The Bride Wore Starlight

by Lizbeth Selvig

  “Do these dreams happen often?” Mia asked.

  “Not dreams plural. It’s always the same dream—reliving the accident.” Joely wiped her eyes with steadier hands. “I guess they happen a couple of times a week.”

  “Have you told your therapist?”

  Joely said nothing for a long moment. She’d dreaded telling Mia or Gabe what she’d been keeping secret since moving into this apartment.

  “I’m not going to a therapist—not that kind. He wasn’t helping.”

  “Oh, Joely.”

  “I know. I know what you’re going to say—that I could have looked for someone new. That it was helping in ways I couldn’t see. That I can’t keep all this bottled up inside.”

  “That’s exactly right.” Mia’s eyes were stern in the dim light. “And so, if you know all that, then why have you quit?”

  “We were rehashing the accident. Rehashing my marriage. Rehashing my relationship with my father. I can rehash things on my own. If I know all of this is, quote, normal behavior, then I don’t need a counselor to keep telling me so.”

  “He’s there to help with problems that crop up as you go. Like dreams that won’t go away. Or maybe like Alec Morrissey?”

  “Oh no. I’m not talking to any therapist about a cowboy who’s the model amputee to my pathetic accident victim. I was with him when he danced—he’s got it all figured out. I’m still working on it.”

  Mia smoothed her hair. “Yes. And you’re doing fine. But it’s four in the morning and you’re exhausted, and things seem worse than in daylight. Do you want me to stay in here with you?”

  “No.” Joely buried the further embarrassment Mia’s question raised. She appreciated her sister’s unhesitating support, but when she thought sleeping together was necessary, Joely knew she’d let her fears go too far. “I really am used to this. The dream wakes me up but it doesn’t keep me awake.”

  “Good.” Mia stood. “But I’m right in the living room if you need me.”

  “I know. Thanks.”

  The night closed around her again once Mia left the small bedroom. Small—that was the secret. She loved the compactness of her space. The fact that she never had to navigate more than a few feet and never had to make room for another person was comforting and kept her safe. Rosecroft was enormous by comparison, and it was lousy with people and sound and constant interaction. The thought of living there filled her with apprehension.

  Despite her assurances to the contrary, Joely didn’t find sleep in the early morning darkness, although it was true the dream wasn’t the cause of her racing brain. Like Hitchcock’s birds, the tasks awaiting her come morning swarmed her thoughts: wrap up her pictures, pack the last of her few dishes, clean out the refrigerator, strip the bed. Sign the stupid divorce papers.

  Her heartbeat accelerated in familiar anger. She wanted nothing more than to be rid of her husband. Throughout all the trials of the past nearly four years, he’d been nothing but unsupportive, unemotional, and demeaning. He’d changed almost the day they’d returned from a dream honeymoon in Alaska. From suave, charming, and solicitous, he’d become critical and demanding.

  Now he wanted to keep everything in the house she’d worked so hard to make a home. Granted, she’d been gone for nearly three-quarters of a year, and if the new love of her husband’s life had been living in the house, then Joely didn’t want much. She wished there were some way to make him pay a little and prove he, not she, had been the wrong-doer. But there was nothing. She had no power over him.

  It took a full hour to calm the whirling inside her brain and finally drift off into a dreamless sleep. Dreamless until pictures of Alec Morrissey floated through her mind in montages of male beauty—wide cheekbones, thick sandy brows, tousled hair with the barest touch of wave to it. And a smile that could probably have solved the Middle East crisis. A beautiful, impish, sincere, forthright smile that was as confusing as her feelings for his sudden presence in her life.

  When she swung her legs to the side of her bed in the morning and reached for her walker, she stopped and looked down at her pajama-clad thighs. Beneath the cotton fabric, her left thigh had a scar to match the one on her face. The shattered patella had been repaired, but the two main calf muscles—the larger gastrocnemius and the inner soleus—were crushed and had atrophied to the point where the injury’s aftereffects were visible and always would be. But she couldn’t see it through her pajamas.

