“Bear!” Jack laughed when the dog wriggled his big old head between the headrest and the door to stick his face out the window, propping one paw on Jack’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”
From behind the wheel, Dad glanced over and smiled. But it was that sort-of smile he wore when he wasn’t really there. It wasn’t only that he looked tired. Because before, even when Dad was exhausted, there was always this bright light in his eyes. Like in his head it was always Christmas or something. Jack hadn’t seen that light in a while, which made him feel bad. Because he had the feeling it was his fault.
“So where am I taking you again?” Dad asked.
“Eddie Sloane’s house. He’s a kid in my class.”
“Where’s he live?”
Jack told him the address, a place in town not far from Quinn’s new house. Dad was quiet for a couple seconds, then said, “You still taking Quinn to the wedding?”
“It’s more like she’s taking me, I guess, but sure.” He hesitated, then said, “By the way, we decided we should start hanging out with other kids, too. Before people started to make a big deal out of it. You know, because she’s a girl and I’m a guy. Besides which, all she talks about these days is this wedding. What she’s going to wear, who all’s going to be there...” Jack shook his head. “It’s driving me nuts.”
Dad made a funny noise in his throat. “I can imagine.”
The dog’s hot panting in Jack’s ear was also driving him nuts. He pushed Bear’s head off his shoulder, as he pushed the next words out of his mouth. “Blythe’ll be at the wedding, right?”
Dad turned onto the street leading to Eddie’s house, looking like he was concentrating real hard on finding it. “Since she’s running the wedding, and she’s the maid of honor, I don’t think she has much choice.”
“Good. She’s cool.”
That got a funny look. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Jack tugged at his shoulder belt, let it snap back into place. He hadn’t even talked about this with Quinn. “I’m sorry if I messed things up for you guys.”
They pulled into Eddie’s driveway. Dad cut the engine, then twisted around to give Jack the weirdest look. Like he was trying real hard not to show what he was thinking. “What are you talking about?”
Jack rubbed the back of his head. This was harder than he thought it would be. Admitting he was wrong, that he’d been only thinking about himself. But he’d seen his dad and Blythe together enough to figure out that Dad really did like having her around. Like that night when they’d had the cookout, and then chased Bear around in the backyard, everybody laughing and acting all goofy and stuff? Even though it got strange later, for a while things had almost felt like they used to, when it was Mom and Dad and him. Like...like he was whole again.
What’s more, Jack also knew Blythe liked him. Enough to put up with his craziness. Even enough to lie about how she felt about his dad, so she wouldn’t make Jack unhappy. Took him a while to figure that out.
“You still like her?” he asked his dad.
“Yes,” his father said after a moment. “But—”
“Then...it’s okay.” Jack sucked in a huge breath, feeling a million times better when he let it out. And a million times better than that when he said, “If you want to go out with her and stuff, I’m cool with it.”
* * *
Talk about the last thing Wes expected to hear out of his son’s mouth. And knowing what it had cost him to say that...
He grabbed the back of Jack’s neck, tugging him forward to kiss the top of his head, then sat straight again. “And do I have the best kid in the world or what? I know that’s huge for you, and it means a great deal to me. However...it’s not meant to be, buddy.”
“How come?”
He was hardly going to go into the conversation from that night, even though the damn thing had replayed in his head a hundred times since then. As had the incessant, futile musing about how—especially given Blythe’s not-so-veiled admission that she was falling for him, too—they might still make it work. Only he was still drawing as much of a blank about how to do that as he had then. Too much potential for heartbreak. For everyone. So moving forward, as much as that hurt, seemed like his only option.
“Well, for a relationship to work, everybody has to be on the same page. At the same time. And we’re not.”
His son gave him one of those far-too-smart-for-his-own-good looks parents dread. “Is this about the trouble she got in when she was a kid? Because I already know about that—”
“Not as much as you think you do. And it’s only partly about that.” Releasing a breath, Wes looked out the windshield. If nothing else, he owed the kid the truth. Or at least as much as he could give him. “You know what Blythe told you about how her dad left?”
“Yeah?”
“I think that broke her, in a way.” He faced Jack again. “It made her afraid to trust that people won’t leave her.”
“That’s nuts.”
“Not when you’ve been hurt as much as Blythe has.”
Jack angled away, clearly trying to sort this all out. Then, slowly, he nodded. “She needs us, Dad. All of us.” He looked at Wes, his expression so serious Wes had to hold back a smile. “You and me and Grandma and Grandpa. Even Bear,” he said, some of the seriousness dissipating when the dog gave him a stealth lick. “And I think—no, I know—we need her.”
Wes could hardly breathe. Although he finally got out, “I agree with you. But it’s not that easy. For one thing, as I said, Blythe’s—”
“Scared. Got it.”
“Not only for herself. For you.”
Jack frowned. “Me?”
“She pointed out—rightly, I’m afraid—the likelihood of her background being made public. If we were to get together. And how hard that could be on you. Not because it would necessarily bother you, but it could some of your friends. Or their parents.”
Pale eyebrows vanished underneath the shaggy bangs. “Like I’d care what they’d think.”
