by Abby Gaines
Garrett sat with him, both of them with their eyes fixed straight ahead on the screen.
“That’s the closest I’ve seen them in fifteen years,” Stephanie observed as she sautéed onion and garlic.
“You and Dwight seem closer, too,” Rachel said.
Stephanie smiled. “We had dinner a few nights ago, like a date. It was lovely.”
“I hope things work out for you,” Rachel said.
“Dwight can seem a bit stiff to people who don’t know him.” Stephanie added sliced chicken to her pan and turned up the heat. “That’s his armor, his shield. But to me…I see beneath that, and I see what an effort he’s making. Heroic.” She looked apprehensive. “This thing with Lucas…if they don’t bring him back alive…Dwight will be devastated.”
“So will you,” Rachel said.
The other woman nodded. “You’re right. We’ll get through it together. If Dwight will let me in. Could you pass me that soy sauce?”
As Rachel handed over the sauce, she hoped Dwight wasn’t as big an idiot as his oldest son.
“Not all the Calder men screw up in these things.” Stephanie poured the sauce from on high and immediately began turning the chicken pieces. “Garrett and Lucas aren’t close on the surface, but those boys love each other fiercely.”
Rachel said a silent prayer for Lucas’s safe deliverance. That Garrett wouldn’t lose another person he loved. And as a result be less able to trust love from those who were still in his life.
“You’re good for Garrett,” Stephanie said. “When I see you two together, I think he has more confidence.”
Rachel felt warmth in her cheeks. She focused on topping and tailing a pile of green beans. “Garrett doesn’t need more confidence.”
“More confidence to be open, to give something of himself,” Stephanie said. “He doesn’t do that easily.”
“That’s for sure,” Rachel muttered.
“With you,” Stephanie said, “Garrett lowers his guard. If he can learn that he won’t get hurt the way he’s been hurt before—by his mom dying, his dad substituting control for love and me…” She paused. “Me rushing to fill a gap that I never could, which only emphasized what Garrett had lost…”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Rachel said. “I don’t think Garrett holds a grudge. Not anymore.”
Stephanie’s smile was watery. “I think with you…I think he might start to trust that it can last.”
It. Stephanie hadn’t used the word love, but that’s what she meant, Rachel knew.
Was Stephanie right? Could he love her back? Would Garrett know love if it clubbed him on the head with a baseball bat? Rachel wasn’t so sure.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THEY ATE DINNER in preoccupied silence, knowing the rescue mission was underway. How long it would take was anyone’s guess. Dwight had said they probably wouldn’t hear anything until morning but that didn’t stop everyone jumping at the ring of the phone, or the honk of a horn in the street below.
“I’m exhausted. I think I’ll go to bed.” Stephanie stood and stretched, pushing the bulge of her stomach against her loose top.
“Good night,” Garrett said. Rachel echoed it.
Dwight made an indistinct sound. He looked at his wife with such naked hunger and longing, Rachel was embarrassed. Even Garrett looked away.
Stephanie held out a hand. “Dwight, will you come with me?”
It was all Rachel could do not to laugh as Dwight just about fell over his own feet in his haste to accompany his wife.
“That looks promising,” Rachel said when they’d gone. She carried a stack of plates to the kitchen and began loading the dishwasher.
“Until Dad messes up again,” Garrett agreed. “Can I do something to help here?”
“Wipe the counters.” She put a yellow cleaning cloth in his hand. “Your dad’s not good at showing his love,” she admitted. “But it’s there. So long as Stephanie knows it, it doesn’t matter what other people think.”
“I guess.” Garrett was frowning. He gave the counter one last wipe, then put the cleaning materials away. “Come sit with me,” he said.
Rachel settled next to him on the sofa. He slung an arm along her shoulders, drawing her into him, then hit the remote control, so the room filled with mellow, louder than necessary jazz.
“Worried about overhearing your dad and Stephanie?” Rachel teased.
He shuddered, but didn’t deny it.
They sat like that for a while. As the music washed over her, Rachel’s eyes grew heavy. She stifled the first yawn, then didn’t have the energy to hold back the second. It was only nine o’clock, but she’d barely slept last night. Her eyelids drifted downward.
Dimly, she heard Garrett say her name. She wanted to reply, but her whole body felt so pleasantly lethargic, she couldn’t move.
Garrett’s voice again, amused this time. “So much for my plan to make out.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead.
Mmm, making out would have been nice. Though they should probably talk first. Rachel snuggled against him.
She awoke what felt like hours later to find the room in darkness. She was still on the sofa, lying on top of Garrett. Good grief, she could have suffocated him. As she pulled away, his arm clamped tighter around her, holding her in place.
Ah, well, if he didn’t mind, why disturb him? She settled her head against his chest, listened to the steady beat of his heart.
Mmm…
“You’re synchronizing your breathing to mine,” he murmured in her ear.
She started, and her head crashed into his nose. He cursed.
“Sorry,” she whispered, laughing.
“Sure you are.” One hand caressed her shoulder, tucked her bra strap back into her blouse. “Good night, sweetheart,” he murmured.