  Alec Morrissey’s face was fresh in her mind, and his words echoed in her memory. “Of course you know what you want. You want to be able to do what you did before.”

  She did. More than anything. But she’d never race around a barrel cloverleaf or ride a reining pattern on Penny’s back again. Chances were she’d never really ride at all. Still, if she was going to live on her own, she’d have to relearn a few skills. Like getting to the bathroom without a ridiculous walker.

  Picturing the long, successful moments of her dance with Alec, Joely pushed the walker to the side and stood, putting ninety-eight percent of her weight on the good leg. Once she stood solidly, she increased the weight on her left leg and balanced as evenly as she could. The injured leg swung forward easily and she placed it on the floor. For several seconds she panicked, longing for the safety of the walker or crutches—or a pair of arms. Gritting her teeth, she stepped fully onto the leg and rushed the other forward, keeping herself from stumbling with sheer willpower.

  The second step was just as difficult, but the third and then the fourth were more coordinated. She counted the halting, shuffling steps as if they were advances up a cliff side. Six. Seven. Eight did her in.

  Her left calf gave out when she took too long a step. With a grunt and a failed grab at the door jamb, she ended on the floor in a heap after a fall as graceless as the one she’d performed at the wedding dance.

  “Joely?” Mia appeared within seconds. “Oh, God, what happened?”

  “Seems fairly obvious to me.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “No.” Aggravation and embarrassment poured into her voice. “I’m an idiot. I need everyone to stop putting ideas into my head about what I should do and what I need and let me do things my own way.”

  “C’mon.” Mia held out her hand and stooped to put her other arm around Joely’s body. “Let’s get you up.”

  Joely slapped her hands away. “No! I can do this. Just let me get to the doorway.”

  “Joellen.” Mia’s voice sliced, sharp and firm, through Joely’s angry fog.

  “What do you want?” Joely snapped.

  “Ask for the help you need, damn it. Why are you blaming me for this? I do not think you’re brave for scrabbling around on the floor by yourself.”

  She was so sick of weeping. Of feeling weak. Of trying to convince herself she didn’t need help. Despite that, the tears fell once more. She held out her hand and let Mia pull her up. At least her sister didn’t try scooping her into her arms.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blame you. I was avoiding blaming myself.” Half sobs made her hiccup.

  “What happened?”

  “I tried walking on my own.” She swiped the tears angrily from her cheeks. “Seven whole steps. Wow. I had no business being so foolish.”

  “Really? You got seven steps on your own? Have you walked alone before?”

  “No. That’s the foolish part.”

  Mia threw her arms around her. “I think that’s fantastic! Good for you.”

  Mia had lost her mind. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m serious. That was brave. Now you know if something is seven steps away you can get it. But why haven’t they been making you walk in PT?”

  “I wouldn’t let them,” Joely said. “I knew this would happen.”

  “Then this was even more of a breakthrough. One step at a time!”

  “If you utter another cliché, I might just hit you.”

  “Sorry.” Her cheerfulness said she wasn’t.

  Breakfast was alread
y on the table when Joely finally wheeled her way, dressed and subdued, into the kitchen. Eggs, bacon, English muffins with melted butter pooling deliciously in the crevices. She had no idea where her sister had come up with any of the food. The refrigerator had been stocked with little more than yogurt and juice and some milk for cereal.

  “Death by cholesterol, I see. Yum,” Joely said.

  “Dietary rules are changing all the time. Plus you need some meat on that frame. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

  “Hah. You’re not. You’re a bully sister.”

  “Thank you! I’m quite proud of that, too. It’s been hard raising you five.”

  Joely couldn’t help but laugh. Mia knew as well as each sister did how little time they’d all spent together in the past ten years. The sad but true fact was that they’d grown apart once each had left for college, and only their father’s death the past August had brought them back together. Amelia was the oldest and the bossiest, and possibly the smartest, but she’d been the first to leave home. She’d seen them through teenagerhood but not much more. It was good to have her back.

