“I don’t want it,” Rachel said. “It’s yours.”
“You think I care about a few pieces of paper?” he scoffed. “Have we met?”
She laughed softly and gestured for him to follow her inside.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” he replied, shaking his head. “I just came to give you this back.”
Her stomach grew tight. This was it. He didn’t want anything to do with her anymore. “Was it that bad?”
“Oh, I didn’t read it.” He reached over and shoved it purposefully in her purse, his hand grazing lightly along her arm as he did. The tiny brush of his fingers against her skin was full of electricity she knew they both felt. But still he pulled away.
“You didn’t read it?” Rachel was confused. Her body was confused. Why had he come all this way if he only meant to toy with what tiny bit of self-respect she had left? “Then why are you here?”
“Tell me.” Without any sort of warning or invitation, he dropped to the ground, sprawling himself on her front lawn and looking up at the sky with his head in his hands. He looked like he intended to stay there awhile. “Tell me what’s so important about the file that I don’t already know.”
Unsure what else to do, Rachel stood over him, gawking. “It’s everything. Nora was as thorough with me as she was with you—more so, really, because she had time to get to know me as a person.”
“Okay, then. Start at the beginning. And sit down. You’re blocking my sun.”
“There isn’t any sun.”
“Quit arguing and talk.”
There didn’t seem any way to counteract that statement, so she sat next to him, busying her fingers by playing with the short, newly emerging grass. This was her chance—she knew that.
Michael was giving her a second chance, that forgiving and generous gift he gave just about every person he’d ever met.
“There’s my family stuff,” she ventured, ripping harder at the grass. “You know, my mom dragging us all over the country on her shows, no stable father figure, no real home until we were teenagers. All that.”
His hand reached out and stilled hers. “Yes. It’s all very Freudian, I’m sure.”
She swallowed heavily. “And then there’s my dating life.”
“Anything good?” He leaned up on one arm and looked at her much too intently for her tastes. But she didn’t look away. She would give him this, no matter what it cost her.
“Not really. I dated Dominic for a while back in college—did you know about that?”
“Yeah. It’s not that hard to tell. Frankly, I’m a little disappointed.”
She frowned. “You are?”
He reached out and chucked her chin. “Dominic? Your nerdy English professor? C’mon, Rach. You could have done a lot better than that. A frat boy or two. Maybe even a sorority girl.”
Despite herself, Rachel laughed. “I liked the power it gave me. It was like I was better than the rest of the class, the secret lover he chose above everyone else.”
Michael nodded. “That makes sense. What else?”
She blew out a heavy breath. “Are you sure you don’t just want to read it?”
“Rachel,” he warned, and there were layers of meaning in his voice.
She set her jaw firmly and launched right into it, afraid if she stopped or halted, he would give up and walk away. Suddenly, that seemed so much worse than opening her heart and just letting it all spill out.
So she spilled.
Rachel didn’t think she’d ever spoken so much to one person at one time before. On the stage, before an audience, she could talk for hours. It was easy to give voice to someone else’s deep emotions, perfected through verse and time. Her own feelings were stilted and uncertain, and her breath kept hitching whenever she got on the subject of Molly.
“And in the file,” she added, “all Nora seemed to take note of was that I was cold and distant and kept pushing people away. At first, I thought she was just being mean, or that she didn’t see my true intentions. But it was true—I know that now.” Rachel sniffled. She turned her watery eyes on Michael. There was no point in hiding the tears anymore. “I couldn’t handle the emotional side of things when we lost Lily, so I focused on everything else. Molly’s actions, my actions, what we could do differently this time around. I wanted to keep her away from men like her ex. Who am I kidding? I wanted to protect her from men in general. And I kept pushing and pushing until I forgot what was really important.”
“Which was?” he asked, sitting up.
It was the first time he’d spoken during her whole outpouring.
“That I love my sister.”
“And was that in the file?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, Michael. Not Eric. Not Nick. Not Molly. Not—”
He drew in a sharp breath but didn’t move, his eyes trained expectantly on her face. No—on her lips. He was waiting to hear what she had to say next.
She said it. “Not you. I especially didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He nodded once, firmly, and sprang to his feet. His movements were stiff, his bad leg held out straight in front of him. “Okay, then. Thank you.”
She got up too, her movements fast and just as lacking in grace. “Wait—that’s it? You’re going?”
He couldn’t go. That wasn’t how this was supposed to work. She’d never felt so raw, so exposed. Wasn’t this the part where he rubbed her belly and told her it would all be okay? Wasn’t this when a strong kiss from a man like Michael transformed her? The power of love and all that?
“Yep. I got what I came for.” He didn’t even look back over his shoulder as he moved down the drive. “I’ll see you at practice tomorrow, right?”
“Of course,” she called back, but he was already getting into his car and turning the key to grind the engine into action.
Strangely enough, the sight of his taillights dragging in the distance, so much between them still so unresolved, didn’t make her feel sad.
For the first time in a long time, she felt free.
It was a funny thing about apologies. Once she started, Rachel didn’t seem able to stop.
