His Band of Gold

by Melissa McClone

  “The last thing your family needs is to have me hanging around. They need privacy, and it’ll be easier for me to oversee the party preparations from there.” Before giving him a chance to change her mind, she continued. “How is Faith doing?”

  “Better.” The tightness around his mouth eased. “She’ll be okay. There’s someone out there for her—”

  “Stop it.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Faith doesn’t need to hear about finding her one true love right now. She just broke up with her fiancé and canceled yet another wedding. Give her some time to catch her breath, not get all pumped up to find Mr. Right.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with telling her—”

  “Yes, there is.” Kelsey cut Will off. The words she’d wanted to say earlier had to be said. “If you would leave Faith alone and stop putting so much pressure on her to find ‘the one,’ she would have been married with a couple of kids by now. Can’t you see what you and your family are doing to her?”

  Will frowned. “We’re not doing anything to her.”

  “You’re influencing how she views love and marriage.”

  “We’re trying to help her.”

  “The best way to help is to let her figure that out on her own. It’s her life, not yours or your family’s.”

  Kelsey’s words echoed in her own mind. Realization hit her with the force of a 7.8 earthquake. She had allowed her parents to influence the way she viewed love and marriage as much as Faith had. Different views, but similar outcomes.

  And it was time for Kelsey to change that.

  She was resisting love for all the wrong reasons. Her feelings were new. Of course, there would be uncertainty and doubts. But that didn’t mean those feelings were wrong. There weren’t any guarantees in life, why would she assume there would be with love? And she deserved a happy ending as much as the next person.

  “We never meant…”

  “I know that, and I’m sure Faith knows that, too.” Kelsey smiled. “Faith will find someone to love and marry and live happily ever after with, but let her do it on her own terms without any pressure from any of you.”

  He did a double take. “Did I hear you correctly?”

  Kelsey nodded. Time to put up or shut up. At this point, she had nothing to lose. “What would you say if…” Her courage faltered.

  “What?”

  Kelsey had to do this. Now. Whatever Will’s reaction, she had to take the chance or live with the regret. “Would you come with me to San Montico?”

  “San Montico?”

  “I’d like to see my cousin, and I thought it might be nice if you…we…went together. We could see how we get along away from all this wedding planning.”

  “We don’t need to get away to know we get along.”

  Her heart filled with hope. “It might be fun.”

  Will paused. Her heart thudded so loudly she wondered if he could hear it. “If I said yes and we went away together, you know that’s all I could give you. Once we got back, it would be over. Is that enough for you?”

  “No.” Her quick answer surprised Kelsey as much as Will. “Before you and your family presented such a strong case for true love and happily ever after I may have considered it, but now…” She stared into his eyes. “Don’t you even want to try?”

  “There’s nothing to try.”

  Kelsey felt as if she’d been slapped in the face. “Guess I asked for that one.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Yes, you did.” As he brushed his hand through his hair, the gold band on his finger sparkled, reflecting the light from the lamp. He still wasn’t over Sara. Nothing Kelsey could do or say was going to change that. “It’s…okay.”

  Okay that he didn’t need her. Okay that he didn’t want her. Okay that he didn’t love her.

  This love stuff really hurt. She felt as if she’d just found her heart only to lose it in the same instant. No guarantees, she reminded herself. Too bad that didn’t make her feel any better, hurt any less.

  “I never meant to hurt you,” he said, his eyes full of regret. “I do care about you.”

  Care, not love. She wouldn’t settle for anything less than the whole enchilada. Will couldn’t give that to her. Someday, after a few years of therapy, she might find someone who could.

  “Say something,” he said. “Please.”

  “You’re a hypocrite.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You wax on about how important love is for everyone but yourself. The last thing you want is to find love again and have a happily-ever-after. You’re no different than me except I was at least honest about my feelings.”

  He stared at her. “I tried after Sara died, but you can’t replace perfection.”

  “You told me yourself no one is perfect.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Why? Because it’s safer to view the past with rose-colored glasses?”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “Do what? Tell the truth?”

  “We’ve had fun. Can’t we leave it at that?”

  “I guess we’re going to have to, aren’t we?”

  “I don’t want you to hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you, I…” Kelsey almost laughed when she realized she was about to tell him she loved him. Talk about bad timing. “I want to thank you. You and your family opened up my mind and my heart to everything I was missing out on before.”

  “Missing?”

  “Happily-ever-after and all that stuff.”

  His eyes widened. “Does that include marriage?”

  “Only time will tell. Right now I’m taking tiny baby steps.” And even those felt like Sasquatch-size strides at the moment. “Though I will admit, I don’t and won’t ever buy into the one love of a lifetime you Addisons prescribe to.”

  Thank goodness, Kelsey realized. Otherwise she’d be spending the rest of her life alone since she was sure Will could be hers.

  He stared at her, an unreadable expression on his face.

  “But I can easily live with true love.” She flipped her hair behind her shoulder and looked him square in the eyes. “I just wonder how you can live without it.”

  Don’t walk away from her, a voice cried out in Will’s head as he left Kelsey’s room. But he ignored it. Ignored the way her words had rocked his world. Ignored how walking out of her room felt like one of the stupidest things he’d ever done.

