by Donna Fasano
“Thank you, Daddy,” he said to his father. “Thank you for saving me.”
Samuel Gaines nodded. “That just goes to show you how much I love you, boy. And don’t you forget it.”
Without another word, without another glance her way, Rodney and his father got into the limousine and were driven out of Lyssa’s life.
Dust kicked up by the car tires swirled in the air. She had the vague thought that she should be jumping up and down with joy. She was rid of Rodney and the whole Gaines family. Forever.
However, she was too humiliated by the disaster that Sam had left behind. She felt as if the man had torn her into shreds and had scattered the pieces all over the ground. She felt exposed. Mortified. And she couldn’t bring herself to lift her eyes to Dakota.
Her heart was filled with love for him. From him she’d learned what dignity was all about. She respected his intelligence. His honor. The code by which he lived his life. She felt privileged to have had the opportunity to work with him. To be married to him.
But… a groan gathered in the back regions of her throat… what must he think of her after learning what she was? What she came from?
She swallowed around the huge lump of emotion that had swelled in her throat and winced at the pain. After dragging in a lungful of air, she wrested her eyes from the ground and made herself look into his face.
His moss-green eyes were shadowed with a pity so immense, it was nearly tangible. Horrified beyond words, Lyssa felt hot tears rush and well and burn. Her chin trembled, and her heart splintered like shards of thin glass.
“Don’t look at me like that!” she shouted. “Don’t you look at me like that!”
Her sobs ripped through the warm autumnal air and the humiliation became more than she could endure. So she raced away from it all.
Chapter Ten
The drawers in the chest were empty and Lyssa snapped the latches closed on her suitcase. Letting her eyes trip over the room, she saw the barren dresser top and nightstand. Her heart felt just as austere as the vacant room.
Once again, she felt like a rat scurrying from trouble.
Where will you go? What will you do for money? How will you ever provide for the baby?
The dark questions mocked her until she felt she wanted to scream.
She had no answers. She only knew she needed to leave here. Quickly. She couldn’t face Dakota again. Couldn’t stand to see the pity clouding his gorgeous green eyes.
Her heart ached like an abscessed tooth as she contemplated never seeing him again. Yet there was nothing else to be done. Living with the longing and love she felt for him would be her punishment. Maybe after a little suffering she’d finally learn that love had never been meant to be part of her destiny.
People like her—like her mother—existed on a constant diet of pain and anguish. Making one glorious blunder after another. Falling down, scraping knees and elbows, rising and brushing off, only to fall yet again. When would she realize that? When would she stop banging her head against a brick wall, trying to make her life better?
Folks who started out so low on the ladder of repute could never get a foothold to climb out of their miserable circumstance. There was always someone hovering above them just waiting to knock them back down.
She flattened her hand at the base of her throat. It was so unlike her to wallow in her shame and self-pity. She’d gone for months and months without obsessing over her mother’s sins… the sins from which Lyssa herself had been born. She’d had such high hopes for a brighter tomorrow. But now those hopes were completely destroyed.
Then some strange light shined in her head, plucking at her attention, refusing to be ignored.
Hope? No, Lyssa couldn’t bring herself to describe it as such.
Her mouth firmed with resolve when she identified what it was.
Responsibility.
No matter how pessimistic she felt about her own future right now, she had an obligation to continue on, pressing forward, maintaining that constant effort to change her situation.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, pressing her hand tightly against her belly. “I’ll do better,” she told her baby. “For you. And for me. We’ll go somewhere new. Start over fresh. For us. I will make a better life for you, I promise.”
She silently prayed that the optimism she attempted to inject into her tone belied the serious doubt that weighed so heavily on her shoulders.
Lyssa picked up her bag and left the bedroom. She was two feet away from the front door when she heard the key in the lock, saw Dakota enter.
Her heart stopped beating right then and there.
Getting out of the house before he returned had been her most heartfelt wish. But once again she found that it was futile to even consider that luck might be on her side. Why should fate grant her anything in this mess she’d made when it had been against her in everything else?
The hurt on his face was unmistakable.
“You were planning to leave without saying goodbye?”
Guilt. Oh, the guilt was more than she could bear.
This man had done so much for her over the past weeks since she’d arrived in New England. He’d helped her while knowing absolutely nothing about her. He’d given her time to heal without intruding in on her personal life with questions any normal person wouldn’t have been able to keep silent about. She thought about the lovely nursery he’d surprised her with… a nursery her baby would never use. She thought about how he’d offered his skills as a physician to care for her during her pregnancy.
She closed her eyes. He was practically a saint.
And the lengths he’d gone to in order to shield her! He’d married her, for goodness’ sake. He’d stood up to her ex, not once but twice. He’d even faced off with the Gaines family patriarch.
She was a horrible person to repay him in this manner—running off without even a simple goodbye—after all the trouble he’d encountered for her.
“I was only attempting to make it easier,” she told him, emotion grating against her dry throat, “for both of us.”
He didn’t look convinced.
She continued, “Now that Rodney is out of my life, there’s no reason for me to take refuge here any longer, Dakota.”
