Wild Ice

by Rachelle Vaughn

  She looked over at the cluster of trees surrounding the cottage and thought about how she could never tire of this view. “And it wasn’t just Ashley,” she added. “I found out he’d been sleeping around with a bunch of other women. I was so caught up in our—my—plans for the future that I didn’t even notice. He was the only one I’d been with and that was okay with me. It was enough. But Daniel, well, he’s always been…restless. I was too busy mapping out our happily ever after that I didn’t take a minute to make sure it was what he wanted too. Looking back, I guess all the signs were there. I fell in love with his wild side, for Pete’s sake. I don’t know why I thought he’d suddenly settle down with me just because we knew each other for most of our lives. It just would’ve been nice of him to talk to me about it before we made wedding plans, you know?”

  “Some guys can be happy with one woman,” JD said softly.

  Lauren wanted to believe that was true. “It’s bad enough having something like that happen to you, but being from a small town, you never hear the end of it. I’ll never forget the looks of all those people in the church. They all just sort of looked at me like I should have been able to prevent it. Like I knew he wasn’t going to show up and didn’t do something about it ahead of time.”

  JD sighed heavily. What kind of a schmuck left a woman like Lauren at the altar? She had made so many plans for her future and they were just ripped away from her… Much like his own.

  “You don’t have to say anything.” She shifted uncomfortably, wishing he would say something. What was he thinking behind that dark, clouded stare? “Jeez, I’m just sitting here whining like a parrot. Feel free to kick me off your porch at any time.”

  “I’m not going to kick you out, Lauren. I think Daniel’s a moron.”

  A laugh sputtered its way out of Lauren and she nodded in agreement. JD didn’t say much but when he did it was like music to her ears. Those were the exact words she needed to hear.

  “Live and learn, right?” she sniffed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to unload on you. Sometimes it just hits you out of nowhere.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “My mom thinks I’m running away by coming here, but it’s not like that at all.”

  He nodded. “When I came here I was running away.” His voice sounded thin and strained and he surprised himself by saying the words out loud.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Darla

  JD opened his mouth to continue even though it felt odd wanting to talk to Lauren. For some reason he felt comfortable around her, like he could tell her stuff and she wouldn’t argue with him like his brother did or look at him blankly like some people or try to fill the silence with nothingness like others.

  This was the first time he’d tried to put a voice to his feelings about Darla’s death and it scared him shitless. He snapped his mouth shut like a rusty bear trap.

  What harm would it do to tell Lauren about it? He’d kept it all inside and let it gnaw at him until he felt raw. What was holding him back? If JD knew a thing or two about friendship it was defined by give and take. That was the thing though. The thoughts he had about Lauren weren’t as just a friend.

  Was it pride? That mule-headedness that had him claiming he could deal with it and take care of it himself. That stubbornness that made him insist on shunning his friends, family and the general population and moving out to the middle of nowhere surrounded by thousands of birds that didn’t speak his language.

  Either way, he didn’t know what was preventing him from spilling his guts to the woman with the green eyes and the shiny hair and those beautiful freckles on her nose… Definitely not friendly thoughts.

  JD let out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry about last night. I want to apologize for what I said.”

  Lauren wanted to wave her hand and pshaw and say, “Don’t worry about it. It happens all the time.” But it didn’t happen all the time. Daniel had made a truckload of mistakes during their time together, but he’d never once called her by the wrong name. Instead, Lauren nodded at JD and looked down at her hands. Who is Darla? she thought to herself.

  JD’s throat tightened. He wanted to run into the field and keep going as far as his legs would take him. He could get lost in the wetlands and never look back. But that was what he’d done already. Lose himself.

  He didn’t move. He stayed rooted in the chair, his neck and shoulders tight with tension.

  If he was going to fall apart than at least he didn’t have to do it alone.

  “Darla was my wife.” His voice was a throaty whisper.

  Was. Lauren remembered what he’d said when she asked about his wedding ring. I’m not married.

  “She died last year.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Lauren put her hand on his arm to comfort him and then pulled away again. She’d held his hand last night at the club and on the trail before that, but things felt different today. Things were different.

  “You know how you said that sometimes it just hits you out of nowhere?” he asked without waiting for an answer. “Well, last night it hit me. Seeing all those people laughing and dancing… Her name just slipped out before I could take it back. That was the first time I’ve had fun in so long and I completely screwed it up and insulted you in the process.”

  “It’s okay, JD. I understand.”

  Lauren rested her hand on top his and closed her eyes when his body heat spread through her fingers. This time she let her hand linger on his and neither one of them pulled away.

  Mel barreled through the doggie door, his chin dripping with water. Tired from chasing butterflies, he lay down by Lauren’s chair and got comfortable.

  “Mel was Darla’s dog,” he said.

  Darla had been disappointed because she’d wanted a designer dog that could fit inside her purse and JD had surprised her with Mel, the complete opposite, instead. JD liked the idea of a nice, sturdy, family dog and not some yappy dog that peed in his shoes. One lick of Mel’s tongue and Darla was smitten.