  But he had no choice.

  “It would never work,” he said out loud as he entered the kitchen. “I already had my chance.”

  “Talking to yourself, big brother?” The rims of Faith’s eyes were red from crying, but at least the tears no longer flowed. “It must be serious.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  Faith raised an arched brow. “Then why do you look as if you’ve lost your best friend?”

  Because I have. The thought slammed into him with the force of a three-hundred-pound offensive lineman. What was he thinking? Kelsey wasn’t his best friend. He hardly knew her. The last thing he felt was indifference, but he shrugged, anyway.

  Faith poured him a cup of coffee. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Kelsey, does it?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “I noticed the glances the two of you exchanged,” Faith admitted. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Your choice or hers?”

  “Mine.”

  “How do you feel about her?”

  The emotions nearly overwhelmed him. He didn’t, couldn’t, say anything.

  “You’ve got it bad.” Faith tsked. “Why aren’t you doing something about it?”

  He hesitated. “Sara.”

  Faith pursed her lips. “Don’t sacrifice a second chance at love for a memory.”

  “Sara’s more than a memory.” He looked away. “She was my life.”

  “I know how much you loved Sara. I loved her, too,” Faith admitted. “But none of us know what woul
d have happened had she lived.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your marriage.”

  “My marriage was…fine.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to say perfect.

  “Of course it was. But with all your traveling, Sara’s graduate school. Who knows what might have happened?”

  “Have you been talking to Mom about this?”

  “No.”

  “I loved Sara. I’ll always love her.”

  “But she’s gone, Will.” Faith squeezed his shoulder. “Sara wouldn’t want you to spend the rest of your life alone.”

  “I’m not alone.”

  “You are alone,” Faith said. “It’s time you took off the blinders and realized it yourself. Go ahead and say goodbye to Kelsey, but at least acknowledge what you’re losing.”

  With that, Faith left the room. Always the drama princess, but her flare had paved her way to stardom. But in this instance she couldn’t be more wrong.

  Will put on his jacket and gloves. He needed to get out of here. Away from everyone and everything for a few minutes.

  The cold stung his lungs, but he wasn’t about to turn back. He needed to get his head on straight. He hiked up a path to a viewpoint overlooking the lake. A squirrel chattered overhead in a nearby tree.

  Sara used to love it here. Memories of her and their time together filled his mind. Life with her had been so perfect. And their marriage…a never-ending honeymoon.

  A honeymoon.

  His mother’s letter came back to him. An extended honeymoon. That’s what she’d called it; that’s exactly what it had been. Not only for the two years of marriage, but also the four years before when they’d attended different colleges.

  Damn. His mother was right. Faith, too.

  Will brushed his hand through his hair. He and Sara loved each other, lived for each other, but their marriage hadn’t been real. They never had to make any of the day-in-and-out compromises necessary for a marriage to succeed.

  Hell, what he and Kelsey shared planning Faith’s wedding was more of a marriage with compromise and give-and-take than what he and Sara had ever shared.

  It had been so easy to cling to the fantasy. To cling to the image of one love of a lifetime. To cling to the notion of what his and Sara’s future would have been.

  Because it was safe and kept his heart from having to love and lose again.

  Loving meant losing. Hurting. Being left behind.

  Losing Sara had tilted his world on its axis and spun it around in the opposite direction. He wasn’t sure he could survive it again. And that scared him.

  But something scared him more. He hadn’t kept his heart safe. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose again. And it would be his fault. Will turned around and headed back to the house.

  The safety net surrounding his heart was gone. His mother’s stroke had put a tear into it. But Kelsey was the one who had demolished it.

  He had to act fast. He had to show Kelsey he’d made a mistake. He needed her to be a part of his life.

  Today, tomorrow, always.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gazing out the bedroom window, Kelsey caught sight of the sun peeking out from a cloud. No more flakes fell from the sky, but snow covered every inch on the ground, all the tree branches and the roof of a gazebo. But rather than a winter wonderland, the landscape seemed gray and foreboding.

  Arctic air seeped through the pane-glass window. Kelsey shivered. Too bad the cold wasn’t the only thing giving her the chills. But she didn’t want to think about that right now.

  Time to pack. It was the only thing Kelsey could think to do, next to walking out and leaving everything behind. She emptied her clothes from the dresser and piled them on the bed. If she hadn’t been so organized with a backup plan ready to go, she’d have more phone calls to make, more changes to implement. Her mind wouldn’t be so focused on Will; her heart wouldn’t feel so empty.

  But she had been organized, and it wouldn’t take her fifteen minutes to take the storybook wedding she’d planned for Faith and Trent and turn it into an anniversary party for Starr and Bill. Kelsey folded her red cashmere sweater. She put all her energy into the task and pretended the emotions churning inside her weren’t so raw, so painful.

  Will’s rejection stung. Like a wound to her heart no amount of medical technology could fix. It wasn’t even worth a second opinion. Over time, the hurt would heal. The memories would fade. His hold on her heart would disappear.

