Secrets Of The Heart (Book 1, The Heart Series)

by Laurie LeClair

At times like this, when he discovered Vinnie’s legacy to his wife and daughter, Nick would love to bring his son back just so he could shake him.

  Nick squatted. On eye level with Sydney now, he held her unwavering stare. “You’re right, I’m mad at your mom and I did want to say some pretty awful things. But I won’t, because it’s wrong to hurt someone you care about whether it’s with nasty words or any other way.”

  Her arms came back to her sides and she took a tentative step toward him. Wariness still clouded her eyes. “Promise you won’t yell and slam the door, Poppa.”

  Something wrapped around his chest and squeezed until he hurt. “I promise, Princess. I just want to talk grown up stuff with your mom. Can you give us a few minutes alone to do that?”

  She sent him a trembling smile and nodded her agreement. Turning to Bree, she said, “But I’ll be right here if you need me, Mommy.”

  Bree bent down and gathered Sydney close. “Thank you, sweetie, but you know that’s my job, taking care of us both.”

  He locked gazes with Bree. “It’s mine now.”

  ***

  Nick sighed loudly, watching Bree’s stiff back as he leaned against the kitchen counter. He still couldn’t shake the knowledge of reading surprise and a touch of gratitude in her gaze when he’d declared he’d claimed the family job of caretaker.

  “I swear, Nick, the calls are nothing to worry about. It’s probably some old school friend trying to get in touch with me after seeing our wedding announcement in the newspaper.” She waved a hand in dismissal, briefly stopping in her task of picking up the little game pieces littering the table.

  “So, if you believe that, why didn’t you tell me this after you called the beauty shop and found all this out?” And why did you hide Gil’s letter? Explain that one, if you can.

  “Tessa makes a big deal out of almost anything. I’m afraid she doesn’t have much of an exciting life taking care of her granny, so she zeros in on any little thing and exaggerates it. Isn’t that what Gil implied in his letter?”

  “Since you’ve just read it, you know exactly what it says.” He sensed her underlying tension even from five feet away. “You could have mentioned it to me.” He wished he could yank back the hurt in his words.

  She stopped fidgeting with the tiny objects and slowly turned to him. “I guess I was being selfish.”

  He frowned. “Selfish? I don’t understand.”

  Crossing the room, she halted in front of him. He longed to reach out and take her in his arms, but he stomped down on the impulse. A waft of her strawberry bubble bath tickled his senses and he had a difficult time in restraining himself from whisking Bree up in his embrace, inhaling deeply and tasting her.

  Staring at his chin, she explained, “I…we’re in our own little world up here. In a good place at the moment. I didn’t want anything to ruin it. And I knew if I told you about this you’d go tearing off into town to call Gil and get the skinny.”

  Nick rubbed his neck, trying to work the kinks out. “And he didn’t even think it was worth writing me about except Tessa practically twisted his arm into doing it.”

  “Plus, I didn’t want to upset Sydney.”

  He stared at her hard, noting the way she avoided looking directly at him and hearing the little hesitations in her voice. “Is that why you hid Gil’s letter?”

  She jerked back as if hit with the icy truth. Shrugging, Bree said, “You figured that out, did you?”

  “It wasn’t difficult.” Nick tried desperately to keep a rein on his anger. “Why? Just tell me that.”

  This time she was the one to frown. “But I told you, Nick, I…wanted to keep the world away from us.”

  “Or the truth. Was that it? I told you once before how much I dislike liars.”

  She blanched. “I didn’t exactly lie to you.”

  “Oh no? Well, it might not rank up there in the same category by your standards, but, to me, hiding something from me is just as bad as lying to my face.” And I hate that part of myself just as much as you do.

  She seemed to be frozen in place, her skin taking on a ghostly pallor. “I’ll remember that next time.” Her lips barely moved as she spoke.

  His middle dipped at her distress, but he issued her one final warning, “There had better not be a next time, Bree.”

