With emotions welling up within her again, Cara pushed back from the table and got to her feet, abandoning her tea. “I’m sorry. I need to go.”
Doug and Gio both stood up as well, understanding on their faces.
“Take care of yourself,” Doug said as he held out his hand. “And please, call me if you need anything at all.”
Gio also extended his hand once she’d shaken Doug’s. “It was a pleasure to meet you, though I wish it had been under better circumstances.”
Cara nodded then gave them a brief smile before she turned and walked away. She hurried out of the hotel and back to her car. Her only focus was getting back to the sanctuary of her apartment, where she could continue to privately grieve all she’d lost in the last few weeks.
She just hoped that she’d be able to find the strength to walk away from New Hope when the time came. Right then, she didn’t feel strong enough to do much of anything but cry.
~*~
Kieran hated the idea of going into work. He wasn’t ready to face anyone when he was still feeling so raw from what had happened with Cara. It would likely take just one look at his face for Lisa to know that something was horribly wrong. He figured he had until noon before his mom called him to find out what was going on.
He was tucking his wallet into his pocket in preparation for leaving his house when his phone rang. Glancing at the display, he realized that he’d underestimated the rumor mill of New Hope.
“Hi, Mom,” he said as he tapped the screen to set it to speakerphone. “What’s up?”
“I was just calling to see what’s wrong with Cara.”
His heart thumped hard in his chest at the sound of her name. “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her this morning.”
“She sent a text out saying that all the classes for today were canceled because she wasn’t feeling well.”
“I guess that’s what’s wrong with her then, Mom.”
There was a beat of silence before she said, “Is something wrong between the two of you?”
Kieran knew he couldn’t lie to his mom when she asked a direct question like that. She’d be furious if she found out what had happened from anyone else, and rightfully so. As his mother, she should be the first to know what had happened.
He sighed, then said, “We broke up.”
“You what?”
Kieran winced at her shriek. He knew she really liked Cara, and he was going to be in an awkward position now. He didn’t want to explain to her why they’d broken up. He needed to keep his word to Cara and not reveal what he knew about her past.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice a little calmer. “Everything seemed fine the other day.”
Everything had been fine the other day. “We just agreed that it wasn’t going to work out.”
“That makes no sense. I’m sorry, but you two were perfect together. Anyone could see that.”
Kieran winced at her words, wishing he could tell her that in a world without any outside influences, they had felt perfect, but they didn’t exist in that world. He knew that if he could tell her the details, she’d agree with his decision, but since he couldn’t, she’d just have to accept his vague excuses. The feelings he had for Cara hadn’t died while he slept, and he didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. So if that meant he kept her past a secret from his mom, he’d do that.
Logically, he knew that Cara wasn’t responsible for what her father and his organization had done to his family, but he had hated her father for far longer than he’d loved her. He wasn’t sure he could ever separate the two of them in his mind. Because of that, he had no doubt that at some point, her father’s identity would come between them. They were both better off moving on.
“It’s private, Mom. We have our reasons, and no one is going to convince us otherwise.”
“Ah, honey, I’m sorry. I wish I knew what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say.” He grabbed his hat and keys and headed out the door for his Jeep. “It is what it is.”
The words came easily, but honestly, each one was like a stab in the heart. It was only now, as he was contemplating life without her that Kieran realized just how much he loved her. His first thought when he’d woken up had been of her. But that had been before reality had intruded and reminded him that she wasn’t his to love anymore.
“Come to dinner tonight. I’ll make your favorite.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Mom.”
“I understand, honey. Just let me try to help you feel better.”
“I’ll be over when I’m done at work.”
“Hope your day goes okay. I’ll be praying it does.”
“Thanks, Mom. Love you.”
“Love you too, Kiki.”
He groaned at his childhood nickname, born of his brother, Sean, being unable to say his name when he’d first started talking. It just so happened that it was also a shortening of his first and middle names—Kieran Kingsley. When his mom pulled out the nickname, he knew that she was going to be babying him like she had when he was a kid. Though he normally would have balked at it, he was hurting too much to brush it aside.
He drove to work slowly, his gaze going to the tall building that housed Cara’s studio and apartment as soon as he turned onto Main Street. How was he going to be able to heal from this break-up when he’d be seeing her at every turn?
After parking, he sat for a moment, gearing himself up for what was most likely going to be a trying day. Maybe he should see if he could make up an excuse to head into the office in Everett. It would at least guarantee he wouldn’t see Cara. He enjoyed his job in New Hope, but maybe he should consider seeing if he could get a job at the Sheriff’s office there.
He’d still see her periodically since he wouldn’t move. However, it wouldn’t be as much as if they were working on the same street. But he liked his job in New Hope. He liked knowing the people he worked for. He didn’t want to leave the station there.
With a sigh, he climbed from the Jeep and headed into the station. Thankfully, Lisa was on the phone, so he could get away with just nodding in greeting before making his way to his office.