Her eyes flew open. He called me sweetheart. The even rhythm of his breathing told her he was sound asleep. Had he been awake when he said that?
Because I want to be his sweetheart.
Wondering whether they could get past their differences sufficiently to have a life together kept her awake even as Garrett seemed to slip deeper and deeper into slumber.
When the darkness turned to half-light, Rachel eased herself out of Garrett’s arms. He muttered something in his sleep, but otherwise didn’t stir.
She used the bathroom off his bedroom, then on her way back out noticed he’d dumped his briefcase on his bed.
His Brightwater pitch would be in there. The mystery pitch that he’d changed at the last minute.
Rachel hadn’t checked her phone since earlier in the evening, and now she wondered if Tony had been calling one of them to say they’d won.
She was suddenly desperate to know what his pitch looked like. One of them was going to win, and the other would be out of a job. If Garrett won, she would feel better if she agreed that his pitch was superior to hers.
It wouldn’t hurt to look, now that the pitches were over. Rachel felt only the tiniest twinge of guilt as she pulled out his laptop. She’d learned that, unlike her, Garrett employed digital storyboard artists. Not for him the bulky portfolio of pencil sketches.
She opened the laptop on the bed and knelt on the floor beside it. If Garrett had a password on his laptop, she would have foundered right there. But he didn’t, and within a minute she located his pitch files. Ah, there was the one she wanted, saved early this morning.
Rachel began scrolling through. Thirty seconds later, she stopped the presentation, went back to the beginning and watched again, reading it more carefully.
The campaign was a mini soap opera, to be told mainly on the internet, on sites like YouTube, but backed up with print and some outdoor. Similar to the movie Sliding Doors, the main character was shown living two alternate lives. In one life, she took out a student loan and went to college. In the other, she was scared of having a large debt, so she didn’t go to college and instead took a low-level clerical job. There was nothing heavy-handed about it—both version
s of the girl had interesting lives, highs and lows with their friends and families, but of course there was a subtle weighting in favor of college.
The noncollege girl tended to be whiny.
The college girl got the better guy.
It was brilliant. It was about Rachel.
Rachel closed the laptop.
“Snooping?” Garrett asked behind her.
Her stomach lurched. She sank down onto her heels, not ready to face him. “Yeah.”
She sensed caution in his approach.
“Rach, I need to explain.”
“You used me.” She turned around, scrambled to her feet. “Used my family and my life. I confided in you because I thought I mattered to you. That was private. It wasn’t up for grabs as pitch material.”
“Everything in life is pitch material,” he said. “I made sure it’s not readily identifiable as your story.”
“You used me.”
His gaze dropped. “I presented the very best pitch I could, Rach. That’s what it was about. You could have used your own story, but you were too scared.”
Beyond the window, the sun peeped over the horizon, giving the room a faint orange glow.
“Did you know I wouldn’t want you to use that material, or not?” she demanded.
A pause.
“Yes,” he said.
“How do you think my parents will feel when they see that?” she asked.
“Actually,” he said carefully, “they’re pretty excited about it.”
Rachel gaped. “They know?”
“Your dad was working night shift last night. I spoke to him on his cell. If Brightwater goes for this idea, there’ll be a decent fee in it for your parents. They’ve agreed to share some family stories that the campaign can draw on over time—their official title will be storyline consultants.”
Rachel reshuffled her thoughts in the light of that news. “I guess…that might not be so bad. You could pay them the fee conditional on them staying in New Jersey…”
“Rachel,” he said, “your dad’s going to use the money to buy his share of the hot-dog stand in Dayton.”
“What?” she shrieked. “You’re giving my parents money so they can move away? When you know what it means to me to have them stay?”
“It’s their choice, sweetheart,” he said gently.
“You jerk!” Rachel thumped him hard on the chest. It didn’t seem to affect him at all, but it gave her some relief. “I came here yesterday to tell you I wasn’t giving up on you. On us. That we could work through our obstacles.”
“Thank you.” He grabbed her hand, held it to his chest where she’d just hit him, relief breaking over his face like daylight. “Rach, you don’t know how happy I am to hear—”
“I was wrong!” she snapped. “I forgot that loyalty depends on trust. You betrayed me, Garrett. I was willing to fight to the death, you and me against anything the world could throw at us. But I can’t fight to the death against you. Not without dying.”
Something flashed across his face. Shock…comprehension. He finally understood what she was saying. What she’d offered him. What he’d done.
“Rachel, I’m sorry.” His voice was hoarse. “I didn’t think. Or rather, I did, but my thoughts were all out of whack.”
“No, mine were,” she said. “I thought you had it in you to be…someone else. I was wrong.”
“You were right,” he insisted. “Rachel, if I could do it over… Rach, I want to be that man. The one you can trust. Give me another chance.”
She shook her head.
“Sweetheart.” He tried to pull her into his arms, but she was as rigid as granite, silent and dry-eyed. “You’re the one who doesn’t give up. Don’t give up on us, Rachel.”
“Check your cell phone,” she said.
“What? Why?” Then he figured it out. “Let’s not do this now,” he said.
“I want you to check.” She finger-combed her hair, using the shaving mirror on his dresser. “I haven’t had any calls. At least, not from Tony.”