“You might if you suddenly find yourself sitting by yourself in the cafeteria.”
“You mean, like I already have been?” the kid said with a snort, then smiled. “Except for Quinn.” Then he sighed. “So what are you saying? We should give up on Blythe because of what might happen?”
A thought that, especially when thrown in Wes’s face that way, made his stomach heave. “I don’t—we don’t—want you to get hurt. Not when you’ve already been through so much.”
“And guess what? I lived.”
“Yes, you did,” Wes said over a surge of pride, of love, for his child. “And I’ll say it again—you are one incredible kid—”
“Just get her back, okay?” Jack said, then fled the car, the abandoned dog barking after him.
His head swimming, Wes started driving, eventually finding himself at the same marshy beach where he’d taken Kym the night he’d proposed. The one they’d kept returning to after Jack was born, a relatively secluded strip of land still within sight of the Bay Bridge, now softly glittering in the hazy distance. He let the dog off the leash, feeling his spirits lift at the sight of the Lab streaking to the edge of the water, barking at whatever shorebirds had the misfortune to be in his line of sight.
Here and there reed-choked, sandy berms gave texture to the otherwise flat landscape, blocking the view beyond. As well as the dog, when he bounded past the nearest one, barking at whatever, or whoever, was on the other side.
“Bear! Come!” Wes shouted, his loafers gouging the sand as he picked up his pace to come to the rescue of the hapless object of the dog’s attention...
Only to come to a startled halt when he rounded the little hill to see Blythe sitting in the sand, a fast food bag at her side and her arms practically strangling Bear’s neck as she buried her face in his ruff
.
* * *
“How on earth did you find me?” Blythe said, not bothering to look up when she heard Wes’s muffled shooshing in the sand.
“I didn’t. Bear did.”
Wes apparently took her soft laugh as an invitation to plop down beside her. Even though, in khakis and loafers, he wasn’t exactly dressed for the beach. The warm breeze snatched at his scent, kindling memories. Regrets. Not for what had been, but for what couldn’t be. And yet, coupled with the regrets was the most bizarre sense of...normalcy, she supposed it was. Considering how they’d ended things, this should be the Awkward Moment from Hell. That it wasn’t was confusing the life out of her.
Bear nosed the food bag, then gave Blythe a hopeful look. She grabbed it before the dog did, held it out to Wes.
“Hungry?”
“Um...” He eyed the bag with pretty much the same expression as his dog, then grinned. “Actually, yeah.”
Blythe chuckled. “I somehow ordered a burger the size of Jupiter. And fries to go with. Help yourself.”
“Does this mean we’re still friends?”
“I’m not sure what this means. Other than I bought too much food and you’re here to eat it.”
Wes hesitated for a moment, then took the bag, peering inside. “Wow. You weren’t kidding. You sure—?”
“Take the damn food, Wes.”
With the half-eaten burger freed from its foam prison, he dug in, groaning with what Blythe assumed was bliss. Bear’s amber eyes fixed on the food, he planted his butt in front of his master. Still hopeful. And, now, drooling. “This is great,” Wes said, chewing. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Taking pity on the dog, Blythe pulled a French fry from the bag, tossed it to him. “And that’s Dr. Pepper in the cup. If you don’t mind my spit on the straw.” When Wes canted an amused glance in her direction, she blushed. “Although I guess that’s moot.”
“Pretty much, yeah. This is fate, you know.” When she frowned, he smiled, looking so damn relaxed and so damn handsome and so damn unflappable she wanted to clobber him. Or kiss him. Okay, both. “Out of all the beaches on the Eastern Shore,” he said, “what’re the odds of us both landing on the same one at the same time?”
“So you think this is part of some grand plan?”
A fry disappeared into his mouth. “Definitely worth considering.”
“Or you could chalk it up to coincidence. As most of the world would.”
“I suppose.” Clearly refusing to take the bait, Wes pinched off a piece of the burger for the dog, then dispatched the rest in three or four bites before picking up the drink. He took a long pull on the straw as he faced the sparkling, slate-blue water, the sky stippled with clouds and bobbing, shrieking gulls. Down by the shoreline, a teetering little sandpiper preened itself, oblivious to his spectators. Until Bear galumphed off to disturb the poor thing’s toilette.
Wes twisted the cup back into the soft sand, then pulled up one knee to prop his wrist on it. “I didn’t think anyone else knew about this spot. Kym and I always thought of it as our little secret.”
“Along with probably hundreds of other people,” Blythe said.
“True. But we never saw them, which was all that counted.”
She nodded, then laughed again when Bear started rushing and nipping at the water rippling along the beach’s edge. “The last summer the girls and I were all in St. Mary’s, I’d just gotten my license. Nana let me take her old Buick for a drive and this is where we ended up. I thought I’d found heaven.”
“That why you’re here now?”
“Maybe. Hadn’t thought about it.” She forked her fingers through her hair. “I was at April’s. My mother’s apparently coming to the wedding.”
If the non sequitur threw Wes, he didn’t let on. “An unexpected turn of events, I take it?”
“You might say. Although at least I have a week to prepare. As opposed to walking down the aisle and seeing her sitting there. That would not have been pretty. Aside from that, though, April got on my case about...some stuff. I wasn’t in the mood.”
