His Darling Bride (Echoes of the Heart #3)

by Anna DeStefano

  Mike winced at the terrible way he and Livy had left things when he’d dropped her at the curb, his mother refusing to accept his offer to help her check in for her return flight.

  “That bad?” Bethany asked.

  Mike pulled her into another hug. “I thought maybe since she came to me this time, it would be easier. But something new is going on. I’d hoped I could get whatever it is out of her, and that we could resolve something for a change. But we just ended up fighting.”

  “Because of who I am?”

  “Because of who I am.” Mike stroked Bethany’s back, wishing they were alone and there were no questions and there was only the feel of her heart beating next to his, and the night stretching out before them. “Because I wouldn’t get on a plane and follow her home. I’m sorry she gave you such a hard time. But I don’t think any of this is about you.”

  “This?”

  “She apologized. Said she wanted a truce. She strung me along all day, catching me up on things in New York and listening to my update on the co-op and my ideas for a photography donation I’m making to a gala fundraiser my parents are doing. And then when I told her I had to get back out here, and I wasn’t changing my plans even if she took a hotel room for the night . . . I expected anger, but this was on another level, even for her. She started in on every mistake I’ve ever made, and how all of it has been a personal attack on her and my father.”

  Bethany kissed him, stretching on her tiptoes to take off his hat.

  “It sounds like they left you and your brother to fend for yourselves,” she told him, “a long time before Jeremy died.”

  Mike soaked in her understanding. “I let myself wonder for just a little while today if maybe this was a chance to start fixing things with my parents.”

  Bethany studied him more closely. “You look really worried. Has her flight left yet? Go find her if it’s that important. My family will understand.”

  “Tonight, here, is important.”

  Not bailing on Bethany or her parents’ generous invitation was important. Not rewarding Livy’s childish tantrums. Not being away from Bethany for another minute, until his world had righted itself completely.

  “I’m exactly where I need to be right now,” he insisted. “And later tonight”—he gathered her into his arms—“I want you all to myself, working on our art together, and then—”

  “Sit down, everyone,” Marsha said from down the hall. “Kids in the kitchen. Adults in here. Bethany, you and that man of yours get a move on before the food gets cold.”

  Bethany eased out of Mike’s arms. “Come on, Cowboy Bob. Remember, you said you wanted this.”

  When they reached the dining room, Marsha rushed over.

  “Michael”—she smothered him with a smile, hugging and holding tight and beaming up at him as she stepped away—“I’m so glad you made it. Hope you like lasagna. This is a treat, having you with us for the first time. Prepare yourself for being the center of attention.”

  She steered him deeper into the swarm of people and the mouthwatering aromas filling the room.

  Bethany followed in their wake. “Mom . . .”

  “The only thing this family likes better than Friday dinners,” Marsha continued, “is talking with their mouths full while they’re eating. And we’re all dying to get to know you better.”

  The room was packed with Dixons settling into their seats. Joe and his boys, Dru with Brad, and Selena with Oliver. Travis sat next to Bethany’s friend, Clair. And all of them were looking expectantly Mike’s way while he and Bethany eased into their chairs, as if the night’s entertainment had just arrived.

  Joe and Marsha were the last to sit, at opposite ends of the dining room.

  Marsha waved her hands at the room at large. “Let’s eat, everyone.”

  Beneath the table, Bethany’s hand squeezed Mike’s in support. People began to pass serving dishes, piling food onto plates and filling water glasses from pitchers. Mike followed their lead, feeling a little shell-shocked by the wholesome scene after the bitch-slap of a day he’d just had with Livy.

  “I’d intended to bring flowers for the table,” he told Marsha. He’d also worn a blazer with his jeans, traded his hiking boots for a pair of loafers that he’d slipped on over dress socks, and he’d tucked his hat under his chair just now before he sat. “I’m sorry, the day kind of got away from me.”

  “How lovely.” Marsha smiled at his intended thoughtfulness. “But don’t worry. Bethany explained that your mother stopped by for a surprise visit. Of course you’d want to spend as much time with her as you could. We’re glad you could make it.”

  “Is this the same mother who chairs the foundation that gave Bethany her scholarship to art school?” Oliver asked with a healthy undercurrent, still, of Mike not being good enough for his baby sister. “Funny how that connection never came up, until Bethie figured it out for herself.”

  “He’s exactly who he’s always said he was,” Bethany insisted.

  Mike swallowed his first bite of lasagna, wiped his mouth, and sipped from his water glass. “My family is responsible for the JHTF scholarship grants and other philanthropic ventures. Their contributions and mine have seeded community art programs all over the country.”

  “Like Bethany’s Artist Co-op?” Clair asked. “Even though no one knows you’re also HMT?”

  “Something else,” Armani added, “that my sister had to uncover on her own.”

  Mike set aside his fork. The clatter of everyone else’s silverware on dishes continued, plus the sound of the kids goofing around in the kitchen. It felt as if he’d spent the entire day defending the way he lived his life. But this was Bethany’s family. They didn’t deserve the resentment surging inside him from having endured his mother’s relentless disapproval.

