His Darling Bride (Echoes of the Heart #3)

by Anna DeStefano

  “To Dru and Brad.” Selena raised her slice in a toast.

  “To the bride and groom,” everyone chimed in, eyes misty with their hopes and dreams for their friend and sister’s future.

  Dru sniffled. “I think I need a handful of those pills.” She wiped her eyes and patted her rounded belly. “The second trimester’s supposed to be calmer than the first. But I keep watering up about absolutely nothing at all. I’m happy, I’m sad, I’m excited, I’m a total brat . . . Whatever I’m feeling, I always wind up crying. It’s infuriating.”

  Bethany’s never-let-the-world-get-her-down sister looked radiant, not furious. And so much in love with the life she and Brad were starting together, it was impossible every time Bethany saw Dru not to believe that the same could happen for her if she wanted it badly enough.

  Ginger plucked a bag of assorted Jelly Bellies from her tote and handed them to Dru. “Heavy on the buttered popcorn and cotton candy.”

  “Another mommy-friendly cocktail coming up,” Bethany said. “Selena, you fire up the porn.”

  “Score!” Dru dug into her candy while Leigh snagged the bride her second slice of pizza.

  Bethany headed to the kitchen. The opening music to An Affair to Remember kicked off on the DVD player. She smiled, reminding herself how lucky she was. And that, especially tonight, she had no business worrying about Mike and how sparks flew every time they saw each other.

  You sure you can’t make Mike an exception to your no-dating rule?

  “Forget the sparks,” she scolded herself as she made Dru’s drink.

  Sure, their instant connection had come out of nowhere. But why was she making such a big deal about it? He was a nice guy, having some fun his first few days in town. If he’d wanted to have fun with her, fine. If the goodbyes they’d said today meant the fun was over, fine. It was no big f-ing deal.

  She had to stop overthinking things and people, as if the entire world were a threat she had to constantly be on guard against. She finally had happiness within her grasp. Warm, close nights like tonight, with people who cared about her laughing in the other room, waiting for her to join them. What did it matter whether some cowboy she’d kissed had felt the same things she did?

  Tonight was the magic she’d been searching for all her life. She had the family she’d fought so hard to get back to. It was time to finally, completely, let them all the way in.

  You can’t give up on love, Bethany. Remember that.

  “I’m not sure how long I’m staying this time, Mom,” Mike said over his cell phone. “A few weeks. Maybe a month. My service is replacing someone last-minute who had an unexpected family emergency. The guy already had a furnished apartment in town lined up to rent and a preliminary site visit scheduled for today.”

  “Can’t someone else do it?” A resigned sigh said that Livy Taylor already knew the answer.

  “I’m happy to help.”

  “As long as it’s not your family you’re helping.”

  “I help a lot of families, Mom.” Mike was years past engaging in Olivia Taylor’s passive-aggressive insistence that he move back to New York permanently. “Including you and Dad.”

  “But the foundation’s charity gala—”

  “Isn’t until Christmas. And—”

  “It will take months to cultivate the interest and donations we’re needing for a silent auction this important.”

  “George and I are already looking into which pieces to send.”

  “That’s wonderful, darling,” his mother fake-praised, turning up the charm—ignoring his mention of the family friend who’d been with them at Jeremy’s bedside the day he passed. “But you know we’ll need details and images as soon as you can get them to us, and—”

  “You’ll have them.”

  “And this would be the perfect time for you to take a public role in a foundation event. Get your feet wet working with the board directly on the auction. Your brother would be so proud if he knew you were pitching in personally to help other families who’ve—”

  “Been through what ours has,” Mike finished for her.

  Nudging up the brim of his hat with his knuckles, he turned off Main Street onto Maple, heading for Bellevue Lane.

  “I’ll frame something high-dollar donors can’t refuse.” Even if the only people who’d appreciate the significance of the grouping would be him and George. “We’ll email high-res images once they’re framed and matted. The grouping will bring the donations you need. But you know that’s all I can do.”