  She would survive. She had survived the breakup of her parents. She would survive a broken heart. Kelsey had a good life. She had family and friends and a wonderful career. Just because Will didn’t want her didn’t mean her life was over. Just the opposite. Her life was only beginning.

  Kelsey went to place her sweater in her suitcase, but found Midas inside sprawled on his back. She rubbed his belly, then gave him a gentle push. “Sorry, handsome. You can’t sleep here.”

  The cat merely stretched, taking up more room.

  “You are such a sweetie.” She scratched his neck. Maybe a pet was what she needed. Someone she could simply love with no baggage to worry about. Someone who would love her back. “I wish I could bring you home with me, but your daddy wouldn’t let me.”

  Daddy.

  An image of Will with children appeared in her mind. Kelsey closed her eyes. She could picture them and feel them and hear them. Will’s children. Her children. Their children.

  The depth of the emotion swelling inside her took Kelsey’s breath away. Her heart pounded fiercely. Tears stung her eyes. She gathered Midas into her arms and buried her face against his fur.

  What was happening to her? A broken heart was one thing, but this? Talk about a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree shift in what she thought she wanted out of life. A pet was one thing, but children, too? It was as if her dormant biological clock was trying to make up for lost time, and Kelsey was torn. Part of her didn’t want to waste a single minute, yet the other part wanted to crawl into the closet and lock herself away from the world.

  She rubbed her cheek against Midas. His jackhammer purr brought a welcome smile to her lips. “I’m going to miss you, handsome.”

  “What about me?” At the sound of Will’s voice, Kelsey looked up. He stood in the doorway to her room. “Are you going to miss me as much as you’ll miss my cat?”

  “I…” She tightened her hold on Midas and cuddled him closer. No matter what pain she was feeling, she’d given it her all. Will was the one who wasn’t willing to take a chance. She could walk away with no regrets. “I don’t think so.”

  Will raised a brow. “Oh, really?”

  Kelsey nodded. It surprised her to realize how much she meant it. Will was the one who was afraid to love again. “Midas goes after what he wants. He isn’t afraid to ask for love. You’ve got to respect that in a man.”

  “Midas is a cat.”

  “A male cat.” She placed Midas on the bed. “That’s close enough for me.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Talk?” Talking to Will again wasn’t something she could handle right now. Her frazzled emotions could only take so much. She folded a pair of jeans and placed them in her suitcase. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “There’s plenty to discuss.”

  “You made your feelings—or rather your lack of feelings—clear. It’s best if we leave it that way.” She folded a white blouse. “If you’re worried about me, don’t be. I might have wished for a different ending, but I’m not about to sit around mourning the loss of an unrequited love.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Go find him.”

  “Find who?”

  “Mr. Right.” Kelsey dropped the neatly folded shirt back on the bed. “Somewhere in the world is a man who’ll want the love I have to give. All I have to do is find him.”

  “What if he finds you?”

  The look in Will’s eyes made Kelsey swallow hard. “That’ll make my job easier.”
<
br />   “You never take the easy way out. Not the way I do.”

  She glanced up at him. “When have you—”

  “Every chance I’ve gotten.” His eyes darkened. “My entire life things have been handed to me. This house. My job. Even Sara. Remember when you asked me about planning my wedding?”

  Kelsey nodded.

  “Not only did I not help plan the wedding, I wasn’t even the one who proposed. Sara made it easy for me. She had our entire life mapped out from the time we met. She made sure we stayed together and nothing went wrong. I didn’t have to do anything except sit back and enjoy the ride. It was so easy with her.” He took a step toward Kelsey. “You aren’t easy.”

  “Never claimed to be.”

  “You’ve never claimed to be anything other than what you are. I respect that about you. Me, on the other hand, I’ve been hiding. Hiding from the truth, hiding from my fears.”

  She stepped back. “You don’t have to tell me this.”

  “Yes, I do.” He took a deep breath. “I want another chance.”

  Her pulse was racing so fast, she thought her veins might explode. She took a calming breath. And another. “I can’t do this.”

  “Yes, you can.” He stared into her eyes, and she felt her resolve start to melt. Kelsey looked away. “We’ve both changed,” he said.

  “But not enough.” She picked up a turtleneck and folded it. “Not enough for it to make a difference.”

  “Give me the chance. Please.”

  The sincerity of his plea touched her soul. Her heart pounded, but something—no, someone—held her back—Sara. “I won’t compete with a ghost. I can’t…”

  “You won’t have to,” he said. “I loved Sara and she’ll always hold a special place in my heart. But I’ve been hiding behind that love and this ring.” He removed the gold band from his finger and held it up. “I never realized it until I met you.

  “I used Sara and our marriage to keep me safe, keep my heart safe. After she died, I was afraid. Afraid of loving and losing again. When you asked me if I dated, I didn’t tell you the only women I dated were those who reminded me of Sara. I wanted to replace her, replace what we shared. I thought if I could, things would be okay. That I could love and pretend I hadn’t lost everything when she died. But I failed miserably. You can’t replace someone, and you sure can’t find perfection. Sara wasn’t perfect. Our marriage wasn’t perfect, but I couldn’t see that. I didn’t want to see it.” He placed his wedding ring in his pocket. “Until you.”