  “We found out about the cancer after we were having trouble conceiving.” Whose voice was this? Was this his voice, telling Lauren about the C word? JD swallowed and kept going before he could talk himself out of it. “The doctors ran a bunch of tests and found ovarian cancer. We were devastated about not being able to have children and then it hit us like a ton of bricks that she was terminally ill. Having kids was the least of our concerns after that. It’s funny how your priorities can change in the blink of an eye.”

  “That’s why you gave up hockey.” It all made sense now.

  “Yeah,” he answered softly. He turned the gold band around his finger in slow circles. “No one can understand why I haven’t been able to go back…”

  “It would hurt too much.”

  He looked at her, astonished that she understood. Of course she would. This was Lauren, the woman who could see into his soul with the blink of an eye. “Yes,” he answered. It would hurt too damn much. He squinted, looking out over the field. “Darla would have hated this place,” he said. “She wasn’t the nature loving type.”

  Lauren didn’t know what to say, so she stayed quiet. His voice sounded far away; as far away as the look in his eyes.

  “Maybe that’s why I chose this place,” he continued. “So it wouldn’t remind me of her. It didn’t work, though. Everything reminds me of her. She was amazing. She was the type of person who’d give someone the shirt off her back. She actually did once. I remember one winter she saw a homeless woman on the street who didn’t have a coat and Darla gave her the Burberry trench coat she was wearing. That thing must have cost two thousand dollars, but she didn’t care.”

  A dam of emotion threatened to break free from his soul. With every word he told Lauren, a brick was removed from that dam, loosening its hold on him.

  “She spent her life helping other people and now… and now she’s gone…”

  Lauren waited for him to continue and when he didn’t, she looked over and he had tears in his eyes. She
went to him and stepped between the vee of his legs and he wrapped his arms around her waist. She rested her chin on his head and stroked his hair. Lauren knew she couldn’t take away his grief. All she could do was hold him.

  His body trembled with the tears he’d held inside for the past two years. He didn’t cry when Darla was diagnosed. He didn’t cry when the first round of radiation didn’t work. And he didn’t cry after the second and third round ripped through her body with the same results. He didn’t cry at her funeral or as he watched them lower her casket into the cold, dark ground. And he didn’t cry during his first night alone.

  There had been no tears. He’d been strong. Strong for Darla, strong for her family, and strong for himself. They needed him to be the rock, solid and strong. And now that rock was disintegrating and the only thing he could do was hold on to Lauren and hope she could hold him together before he crumbled away and lost himself again.

  JD held on and drew from Lauren’s strength. He didn’t hold her like he’d held Darla, gently and barely, but he gripped her tight because he knew her bones weren’t brittle and wouldn’t break at his touch. Lauren wouldn’t break under the pressure. She was the woman who laughed at butterflies even though she had tears in her eyes. She was the one who reminded him what it felt like to laugh again. She found beauty in everyday life and in her birds and in this untamed place.

  JD held on for dear life.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Promise Me

  The next morning, JD felt something he hadn’t felt in years. Peace. After spilling his guts to Lauren yesterday, a sense of relief washed over him. It was a strange feeling, this feeling of serenity. Cathartic, really. Sure, all of the emotions were still there, but sharing his feelings with Lauren had released them and the weight of his grief didn’t seem quite so heavy anymore.

  Life would go on. It already had for Darla’s family. They’d dealt with what had happened the best they could and kept on moving forward. Their acceptance didn’t tarnish her memory and they weren’t being disloyal to the woman they loved. In fact, it was just the opposite. They all got on with their lives because that’s what Darla would have wanted. It’s what the human race did. No life was immortal and it was what you accomplished here on earth that mattered.

  Darla had spent her precious time on earth helping those less fortunate than her. She’d made a difference to people who needed a hand to help them up. She’d been a glittering jewel to her family and she’d shown JD what it was like to discover love for the first time. She showed him what it was like to be needed, appreciated and loved unconditionally. It made it that much more important for him to return that love. He still had time to give back and reciprocate life’s blessings.

  The funny thing about death was that life still continued on despite it. The seasons still changed, the moon still rotated around the earth, the sun still set in the west every evening. The birds still migrated and made their trip south for the winter. No matter how hard he’d tried to stop time, JD had only managed to entomb himself inside Teal Manor with Darla’s memory. By locking himself away in this place, JD had tried to defy all that. He couldn’t stop the earth from spinning. He was just one man. Ironically, it only took one woman to make it spin in the first place. JD was the only one stuck in the past; fighting the present with every breath he took. Everyone else had moved on. Now it was his turn.

  When he first lost Darla, he couldn’t even think about a life without her, much less navigate through the fog of grief and take care of himself. Now…now enough time had passed that a new life didn’t seem so unthinkable.

  He wasn’t the first person to lose someone they loved. It happened every day all across the world. Countless lives were lost to unnecessary death. It was what you did after their death that mattered just as much as during.

