Forever Again

by Shannon Stacey

  Mia stopped pacing to look at her. “Because I figured you would flip out. I didn’t want you to think you’re not good enough or anything.”

  But I’m not, am I? Her eyes brimmed with tears that spilled over onto her cheeks when she tried to blink them away.

  “Did you tell him about me?” Mia demanded.

  “I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “Great.” Mia sat on the edge of the sofa.

  She leaned toward her arm of the couch. Her arms were folded in front of her chest, and she crossed the leg closest to her mother over her other knee. Gena had no trouble reading her body language. Keep your distance.

  “I called him once,” Mia continued. “His secretary wouldn’t let me talk to him unless I told her who I was, so I hung up. I thought I would know if he was the right guy if I heard his voice.”

  Pain squeezed Gena’s heart like an iron fist. How could she not know Mia had been searching for her father? She was her mother, yet she hadn’t even noticed the gaping hole in her daughter’s life. Had she been telling herself Mia was fine for all this time just to avoid having to deal with it?

  “So what now?” Mia demanded, hard-fought tears choking her voice. “What did Ms. Sinclair say when she found out you’re his ex-wife? What did he say when he saw you?”

  “He told me not to ruin her weekend. And she doesn’t know. We…we pretended we don’t know each other.”

  “What? How can you….” She stopped, shook her head. “Explain this to me again, Mom. You said he left before I was born because you guys didn’t know you were pregnant and then he was gone. Is that all there is to it? If I’m going to meet him I want to know everything.”

  Gena looked at her daughter and sighed. The girl was pale and trembling, her body a livewire of emotion. She wanted desperately to pull her onto her lap and stroke her blonde curls like she used to, but she kept her hands folded in her lap. She felt vulnerable—fragile—and she didn’t think she could take Mia pushing her away right now.

  “Travis and I got married because I was pregnant with you.”

  “But you said-”

  “Just let me tell it,” Gena interrupted, a little more sharply than she’d intended.

  She took a deep, calming breath. “We had sex one time, and I got pregnant. Our parents pressured us to get married. So we did.

  “About two weeks later he found a pair of my panties in the laundry. I’d had some spotting, which the doctor said was okay if I took it easy, and I was too sick to rinse them out right then.

  “But Travis found them and jumped to the conclusion that I was having my period, and that I faked the pregnancy to make him marry me. He threw the panties on the table and walked out. Today was the first day I’ve seen him since.”

  Mia rubbed her temples, digesting the information. “Why didn’t you tell him he was wrong? Why did you just let him leave?”

  “You can’t even begin to imagine how unhappy we were, Mia. He hated me so much for ruining his dreams. College, sports scholarships, a big career. It was all gone because of me. I always thought being married to Travis Ryan would be a dream come true, but it wasn’t. It was a nightmare. It was hell, Mia. And as tough as this situation is, you wouldn’t be any better off being raised by two parents who were so miserable.”

  “How do you know?” The shock was wearing off and Mia’s body shook with anger. “You could have gotten divorced and I could have lived with you and visited him on weekends and holidays like all the other kids do. He could have come to my school plays and my piano recitals. All the other kids…”

  Her words trailed off and she broke into tears, great heaving sobs that wracked her thin body.

  Gena pulled her daughter close and cried softly into her hair. “I’m so sorry, baby. I didn’t know you hurt this much. I was just a kid and I did what I thought was right.”

  Mia jerked back, her tear-soaked face angry. “You haven’t been a kid for a long time and you could have told me. You just didn’t want to share, so I lost my dad.”

  “Sweetie, I—”

  “I want you to go, Mom,” Mia said, and Gena thought her heart would shatter like cold glass. “I’m going to call Denise to come over and stay with me. I’ll call you tomorrow sometime.”

  “Mia—”

  “Please, Mom. I just need to think about all of this, okay? You need to understand that.”

  “I love you, Mia. No matter what else you think, you need to know that’s true. It’s the truest thing in my life.”