“For?”
Blythe felt her mouth pull tight. “Dealing. Which is so not me. Not these days, anyway.” Her brow knotted, she looked at Wes. He’d reclined beside her, his head propped in his hand, watching her. “Running...I don’t do that anymore.” Still frowning, she faced the water and said softly, “Or thought I didn’t, anyway.”
“And what are you running from?” Wes asked.
“All that happiness,” she said, surprised when her throat closed up.
* * *
His heart breaking for her, Wes reached for Blythe’s hand, wishing he could somehow fix that part of her she obviously believed was deficient. Because Jack was right—she did need them. Almost as much as they needed her. “You don’t think you’re entitled to happiness, too?”
“I never said that,” she said with a sharp shake of her head. “And the thing is, I’m not unhappy. Most of the time, anyway. I love my work, and working with the kids online. And being around my cousins again after all this time has been great.” She smiled. “Even when they drive me batty. But for the most part I make my own happiness. And I sure as hell don’t look for it from outside sources.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t accept it when it lands in your lap. Say, when you’re with your cousins. With Quinn.”
Her features softened. “Okay, I’ll cede that point. But I sure don’t rely on anyone else for it. Because that way lies disappointment. And heartache. Learned that the hard way.”
Before either of them knew it was coming, before anyone could come up with a dozen reasons why he shouldn’t, Wes sat up to cradle the back of her head and kiss her, slow and sweet. “And, you know,” he said quietly when he broke the kiss, touching his forehead to hers, “I could strangle whoever shattered your trust so badly.”
“But on the bright side,” she said, “it toughened me up.”
You really believe that? he thought, but knew better than to voice that aloud. Because from where he stood, she was one of the most vulnerable people he’d ever met. Her giving heart aside. “Maybe so. But there are people you can count on. Like your cousins, I imagine.” His thumb stroked her cheek. “Like me.”
Blythe turned to tug her long skirt down over her calves, her gaze fixed on the water. “And we’ve already been through this,” she said on a long sigh. “It’s not going to work between us. It can’t work. That’s nobody’s fault, it just is. I can’t change my past, and you can’t change who you are. Your...” she waved one hand “...mission. Then there’s Jack—”
“Who, by the way, told me earlier today that—and I quote—that he was cool with us going out.” He smiled. “And stuff.”
A blush swept up her neck as her eyes cut to his. “And what does he mean by ‘and stuff’?”
Wes chuckled. “Probably not what you’re thinking. Not that he doesn’t know about ‘stuff,’ but I don’t think that’s what he meant in this context. The point is, though, his initial objection to you doesn’t seem to be an issue anymore—”
“Dammit, Wes! Why? After everything...everything you know about me, why are you still interested? Hell, why are you still even here when you know this is dead in the water?”
“Because instead of telling me to get lost when I showed up out of the blue, you gave me the rest of your lunch.”
After a moment, she laughed. “Really? That’s it?”
“Then how about because, despite all the crap you’ve been through, you’re honest and loving and decent—”
“Decent? Seriously?”
“In all the ways that really count? Absolutely.”
The breeze snatched at her skirt hem; she tugged it down again. “I’m also a fraud, acting like I’ve got my act totally together when inside...�
�� She let out another, much more bitter, laugh. “Inside I’m a mess.”
“Yeah. You said. So why do you think this makes you special?”
Her eyes shot to his. “What?”
“Honey, we’re all messes inside. There’s not a single human being on the planet who doesn’t put up a front sometimes, so people don’t make fun of us, or think badly of us, or quietly make arrangements to have us locked up. You want to talk feeling like a fraud, trying being in politics. No, I don’t outright lie,” he said to her lifted brows, “but you’d better believe there are times when I wonder who the hell I thought I was to think I could make a difference. When I’m flat-out petrified I’m going to look like a fool. But ultimately it’s not about what we feel, it’s about what we do. And you...”
Wes shifted to caress her jaw. “I don’t know many people who would have put someone else’s child ahead of her own needs, like you keep doing with Jack.”
Fear flashed in her eyes. “I don’t need—”
“Of course you do, honey. Just like everybody else—”
“No, I don’t!” Blythe said, trying to stand, yanking her skirt out from beneath Wes’s butt. “Because needing is what always, always gets me into trouble! And when I’m around you, when you touch me, or—” she scooped up her trash, the skirt clinging to her legs as she tried to back away “—or look at me like you’re looking at me right now, I’m so tempted to forget exactly how badly needing—heck, even wanting—always works out for me.”
On his feet by now, Wes jerked out his hands. “So that means it won’t ever work out for you?”
“I don’t know! But now’s definitely not the time, and you’re definitely n-not the guy!”
His hands dropped. “Really.”
He could see her blush from here. “Okay, I can’t be that girl. Your girl. And stop looking at me like that! So, please—go find someone who won’t be an embarrassment to you and Jack, who you won’t have to hold your breath about, waiting for someone to hurl the truth into your lives like a firebomb! Because I would never forgive myself if I caused either of you more pain.”
The Marriage Campaign Page 17
