“Li,” he says, and I gasp. It’s the first time he’s said that since the last day we were here all those years ago. When he had kissed me goodbye and promised forever. He knows why I’m gasping, and a sad smile crosses his lips. “There’s so much we need to talk about. There are so many things that both of us have spent a lifetime wondering. And I want us to do that. But right now, I’d like to just hold you. Would that be okay?”
I want to say no. I want to demand he tell me why he left me after he said he loved me so much. I want to scrub those images of him with that girl out of my mind. But I can’t, because sitting in the alcove with Blake sounds like exactly what I need to soothe my battered soul. He watches me, waiting for the answer. My eyes meet his and I nod, unable to speak past the lump in my throat.
He settles on the sand inside the alcove and pats the spot in front of him. I sit, my body naturally leaning against his. When my body touches his, I whimper involuntarily. Never had I imagined I would be here right now, Blake’s body around me and his heart keeping beat with mine.
“Tell me why you were there,” I begin. I feel him tense behind me; he knows exactly what I mean. “Tell me, Blake. After all of that, you wouldn’t call me back. But you showed up at my school. Why?” I turn my head so I can look at him. He looks… scared at my question. And just before I’m about to apologize and tell him he doesn’t have to answer that, I stop myself. He does need to answer it. He came out here to the alcove and started this. He needs to tell me.
“I wanted to see you,” Blake whispers. “I’d been so stupid. I’d basically just given you back to Ronan.”
“What do you mean? How do you know that?”
I turn completely now, so my legs are touching his as I look at him. “You aren’t making any sense, Blake.”
“I saw you kiss him,” Blake answers instead. My mind races back to that day, the day I’d moved into my dorm room. It was so long ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember Ronan grabbing me before he left and kissing me. It was the day he broke his nose. I then remember that I slapped him across the face, and I also remember questioning how his nose got broken. I know it was Blake.
“He kissed me,” I answer. “And then I smacked him and told him to stop that because I wasn’t getting back with him. You saw him? You were on my floor?”
“I went through a few floors looking for you,” Blake admits. “Then I saw you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were there? I could’ve told you it was nothing. Is that why you sent me those photos? To get back at me?”
“What photos? I never sent you anything.”
I take a deep breath, not wanting to get into this right now. Nothing good is going to come of it. “Never mind. I don’t want to get into this right now.”
“No,” Blake says, putting his hands on either side of my face. I almost whimper again at the feel of him. “Now is the time, Liane. We need to fully understand what happened. We both need to be completely honest with one another. So tell me what you’re talking about. What pictures?”
I stare up at him, my hands coming up and covering his on their own volition. I feel like I’ve run a few miles: my chest is tight and my breath is short. “Seeing you here, it’s my dream come true,” Blake whispers, his breath caressing my face.
Tears cloud my vision for just a moment until I force them away. “You sent me pictures in the mail of you with a dark haired girl. It was obvious that you were in bed with her. On the note it said, ‘Over You’.”
Blake drops his hands from my face, the moment lost. “What?” I know it’s been a long time, and I don’t expect him to remember all that went down between us. You would think his calculated move to hurt me would ring a bell, however. “Liane, I did not send you anything in the mail.”
“It was your handwriting,” I say sadly. “And it was most definitely you in the pictures.” He stares at me, and I wonder what he’s thinking. Was he hoping I’d forgotten? That I wouldn’t bring it up? That it could be water under the bridge? “I called you and left you messages for weeks. I’d sent you letter after letter. I hear that you’ve been to my school, yet you don’t see me. Ronan shows up with a broken nose, and he comes up with some story on how that happened. I call your mom and she says you left home. Then, I get the pictures. Why, Blake? What did I do that deserved that?”
“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about,” Blake says. “I didn’t send you any pictures, Li. I promise.” There it is again. The name that makes me want to throw myself into his arms and tell him that none of this is important, but it is. I’ve lived the last eighteen years in the shadow of one man, and I wasn’t planning on making it two.
“Were you with a girl when you stayed with your friend? Your mom said you were at a friend’s, staying there for a while.”
“I went to stay with my friend Gabe,” he says. “He and I… oh, my god.” Realization dawns in his eyes. “Emma. No way. She wouldn’t do that. How would she have even gotten your information? Li, I never sent you anything. Not a note or pictures, nothing. I have no idea how they got to you or why she would’ve wanted to do that.”
“You don’t remember the photos?”
“No,” he says, and I know he’s telling me the truth. “But, I hadn’t been in my right mind. I’d had a lot to drink.”
“Drink?” Blake had been barely eighteen years old, and never drank. “You were drunk?”
“I had to forget. When I saw that Ronan was right…”
“What do you mean, Ronan was right?” I’m so confused. How did Blake have anything to do with Ronan? As far as I’d known, they’d never even talked to each other. This was way before the time of us having technology at our fingertips, so I know it hadn’t been easy.
“Ronan came to see me, in South Carolina.” I swear, every word Blake says is like another punch to my gut. It’s like he’s talking about another life and another couple.
“He did what? When was this?”
“He gave me your letter.”
“Which letter? I wrote you over twenty.”