She apologized to her mailman for not giving him a Christmas gift that year, something she’d intended to do but kept putting off until it was too late and the New Year glitz wore away. He looked at the twenty-dollar Starbucks card with a puzzled frown for a full minute before finally nodding and smiling.
“Thanks, Miss Hewitt,” he said, tucking it into his pocket. “I appreciate the gesture. And tell that sister of yours not to worry—I turned in her change of address form, and she should be getting her mail forwarded to the new house soon.”
Rachel promptly burst into tears.
It was a funny thing about crying too. No amount of self-control could keep the waterworks from bursting through at the worst possible times.
She also apologized to Dominic—thankfully without the tears, though there was a moment in his office, when he shook her hand and thanked her for coming to see him, that things had been looking decidedly misty.
The third apology was the hardest one, and Rachel’s feet and heart both filled with lead at the prospect of it. But it had to be done, and she told herself with resolution that even the worst of Eric’s rage was no worse than the feeling she got every time she looked in a mirror.
“Molly doesn’t want to see you,” he said curtly, shutting the front door firmly behind him as he stepped onto his front porch.
Rachel took a deep breath. She was going to need all of her strength to make it through this. “I’m not here to see Molly, actually,” she said, forcing herself to look Eric in the eye. Even though the deep contours of his face were hardened with a cold hatred directed entirely at her, she realized he wasn’t a bad-looking man. He had on light sweatpants and a sweatshirt with a sports logo, his feet shoved into slippers that looked as old as Sammy. The worn lines around his mouth were borne of laughter, and there was a smudge of what looked like chocola
te along his jaw. Together, the details made a pretty endearing picture, the picture of a man who didn’t need much beyond his family to feel content in his own home.
She hesitated. How had she missed the endearing parts of him?
“Then why are you here?” He crossed his arms over the logo of a bulldog’s face, which looked much more cheerful than he did.
Rachel forced herself to focus on the endearing side.
“I want to tell you how sorry I am.” She held up a quick hand when he began to turn on his heel. “Please. I know you don’t owe me anything, but I just need a minute.”
His eyelids lowered ominously, but he stopped turning. “You have sixty seconds.”
She didn’t plan on wasting a single one. “No matter what you all think of me, you have to know that everything I’ve done for the past year of my life has been to protect Molly. The spying, the lying, the overbearing act—I’m not proud of it, but my heart was always in the right place.”
“This apology sucks.”
“Let me finish, Eric. Please.” He made a slight motion with his hand, so she continued. “And even though I know you probably don’t want to hear this, I would do most of it again. Maybe I would take a different approach, but I won’t ever apologize for trying to keep Molly safe and for doing it the only way I knew how. She’s everything to me.”
“It’s not getting any better.”
She ground her teeth. “I know it’s not. What I’m trying to say is that I would descend pretty far for Molly—that I have descended pretty far for her. But nothing I’ve ever done for her is even a tenth of what you’ve done for Nick.”
Finally, he softened. Finally, his arms dropped to his sides.
“I won’t ever be able to make up for sending him to jail, and I’m not going to pretend that anything I say or do will make a difference in the road he has ahead of him—the road you all have ahead of you. But you have to know that I’m truly sorry for getting in the way of your undeniable right to protect him. I’m truly sorry for preventing you from doing the exact same thing I would have done in your situation.”
She stopped, and silence descended on them with the kind of awkwardness Rachel had spent her entire life trying to avoid. If groveling was her life now, she had a feeling she’d have to get used to it.
“Okay,” he said finally, breaking the spell. “Thank you.”
He turned to leave.
“Wait,” Rachel cried, placing her hand on his sleeve as he reached for the doorknob. He stared at her but didn’t shake her off. “Thank you,” she said lamely.
“For what?”
For listening. For letting her apologize. For loving Molly. “You take good care of her, okay?”
He lifted her hand then, ending the conversation and, it seemed, her place in his life. “Good night, Rachel,” he said as he shut the door behind him.
It wasn’t her most successful apology of the day by far.
But it was progress, and that was enough.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Her Infinite Variety
Michael walked into practice the next day with a purpose in his step and a kilt wrapped around his waist. He had several more kilts in the same pattern of green and black in his hands, and he tossed them at the members of the team one by one.
“Put them on.”
“Are these our uniforms for this year?” McClellan asked, holding his up. It was enormous. “Sweet. We’re going bare-chested too, right? Rachel included?”
“Subtle,” she muttered, but Michael handed her a clear plastic-wrapped kilt of her own, his hand pressing against hers. “Do I really have to do this in a skirt?”
“We’re Team Win,” Michael announced. “We may never actually win, but we are always the best-dressed team at the Top Warrior Race. Kilts on.”
The guys dropped trouser right there in the field, deftly pinning and adjusting the crisp woolen material around their waists. Rachel shielded her eyes and made her way behind the bleachers, where there was at least a hint of privacy.
To her surprise, Molly followed. The girls were with a sitter, so it was just her today, the two of them alone together for the first time in weeks.
Rachel missed that.
“You need a hand getting it on?”