  “There shouldn’t be that much to do today.” Joely transferred deftly to the kitchen chair.

  Mia nodded agreement. “We’ll get the packing done and clean tomorrow.”

  The simple fried eggs were wonderful, and the crispy bacon crunched and melted into smoky, salt-fat deliciousness against her tongue. After her short night and inelegant start to the morning, Joely couldn’t figure out why a clichéd, death-by-bacon breakfast tasted so amazing and lifted her mood. Maybe it was no more complicated than she’d survived the night and might get through the day.

  The knock on her door at eight forty-five took her completely aback. Mia, on the other hand, tried to subdue a pleased smile. “Now who could that be?” she asked.

  Joely started to rise and reach for her wheelchair. “Are you plotting something?”

  Mia held up her hand. “I’ll get it. I know you can do it, but I’m faster.”

  “Way to be sensitive.”

  “Just my famous bedside manner.” Mia grinned, but when she opened the door she gasped.

  All the smug expectation fled her face. Joely looked at the visitor and, with a jolt like the one that had slammed her when the log hit her car, she met the eyes of her husband. Shock fired down her spine and gripped her vocal cords, so she could neither move nor speak. It had been nine months since she’d seen him. She’d looked the afterlife in the eye at least twice, but Tim had barely troubled himself to check on her. Now he showed up? Mere days before the move that was supposed to mark her independence?

  “Hello, Douchebag-in-law,” Mia said, her calm back in place, her face passively pleasant.

  Tim had the momentary courtesy—it certainly wouldn’t be conscience in his case—to show his discomfort. He was, however, consummately suave, oozing confidence and wealth even in jeans and a polo shirt. Of course, the polo was no bargain basement rag but a dark blue luxurious knit with a hunter green collar turned up in proper preppie style and Gucci splashed liberally, if mostly tastefully, across the front between his gym-toned shoulders.

  “Amelia.” His jaw tensed. “Nice to see you, too.”

  “Oh, did I say nice?” she asked, and held the door wider. “Look, Joely. We have a surprise guest.”

  “Joely?” Tim’s face, fairly youthful for a man nearing forty, creased in concern. “My God, honey, you’re skin and bones. And your face—I had no idea how prominent that scar was. I’m so sorry.”

  Hot resentment burned through her chest. It didn’t matter whether he was truly sorry for her injuries or sorry because she’d lost the look he’d once so cherished. She had the reckless and irrationally violent wish to bloody his nose and fancy collar with a right hook.

  Sadly, she’d never honed a right hook.

  “First of all, don’t you ever call me honey again.” She finally found her voice and rejoiced at its strength. “Second, don’t say you’re sorry because I don’t look the same—this didn’t have to be a surprise to you. Third, what gives you the right to be standing at my door unannounced?”

  He stepped past Mia, his eyes gentle but not contrite—a look Joely now recognized as patronizing and controlling. He was not tall and not beautiful, just average in height and passingly handsome. As he approached, Joely caught the salting of gray at his temples. That was new.

  “Jo, I am still your husband.”

  He was the only person who’d ever insisted on calling her Jo. Once she’d thought it personal and intimate. Now it only fed that weird, violent desire to slug him.

  “You’re not my husband. Not in any way except on paper. That’s bad enough.”

  His eyes smoked over, and the line of his mouth tightened. She’d never spoken to him like this, and a lightbulb moment sent her stomach recoiling in disgust with her old self. She’d known before her accident that she was divorcing this man—he’d cheated on her after all. But had she really once been so obsequious? Sweetly refraining from angering him so maybe he’d keep loving her? Until this moment she’d never seen what a pathetic stepping stone for his ego she’d become—and he’d expected.

  “Fine,” Tim said. “I can play this angry, too. If still being my wife legally only is so abhorrent, why haven’t you signed the divorce papers?”

  “You came from LA to Jackson to ask me that?” She allowed a sarcastic snort. “I could have answered you over the phone.”

  “I don’t want just an answer. I want the signed papers in my hand.”