His intense gaze bore into her like laser beams. She wanted to run, to hide, to burrow under a rock like a bug. The fact that he knew all of her secrets devastated her. Unshed tears burned the backs of her eyelids, but she refused to cry. Enough of her weaknesses had been laid bare for him.
“I know you said you hate secrets,” she said, “but I just couldn’t bring myself to tell you… everything.”
She wanted nothing more than to rush out the front door, but she knew in her heart that she couldn’t do it. He deserved an explanation.
“I loved my mother,” she declared as boldly as was possible for her in this moment of utter humiliation. “I loved her very much. I was terribly ashamed of her… of her career choice. The one bone of contention between us was that she saw nothing wrong in making what she called ‘easy money’ by selling her body.”
Lyssa bit her lip, but forced herself to continue.
“I hated that she was a prostitute. But she loved me. She was a good mother. She tried very hard to provide for me. Yes, she failed to supply the simple basic needs more times than she succeeded, but…”
Her shoulders rounded as her breath left her in a frustrated rush. Unable to understand her mother’s mentality and motivations where making a living was concerned, even after all these years, Lyssa ran out of ways to try to explain to Dakota.
“I was determined not to follow in her footsteps,” she told him. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a job. Running errands for my mother’s… friends. Mowing lawns. Shoveling snow. Bagging groceries. Anything to make a buck. I saved every penny I could… to help out all I could.”
The smile tugging at her mouth was small and sad. “In the end, I think my mother must have learned something from my d
etermination to live right. She got a legitimate job.” Her gaze averted to the floor as she became momentarily lost in memories. “Not that she was ever happy about it. She was forever complaining that her ‘real’ job paid less money for much more work.” Memories of her mother made her heart ache. “But knowing that she wanted to make me proud—to give up what she knew I saw as sordid—has to be worth something, doesn’t it?”
Her voice softened as she repeated, “That has to be worth something.”
The last bit of the story was heart-wrenching. Lyssa moistened her cracked lips and pressed toward the end. “I am so happy—” her quivering chin was in direct contradiction to her words “—that she and I had such a wonderful relationship in the end… right up until she died… from complications of a sexually transmitted disease.”
Some people might say that, for someone like her mother, that was simply just rewards. But not Lyssa. She wouldn’t wish that kind of suffering on anyone.
She swallowed her pain. Now was the time for leaving behind the past and moving on. Squaring her shoulders, she forced herself to look Dakota in the eye. And that was a hard thing, knowing that the skeletons in her closet had been brought out into the bright sunshine for him to view… and judge.
Hurt continued to tense his beautiful face, as his shoulders rounded with what she could only imagine was disappointment. Well, he could just join the club. She was as disappointed in her life—in herself—as he appeared to be.
“I saw the disgust and the loathing in Rodney’s eyes,” she told him. “And I saw the pity in yours. I can’t live with that. I’m going away, Dakota. Someplace where no one knows about my past. I need to start over.” She shook her head. “Not just for me, but for my baby’s sake.”
Her breath hitched in her chest. “I’ve got to go, Dakota.”
She pushed her way past him. If she didn’t leave this instant, she just might start sobbing, ask for his forgiveness and beg him to love her as much as she loved him. However, the idea of facing humiliation on that grand scale was absolutely overwhelming.
“I’ve got to go,” she repeated on her way out the door for no one’s benefit but her own. “Now!”
~oOo~
“I don’t understand why she didn’t tell me,” Dakota said, pacing the length of the living room.
He’d spent hours trying to sort through his feelings on his own. His failure to do so had him seeking out the wisest man he knew: his grandfather.
“I’ve done nothing,” he said, agitation driving his fingers through his hair, “but show Lyssa that I’m worthy of her trust.”
Grayson sat quietly listening.
“I could have handled the truth. I proved to her, over and over again, that she could rely on me. I just don’t understand. Why would she not tell me?” He lifted both his shoulders and his palms in frustration. “She said she remembered my saying that I don’t like secrets. And maybe I did. But what I remember saying was that I don’t like lies and manipulation. She didn’t lie to me. She didn’t try to manipulate me. Why would she think that I couldn’t handle the truth about her past? Especially when her past isn’t all that bad. Okay, so her mother chose to work in a vocation that was… a little out of the ordinary. That has no bearing on Lyssa. None whatsoever.”
The air became very still, and when Dakota realized he’d been asking dozens of questions without giving his grandfather a chance to reply, he paused. Then he did what he knew was necessary if he were to receive any answers. He calmed his restless spirit, and then he went and sat down in the chair that placed him face-to-face with the astute shaman.
When Grayson smiled, his face grew even more craggy, his eyes softening. “My son,” he began gently, “as much as you want this to be about you and how you’ve been misjudged by Lyssa, I must tell you this has nothing whatsoever to do with you.”
Dakota would be lying if he said he didn’t feel irritated. He’d come here seeking vindication. He’d come here wanting to have his hurt feelings validated.
“This is all about seasons,” the old man pronounced.
The bewilderment that rushed over Dakota had him frowning and he didn’t bother to hide his impatience for Grayson to explain his strange decree.