“Um…sure,” Rachel said, hope pinging in her throat. It might not have been a lot to anyone else, but it was everything to her. They’d always helped each other with tricky zippers and fasteners in the past. It was a small thing, a sisterly thing.
She ripped open the plastic and held up the kilt, and things never felt better than when both she and Molly burst into laughter.
“Is he kidding with this?”
“I think that might fit Pris if we tried really hard to squeeze her in,” Molly agreed. “You have to put it on, though. He’s going to die when he sees you in it.”
“Who? Michael?” Rachel felt absurdly pleased.
Molly nodded and grew silent. She paused a beat before saying, “Eric told me you went to the hearing.”
“He was pissed.”
Molly shrugged and wrapped the tiny scrap of fabric around Rachel’s waist. “He also said you came by last night.”
“I did.”
Molly moved behind her, her hands working efficiently at Rachel’s waist. She wished she would stop fussing. Rachel wasn’t able to see Molly’s face as her sister asked, “Why didn’t you come in?”
There wasn’t an ounce of self-pity in her as Rachel admitted the one fear she’d had that was greater than facing Eric. “I wasn’t sure you’d ever want to see me again.”
“Oh, Rach.”
They stopped their motions and faced one another, both of them full of words, neither one sure where to start. Rachel forced herself to speak first, determined to reduce any and all strain on her sister. She’d been through enough.
She took Molly’s hands in her own and squeezed, looking into the gray eyes that weren’t hers, but might as well have been. “Please tell me you know how sorry I am. Please tell me you know I was just trying to protect you.”
Her sister ignored her and took in her handiwork.
The kilt was secured into place with a giant circular pin. It fit her hips but barely cleared her ass. And from the looks of it, the top was worse, a bandeau of the same fabric that was clearly meant to look like a bikini.
“Sheesh, Rachel. Your abs are amazing,” Molly said, watching as Rachel pulled off her shirt and changed into the rest of the ridiculous costume. Her hand reached out to trace a pattern of lines that Rachel was proud to call at least a four-pack.
“You try working out under Michael’s watch for a few weeks and see what happens,” Rachel joked. Before she could stop herself or overanalyze the gesture, she reached out and placed a hand on Molly’s stomach. “But I think your tummy is looking a lot cuter these days.”
It was. A slight swelling was evident on days like today, when Molly’s tank top stretched tight over her abdomen. Rachel could even see the little indentation of her belly button pushing out.
Molly placed a hand over Rachel’s. “It seems so big already. The doctor says that happens a lot with second pregnancies.”
Rachel’s hand dropped.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t excited before,” she said quietly. “You deserve this happiness more than anybody I know, and I tried to take it away from you. I don’t have any good excuse for my actions except to say that I was scared. I’m still scared.”
“Of what? Eric?”
Rachel shrugged. “Yes and no. Maybe not him, but what he represents. Do you know how much it hurt me when you lost Lily? Do you know how hard it’s been for me watching you falling into the same patterns time and time again?”
“No.” Molly frowned. “How could I? You never said.”
Rachel took a deep breath— the only way she knew how to keep standing. So much of her life had been spent not saying the things that needed to be said. She’d always thought it was better to concentrate on what needed t
o be done, rather than address the intangible, messy emotions that Lily’s death left behind.
They never talked, she and Molly. Not about the things that mattered.
And now she couldn’t seem to shut up.
“I’m saying it now. I only wanted to keep you safe. I only wanted to make sure you don’t have to feel like that again. Our whole lives, it’s been my job to protect you, Molly. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to turn that off.”
“It’s never going to go away, you know. The pain of it.” Molly’s voice was surprisingly clear. Odd, when Rachel was having such a hard time speaking around the lump in her throat. “You can’t make feelings go away, Rachel, no matter how hard you try. That’s always been your problem. You think if you work hard enough at it, they’ll just disappear.”
“I don’t think that now.” She didn’t. It felt like every emotion she’d ever had was coming roaring to life inside her, and she had to sort through each one like it was brand new.
“Did you know I talked to Mom yesterday?” Molly asked, giving Rachel’s hand a warm squeeze.
“Oh.” That couldn’t be good. Rachel had officially registered her for a six-month stay at a facility on the coast, some fancy converted bed-and-breakfast that overlooked Puget Sound and promised daily serenity. It had taken every last penny in her bank account, but she’d done it. Six months. The exact length of Nick’s sentence, which had come through that morning. It seemed a lifetime—and not nearly long enough to begin making the reparations she owed them both. “How did she sound?”
“Not happy,” Molly admitted. “But I think she might be willing to give it a try. Do you need help paying for it—you know, now that you’re moving to New York and all?”
“Nah.” Rachel shook her head, trying to cover her sudden flush of color. Remembering, she stopped, letting Molly see her face. “I signed back on with Shakespeare After Dark yesterday—even managed to convince Dominic my Bloom review was worth a raise. A big one.”
“You did?” Molly’s eyes widened.
“I did,” Rachel admitted. “I decided I wanted to be here this time to watch your belly—and that baby—grow. As much as you’ll let me, anyway. Is that okay?”
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