  “I see. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s not going to happen. Not here this minute anyway. I’m not finished looking at them.”

  “Looking at them?” It was his turn to scoff. “Bullshit, Jo. You’ve had them for nearly a month. Get them, hand them over, and let’s be done with this.”

  “Nothing would make me happier.” She glared at him standing over her like an angry parent. “But you’ll get them when I’m sure exactly how badly I’m getting treated in this deal, and when I’ve decided if I’m going to do anything about it.”

  “You aren’t getting treated badly. You took half the household goods. You aren’t entitled to another thing.”

  Most of the furniture Joely had removed from her Los Angeles house nine months ago had been damaged in the car accident, but she didn’t go there. The accident hadn’t been Tim’s fault.

  Then again, if he hadn’t ruined the marriage she wouldn’t have been driving with her living room sectional and antique china cabinet, plus the rest of her things stuffed into the front half of a horse trailer in the first place.

  “I put equity into that home, too. I got some furniture, but I should get a portion of the value of that house.”

  “You got that in spades with the amount I put into your personal training, your riding, and that goddamn horse.”

  He was losing his cool as much as he ever lost it, but his eyes and his words took on a mean cast. Tears filled her own eyes in a rush as his words socked into her broken heart.

  “Get out now, Tim,” she said quietly. “You’ll get the divorce papers when I’m ready to sign them.”

  She didn’t know where she’d come by the ability to stand up to him without caving, but it kept her from losing her composure completely. To her surprise, he didn’t get angrier. Instead, his mood flipped. He pulled out a chair and sat beside her at the table, reaching for her hands.

  “Hey,” Mia called. “She said ‘leave,’ not ‘sit,’ Gucci boy.”

  Man, she loved Mia. Joely held her hand away from him. Tim tried to take it anyway, and she pulled away, almost violently.

  “No you don’t,” she said.

  “Please. Joely. I need the papers signed.” He’d gone from badgering to begging. “I didn’t come to get or make you angry. I came to appeal to the beautiful, understanding side of you I always loved.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. Gag me with a collar covered in someone else’s lipstick, Tim. You don’t get to mention love.” S
he stared at him a long minute. “What’s the rush after nine months of not caring whether I lived or died?”

  “I cared.”

  “Oh, don’t even.”

  Sadness morphed into full-fledged fury. She leaned forward, catching a glimpse of Mia’s amazed, almost proud, expression. Her sister still stood by the open apartment door as if waiting for someone. Or maybe just for the chance to toss Tim Foster out on his designer logo.

  “Sandra is pregnant.”

  The surprises he’d lobbed to that point had been annoying little grenades compared to his announcement. It fell like a ballistic missile into the heavy silence of the room. Bile rose in Joely’s throat, pushed upward by a mewling choke of pain she couldn’t halt.

  “I’m sorry,” he said and grabbed her hands, which she tried to free with frantic yanks against the fast hold. “I truly am.”

  “Pregnant?” She barely felt the word push past the sickness and pain in her throat.

  “We want to get married. That’s why I came to give you a little push.”

  Pregnant. Married.

  She remembered with awful clarity the harsh lighting in the LA County hospital room. The fear, the grief. The aching loneliness until Tim had arrived. Fifteen weeks—a little girl, too early to be called a stillborn, but too late and large to be a simple mass of tissue cells. She’d been recognizable as a baby but hadn’t really been considered one.

  Then, instead of gathering her up for comfort or even saying he was sorry and sad, Tim had simply kissed her on the head. “It’s for the best,” he’d said. “We weren’t ready.”

  Dear God she had been.

  But it had taken Sandra to make him ready.

  Her head went light as a helium balloon, and she bent double, resting her forehead on her knees to keep from having to hold it up. Tim tried to wrap his arms around her, but she flailed at him.

  “Don’t. You. Touch. Me.”

  Where were the stupid papers? She’d sign them now. Or as soon as she could breathe.

  “Jo, come on. This is silly. We’re moving forward. You and I just didn’t work from the beginning. We know that. We can part friends.”