  ***

  An ax hung over her as Nick drove them back to Connecticut. A guillotine waited, with one person ready to pull the rope, to snap off her head.

  Despite the warm sunny morning, Bree felt chilled to the bone. Ever since Nick discovered Gil’s letter, she hadn’t been able to shake the cold dread rooted in her core.

  What will we find once we return home?

  Sydney’s soft contented snoring, coming from the back seat, assured Bree at least one of them wasn’t even a tiny bit concerned at the outcome. Thankfully, the slow steady motions of the truck had rocked her daughter to dream land as usual.

  Bree glanced at Nick under her lashes. His strong right hand, curled around the steering wheel, guided the SUV down the narrow country roads. He leaned his left elbow on the window ledge and rubbed his top lip with his index finger, deep in concentration.

  Surveying his endearing profile, she lingered over each hard plane and sharp angle, committing them to memory. She halted when she came to his firm, masculine mouth, wishing she could replace the finger with her lips; she longed to taste him once again.

  She’d missed being held by Nick last night, missed his tender love making she’d become addicted to. A hollow ache behind her ribs sprang to life.

  How much longer will he punish us both like this, with this tension-filled silence? Can I make him understand why I do the things I do? Should I even try? Would it even make a difference?

  He turned to her quickly, catching her staring at him. Flushing, Bree jerked her head in the opposite direction, gazing unseeingly at the swiftly passing fields and woods.

  “What were you thinking of just then?” Nick asked softly.

  “My mother.” She sneaked a peek at him as he faced forward again. Deciding to take a big chance and explain a few things to him, she said, “If you’d known her, I think you’d get a good idea about me.”

  “Were you two that much alike?”

  She smiled sadly. “No, just the opposite.”

  He frowned deeply. “I don’t understand.”

  Dragging in a painful breath, she pressed onward. “She was…fragile, for want of a better word.”

  “Her health?”

  “Her nature.”

  Confusion clouded his strong features as he glimpsed at her, and then back at the road. “Go on. I’m listening.”

  Memories, painful and haunting, flashed through her mind. Bree swore she smelled the cloying scent of gardenias her mother had doused herself with to ward off the death scent.

  Bree bit her lip. “She didn’t like anything unpleasant. My father catered to her wishes and built this invisible barrier around her to hold the real world at bay. Then, after he died…”

  “You picked up where he left off, or am I way off base?”

  She chuckled. It came out raw and strangled. “You’re right on target, Carletti, as usual.”

  He sighed heavily as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders. “Tell me.”

  Twisting her hands in her lap, Bree continued, “She hated the word cancer, so the doctors and I changed it to the little inconvenience. Her hospital stays were described as rests. The ungodly amount of medicine was altered to vitamin treatments.”

  Groaning, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “So you were taught, from how old, to smooth the way.”

  “From the beginning.” Her voice cracked. “I always felt like the only adult in the family, the only one that knew what a sham everything was.”

  “Why didn’t you stop going along with the insanity?”

  “The way I saw things I had two choices. One, be a party to it and help my mother cope with life in the only way she knew how. Or, two, sho
ut the ugly truth in her face and destroy her fantasy world where she survived, in essence kill her. Life or death, it was as simple as that for a child to comprehend.”

  A blanket of silence shrouded Bree, thick and unnerving. Her heart hammered in her chest. A bubble of anxiety rose to the surface, cutting off her air supply. Does he despise me now?

  “So, what you’re telling me is, you’ve learned to protect the people you care about in the only way you know how, by lying, hiding, or fabricating…”

  The roar of her blood sounded in her ears. She swallowed hard. “Put like that, I guess I can’t argue with it.”

  He looked her square in the eye. “And you’d do the same for Sydney.”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  Chapter 21

  Nick switched off the ignition, and then leaned back wearily. The heady scent of roses filled his cruiser. Glancing to the dozen long stem, red roses laying on the passenger seat, he wondered if he’d done the right thing.

  He’d been back to work three days now and still had difficulty in processing all Bree had described to him about her childhood.

