Back to You

by Lauren Dane

  “I’m sorry. For...a lot.”

  For a lot. Kelly sighed, exhausted and utterly fed up. The trickle of anger she’d been dealing with all day began to flow a lot more freely. Eight years and he still couldn’t just say it out loud.

  “You’re not saying anything,” Vaughan said.

  Kelly stared at him, blinking. She couldn’t have imagined anything worse for him to say at that moment. “You’re going to take that tone with me? Where the fuck have you been, Vaughan? Huh? Are you kidding me with this?”

  He jerked back a little. In the past, this would have been the place she’d have apologized, even though she wasn’t at fault for anything. An ingrained response to keep her mother calm that she’d taken with her from childhood like a tic.

  But she closed her mouth and refused to say she was sorry when she was most definitely not. Anger had sharpened parts of the pain of their breakup she thought she’d left in the past.

  And instead of running from it, she let it slice through her. She needed to never forget what loving this man had cost her. Though she’d never trade the pleasure they’d shared to erase the pain, she couldn’t allow herself to pretend it was safe to trust him without cost.

  She wasn’t willing to pay it. Not again. Not even with a lot more years and experience under her belt. She was completely beyond her ability and she couldn’t once again be in a relationship where she was far more deeply committed and invested than her partner was.

  “So, okay, then. You don’t accept my apology. And I understand.”

  For real? The man avoided all of this stuff for years and years and suddenly he decided to talk about it? And she was supposed to simply accept it and jump in where he was without protest?

  Without even her input on whether or not she even wanted to do this right then? Ugh, his ego was insufferable. And hot, but right then insufferable. “Oh, you do?”

  His eyes widened. “You’re mad.” He said it with surprise. As if he hadn’t even considered that as one of her reactions. Kelly really wished she’d have tucked a bottle of gin out here. Chocolate wasn’t enough for this.

  “Yes, I’m mad!”

  “That I finally apologized?”

  Years later and this was how he decided to say he was sorry? No, worse, this was what he thought saying he was sorry looked like. Maybe it was that she had terrible taste in men. She needed to use one of those matchmakers. They’d do the choosing and she could avoid everyone who made her want to punch them in the junk.

  But at the moment, the audacity fueled her and she gave it free rein. “I should have known that when you finally got around to it—eight years later—you’d be pissed off that someone told you to own your shit.”

  She took a few moments to find the right way to say the next bit. “I’m sorry for a lot means everything and nothing at all. You should be sorry for both, I guess. But you’re here in my house and you’re acting weird and apologizing for nothing and everything and I want to know what is wrong with you?”

  “I want to know what’s wrong with you,” he countered.

  It would be easy to let her anger turn her into her mother. To give over to an existence that was a torrent of negativity. It was why she rarely let herself get mad. Anger was a drug. It messed up everything in your life and for everyone in it. It was a cancer. And even in small doses it was a luxury she hadn’t been able to afford.

  Carefully now, though, she was ready to let some of it free. It wasn’t overwhelming, it was...real. Real enough to not get swayed by his looks, or the way she loved him still, so very much.

  Pissed off was a good defense against his charm and it wasn’t junk punching, so it was a good compromise.

  “You haven’t changed at all.” Which made her tired and sad. She moved to the hatch but he intercepted her, a hand at her wrist. The cramped space was usually comfortable, but right then it was confining.

  “How can you say that?” He’d shifted so that he remained between her and the hatch to leave.

  “Shouldn’t you be off to your show soon?” Kelly looked at a spot just over his right shoulder, telling herself it didn’t matter that he was either blind to what was happening or that he was willing to let her walk away because he couldn’t be frank.

  “Not until we talk. How can you say I haven’t changed? That’s unfair, Kelly.”

  She shifted her attention from that spot over his shoulder to his eyes. “This entire conversation is making me really cranky.”

  Kelly spun the ring she wore on her middle finger. The familiarity of the movement enabled her to get her words together. She hoped he really listened.

  “If I recall correctly, we had a version of this non-conversation conversation complete with a non-apology apology years ago. You didn’t have the balls to say what you did out loud then, either. Still getting pissy that someone other than your mother was calling you on it. Lucky for you, she’s still your number one girl and she’s just inside. Save your bullshit for her.”

  Yeah, it was harsh, but no less truthful for it.

  “That’s mean,” Vaughan said.

  “Mean? Fuck you, Vaughan. That woman called me a whore. Because her precious son fucked his marriage up and then never had the decency to tell her the whole truth. She’s in my house, after eating at my table. For that matter, you’re in my house, too, and I haven’t set either one of you on fire yet. I’m not mean. But I’m not a doormat. Not anymore. You may not have changed, but I have.”

  He paused. “I’m sorry I brought this up right now. Sorry because I have to leave shortly for the arena, like you said. Sorry because I want to talk to you honestly but now isn’t the time.”

  “It never is.” She pushed against his restraining hand and he let go, moving aside so she could get out of there. Once her feet hit the grass, she hurried back inside, leaving him to do whatever it was he needed to do.

  That little discussion up in the tree house had been some sort of epiphany. For years she’d told herself it didn’t matter. That it was over and done. That she had to focus on her children and building her business. And she did need to do those things. To do them still.