  He met the steady gaze of his therapy client. Joe was finally making the progress he needed to. Bethany’s father had faced his own difficult crossroads and pushed past it. Yesterday, the man had challenged Mike to show the same grit in his relationship with Bethany.

  “You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to, son,” Joe assured him.

  “Yes, I do.” If for no other reason than how good it felt to hear Joe call him son. “Because I’m a stranger. And that’s going to keep causing problems and make me being in your daughter’s life harder than it should be, until we settle this. She’s too important to all of you for me to let that happen.”

  Joe nodded, tearing off a piece of garlic bread and popping it into his mouth.

  Mike propped his arm on the back of Bethany’s chair. “I give back to the art community. I donate the proceeds from the sale of my art and a great deal of my investment income to various charities. Photography helped me feel closer to my brother when Jeremy was alive. It helps me keep his memory close now. And the rest . . . If I can spend my day honoring his memory somehow, then that’s been a good enough day to keep me going for a long time.”

  Marsha’s hand covered the one Mike had fisted beside his plate. “Your brother died of cystic fibrosis?”

  Mike glanced at Bethany.

  “I only told them your name,” she said.

  “We may be small-town,” Travis offered, “but these days Google’s reached even the sticks.”

  “And we know how to take care of our own,” Joe added. “So as far as anyone else in Chandlerville is concerned, you’re Mike Taylor until you want people to know about the rest.”

  “We’d like to understand, if we can.” Marsha patted Mike’s hand. Everyone else kept eating, as if they were discussing the weather, or if the Braves would make it to the World Series. “Is Jeremy why you became a physical therapist?”

  Mike forked in his next bite and made himself chew.

  “I couldn’t help my brother anymore,” he finally said. “And I couldn’t be a part of the dog-and-pony show my parents were making out of searching for a cure for CF.”

  “So you went to school to learn how to help people who we
re hurting.” Joe pushed back in his chair. “But only part-time?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “As much as we all appreciate how good you are at your job, me especially, it seems like part-time is what you’ve mostly been about for years.”

  “Joseph.” Marsha’s warning tone suggested she and her husband had already had some version of this discussion and weren’t exactly of the same mind.

  “He’s right,” Mike admitted. “I’ve moved around a lot. Between a lot of places and things and people.”

  Marsha propped her chin on her folded hands. “Maybe you haven’t found the right place to tempt you to stop moving yet. That must have been very difficult for you, after losing so much so young.”

  Mike took another slow drink.

  “Jeremy . . .” He cleared his throat, his palm sweating when Bethany slipped her hand back into his. “My brother wanted to go everywhere and never could. Bringing the world back to him, when I was old enough, was the only thing I could do to help.”

  “Through your photography?” Selena wiped the corners of her eyes with her napkin. Her husband rubbed a soothing hand down her back.

  “That’s how he got started,” Bethany answered.

  Mike nodded, the memory pulling at him. “And Jeremy made me promise to keep going. To keep enjoying life. I used that as an excuse to move from one place to another almost constantly for a while. Then I realized there was more for me to do, even if I still couldn’t settle in one place.”

  “And look at what you’ve accomplished,” Marsha praised. “You should be very proud of that, Michael.”

  “Even the bartending?” he teased, floundering. What would it have been like to have a parent like Bethany’s mom in his corner years ago? “I’ve been a drifter for a long time, Mrs. Dixon. I know what everyone sees when they look at me.”

  “Marsha, please,” she corrected. “And you’re much more than what you let yourself appear at first glance, or you never would have caught Bethany’s heart.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Mike nodded, the sting of Livy’s criticism still fresh.

  Bethany turned his face toward her. “Look at what you’re doing for Dad, and your photographs, the art centers, and how you’re inspiring me to paint—”

  Mike kissed her, not wanting her to spoil her surprise for her parents’ anniversary.

  “I am looking,” he told her. “I haven’t been able to take my eyes off you since we met.”

  A wave of smiles circled the table. Even Oliver wasn’t immune. Marsha lifted her glass of tea.

  “To Bethany and Mike,” she toasted, everyone joining in.

  While they were all drinking, Bethany’s phone and then Clair’s sounded off. Clair pulled hers from the purse she’d hung over the back of her chair. Her eyes widened as she read whatever text or email had come through. She motioned to Bethany to read hers. Before Bethany could, Mike’s cell began to vibrate.

  Travis took Clair’s phone and began to scan its display.

  “It’s from Nic,” Clair said. “She got some social media alert about Bethany.”

  “About what?” Bethany slipped her phone from the pocket of her jeans.

  Mike dug his out, too. There was a brief 911 text from George. He pushed back his chair with a deafening shriek. “I’m sorry. I need to deal with this.”

  He kissed Bethany’s cheek and beat a path away from the Dixons’ family dinner.

  He gave himself credit for not swearing a blue streak while he dialed his petulant mother on the phone—with the intention of this being the very last conversation they had, if she didn’t step way the hell back behind the line he’d told his parents to never cross.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “She wouldn’t have done this,” Bethany said.