  “I love you too. I just want to figure this out by myself. Before you tell him.”

  * * * * *

  Travis sat deep in the shadows of the wraparound porch, his head back against the wicker rocker, a half-empty glass of scotch in his hand.

  When he found the scotch in the honeymoon suite he had decided a stiff drink and some fresh air would do him good. After listening to Kristen talk to her personal assistant on the telephone for almost an hour he realized she wouldn’t even know he was gone. So much for her vow to spend the weekend doing nothing but enjoying the inn.

  But here in the dark, where he thought he would dwell on his upcoming marriage, he found himself instead thinking about his ex-wife.

  Gena Taylor, he mused silently. She was the last person he ever thought he’d sit at a dining room table and have a conversation with. Once he relaxed he had actually enjoyed her company for a few minutes.

  And that disgusted him. She had almost ruined his life and there was no way he would forgive her for that just because he felt comfortable in her dining room—fifteen years later or not. That was her business, after all. As an innkeeper it was her job to make people feel at home—to feel like family. And deception was one thing she was very good at.

  The soft purr of the minivan’s engine broke into his thoughts. She was home. He had heard the van leave about an hour before, and he had hoped to be back in the suite before she got home so there would be no chance of bumping into her.

  She didn’t see him in the shadows, but when she stood under the light he saw that she had been crying. Was still crying, actually. Her head was bowed and her shoulders stooped, and for one crazy moment Travis felt an urge to comfort her.

  Just a hug, he told himself, but he was too smart to let himself act on it. Holding Gena in his arms wasn’t a good idea. He wasn’t sure if it was because he had good reason to hate her, or because his traitorous body seemed to have forgotten that good reason, but he knew his relationship with his ex had to stay strictly hands-off.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning, he had to admit that she made one heck of a breakfast.

  Kristen limited herself to a piece of fruit and a slice of dry toast while she chatted with two other guests. Travis feasted on blueberry pancakes with real New Hampshire maple syrup, eggs poached to perfection, and bacon fried to just the right degree of crispness.

  While he ate he kept an eye on Gena. He hated to admit it—even if only to himself—but her appearance worried him. Her face was puffy and her eyelids were heavy, and it was obvious she had been up all night crying.

  Travis knew it had something to do with wherever she’d gone last night, but he had no idea what it could be.

  A lovers’ quarrel, maybe? She didn’t wear a ring, and there was no evidence of a man about the house. None of the guests had mentioned anybody else. If there was a husband or boyfriend around, he probably would have been seen by now.

  Not that Travis cared. Gena’s personal life was none of his business. He may have been married to her once, but he barely knew her. And he didn’t want to get to know her any better.

  Just keep telling yourself that, he thought angrily. The amount of time Gena spent in his thoughts was beginning to disturb him. He wanted to pretend she didn’t even exist, but it wasn’t working. It took every ounce of willpower he had to not watch her while she refilled the large coffee urn.

  “I love this inn, Travis,” Kristen said when she had finished her dry toast and
the other guests were gone. “Did you see the roses?”

  “Yeah.” He sensed she was looking for more and smiled. “The roses are beautiful. But don’t you want to go somewhere warm? I’d rather just hop on a plane to some tropical island and bask in the sun. That’s what a honeymoon is supposed to be.”

  He saw Gena’s shoulders tense, and he wondered whether it was the talk of his marriage or his trying to talk Kristen out of the Riverside Inn that bothered her.

  It was a ridiculous question and he knew it. There was no reason for Gena to care if he got married. They were virtually strangers. But she knew that he was going to convince Kristen to choose a new location, so that didn’t make sense either.

  “I don’t want to go that far from the studio,” Kristen insisted. “This place is perfect. We’re having an autumn wedding, and the leaves are so beautiful in the fall here. As a matter of fact, I’ve decided to hold the ceremony here as well, not just the reception and our honeymoon. The wedding party can stay here, and the guests can stay at hotels in the area. It will be smaller—more intimate.”