  But this...mad bubbling up from her belly was cathartic. Invigorating. She had to call Stacey to give her the news. Her best friend had been telling Kelly for years to get mad. Now that she had, it made a difference.

  Stacey would say I told you so, but it was cool. Kelly would have in her friend’s place, as well.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “BEFORE WE GO out there and kick ass with this last show, you want to tell me what you’re up to?” Ezra, Vaughan’s oldest brother and someone he trusted implicitly, didn’t look up from his case where he’d just pulled out his guitar and handed it off to his guitar tech. They were backstage, just minutes out from showtime. Ez had some sort of meditation-type thing he did now instead of being fucked up so he radiated solid calm. Utter confidence and capability.

  Just being around Ezra made Vaughan feel better. More focused. Everyone seemed to react that way around the oldest Hurley son.

  Though Ezra had stumbled into the pit of addiction, he’d fought his way back. He was stronger than anyone Vaughan knew. Protective of those he loved. Vaughan had already gone to him just that afternoon for some advice, but it helped to bounce his thoughts off his brother’s brain.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier today. After you and I talked, she and I had this... It was a fight.”

  Ezra shifted his attention then, turning to look directly at Vaughan. “A good one or a bad one?”

  “There are good ones? Oh, you mean the ones with sex after? No, definitely not that. But she didn’t stab me with broken glass, either. I said I was sorry. About before. Sort of. She didn’t think it was a good apology. Oooh boy, did she get pissed. Told me off.”

  Vaughan told Ezra a
bout how he’d stumbled into Kelly’s tree house hideaway and their argument. “She gets annoyed with the same stupid crap everyone else does. But she only very rarely gets angry.”

  He’d never revealed to anyone what Kelly had grown up with. At first he’d told himself it was to respect her privacy. Her story was her business and he had no right to share it.

  While that had been true in part, it was also because he’d known what she’d been raised by and he’d hurt her anyway.

  “She can’t stand to be around truly angry people. Her mother, well, you’ve met her.”

  Rebecca was unpredictable. Kelly’d built her entire life around keeping her mother on the other side of the country. Or, if they had to be in the same place, managing her to keep Rebecca from making a scene.

  Her mother had an impressive variety of ways to create drama. Vaughan had been in the woman’s presence just three times and each time it had been a master class on how to wreak the most destruction.

  Just three times and that was his impression. Vaughan really couldn’t imagine what it had been like for Kelly to have grown up with a raging inferno of a stage mother who was the most narcissistic human being he’d ever dealt with.

  Vaughan blew out a breath. “Understandably, she isn’t prone to showing that sort of extreme emotion.” He pinched his bottom lip as he thought about how to explain it all. “I can’t lie to you, Ez. For years I thought it was a simple case of a bad breakup.” And it had been. He’d delayed things without ever coming out and saying he wanted her to stay. And then he’d told so many pretty lies to himself he didn’t know what was true anymore.

  In retrospect, those things brought him shame. He’d been young and selfish and shitty. He’d wanted her to break and tell him she wanted him back. Because he was too weak to say it first.

  “I hurt her. Made her sad. Broke her heart. I did those things. But today when she got really angry it was like a big giant buzzer sounded. She peeled all that calm back and showed me stuff I’ve never seen from her. Until she walked away from me, fuming like some gorgeous creature of vengeance, I thought she was totally done.”

  Vaughan paced as the noises of a rock-and-roll concert getting ready to start sounded all around them. Strange as it was, he found the hum and chaos of it to be soothing.

  “I made so many mistakes. I didn’t apologize right. Not eight years ago and not today. She called me out and I deserved it.”

  “You’re not that guy anymore, Vaughan,” Ezra said. “You were a spoiled kid when you two got married. Still a spoiled kid when you got divorced. You’re a man now. They’re your family. Don’t let fear keep you from doing the right thing because Ross won’t.”

  It had been Vaughan who hadn’t wanted to be married, not Kelly. She’d served him the papers first, but he’d been the one to toss a divorce at her to make her leave a subject alone.

  He’d thought—at the time—that she’d cool off and back down. He meant to make it up to her once he’d gotten off tour. But he never got the chance. He’d said it one too many times and much to his surprise, she’d taken him at his word and filed for divorce.

  Then pride had taken over. If she wanted to end their marriage, fine. He’d still have a great life. He’d told himself that for years as he’d driven the road from Hood River to Gresham where Kelly had offered to settle so he could be close to the girls.

  He’d told himself being single was better anyway. That his life was too fucking fabulously full of women to bang for him to go tying himself down forever.

  And every time she opened her door he knew everything he said had been a lie. But pride was a fucking killer and he’d let himself hide behind it for way too long.

  This engagement had tripped him up. For the past three months it had rattled around in his head. Kelly being someone else’s wife. Kelly sleeping next to another man. His kids waking up to another dad on Christmas morning. And Ross didn’t like him. While he’d never done or said anything in front of their daughters, Vaughan couldn’t help but wonder if and when that might change.