  It wasn’t Mike’s first contribution to the family business—to honor his brother, not to please his parents. Years ago he’d made his position clear to Olivia and Harrison Grover Taylor III. If they ever reneged on keeping his involvement anonymous, he’d sever his final ties to their posh, status-obsessed Manhattan lives.

  “But we could get so much more interest in your donation if people finally knew—”

  “You won’t need more interest. If the city was embroiled in a natural disaster, you’d manage to charm press coverage for one of your shindigs.”

  “But putting a face and a name to the mysterious fine-art photographer HMT? We’d have super donors eating out of our hands. It could fund years’ worth of programs and scholarships and projects in honor of your brother’s battle. We’d earmark some of the money for the initiatives you’ve insisted we start. Revealing the identity of a celebrated contemporary photographer would turn this year’s gala into the event of the—”

  “You and Dad turned my brother’s disease and his death into a crusade that consumed the last of his and my childhoods. You were at it even after he died, trying to orchestrate a press interview bedside. He was a twenty-five-year-old man. My brother. Your son. Not a photo op. And I’m not sacrificing any more of my life to your obsession.”

  “We’re fighting for a cure.” His mother’s tone slipped closer to tears—or fury, with Livy it was impossible to tell the difference—as the fight she and Mike had had countless times took its nastiest turn. Her vowels had reclaimed the Brooklyn accent she’d shed when she married into her husband’s moneyed world. “We’re fighting just as hard as Jeremy did.”

  “And I’ve supported you financially whenever you’ve asked.” Through JHTF, the Jeremy Harrison Taylor Foundation. “But this philanthropic carnival you and Dad have been on for decades isn’t right. Half the money you raise goes back out the door to pay for your next glitzy event. Not to fund research or testing trials or legislation that would stop cystic fibrosis from taking more kids and young men and women away from their families.”

  His mother grew silent.

  A different son—a younger him—might have worried he’d hurt her feelings. Mike knew better. Livy was an unrelenting, competitive survivor, wrapped up in the luxurious trappings of a socialite’s beauty and breeding. His disappointment in what JHTF had become couldn’t make a dent in her drive to do and have more than her contemporaries.

  “So we’ll see you whenever we see you,” she finally said, “same as always. Why did you call, then? Georgina could have contacted us about this year’s donation. She usually does, after you’ve disappeared somewhere, lugging your cameras to godforsaken places where no one can reach you. Or because you’re working odd jobs in a medical specialty you insisted on pursuing but hardly ever practice. You spent three years earning a four-year degree and more time getting your certification. But you can’t stay in one place long enough to even devote yourself to that seriously. It’s all so disappointing. You have so much potential, Michael. There’s no limit to what you could become if you’d stop blaming your father and me for everything and get on with living your life instead of avoiding it.”

  “I don’t blame anyone.”

  Not even his parents, for seeing him as a vagabond squandering his potential to give them a prestigious career or job title to brag about at parties.

  “And I called because . . .” Mike wasn’t up to coming straight out and mentioning that today was the a
nniversary of Jeremy’s death. “I guess I wanted to hear your voice.”

  There was no point in him returning to New York full-time. Forging an adult relationship with his parents had never been in the cards. But he’d missed them—or at least the family he wished he and his parents and brother had been—every day since Mike had left, the morning after Jeremy’s funeral.

  “It’s good to hear your voice, too.” The real emotion behind Livy’s admission gutted Mike.

  He looked around him as he drove, at the peaceful, everyday normalcy of Chandlerville. Jeremy, sick and all, would have loved growing up in a community like this.

  “If your service got you to move to Podunk last minute,” his mother cajoled, “can’t they replace you? Come up here for a while if you need a break. You can always go back to this hobby of yours later.”

  “Helping people rehab isn’t a hobby for me, Mom.”