  Gena held her breath, waiting for Travis’s reply. He had to see it was time to nip Kristen’s ideas in the bud. A party and honeymoon were one thing, but a man simply didn’t get married in his ex-wife’s house. That was a little too intimate.

  Travis said nothing, so Kristen continued, her voice making it clear that Travis should just smile and nod. “We’ll have a Justice of the Peace perform the ceremony outside under a canopy if the weather’s good, and in the front parlor if it’s not. Then we’ll have the reception, the guests will leave, and we’ll spend a few days in that beautiful suite—with that amazing bathtub.”

  The suggestion in her voice put Gena’s teeth on edge. It was quite clear what Kristen meant by that, and she didn’t want to hear about it—much less allow it.

  There is no way I’m going to let this happen. She turned, ready to speak, but Travis’s look stopped her. He shook his head slightly, and she got a perverse sense of pleasure out of knowing he was scared she would blurt out the truth.

  Maybe it was because she was so tired. Half the night she spent tossing and turning, replaying again and again her conversation with Mia. There were so many things she should have said and done differently. Not just last night, but for the last fifteen years. And she didn’t know how to fix it.

  The other half of the night she’d spent thinking about the man sleeping under her roof. When she was younger she would lie awake at night, picturing Travis’s face—imagining his voice. She had fantasized about doing things she knew so little about, always with him.

  The reality had been very different from the fantasy, and that’s what Gena kept telling herself. But it didn’t stop his face from filling her mind at all hours since his arrival.

  “We don’t have to decide right now,” Travis said, pushing his empty plate away.

  Gena smiled at him. They both knew the wedding would take place anywhere but in New Hampshire, but there was no reason she couldn’t make him sweat a little. “You should decide soon if you have your heart set on an autumn wedding. When all the leaf-peepers come up to see the foliage we fill up quickly. You’ve already left it pretty late as it is.”

  “I think I’ve made up my mind,” Kristen said, and Travis glared at Gena. “I know I have, actually. I’ll need to spend some time contacting local caterers and florists, of course, but I’ll give you a deposit before we leave tomorrow.”

  “Doesn’t my opinion count?” Travis asked in a voice that was probably meant to sound joking, but came out angry.

  “Of course not,” Kristen said firmly. “Everybody knows it’s the bride’s day. And since this is the first wedding for both of us, it should be really special.”

  Gena felt a sharp pang of guilt. Hastily she grabbed the tray she used to carry the dirty dishes and went into the kitchen. She already knew Kristen didn’t know about their marriage, but somehow hearing her gush about first weddings made her feel dirty and deceitful.

  Well, it’s not my place to tell her. When Travis showed up at City Hall with a divorce decree with her name on it they could fight it out between themselves.

  The phone rang and Gena dropped the tray on the table with a clatter and grabbed the receiver. Please be Mia…please… “Hello?”

  “Good morning, my name is Tim, and I’d like to save you money on your next long-distance calling bill.”

  Gena hung up the phone without saying a word, her eyes filling up with tears. She just wanted to know how she was doing. Mia said she would call, and she was trying so hard to respect that, but if her daughter didn’t talk to her soon she was going to have a nervous breakdown.

  She knew their relationship would survive this. Mia was just hurt and angry and she had every right to be. But they would get through it together, just as they always had.

  Right now she was anxious to know what Mia had decided to do about Travis. Did she want to meet her father? Would she wait until he went back to Boston and call him when Kristen wasn’t likely to be around? What would they do if Mia just came home and introduced herself to them?

  Pain throbbed in Gena’s temples and she wished she could just hide in the kitchen until Travis Ryan and his fiancée went away. Then she and her daughter could go back to their regularly scheduled lives.

  * * * * *

  “Why don’t you go for a walk or something?” Kristen said when Travis pushed back from the table. “I want to make some calls—try to get recommendations for the local services we’ll need.”