As it turned out, he didn’t have to make up an excuse to head into Everett. Not long after he’d sat down at his desk, he got a call inviting him to a meeting with an update on the body that had been discovered. He was more than happy to escape New Hope and head for Everett and the distraction the meeting would provide.
He made it two days before someone asked him about him and Cara, and no surprise, it was Lisa.
“Did you two break up?” Lisa asked when he returned to the station after picking up a lunch from Norma’s that he wasn’t sure he wanted to eat.
“Why do you say that?”
“Answering a question with a question?” Lisa arched a brow. “That’s as good as confirming.”
Kieran shrugged and headed for the door that led to the back of the station. He knew that he only had a brief reprieve, for as long as it took Lisa to reach his office from her desk. For a plus-size woman, she could move surprisingly fast when she wanted to.
“What happened?” she asked when she appeared in his doorway as he was hanging up his hat.
Kieran set his food on the desk then sat down. “If we wanted people to know the details, we would have given Craig an exclusive.”
Lisa frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, Craig publishes the newspaper, and if you want everyone to know something, you call him up and tell him to put it in the weekly.”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” Lisa said as she put her hands on her hips. “I meant that I don’t understand why the two of you have broken up. It makes no sense.”
Kieran leaned back in his chair. “It’s a good thing that it only had to make sense to Cara and me.”
Lisa moved closer to his desk, her gaze pinned on him as she attempted to read his mind. He’d endured far worse attempts than hers, so he just stared back at her until s
he finally shook her head.
“You know that I only care about you.” She hesitated then added, “And her too. She is such a sweetheart.”
He couldn’t argue with Lisa there, but he also couldn’t reveal that Cara’s father had been the monster responsible for ripping his family apart. “You don’t need to take sides in this. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
Lisa tilted her head. “Are you sure?”
“Very.” Although he did have moments where he wondered if he was sure. But they were just brief moments, and all he had to do was remember his father’s broken body on the floor of the building where he’d been gunned down by Marco Moretti’s bodyguards to be reminded that yes, it had been the right thing to do.
With a sigh, Lisa shook her head. “Stubborn.”
“No. Just private about my personal life.”
Now that Lisa knew, Kieran guessed that it would be only a matter of time before others did as well. Not that he thought she’d be the one to spread the rumor, but if she was noticing that he and Cara weren’t around each other anymore, others would notice, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The only good news Kieran had received that week was that through dental records, they’d been able to confirm that the body found in the woods, wasn’t Sheila’s. The detectives were still in the dark about the real identity of the body, so that wasn’t a good thing because it meant that since it wasn’t Sheila, they had another murder on their hands.
After Lisa had finally left him alone, Kieran tried to focus on work, but it was hard. Every day it was a struggle, and he was on edge constantly whenever he was anywhere but the station or his house, just waiting for the moment when he ran into Cara for the first time since their break-up.
He had thought that as time went by, life would get easier, but instead, it was getting more difficult. Now that the original rush of emotion caused by the breakup had faded, he was left with memories, hopes, and his love for Cara. Everywhere he turned, something reminded him of her or of something they had done together.
That hadn’t been an issue when Toni had ended their engagement since he’d left New York not long after they’d broken up. He’d been able to heal without constant reminders of her everywhere he turned. It would not be so easy for him this time around.
His mom had told him that Cara had canceled a second day of classes, but she’d been back to her normal schedule that day. His mom asked if he cared if she continued to attend the class. He’d said no, but he’d also made it clear that he didn’t want her to use the class as an opportunity to pump Cara for more information about their breakup.
He didn’t doubt that Cara would stay mum on the details. She’d already proven she was able to keep things private. So private that she hadn’t even shared them with him.
Lifting the travel mug full of coffee he’d brought with him, Kieran took a sip and resigned himself to not being able to get Cara off his mind that morning. It had been a struggle to not think of her when things were going well, but it was even worse now. He wished that he could hate her for the situation they’d ended up in, but he couldn’t. He could definitely hate her father and the Moretti family, but not her. It was just too bad the two were now so intertwined in his mind.
In the days since he’d discovered her secret, he’d realized that he wasn’t mad at her for what she’d kept from him. He actually understood why she had done that. Her very safety could have been at risk if she’d shared about her past with the wrong person. He hoped that had things gone differently for them, that at some point, she would have felt safe enough to tell him about who she really was.
The truth was, if he had just been the police chief of a small town without the connection to New York City and her family, he wouldn’t have had a problem with her past. He wouldn’t have ended things between them. After all, she couldn’t help who her family was.
The sticking point wasn’t just that her father had been responsible for the deaths of Sean and their dad, but that she adored that man. Her love for her father was something Kieran couldn’t accept. Marco Moretti had not been an honorable man. He hadn’t been worthy of Cara’s love and devotion, and yet she’d given it to him without reservation.