  Of all the things he’d done since moving away from his parents’ elite, superficial lives, he was most proud of becoming a physical therapist. Getting his PT degree, training for his certification in cardiovascular and pulmonary rehabilitation, had quite simply saved him after he’d helplessly watched his big brother suffer for so long. He only took a couple of clients a year, working a few months at a time. But each placement was a priceless opportunity. A reminder that he could make a difference, even if staying in one place for long had never worked out for him.

  “I can do good things here,” he told his mother.

  “Good things”—Livy’s voice grew cold, the way it did at some point during each call—“that keep you as far away from your father and me and your brother’s memory as you can get.”

  “I keep Jeremy’s memory alive my way.” Grieving his brother was the one thing left that Mike and his parents had in common. “You and Dad focus on keeping the foundation going.”

  “I hear you’re showing an interest in JHTF’s Developing Artist grant,” his mother said, confirming his suspicion that she would catch wind of the information he’d asked for. “I’m confused, though, about what George wants from the grant director.”

  Mike braked at a stop sign and thumped his head against the back of his seat.

  “Just some information about the scholarship program.” He pulled to the curb of a sprawling two-story home set back from the street beneath a cluster of live oaks. “It’s no big deal.”

  Now, this yard—he looked around and smiled—this yard was a big deal. The trees’ limbs and leaves shaded the front yard and the home’s roof, dappling everything with drops of sunlight. Who would have thought that something as . . . charming as this and the other houses on the street could exist only twenty miles from bustling, ever-expanding Atlanta.

  “Let me go,” he said. “I’m at my appointment.”

  “I don’t suppose I have a choice.”

  No, I don’t suppose you do. “Once we have the prints for you, George’ll get a patron newsletter out to drive bidders to the auction. I’m sure the gala will be another fabulous page-six success.”

  “Yes . . .” Livy said, her tone distant, lifeless. “Just promise me . . .”

  Mike braced himself for more of her litany of complaints.

  Promise me you won’t settle down somewhere away from us for good. Promise you’ll get all this nonsense you’re doing out of your system one day, and you’ll come back to your life here. Don’t make a mess of what you could become, because you can’t let go of your brother.

  “Just promise me that you’re making yourself happy,” she said instead. “We haven’t heard you truly happy in so long, even after that last crazy trip of yours to photograph an active volcano.”

  Mike gripped the steering wheel.

  A parent’s concern wasn’t supposed to sting, because you couldn’t trust it to be genuine.

  “I am happy, Mom,” he said out of habit. “Why don’t you and Dad plan to come down after the gala? For New Year’s, maybe. I’ll be done with this contract by then. You can see up close what I’ve started in the city. Understand what I do a little better. Maybe we can head out somewhere beautiful after that. There are a couple of spots in the North Georgia mountains Jeremy would have loved. We could—”

  “Darling, your father and I couldn’t possibly. You know how it is. There are too many people depending on us here. Things get more hectic every year.”

  Mike knew exactly how it was.

  He rubbed at the pulse throbbing like an ice pick behind his temple.

  “I’ll let George know she’ll be hearing back from the grant director,” he said as several kids raced through the front yard of the house he’d parked in front of.

  They headed around the corner toward the back of the place—three boys and a girl, laughing and chasing one another, not a care in the world, effortlessly active in a way Mike’s brother had never known.

  “Of course, darling,” his mother said. “We’re happy to give you whatever you need.”

  Right.

  “I love you, Mom. I’ll touch base once the pieces are ready to ship. I’m sorry I missed Dad. Tell him I love him, too.”

  “I will.” The line dropped without Livy returning the sentiment.

  Mike tossed his cell onto his Jeep’s dash.

  The kids ran back around to the front yard, kicking a soccer ball now. The young slip of a girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, stole the ball and then trapped it, darting away, giving the guys a run for their money, making them hustle before she passed it over. And then she stole it again.