  The distance troubled him. The absence of any kind of communication other than the normal everyday stuff hurt more than he’d cared to admit. He longed for the closeness they’d had at the cabin. The tenderness.

  The strain wore on all of them. Living in the same house where Vinnie had grown up couldn’t be easy for Bree. And lying in bed at night side by side, sleepless, not touching, created a wider chasm.

  She’d apologized profusely over the last few days. He’d brushed it off, still hard pressed to accept that side of her, the untruthful side. Now, Nick realized, it was up to him to make amends, to patch things up; he was the one with the tolerance problem, not her.

  He checked out her beauty shop in his rearview mirror. Bree’s Beauty Salon.

  Cars littered the small parking lot and customers, some dragging protesting kids, entered and exited the blue and white building attached to the side of a grocery store with a Laundromat on one side and a sandwich shop on the other.

  “I had to pick the busiest day to extend my olive branch,” he muttered under his breath as he climbed out of his car with the roses firmly in his grip.

  He hitched up his heavy gun belt, and then slammed the door shut. Taking a couple of slow steps, he halted, leaning a hip against his dark blue patrol car.

  “Just march in there and get it over with, Carletti.” But something held him back. A thought nagged at him, one he’d been trying to shove aside since Bree’s eye opening disclosure.

  She lied to protect people, not to hurt or manipulate them. There was nothing sinister in her motives. Only love and concern guided her actions. Wonder filled him at the simple, heart-tugging knowledge.

  I did the same for Vinnie. When he was little I had to keep the horrible truth about his mother and her cheating ways hidden so it wouldn’t destroy him. Eventually I told him, but not before he was ready. And I did it with Nana when she was dying. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the doctors had given her a death sentence.

  Stunned awareness flooded Nick, causing him to see Bree’s lies in an entirely different light. “How can I condemn Bree for doing just as I’ve done? For caring about someone so damn much that we wanted to shield them?”

  So we’re really not that different after all.

  Pushing away from his vehicle, Nick crossed the short distance with determination in every step. He’d make it right with her somehow. He still hated liars, still hated that part of himself. But the difference was now he understood her reasons behind them, understood they both bore the same flaw.

  As long as she didn’t follow Dorthea’s route in fabricating every little thing where it benefitted her and not others, he could adjust and cope, he figured.

  Well, at least I can give it a shot.

  The bell jangled when Nick yanked open the door. A myriad of scents assaulted him: the coconut shampoo the shop specialized in, the potent permanent solution, the distinctive smell of hair spray, and the hint of hot wax melting in its burner.

  The blue carpet in the reception area muffled his footsteps. Silence descended, enveloping him. Only the whirring of the bank of dryers broke the eerie human hush. Several curious pairs of eyes turned to him as he hooked an arm of his mirrored sunglasses in his uniform shirt pocket.

  Frowning, he searched for Bree in the five chair salon. He dipped his head in greeting to Bree’s business partners.

  “Jewel.” The dark-haired, young woman glared at him, her violet eyes snapping. Her look spoke volumes: She hated men. He couldn’t very well blame her after the father of her son skipped town twelve years ago.

  “Tessa. Good to see you.” Tessa, with her mass of red curly hair and deep green eyes, gawked at the roses, and then back at him. She obviously wasn’t used to a man bringing a lady flowers. At twenty-seven, single, and virtually dateless she looked down both barrels of spinsterhood.

  He should still be angry with her for making a big deal about the phone calls, which hadn’t panned out. They had stopped just as Gil predicted. There had never been anything to be concerned about. He couldn’t remain mad at something that didn’t amount to anything.

  Finally, his gaze landed on Sydney, with a head full of rollers, tucked under a hair dryer. A smile inched across his mouth at the sight.

  When she spotted him, her face lit up with a huge grin. A river of warmth spread through him at the mixture of joy and love on her face. He laid a finger against his lips to keep her quiet, and then pointed to the back room where he suspected Bree resided at the moment.

