right words.

  “I didn’t come to you because it made sense, or because it was the right thing to do. I didn’t come because it was easy. That’s just it — me being here, us being together, it’s going to be everything but easy. It will be messy and hard, and it will hurt,” I admitted. “But, the simple truth is that I can’t not be with you anymore. I came to you because you made me forget I have a choice. I came to you because it’s always been you, Reese. Even when you were gone, even when there was Cameron. When you came back, I felt it. And I know you did, too.” I shrugged, eyes watering again. “If I am a river, you are the ocean. It all comes back to you in the end.”

  Reese offered a crooked smile, shaking his head as if he didn’t believe me — or maybe as if he’d believed the words long before I’d spoken them. He wrapped his arms around me again, his head buried in my chest, and I folded over him under a wave of emotion.

  It was one of those moments, one of those life-defining snapshots of time I’d never forget.

  “What do we do now?” I asked, voice barely a whisper.

  “We don’t have to figure that all out tonight.”

  “I have to go home,” I said, breaking a little with the words. “At least, to grab some things. But, I could come back… if you want me to.”

  Reese pulled back again, sweeping my hair behind my ear. “You want to come back?”

  “If you’ll have me.”

  He smiled then. “You’re kidding, right?” But the smile fell just as fast as it had come. “What about Cameron?”

  Hearing his name come from Reese’s lips pained me, a sick ache hitting me square in the chest. Maybe guilt was still out to get me, yet.

  “He’ll be in the office tomorrow, or should I say, today.” I smiled a little, knowing it was well past midnight now. “I just want to go home in the morning to grab some of my things, then I’ll come back. At least for the weekend. Monday night is the spring concert,” I reminded him. “After that, I’ll go home. I’ll go home to talk to Cameron.” I swallowed. “At least that gives us a few days to figure things out.”

  Reese nodded, hands sliding down my arms until his fingers found mine. He intertwined them, kissing my knuckles with his eyes still on me.

  “Are you sure? Is this… Am I what you want?”

  I squeezed his hands, never more sure of anything in my entire life.

  “Yes.”

  He let out a breath, possibly a laugh of disbelief, possibly a sigh of relief, most likely a combination of the two. Then, he kissed my hands again before letting them go. His grip moved to my hips, and he slid his hands down the crease between my legs, gently pushing my knees apart.

  I sat on the piano in front of him, legs wide and trembling, blanket gathering at my hips. My toes banged out a clumsy note on the keys, but I couldn’t find it in me to laugh — not with Reese looking at me the way he was.

  Reese kept my gaze as he bent to kiss my left knee first, and then the right. His lips moved upward still, caressing my inner thighs, and when he swept his tongue over my still swollen clit, I arched into the touch with a raspy moan.

  There were still so many questions, so many things to figure out, but we shared an
unspoken vow not to think about any of it that night. Until the sun came up, Reese and I only spoke through our fingertips, through our lips and our sighs and our trembling legs. He told me he loved me, and I echoed my love for him. I told him I was sorry, and he apologized just the same.

  He asked me to stay, to make a promise in the candlelight, and I answered his request with a silent vow.

  But if I was a river, and he was the ocean, then Cameron was the storm that raged over the point where we met.

  And lightning was about to strike.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  * * *

  Cameron

  I knew my wife was cheating on me.

  I’d known for longer than I’d admit — to her or to myself. Maybe it was because I should have seen it coming. I should have known it the first night I’d met the man who would steal her away from me. It was me, after all, who had shown my wife the dance, the moves, the steps and turns of infidelity.

  It was me who’d betrayed her first.

  And it was my fault she was in his bed right now.

  I rarely drank, but it seemed like the right thing to do as I ordered my third scotch of the night at a bar not five minutes from our home.

  Our home. It felt strange to refer to it that way when it hadn’t been a home for years. It was merely a house, a building with a roof and walls and floors and material things that we once thought would make us happy. It was the shelter for a man and a woman who once loved each other so fiercely they were blind to all other things.

  It was a house that was once a home, one where my wife and I would end every night together — no matter how good or bad the day had been.

  Until now.

  I’d been at the bar all night, ever since she left. I’d sat there at the very last bar stool, staring at my hands, fighting the urge to call her phone, knowing she wouldn’t answer — knowing I wouldn’t have the right words to say even if she did.

  I never had the right words.

  My voice had been stolen by an abusive father before I hit middle school, and I’d struggled my entire life trying to find it again. Sometimes I wondered how many times my father had hit me before he beat the words out of me completely, before the idea of telling him — or anyone — how I felt seemed so pointless I couldn’t fathom it any longer.

  Charlie had been the one — the only one — to ever understand that about me.

  She’d let me love her with my actions, with my hands, with early morning breakfasts and bookshelves built in her honor. She read between the lines, finding the words I could never speak aloud, and for so long, it’d been enough for her.

  How stupid I was to believe it always would be.

  Charlie and I used to be completely in sync. I could read her mind with one look, could feel her sadness or joy with a simple touch, could heal her by just existing.

  When she got pregnant, that connection only intensified.

  What we had was rare, it was special, it was unlike any kind of love I’d ever seen in my life. I sure as hell never saw it with my parents, and even my grandparents had a strained relationship. But me and Charlie? We were magic. We were made for each other, plain and simple.

  And all I ever wanted, for the rest of my life, was to be her husband — and to be the father to the boys growing inside her.