“Later,” he said.
But she wasn’t about to let it drop. In the end, Garrett pulled his phone from the side pocket of his laptop bag with a sense of dread. “Four messages.” He thumbed to the list of missed calls. “One from Tony.”
“Listen to it.” Her face was set.
He did.
“Garrett, it’s Tony.” His boss’s voice grated on his taut nerves. “Where the hell are you? I’ve just heard from Brightwater…”
Garrett listened to the end of the message. Then he deleted it.
“Well?” Rachel’s voice was thin.
“I won the pitch.” Crap. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to be,” she said briskly, even though the blood had drained from her face. “Well, I’d better go. Tony will be wanting to see me.”
“Don’t be dumb,” he said. “It’s five in the morning.”
She made a dashing movement with her hand. He noticed moisture in the corner of her eyes.
“Are you going to cry?” he asked, horrified.
“Not in front of you.” She smoothed down her rumpled skirt and tucked in her blouse. “Goodbye, Garrett.” She headed for the door.
Garrett had to stop her. He had no idea how; he’d never wanted to keep a woman in his life before. With one exception.
“My mother…” he said. The word rang in the dawn silence.
Slowly, Rachel turned around.
He was going to have to do this. He swallowed, drew a deep breath and said the words he never had before.
“It was my fifteenth birthday. She was in the store in New London, buying milk. Just buying milk. I was in the car outside.”
Rachel waited. At least she wasn’t leaving.
“It was a stroke—sudden, massive. Another customer came to get me from the car. I ran inside. She was still alive, but only for a minute.”
Rachel made a sound of distress.
“It was the most ordinary death. The storekeeper told me one minute she was standing at the cash register talking about the weather, and the next she was gone. Just that morning I heard I made the football team. I was waiting to announce it at dinner. She knew I was trying out, knew I was desperate to be on the team, but I never got to tell her I made it.”
His voice cracked. Because that line—I never got to tell her I made it—summed up everything he felt about his mother’s death.
“I got down with her on the floor,” he said. “I tried CPR. We’d just learned it in school, and then the paramedics kept going, but they couldn’t…” He ran a hand down his face. “I begged her, Rach, I begged her not to die.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
BEGGING NEVER WORKS.
Garrett heard quiet sobs. Rachel was crying. For him. Hell, he had tears in his own eyes.
“I shouldn’t…” He swallowed, closed his eyes. “I shouldn’t have waited. I should have told her. About the team. She would have been proud.”
Rachel took his hands. “She was proud of you, Garrett.”
He was somehow both nodding and shaking his head. His mom had been proud, but he’d wanted to give her more.
Rachel moved closer, until her arms were around him. It felt like the safest place in the world. “I know she was proud of you,” Rachel said, “because of what you told me about her. That whatever you chose, she supported you and wanted you to be the best you could be. She knew you wanted to play football, and she knew how hard you were working for it.”
Damn, now tears were streaming down his cheeks. He couldn’t talk, didn’t need to talk. But it seemed he needed to wash the grief out of his head.
Eventually, he took the crumpled tissue Rachel pulled from her pocket and wiped his face.
“Thank you,” he said.
She nodded. And took a step backward. Away from him. But…wasn’t she staying?
“I have to go,” she said.
“Rachel, no!” If she walked out now, she would never come back. He could
see it in her eyes.
“Garrett.” His father spoke from the doorway. He was wearing—ugh, he was wearing Stephanie’s peach terry-cloth robe.
“Uh, yeah?” Garrett was aware of Rachel taking another step away from him. He wanted to grab hold of her.
“The Pentagon just called. They got Lucas out.”
Joy welled inside Garrett. “Amazing. That’s fantastic. When can we talk to him?”
His father grinned, and he looked ten years younger. “He’s injured. They need to get him stabilized before they fly him home. They hope to ship him out in the next seventy-two hours.”
For once, Garrett didn’t object to his dad insisting on a more complicated way of saying “three days.”
“Will he be okay?”
Dwight’s face sobered. “His injuries are. Severe. But they’re confident he’ll recover.”
“That’s wonderful news,” Rachel said to Dwight. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Thank you, Rachel.” It finally seemed to dawn on Dwight that he’d interrupted something. “Uh, I’ll leave you kids to it.”
“No need,” Rachel said briskly. “I’m about to leave, myself. I have a million things to do today.”
“Rachel,” Garrett warned.
“Can you give Stephanie my best,” she asked Dwight.
“Rachel!” Garrett snapped.
She turned in the doorway. “Let it go, Garrett.”
And because Garrett didn’t know what else he could say, didn’t know what he could give her, he didn’t stop her. He couldn’t argue with his own advice.
A minute later, the front door closed.
And despite his father’s palpable joy and Garrett’s own relief, it felt as if someone had died.
* * *
“…AND SO KBC HAS NO choice but to let you go,” Tony said.
Rachel had just been fired. Tony had used the correct HR-speak—excess resources, redundancy, et cetera—but the outcome was the same. She’d lost her job.
She didn’t give a damn. She’d lost way too much already today for this to matter in the least.