That was what he struggled to get past. And he knew that it would always stand between them. That he wouldn’t be able to look at her without remembering who her father was and what he’d done to Kieran’s family.
With a sigh, Kieran reached for the phone, needing something to distract him. The detective on Sheila’s case had mentioned talking to Eli again, this time about the recent body they’d found. It was like he thought Eli was responsible for that murder, too.
Up until that body had been found, it had seemed like the guy was finally accepting that Eli hadn’t been involved in Sheila’s disappearance. Now, he seemed positively gleeful at the opportunity to possibly pin something else on Eli.
Kieran understood the intense desire to solve a case, but this appeared to be more of an obsession that was blinding the guy to the truth.
Thankfully, the detective was happy to ramble on about his latest theories in the case, and it was enough to distract Kieran from his thoughts about Cara.
~*~
Cara breathed a sigh of relief when she pulled back into her garage. The past five days had reminded her a lot of her arrival in New Hope. She’d kept to herself, not interacting with anyone in the town. At least at the beginning. But eventually she’d gone into the bakery and Norma’s and had slowly begun to acquaint herself with the people who lived in the town that was now her home.
But here she was, back to keeping to herself, trying her best to avoid running into Kieran. The only people she saw these days were the women and kids in her classes. It had been challenging, dodging the topic of the breakup. It seemed that everyone knew about it now, and they all wanted the scoop.
So far, she’d managed to shut down their questions by saying it was a mutual decision about something private. That was a bit of a lie, though, since she hadn’t wanted the breakup at all, even though she understood why Kieran had.
Unfortunately, she still hadn’t managed to make it through a day without crying. Her heartache over the loss of her relationship with Kieran ran deep, flowing through her veins, carrying the pain to every part of her body. There were times she wondered how long it would be like that. How long she’d feel the bone-deep ache.
Then there were other times when she hoped it never went away. She wanted to carry a reminder of how deeply she’d loved Kieran. He was her first true love, and though their relationship had ended so badly, she didn’t want to forget about him. But she did hope that one day, she could look back on these months with him and only remember the love, not the pain that had followed.
For the time being, though, she was just trying to survive the first few days without him. She’d hardly left the studio, and when she had, it had been to go into Everett to get groceries or to walk around the mall. She’d needed the break from her own company and her own thoughts.
Adding to the pain of that first week following their breakup was that Thanksgiving had been at the end of it. She was supposed to have spent the holiday with Kieran and his mom, and his mom had sweetly extended the invitation again, obviously trying hard to understand what had happened between them.
Though she’d been thankful that Rose hadn’t chosen to take sides, it had just made the loss of Kieran all the more difficult. She had been so accepting and encouraging of their relationship. Cara wondered how Rose would have felt about her if she knew the truth about who she was.
In the end, even though she’d also received an invitation from Sarah to join them at the lodge, she’d chosen the solitude of her apartment. Though she’d tried to focus on all she was grateful for, it had been a challenge…as so much of life had been since her father’s death.
With the breakup following so closely on the heels of her father’s death, being thankful had been a bit beyond her ability. She hadn’t wanted to feel
sorry for herself, but again, it had been hard not to. In the end, she’d spent most the day in bed, reading and trying to escape for just a little while from the lonely thing her life had become.
Not able to handle the quiet of her apartment any longer, the next day she’d braved the Black Friday crowds and made her way to the stores in Everett. She hadn’t bought anything since she had no one to buy anything for anymore. But just wandering around helped her feel less alone.
When she’d had her fill of the crowds, she’d gone to the grocery store and picked up a few things before heading home. Once there, she put away the groceries, then made herself a quick dinner, putting on some music to stave off the quietness of the apartment.
Usually at this point in the year, she would have been playing Christmas music, but her heart just wasn’t in it. In years past, she’d left New Hope for Christmas to spend time with her dad in Texas, but this year she’d be somewhere else. She hadn’t decided where yet, but one thing she did know was that her next destination wouldn’t be a small town. She needed to be able to lose herself somewhere, and there would be no way to do that in another small town like New Hope.
The next day she woke with a headache that matched her heartache. She’d cried herself to sleep again, then tossed and turned throughout the night. Would she ever be able to sleep peacefully again?
After two days of her own company, she was kind of relieved she had some plans for Saturday, even if they would no doubt include questions about the breakup. The moms of the girls in the Christmas recital were coming to discuss costume options, and though Cara assumed there would be more questions about her and Kieran, she was kind of looking forward to having a conversation with others.
The Christmas recital was the only thing keeping her mind occupied, and since it was going to be her last one with her studio there, she planned to enjoy every minute of it. She’d hoped to be celebrating the recital and the upcoming holidays with Kieran and his mom, but instead, once the recital was done and she’d taught her last classes before the holidays, she would be gone from New Hope.
Because of Him: A Christian Romance (New Hope Falls Book 2) Page 24