“The one where you said that you didn’t love me anymore.” I’d written a lot of letters to Blake, but I know for damn sure that none of them had told him I didn’t love him anymore.
“Blake.” Now it was my turn to put my hands on his face. “I never sent you a letter saying I didn’t love you anymore. In every single letter I wrote you after we left here, I poured out my heart to you. I loved you.”
“You didn’t say that our lives were taking different paths? That it didn’t feel right to you anymore?”
Ronan had gone to see Blake. With this letter? I shoot up, realization hitting me. “Ronan brought you this? That’s the letter I wrote to him, Blake!”
“You signed it Li,” he says, standing up also.
“No,” I shake my head in disagreement. “No, I didn’t. He called me Lia. Everyone calls me Lia. I signed that at the bottom.”
“Not on the letter I got,” he says.
My mind is reeling. “So Ronan came to you in South Carolina when?”
“Not long after we got back from Sanibel.” I think back, trying to remember all the details of that whirlwind summer.
“When he told me he was going out of town for a few days. Remember when I told you that on the phone?” I’m wringing my hands, my mind trying to sort this whole thing out. “So he came to see you instead. And he gave you a letter that I supposedly wrote.”
“Yes,” Blake takes my hands in his, stopping my wringing. “He also said you’d been lying to me and that you were back with him. He told me he was helping you move into your dorm and that you were trying to figure out how to let me down easy.”
“Damn it, Blake!” I cry, ripping my hands from his. “How could you believe that? It was after he visited that you stopped talking to me. You didn’t even let me defend myself? You believed a person you met for five minutes over me?” I can’t decide whether to cry or start screaming.
“I didn’t believe him at first,” Blake says quietly. “But once he gave me the letter, it was hard to believe anything else.”
“Yet you don’t give me the decency of a phone call. You’re no better than him, Blake McIntyre! He did that to keep me away from you! I told him and told him I wasn’t getting back with him. I wrote him that letter! I didn’t want him to kiss me, and I told him so! Instead of you being a man and talking to me, you ran away like a puppy with its tail in-between its legs! I called you and wrote you! Did you get my letters?”
“Yes.” His voice is quiet, and I know I’m shocking him. But to hell with both of these men: one that manipulated me and one that didn’t fight for me. “After that, I’d just put them in a box and not open them.”
I turn, seeing a large palm frond on the beach not far from us. I throw it, wishing it would make me feel better. I kick it, hurting my toe but refusing to admit that I feel blood trickling from it. “This is bullshit!” I’m furious, and I know Blake’s never seen me like this. It’s the middle of the night, and I want nothing more than to jump on him and pummel him with my small fists. I know it won’t hurt him, but I want to give him just a piece of the pain I feel right now. “You didn’t love me, Blake. Someone who loves someone doesn’t give up on them like that.”
“But you married him,” Blake answers, still watching me pace back and forth like a caged animal. I feel like a volcano about to erupt.
“Yes, I did! Do you know why? Or did he send you some letter about that, too?” Ronan Collier is an asshole. Blake McIntyre is an asshole. At this moment, I hate both of them.
“You got pregnant,” he said. “That summer. I hoped it was mine.”
“Of course you know alllll about me! Why wouldn’t you? Did you and Ronan become buddies, laughing behind my back at my stupidity at loving both of you? And what would you have done if it was yours? You wouldn’t have known, because you didn’t give me the decency of even talking to you!”
“Liane.” Blake stands and stops me in my tracks. “You’re angry.”
I shove him away from me. “I’m beyond angry.”
“I hated Ronan for coming there that day. I hated him even more when I saw it with my own eyes. I would never start a friendship with that asshole.”
“You ruined us, Blake! You did that! I wanted nothing more than to forget Ronan ever existed and be yours forever, just like we planned.”
“And what would’ve happened once you found out you were pregnant, Liane?”
I have no answer to that, because I don’t know what we would’ve done. “I don’t know! But I never got the chance to figure it out, because you made the decision to abandon me! Short of driving to South Carolina to find you, I did everything I could! Then I get those pictures of you in bed with that girl, and I…”
He grabs me and hauls me to his body so quickly I barely register what’s happening. His ragged breath floats over my face, and I can’t help but notice that he smells amazing. He’s holding me flush against his body like he thinks I’ll run away if he lets go. “I slept with her. I did. I was drunk and I spent much of the next four years that way. I tried to fill my emptiness with many women and a lot of drinks. I’m a recovering alcoholic, Liane. Melinda saved me. If it wasn’t for her, I’d probably be dead. Losing you, it was the worst pain I’ve ever gone through in my life. But I did not take any pictures, and I never sent you a letter. The last time I talked to you was on the phone, right before Ronan showed up at my house.”
As I register the words Blake shoots at me like bullets, sadness takes place of the rage. Blake is an alcoholic? Because of me? “I don’t understand,” I push against his body, needing some space to breathe, but he doesn’t let me budge.
“Ronan did this,” Blake whispers. “Do you realize that? He couldn’t stand you saying no to him. I have no idea how he got to Emma, but I’d bet money that those pictures had something to do with him.”