  At Sydney’s nod, he winked at her. She scrunched up her cheek and returned the favor. He was hard pressed to keep from laughing at her attempt.Her eyes were wide and she rubbed her hands together when she saw the roses.

  With long, sure strides, Nick walked across the white linoleum flooring, past the many scrutinizing female looks, to the supply room doorway. It seemed as if the weight of the bouquet grew heavier as the gap closed. His palm became sweaty as he wondered how Bree would receive his peace offering.

  Halting in the doorframe, Nick watched mesmerized by the wonderful sight of the woman he loved. Bree, bent over a see through squeeze bottle, frowned in concentration as she poured first the peroxide, then the dye so they met and rose to the top.

  His breath stuck in his chest as he watched her closely. Pure absorption etched itself in her delicate features. He knew she never did anything by half measures.

  Perfection was embedded in her so deeply that she berated herself for any errors, living with the burden of her mistakes.

  I’ve only made it worse by harping on the lies, by holding her up to my high standards that even I didn’t live by. What was fair and just in that?

  Swallowing hard, he knew he’d do anything to set things right with her. He didn’t want to lose her or the feelings that erupted in him every time he thought about her. For the first time in years, if ever, he was alive, really alive. And he’d fight to his death before he gave up all that he’d dreamed of for so long: Bree, Sydney, a family.

  “Hello, Bree,” he whispered hoarsely.

  Bree whipped around at the unexpected voice. Delight washed over her as she stared into her husband’s smiling face. “Nick!”

  For a moment, she couldn’t get anything else out. Surprise robbed her of any sensible thought she once possessed. And seeing the breadth of his shoulders and the width of his chest in his uniform always stole the breath from her lungs.

  Along with the instant attraction came a knot of fear in her belly at the painful reminder that this uniform, and what it stood for, could snatch him away from her in one fell swoop.

  “I brought you these.” Flags of crimson slashed the tops of his cheeks. He lifted a bouquet of red roses, offering them to her.

  His embarrassment touched a tender spot deep inside her. Tears smarted the backs of her eyes as she cradled them to her, inhaling the sweet perfume. “Oh, they’re
so beautiful.”

  Impulsively, she hugged him, mindful of moving the flowers out of the way first. She kissed his cheek, then his jaw, and then his neck. She absorbed the shiver that racked his body and caught a whiff of his sandalwood after-shave. “Thank you, Nick.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her closer. The slight pressure of his hands on the small of her back made her sigh with pleasure. His warm, strong arms gave her a sense of rightness, of belonging, of home like none she’d ever experienced with any other man.

  Oh, how I’ve missed you, Nick.

  Pulling back slightly, she gazed up into his dark, magnetic eyes. She bit her lip, and then admitted, “You know, you’re the only man who’s ever given my flowers.”

  He scowled. “You should be showered with lilacs and roses.”

  She gasped. “You remembered the lilacs.”

  “How could I forget?” His voice grew husky. “It should have been me you married back then.”

  A bubble of joy erupted. Just as quickly shame at how right he was rained down on her. She dropped her head and closed her eyes. She’d made such a horrible mistake by marrying Vinnie, nearly ruining her life as well as Sydney’s and Nick’s.

  He kissed her gently on the forehead. With his index finger, he lifted her chin so now she was held captive by his rich brown eyes. “I’ve tried to deny that fact for years. We both have. And look where it’s gotten us. I still feel guilty and disloyal to my son. I may never get over that. But I can’t go on pretending any more, sweetness.”

  Lowering his mouth, he settled his firm, masculine lips on hers, slowing drawing out a response.

  Bree melted into him, into the warmth and love only he could provide her.

  The agony of the past days of not knowing if he’d come back to her, would accept her flaws and all, washed away like a quick summer shower. She’d make the most of this second chance.

  “Ahem!” Tessa said rather loudly, causing Bree to jump back from Nick’s comforting embrace. “Sorry to break things up especially when it’s just getting interesting back here, but I need that dye you were mixing up for me, Bree.”