“Two people can look at the same object,” the shaman continued, “yet see two entirely different things. Take a tree, for instance. You might see a bounty of leaves, green and fanning in the summer breeze. Where Lyssa might see bare branches that resemble claws reaching up toward the stark clouds of winter.”
Finally, Dakota shook his head. “I know you’re trying to teach me something here, but I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Seasons, my son.” Grayson clasped his knurled hands together in his lap. “Lyssa has lived with her past for many years. She’s had many seasons to build up her fears about who she is and how she is received. She’s had a lot of time, experienced many circumstances, good and bad. And I predict most of them pertaining to her past have been bad.”
And then he locked eyes with Dakota as he explained, “She is simply looking at the tree from the season in which she exists.”
The old man fell silent, giving Dakota time to assimilate all that had been said.
Absently, Dakota’s fingers ran over his jaw, pinched his chin, traced his own lips. Soon his frustration was overwhelmed with a new anxiety.
“Oh, sweet heaven, Grandfather!” He felt his throat close with panic. “I love her. I don’t give a damn where she came from! I want her here. With me.”
He wasn’t all that surprised by the outburst. There had been a battle raging in him for some time now. His feelings for Lyssa had been growing by the hour… by the minute. And those emotions had been warring with his stubborn determination to protect his heart from being broken.
But today, out on the lake, the allure that entwined him and Lyssa had been unmistakable. Undeniable. And at first he’d felt the urge to panic. But as he’d rowed the boat toward shore, he saw the emotion for what it really was.
Love.
In his mind’s eye, he’d watched as his feelings for Lyssa had weaved themselves into an intricate pattern. A bolt of richly textured fabric that rolled itself out before him… into the future. Their future.
He’d just been about to confide these thoughts to her when she’d alerted him that her ex-husband was waiting on shore.
“I love her,” he repeated the three small words. “But now I feel as if I’ve lost her… all because of my own stubbornness.”
“Then go find her,” Grayson advised.
“But—” anxiety welled up in him “—I stood there feeling hurt the whole time she was confessing her past. I should have reassured her. But all I did was stagger around in my own wounded emotions. My behavior was unforgivable.”
His grandfather’s lips pursed. Then he said, “You’ll never find out for sure until you go seek forgiveness.”
~oOo~
“My life was a mess when you took me in,” Lyssa said, fresh tears spilling heedlessly down her pale cheeks. “You try to help me get sorted, but I succeeded in turning things into a complete disaster again. If you don’t want me staying here, I’ll understand.”
Tori Landing brought two mugs of steaming herbal tea to the couch where Lyssa sat curled into a ball, her knees bent, her heels pressed to the backs of her thighs.
“Don’t be silly,” Tori crooned. “You’re welcome to stay just as long as you need to.”
Lyssa had arrived at Freedom Trail, Tori’s B&B, hours ago. The two women had sat together, Tori listening, Lyssa crying and blubbering as she did her best to explain everything.
Once Lyssa had calmed down, her friend had attempted to get her to eat, but Lyssa had no appetite.
Dusk fell early in the New England autumn, and tonight the air was laced with a nip that clearly announced winter wasn’t far off. Lyssa felt chilled to the bone. Even the fire Tori had built in the large hearth hadn’t done much to stop her shivering. She knew it was more nerves than an
ything else.
“I’ll never get over that sight,” Lyssa told Tori yet again. “Rodney’s father announced to the whole world that my mother was a whore, and the pity pulsed off Dakota in waves. I could feel it, I tell you.”
Tori cradled the mug between her hands. “I understand. A scene like that would be distressing to anyone. But I don’t want you to worry. There are other jobs out there. Other doctors in need of a nurse. There are hospitals, nursing homes. We’ll start looking right away.”
Her friend’s assurance that she could easily find gainful employment did little to lift her spirits, and evidently discerning that there was more to Lyssa’s agony than merely the loss of a job, Tori gasped and set down her tea on the coffee table.
“Oh, honey,” the woman said. “Can you ever forgive me? I didn’t realize.” Then she took Lyssa’s hand. “You love him.”
Lyssa’s heart broke along with her voice as she answered, “Yes. I do.” A tear slipped silently down her face. “Tori, I feel like I’ve loved him all my life.”
The two women shared a moment of silence.
“I know that’s crazy,” Lyssa continued. “B-but that’s exactly how I feel. As if he’s been a part of me forever.”
Patting her hand, Tori said, “It’s not crazy. Not at all. Don’t you think every woman wishes she could meet a man who makes her feel like that?”
Tori picked up Lyssa’s mug and pressed it into her palms. “Hold on to this, honey. You’re chilled to the bone.”
“I’ve wished so hard that I could take it all back. Do things all over again. If I had met Dakota years ago, I would never have made the mistakes I made. The love I have for him would have helped me to see things clearly. Would have lighted my way and kept me from botching things up so badly.”
“Don’t ever wish away the past,” Tori said. “It’s made you who you are. If you didn’t survive your failed marriage, if you didn’t try so hard to make a second go of it and suffer through that failure, why, who knows? You might not have recognized Dakota as the blessing he is. You might never have fallen in love with him so deeply.”