  So why was it so difficult to move on? What was he afraid of? Judgment? He never used to give a damn what people thought about him. Especially not some wetlands nymph who cared more about birds than—no, Lauren was so much more than that. She was the first burst of sunlight he’d seen in the last year. She was incredible and she made him want to be more than he was. He wanted her to be proud of him. He wanted her to look at him like she looked at those birds of hers.

  Maybe that was the problem. He actually cared what Lauren thought about him. But who said she even thought about him at all? That was the problem with being out here alone with his thoughts. All he did was think. He never used to think so much. He used to wear what he wanted, do whatever he wanted, foot the bill for entire dinners for his teammates, wear two-thousand-dollar suits, buy sunglasses that cost more than most people’s rent…

  And then he had it all taken from him in the snap of a finger. What good was any of that if he didn’t have someone to share it all with? His teammates didn’t count. They all had their own wives and girlfriends and those who didn’t had a different girl in their bed every night if they wanted.

  He couldn’t do that to himself or Darla’s memory—bury himself between the legs of some faceless bimbo—even though it could be arranged easily enough. There were plenty of willing women within slapshot distance of any hockey arena who would give anything for a night with one of the UNHL’s finest. That road would only intensify his grief and JD was smart enough to realize that. Sex, booze, drugs…they were all things that could probably help numb the pain, but it would only be temporarily and JD needed more than just a fleeting feeling of euphoria.

  The road he’d chosen probably wouldn’t put him on the fast-track to healing, but at least he didn’t have some foreign substance coursing through his veins or a bottle suctioned to his lips. If anything, he was feeling a little better each day. Especially since he’d met Lauren.

  Lauren. She reminded him that there was a lot more to life than just his own self-pity. He’d noticed a lot of little changes in himself since she arrived. Small things that might seem insignificant to most people but were monumental to him. Things like opening the curtains in the morning instead of sitting in the darkness all day. Things like shaving regularly and making an effort to go outside in the morning to drink his coffee even if it was just in hopes that he might see Lauren in the field. Then she’d come over and share her account of the bird activity that day and he’d watch her eyes dance.

  At least he was making an effort. It was more than he could say a few months ago.

  JD didn’t want his life to be meaningless anymore. If anything, he was desperately searching for something meaningful. Something to justify all of the pain and emptiness in his heart and in the world at large. This mystified him. Was he really searching for something? He’d come to Teal Manor to give up, to throw in the towel, and now all he thought about was finding a way to fill the emptiness and break out of this grief-filled prison.

  He’d been trudging along in a fog for the past year. What would he do if it actually cleared?

  * * *

  Lauren took her coffee outside and sat on the little bench near the property line. Aunt Cora had placed the green bench there because it had a nice view of the birdfeeders in the backyard. She said it was the perfect place for daydreaming.

  Lauren could use a daydream right now. After yesterday, she was feeling raw and emotional. JD had finally opened up to her. He told her things she suspected he hadn’t told anyone else. Lauren knew a little bit about grief and loss, but she couldn’t imagine suffering the kind of loss that JD had. No wonder he’d been so distant.

  As much as he obviously wanted to isolate himself, Lauren was glad she was here to help him through to the other side of his grief. He was kind of like a wounded bird. Except in JD’s case, his wing had long healed and he was just too terrified to try to fly again.

  Lauren watched as finches and sparrows pecked at the sunflower seeds on the ground under the birdfeeders.

  Maybe Aunt Cora had brought Lauren to Hayley’s Point for more than one reason.

  * * *

  That afternoon, JD decided to do what he hadn’t h
ad the strength to do before. He went into the master bedroom and stood in the doorway of the walk-in closet. The closet was full of designer suits and ties from his hockey days. There was a time when he enjoyed getting dressed up on game days and wearing a nice suit to the arena. That sophisticated style quickly earned him the nickname Hollywood from his teammates. What could he say? He liked to look good. Signing multi-million dollar contracts year after year meant he could afford it. It was an image as well as a lifestyle and once upon a time that image mattered to him.

  He and Darla had been the best-dressed couple in the league. She lived for the public events and always shined like a diamond on his arm. But none of that superficial stuff mattered much at the end of the day. What mattered was the man he was underneath the Armani suit and silk Tom Ford necktie.

  JD looked down at his tattered sweatpants and threadbare T-shirt and sighed. He’d really let himself go. There was no reason to get dressed up after Darla passed away. The last time he’d worn a suit was…the day of her funeral. The memories of that day flashed through his mind and knocked the wind out of him. It had been the second worst day of his life and he couldn’t bear reliving it in his mind.

  He looked back at the closet and took a deep breath. When he first moved into Teal Manor, he’d stored the box in the back of the walk-in closet and tried to pretend it wasn’t there. Darla’s clothes and jewelry had long since been divided among family and the rest donated to charity and all he had left was the box he’d shoved behind his suits.

  There wasn’t anything valuable inside, but just because the contents of the box didn’t hold monetary value didn’t mean it wasn’t valuable to him.