  Mike chuckled, feeling the tension of talking with his mother ease. The kids’ good-natured grudge match could likely be heard through open windows up and down the block, while parents and neighbors smiled at the happy sounds of childhood and sunshine and free time. The moment made him think of Bethany and her friends and family.

  He’d bet the lot of them squabbled often, just like the kids playing on the lawn. Getting into one another’s way. Causing unfiltered mayhem and loving every second of it. Meanwhile, George was the closest thing to real family that Mike could call his own now.

  He sincerely believed in the work his parents were doing—the parts of it that actually resulted in helping people. But he wouldn’t call their strained, long-distance connection or his brief pilgrimages back to New York each year a real relationship. He’d filled his life instead with the things and places he’d promised Jeremy he’d keep discovering. And he was lucky to have the chance. To have had his brother’s inspiration in his life for as long as he had.

  Nodding, smiling at the idyllic scene beyond his windshield, he put New York out of his mind. He slipped off his hat and refocused on the rewarding afternoon of work ahead. Walking around to the curb side of his Jeep, he dragged out the duffel that was large enough to carry all he’d need for a preliminary site visit.

  Beyond taking a blood pressure reading and checking basic vital signs, a lot of what he’d do today would be asking questions and getting the lay of the land. Deciding where it would be best to hold sessions. Getting to know the patient and his environment and immediate family enough to be sure Mike was a fit, and for him to formulate a high-level rehab plan before his next visit. Next time they’d delve more deeply into analyzing the patient’s physical and mental state, beyond the medical history Mike had received from MedCare. This was a get-to-know-you visit, a baseline that every other session would build on.

  The kids’ roving scrimmage blocked his path to the house. He dropped his duffel, content to watch. Instinct had him digging the cell he’d reclaimed from the dash out of the pocket of the loose exercise pants he’d worn instead of jeans. He snapped a picture or two or ten. He made a mental note to ask for permission from the adults inside and to offer to share his shots. Then he framed and reframed the evolving scene some more, capturing the carefree childhood spectacle, the shady front porch behind the kids, the changing leaves overhead that were egging fall on, while refusing to relinquish the last of summer.

  He adjusted angles and focu
s, the capacity of his latest smartphone’s camera ridiculously advanced compared with what had been available even a year ago. The kids kept playing. He continued to shoot, maxing out the features of the photo app, lost in the richness and innocence of their world. He finally looked up, blown away anew.

  He’d been walking the streets of Chandlerville for days, capturing random images, visiting local businesses, and striking up conversations with people who’d been more than welcoming. While he enjoyed the urban vibe of the Midtown Atlanta area where he’d lived for the last several years, he preferred open spaces. Nature. Beauty in all its complex simplicity. Chandlerville seemed to exist in rarified limbo between the homespun farmland being worked not five miles away, and the urban bustle of the South’s most industrial city.

  “Whatcha doin’?” a young voice asked.

  A girl with bright green eyes, an infectious smile, and a head of dark curls gazed up at him. She was maybe six or seven and wore pink jeans and a Hello Kitty T-shirt, clearly not dressed for soccer.

  “Where did you come from?” he asked.

  “Next door.”

  She pointed at the bushy hedge covered in massive pink and purple blooms that made him think of cotton candy. The yard beyond looked like a cameo of a botanical garden.

  “Because my sisters just got here,” she explained. “Well, my other sisters, the ones that don’t live with my grandparents anymore. Well, my other grandparents, not the Grammy I live with next door.”

  She looked a little lost as she stopped speaking, as if her rambling details had confused even her.

  “Well”—she shrugged—“my mom and me used to live next door with Grammy. Now we have a house down the street. And a dog. Bud. After flowers, because Blossom would have made him sound like a girl. But I’m here almost every day. And I still have my own room. My grammy says I always will as long as she lives there. And my mommy said it was okay if I came down while my sisters and my other grammy talk . . .”

  The little magpie flashed a megawatt smile while she gulped in air. One of her eyeteeth was missing. Her attention shifted to his phone.