  “You can do that from Boston,” Travis said, hooking his arms around her waist and pulling her close. “This weekend is supposed to be about relaxing and spending time with each other.”

  She flinched her shoulder in a very subtle, too familiar brush-off. “No, this weekend is about not leaving wedding details until the last minute. You heard Gena—I’ve already waited too long as it is.”

  He looked down at her face, each feature perfect in its own right, and stunning when taken all together. But he didn’t like this look. He hated the cold and demanding green gaze, the perfectly arched brow. When her lips tightened, no amount of makeup could hide the lines that formed around her mouth.

  It was a look that said I’m somebody and you will do what I want. And it was a look he saw often. If she wanted Thai and he wanted pizza. If he wanted to stay in when she had opera tickets. Pouting was not for Kristen Sinclair.

  Imperious, he thought. That’s the word that best described her. And he wasn’t in the mood for it.

  “Fine. You do whatever you want. Spend the whole damn weekend on the phone if you want to. But don’t think I’m going to be right here watching TV, waiting for your summons.”

  “Where are you going?”

  Travis paused at the door. “You told me to go for a walk.”

  “Don’t be gone long.” She had realized her mistake too late.

  He didn’t answer, but the stained glass shook in the door when he closed it behind him.

  The hot sun and fragrant summer breeze washed over him, soothing his raw nerves and he immediately regretted losing his temper. He thought about going back to soothe her ruffled feathers, but she no doubt already had her cell phone pressed to her ear.

  A walk would do him good right now anyway. He had plenty to think about, and he wasn’t really in the mood to deal with either of the women in the house.

  It was a short walk to downtown along the river. Flowers lined the sidewalk, no doubt planted and tended by a committee made up of the town’s older ladies. The houses and lawns along the way were all well kept.

  Main Street was lined on both sides by blocks of old, intricately detailed brick buildings, each of which housed several businesses. He wasted some time in the gift shops, then the gallery showcasing local artisans.

  It was hard for Travis to believe fifteen years had passed since he’d seen the town. Very little had changed. There was a new gas station at the end of the block, and a video rental
store that he wished had been there when he was a kid. But Frank Castille was still cutting hair and Smitty’s no doubt still served up the best breakfasts for a hundred miles.

  Travis bought an ice cream cone at the corner store, something he hadn’t done in a very long time. If he was going to be forced to walk down memory lane, at least he could enjoy himself a little. A new park had been built to house the town’s old statues, and he sat on a granite bench to watch the people go by.

  It was a charming little town, full of people who knew almost everything about each other. A place where the people who lived on either side of you were truly neighbors.

  But not a good town to get married in. He refused to let that thought darken his renewed good spirits. He’d find a way to convince Kristen that the Riverside Inn was not a good choice for their wedding and reception, and certainly not for their honeymoon. Maybe he’d just put his foot down and say no.

  He didn’t need an excuse. Regardless of what Kristen thought, it was his wedding, too. He just wished she hadn’t pointed out that it was the first wedding for each of them. Not correcting her might only be a lie of omission, but it was still a lie. He didn’t like being dishonest with her.

  And thoughts of dishonesty brought him back to Gena. He had noticed that mischievous sparkle in her eyes when she disputed his claim that they didn’t need to decide right away. She knew they wouldn’t be getting married at the Riverside Inn. He’d made that very clear, and she had agreed. Still, she had him scared there for a second, and one look at her face told him she had done it purposely just to make him suffer.

  Where was that fire fifteen years ago? Maybe it had always been there, and he had just been too young and too stupid to see it. It was hard for him to believe that such a captivating woman had been concealed under the baggy clothes and bad haircuts.

  That thought shook him so badly he almost dropped his ice cream. Did he really think she was captivating?

  Yes, he acknowledged grudgingly. Gena Taylor was captivating. She was beautiful and intelligent, and she didn’t feel the need to make herself look artificial. He only wished he’d seen it sooner. About fifteen years sooner, because now it was too late. Tomorrow night he would get in the car and exit her life again.