  Losing them changed everything.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t read Charlie with just one look, or heal her with a touch. I didn’t know how to touch her anymore, or what to do to make her feel okay. I didn’t know the right questions to ask, or the right words to offer, and no matter how I tried to show her I cared, I always fell short.

  I brought back her library, hoping it’d bring back her happiness — but in the process, I’d hidden away evidence that our boys had once existed. I’d done the same thing with offering to buy another bird when Edward died. But it wasn’t that I didn’t understand that those things didn’t fix what had happened. I did know that. But I also knew Charlie better than she knew herself.

  I knew that she could get lost in books for entire days, that her eyes would light up at dinner that night as she told me about the adventures she’d been on between the pages. I knew that those birds meant more to her than anything else other than me. I saw her smile when she sang with them. I heard her laugh when she taught them new words. And whether she knew it right now or not, I knew a part of her would be missing without them now that she’d freed Jane, too.

  I knew Charlie, but I couldn’t reach her.

  When our sons died, the hardest part of all of it was that Charlie didn’t realize that she wasn’t the only one who lost them. I may not have cried the way she did, and I may not have spent weeks in bed, and I may not have had the right words to tell her how I was feeling — but I was hurting, too.

  I lost them, too.

  And I’d be damned if I’d lost Charlie.

  I knew Reese was a problem the first night I met him. It’s one of those things you’re tuned into with your significant other. I knew when a guy sees her with respect and as a friend and when a guy wants more from her, when they desire her.

  Reese was the latter.

  But I tried to trust, tried to give Charlie space. The last thing I wanted to do was demand her not to be friends with someone she grew up with, someone close with her family, someone in the picture way before I ever was.

  I tried to play it cool, and it backfired.

  “Another one?”

  The bartender who had been taking care of me all night interrupted my thoughts, the ones that had been torturing me all night like a horror movie on repeat.

  I simply nodded, sliding my empty glass toward her. She topped it off with a sympathetic smile.

  “Want to talk about it? You know, bartenders do have a reputation for also being therapists.”

  I couldn’t even find it in me to chuckle. If I had words, I would give them to Charlie.

  “No, thanks. I’ll take my check when you have a second.”

  She smiled again, this time tapping her knuckles on the bar. “I’ll grab it for you now.”

  I sipped the amber liquid she’d just poured, letting it take me back into the spiral of doubt, the spiral of truth. It’d been too long that I’d ignored it, too long that I’d let myself pretend everything was okay.

  I hadn’t been a good husband.

  I’d buried myself in work to try to forget about our boys instead of remembering them the way I should have. In turn, I’d found myself with more responsibilities at work than ever before, simply because I never said no. I’d left my wife at home to grieve alone, without her partner, without the one who loves her more than anyone. I’d been forgetful and selfish.

  And now, she’d found comfort in someone who gave her what I used to.

  But I knew Charlie. I loved her — truly loved her — not for who she used to be or whatever fantasy Reese had of her in his head. I’d seen her sick. I’d danced with her on her best days and helped her stand on the days she couldn’t bear the thought of it. I’d built a home with her, built a life with her, and neither hell nor high water could keep me from keeping the vows I’d made to her the day we were married.

  I just had to bring her back to me.

  Reese had his chance to woo her, to weave his spell, to make her feel like he was the answer. He’d had her alone, had her vulnerable, had me out of the picture, leaving him her full attention.

  She gave him this dance.

  Now, I could only hope she’d give me the last one.

  One thing I knew for sure, I wasn’t going down without a fight. If I truly lost her, if he was to have her, he’d have to beat me in a fair fight.

  So, as the bartender slid me my check and I made my way back into the cold night, I cracked my knuckles and prepared for war.`

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  * * *

  Charlie

  It finally hit me halfway through that following Monday that I’d let Jane go free.

  Maybe it was that I’d been dist
racted at Reese’s all weekend, therefore leaving little to no room for anxious thoughts, or maybe it was that there were two little birds on the shirt of one of my students that day. Whatever the reason, it hit me just after lunch that she was out in the world somewhere, flying free, and I wondered how she was.

  I wondered if she was free, if she felt free, if she was soaring high and singing her favorite songs as the sunshine warmed her feathers. I wondered, too, if she was scared, if her little heart beat faster than before, if she was afraid of her future now that it was so far from what she’d always imagined. I wondered if it was a mixture of the two — of excitement and fear.

  I wondered if she was okay.

  I wondered if she knew I still loved her.

  And, more than anything, I wondered if she missed Edward.

  Edward had been her partner in everything. They’d been brought together as young little birds, all because of me, and I’d watch them grow in love over the years. They were best friends — no, they were more. They were one in the same, two halves that made a whole.

  I understood that, because I’d felt the same way about Cameron.

  He’d been gone the morning I’d returned to get my stuff from the house, packing a weekend getaway bag and not staying a second longer. Then, Reese and I had spent the weekend together, exploring each other and avoiding any kind of serious conversations — especially the ones we both knew needed to take place.

  But the weekend was over.

  It was Monday, and the night of the spring concert. I was watching one of Reese’s fifth graders play Beethoven’s Für Elise from backstage when Reese slid up easily beside me. I felt his energy before I even saw him, that little charge of electricity I felt each time he was near. He stood to my left, his pinky finger brushing mine where our hands hung between us.

  “Hi.”

  I smiled at the sound of his voice, but didn’t take my eyes off the stage.