I look up into his face, my eyes taking in every one of his features. My husband did this. The reason Blake stopped talking to me and that I gave up on him was all part of Ronan’s master plan. Me being pregnant must’ve just been the icing on the cake for him, because it solidified his future.
“You believed him,” I whisper back. “How could you do that?”
“Li,” he answers, resting his forehead against mine. “I have no excuse. None at all. I could say I was a stupid kid, but that stupid kid knew enough to know that he’d never love anyone as much as he loved you. So all I can say is I’m sorry. More sorry than I can ever tell you in words. I’ve certainly paid for it over the years, that’s for damn sure.”
I know now why he was saying sorry when he first came out here. He had lived with all of this his entire life, while here I’d been, the wife of Ronan Collier, raising our son together. All the while, I didn’t know who he really was or the things he’d done to keep me from the one person I’d loved with every fiber of my being.
AS I WATCH her close her eyes, silence settling over us like a blanket, I force myself to take a deep breath. I’ve never seen her so angry in all of my life, but I can understand it. While I’ve known all along what was going on, she’s just processing it. Does that excuse me from walking away from her without demanding answers? No. But I’ve had a lifetime to beat myself up over that, so I welcome her anger. Anger is better than her refusing to talk to me and shutting me out forever. You mean like you did to her, I think.
She’s just found out that not only was her husband the reason why we never survived past that summer, but that he’s kept everything from her for their entire lives. And if he hadn’t left her and she wasn’t here with me, she’d probably never have known. Her body shudders, and I know I can’t hold out one more second. It’s not the right time, and I know it. But since when do I do anything the right way.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper again, our foreheads still touching. My hands are clasped around hers, and they’re resting in between our chests. She can’t move even if she tries, and I want it that way. I want her to see me here now. A gentle breeze picks up her hair and swirls it around us, cocooning us from everything else. “I wish I could take it all back. I wish I could be there again, with Ronan on my door step and refuse to believe him until I talk to you. I wish I would’ve marched down the hallway at your school and taken what was mine. I was a coward, Li. I’ve been a coward the rest of my life, and I’ve paid for it. The only thing I ever did right other than love you was open my own shop. It’s the only thing that’s kept me living, honestly.”
She leans back and smiles at me and my knees almost buckle. After everything, she smiles at me. “I’m so proud that you did that, Blake. I want to hear all about it.” She pauses, clearing her throat. “I wish you would’ve come after me.” Her voice cracks, and I want to punch myself in the face. How am I any better than her scumbag husband? I’ve failed us. Who knows what would’ve happened with her having a baby with that idiot, but I should’ve done something. Anything.
I have no more words for her that will make this better, so I choose action instead. I cup her face in my hands, wondering if she still likes that I do that. Her eyes widen and look up at me, tiny droplets of water making her eyelashes stick together. God, I love her. Even though I know it’s going to hurt like hell to go down this road again, I know I’m going to do it anyway. I want to be slow and sweet, but instead I crash my lips into hers, tasting her for all of the kisses I’ve missed and the years I’ve dreamed of making this a reality again. She whimpers, and I’m afraid she’s going to pull away and smack me. But instead she grips my shirt with her fists and her lips match mine, both of us pouring every ounce of intensity we’ve felt out here on this beach into kissing each other.
When her tongue touches mine for the first time in what seems like a lifetime, I groan, releasing my hold on her face so I can feel her body against mine. She tilts her head, and I realize she’s working hard to stand on her toes and reach me. I lean down, twirling my tongue with hers and trying to k
eep my head rational. I want nothing more than to take her clothes off and show her how much I’ve missed her, but I know that’s not where we are. In fact, I’m rather sure she’s going to regret this rip-your-clothes-off kiss.
She moves her hands up and touches my face, and I dare to open my eyes. She’s looking right at me as we continue our kiss, slowing the pace just slightly as our gaze stays locked on each other. At this moment, we aren’t two heartbroken, angry people with a lifetime of regret; we’re Li and Blake, lost soul mates given another chance to make it right.
I don’t even know who pulls back first or if we’re so in sync that we stop at the same time, but once my lips aren’t touching hers anymore, I feel alone. Which is silly, because her body is still pressing against mine just about as tightly as it can be. I’m afraid to ask her what, if anything this means for us, because I know we’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg of things we need to discuss. But my stupid heart has failed me again, and all it wants is for her to wrap her body around mine and promise to never leave again.
“We have so much to figure out,” she whispers, reading my mind. It’s always uncanny how she does that, and time hasn’t changed it. “But know this. If it hadn’t been for me getting pregnant with Carter, I’d have come after you. Once I found out I was pregnant, I knew that I had to do what was right for my child, and that meant letting you go. Plus, it wouldn’t have been fair to you to saddle you with my baggage.”
“I wish I could change the way I handled that. Believe me, my family has taken me to task many times over the years for what happened after that. And I would’ve never thought of you as baggage. I would’ve loved Carter like he was mine, just because he was yours.” I think back to all the heartache I’d caused my parents and siblings for the years after the demise of our relationship and her marrying Ronan. While my sisters have always been there for me, I know they resent me putting them in a place where they had to turn their backs on Li.
Twisted Paths Page 8