  “I’m scared I can’t do it. That I don’t have what she needs. For me, there’s no one else. It’s just her. But she’s got a software engineer with a big house in the burbs already. This guy wants to marry her and erase me from her life. I can feel it. He wants to take my place.”

  “I have to be honest and say I think you’re right. Ross hates your guts. He hates the way you look at Kelly. Hates the way she looks at you. Bummer. But if it’s you or him, make it you. This is love.”

  It was long past time to finally just admit that he was thirty-four years old and in all his adult life there had been one woman he’d loved and it was Kelly. He’d already found the right woman to settle down with and, whether Ross liked it or not, Vaughan planned to do everything he could to get Kelly to give him a second chance.

  “She’s not going to let you get away with avoiding responsibility, though. If you can’t own your shit and say exactly what you’re sorry for and how you plan to make it up to her, why should she let you? Comfort is great and all. Reality isn’t nearly as fun when things are hard. You can be comfortable and alone, or banging chicks you barely know and don’t care about. Or you can do some hard, painful work and have a family with the woman you love. I know what I’d choose.”

  He missed how it felt to have Kelly belong to him.

  He needed to be a real, daily part of Maddie and Kensey’s life. He’d base himself in Portland and then come back and forth as he needed to. He’d be away from the ranch awhile, which was also necessary, as well.

  The gong sounded, indicating it was time to head toward the stage. Vaughan tipped his chin at Ezra. “Thanks. Tell me what’s going on with Tuesday.”

  Ezra’s smile went sort of predatory for a moment as he thought about the gorgeous woman he was so clearly gone for.

  “That one we’re taking step-by-step. Let’s go kick some ass.”

  As they headed out to the roar of a hometown crowd, Vaughan wasn’t tied in knots. He’d made a choice. One he needed to make. Now he just needed to see it all through.

  * * *

  STACEY PUSHED A cup of coffee toward Kelly as she opened the door to admit her best friend. Who Kelly’d specifically told to stay in Manhattan where she’d been attending a conference.

  “It’s gonna be a long day. I brought sustenance.”

  “I know you heard me tell you to stay at your conference.”

  “Please, as if I listen to nonsense like that.” Stacey tossed her bag on the couch and kept on until they reached the kitchen. “What’s for breakfast?”

  “There’s like forty-five pounds of food in the fridge. Vaughan’s sister-in-law brought over a boatload of stuff yesterday and fed people for hours. There’s actually more left. I had some mu shu pork stuff. I shouldn’t have mentioned it, though, as I ate it all and there’s none for you. Why did you come back? I thought you were presenting your paper today?”

  “I told them I’d had a family emergency so they let me present it yesterday. I was on a plane back here a few hours later,” Stacey explained.

  Kelly hugged her. “I’m so glad you’re here. So much has happened since I spoke to you last.”

  “Get to drinking that coffee while I go through your food like a hungry bear.”

  Now that Stacey stood there in her kitchen, Kelly allowed herself to be relieved and then thrilled. “I’m so glad you’re a disobedient nag.”

  Stacey moved back to her, hugging her once more. “She’s going to be all right.”

  “I know.” Kelly drank her coffee while she watched Stacey fill a plate. “It’s not even that. I mean, I was freaked when it first happened. But Maddie’s going to be fine. It’s...Vaughan.”

  Stacey slid up onto the stool across the island from Kelly. “Please tell me you didn’t sleep with him.”

>   “I didn’t sleep with him!” She kept her tone low, not wanting to wake Kensey just yet. All this stuff had been bubbling up and she’d had no one to say it to. Thank goodness for her friend.

  Stacey arched a perfectly shaped brow. “You wanted to.”

  Kelly had met Stacey eight years before when Stacey had been her divorce attorney. After the divorce had been final she’d been minus a husband but up a friend.

  An unlikely pairing, but the two of them clicked. Stacey was the sister of Kelly’s heart and a big part of the way Kelly had been able to stand up and claim a safe place for herself and her kids.

  The moment Kelly had fully fallen in love with her friend was when Kelly overheard Stacey giving a stern lecture to Vaughan’s attorney about not underestimating Kelly’s intelligence simply because she happened to be beautiful. No one had ever defended her like that before. It usually tended to be double-edged. In her modeling days she’d had friends, but they’d all been wrapped up in the track to the top. She did have people she kept contact with since she’d left, but Stacey had become the closest friend Kelly ever made.

  Which also meant Kelly couldn’t lie to her. She put her head down, resting on her arms and groaned. “I always want to. That’s not a secret. I feel like I need one of those ‘days without a workplace accident’ signs only with ‘X days since I last boned my hot-as-shit ex-husband.’”

  Stacey fanned her face a second. “He is hot as shit. No denying it. One of the most superior male specimens I’ve ever seen. And yet, he’s a thirtysomething man-boy who lives with his mom. Don’t forget that.”

  Kelly burst into laughter. “He has his own house. He doesn’t live with them.”

  Stacey snorted. “Oh, I see, he lives in the carriage house with his own entrance! Please. Same difference, Kelly. You can’t have a life with a man who lets anyone else have that much say in his decisions concerning your family.”

  “I hate it when I can’t just say, you’re jaded because you’re a divorce attorney.”