  She’d joined Mike in her parents’ living room after he’d hung up on a brief and what had sounded like a very angry phone call with his mother.

  “Nicole texted a link to something on the Internet.” She stepped closer. He was staring at his phone. “About me—”

  “Stalking and bedding the reclusive photographer HMT,” Mike finished, “and using your Southern charms to get me to collaborate with you.”

  “And your foundation auctioning off a piece from our work together at the JHTF holiday gala. But your mother couldn’t have done all of that since you left her at the airport, right? Why would she?”

  “It’s done. George sent me the link, too. It hit the social media pages she follows because of my photography about a half hour ago. She’s talked with the gala director. My mother—” He held up his phone, his fist clenched around it. “Livy is demanding my presence in New York. She’ll consider retracting her statement—if I present myself at my parents’ town house to discuss it. Otherwise she’ll keep it up with the press. Continue to rake you over the coals. Reveal who and what I am, my work with your father, my connections with the art co-ops.”

  Bethany sat on the edge of Joe’s recliner.

  Mike went to rip off his hat and seemed startled that it wasn’t there.

  “But . . .” She handed him the Stetson he’d left in the dining room. He sat next to her. “Why?”

  “My mother wants my attention. Badly enough for some reason to pull a stunt she knows I can’t ignore.”

  “Because she’s threatening to reveal your identity? You said never to do that, or you’d cut off all ties. Why would you cave to her blackmail now and fly home?”

  “Because she’s using me to hurt you.” Mike slipped his hat on. The brim shaded his furious expression. “It’s out of character, even for my mother. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I’ll take care of it.”

  Bethany grabbed his arm and waited for him to look at her. “She’s that jealous of seeing someone else love you?”

  “No. She hates seeing me trying to love someone with everything I am, the way I loved my brother.” Mike kissed Bethany. “The way she’s never let me get close enough to love her.”

  Bethany clung to the words Mike had said and the rightness of being in his arms. She fought the panicked sense that he was disappearing.

  He eased them apart. “I have to deal with whatever this is.”

  “We have to deal with it. I’m a part of it.”

  “You met my mother. You can’t begin to understand my family’s baggage.” He grimaced at his memories.

  “Let me be with you while you talk to your parents.”

  “Livy would only hurt you again, and I’m not letting that happen.”

  Bethany felt his bone-deep sadness. She battled her own impulse to run away from the way he seemed to be brushing her off. Instead she followed Mike to the door—steering straight into his troubles. Their troubles.

  “I can wait wherever you want while you speak with them,” she insisted. “Get a hotel room. Be there for you afterward if things get as bad as you think they will.”

  “If? This trip will end things between my parents and me. My mother seems to have decided that should happen, in an even uglier way than when I left after Jeremy. There’s no reason for you to put yourself through that.”

  “You’re the reason I’d put myself through it. Because I love you.”

  Mike crushed her to him. “I love you, too, Bethany.”

  His voice was a gravelly, raw thing.

  Her heart filled at them exchanging those three powerful words for the first time.

  “But you have your own family,” he said. “Your surprise to finish for your parents. When is the wedding?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “Focus on that. Work in my studio, on your parents’ painting or our digital collections. George will give you the codes and help you set up whatever you need. I’ll settle things and be back in a couple of days, once I’m sure Livy won’t take more potshots at the life you’re building here.”

  Bethany threw her arms around him, giving a watery laugh when he hauled her onto her toes. She wasn’t losing him, she told herself. He wasn’t every other guy she’d
been with. This was Mike, and he was coming back. He wanted to stay with her and see what they could do together.

  “You belong in Chandlerville, too,” she reminded him. “You said for as long as I wanted. And I’m always going to want you with me.”

  “I’ll cover whatever I can myself,” Bethany heard George say, as Bethany let herself into Mike’s studio Monday morning. “I’ll cancel the rest. You need to stay there, Mike. See this through. If you want, I could . . . Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m the last person your parents want to see, too. No, I won’t. She said she’d be here sometime this morning. She should hear it from you.”

  “Hear what?” Bethany asked, assuming she was the she in question. Her heart clenched at the implications of what she’d just heard.

  George sat behind Mike’s desk, which was covered in an even more mind-boggling flood of papers and folders and files than Bethany was used to. She and George had gotten along in mostly companionable silence since Mike had left Friday night, sharing the studio space but keeping to their own work. Focused on their own projects. Waiting to hear from him.

  Displayed on Mike’s monitor was the calendar software used to track and log resident artists’ schedules. Though at the moment, the program was showing a more simplified view—from the sound of it, Mike’s personal commitments. George smiled thinly at Bethany, while listening to the barely discernible masculine voice on the other end of the line.

  “Yes,” George said. “She’s here. I’ll tell her. Yes, we’ll discuss it, but you need to—” She paused, listening. “Okay, let me know as soon as you can.”

  She hung up and jotted a brief note on a Post-it pad.

  “How is he?” Bethany asked, holding in the worry and disappointment that Mike hadn’t called since he’d left. He hadn’t texted or made contact with either her or his business manager in the two days since leaving for New York, only to reach out to George first once he did.