Regrets Only (Sequel to The Marriage Pact)

by Pullen, M. J.

  Back together. Shit.

  Suzanne quelled the familiar sense of panic. She remembered the words of her therapist, who she’d been seeing twice a week since the attack. “It’s all about looking at your old patterns and deciding whether they are still working for you.” Running away from nice guys and potentially stable relationships was what she’d done her whole life. Had it worked for her? Hell, no. She leaned over and gave William an appreciative peck on the lips.

  When she turned her attention to the dancers out on the deck, she saw that Dylan was looking at her. He gave her a grimace that was supposed to be a smile, took a swig from the bottle, and threw his arm around a petite redhead dancing next to him. Now on-deck for the visitors…

  A little while later, the party began its inevitable descent into debauchery, and Suzanne got up and paid the bartenders so they could pack and go. They left what little booze remained in a box in the kitchen, where Suzanne knew it would not survive the night. She and William helped the cleaning staff break things down, starting at the edges of the party and working inward, pushing the stragglers inside. The poker table was set up in the great room, where they ran into Dylan on their way downstairs for the night.

  He lifted his drink in salute to her—he’d re-civilized himself with a glass, she noted—and shook William’s hand as Suzanne introduced them. “Nice to meet you, Willie,” he said, ignoring Suzanne’s glare. “You know, Scarlett, this is a great party. Think you should consider planning weddings for a living.”

  “I believe we all know by now I’m not a wedding kind of girl,” she said without thinking, and William blanched. Oh, God. She fished desperately for something to say to redeem herself, with Dylan wearing an almost malicious smirk, amused by her discomfort. “I mean, it’s really the bride and groom who make a wedding wonderful, not the event planner. Kate looked lovely, don’t you think?”

  She turned to William, pleading a silent apology for being so thoughtless, but he seemed to have recovered his normal color. He rubbed her back, gently this time, and said, “Well, I think you can do whatever you want and do it well, weddings or anything else.”

  “Well put, William,” Dylan said, lifting his glass again. “Your man here is right, Scarlett, you really can do whatever you want.”

  Suzanne bit back the caustic retort brewing in her mouth and forced a genteel smile. William smiled for real, not catching the covert meaning of the conversation at all. Just then the petite redhead emerged from Dylan’s bedroom, and began pulling on his arm, whining. “Dylaaan…”

  “Déjà vu,” Suzanne said quietly. Though he didn’t respond, she felt sure Dylan heard her.

  “Well, I hate to be an ungracious host,” he said expansively, “but duty calls. Will, it was a pleasure meeting you. Hope you’ve enjoyed my little cabin in the backwoods. Scarlett, you take care of yourself. Nice work. Goodnight.”

  He allowed himself to be led into his bedroom and the door swung shut just a little harder than necessary. Next to her, Guillermo, Spencer, and a couple of other guys were setting up for poker. “I thought Dylan was playing, too?” she heard Guillermo ask.

  “Oh, he’ll be out in a few minutes,” said one of the guys she didn’t know. “Gretchen’s not exactly big on foreplay, if you know what I mean.”

  Guillermo knew what he meant. Suzanne knew what he meant. Half of Tennessee knew exactly what he meant. She took William’s hand and practically dragged him down the stairs and outside to the cabin.

  “He seems like a good guy,” William said, a little winded, trying to keep up with Suzanne on the path to the little cottage. Servants’ quarters is more like it, she thought bitterly.

  “He’s a fucking saint,” she muttered.

  “What? Honey, slow down. There are rocks and roots and stuff out here.”

  Suzanne flipped on the light, glad that Yvette had a family obligation this weekend and was therefore not in her usual room in the guesthouse. The little bedroom across the cottage from Suzanne’s was piled high with tour preparation materials, though, which she supposed was why no one else was in there either. Yvette would be in late the next afternoon, along with the rest of the band and crew who weren’t here already. The summer tour started mid-week, and from there they’d be gone for three and a half months.

  She pushed William down on the couch as soon as they got in the door, straddling his lap and kissing him forcefully. “Wow,” he said, coming up for air. “Not that I’m complaining, but where did this come from?”

  “I don’t know,” Suzanne said, stripping out of her shirt and loosening his tie. “I just really want you tonight.”

  “Okay,” he said, helping her with the tie and his shirt. “It’s been a few years, but I seem to remember that arguing with you is useless.”

  She didn’t want him to talk anymore. She kissed him violently and bit his lip, hoping to work him into a frenzy that would leave words, and everything else, behind. “Ow,” he said softly. “Easy.” But it was working. She could feel him responding to her, getting hard beneath his pressed khaki dress pants, which was, in itself gratifying. Maybe not everything about her was broken beyond repair.

  Just her heart.

  The words came as William was shifting himself on top of her on the couch, fumbling with the zipper on the side of her skirt. She forced herself to focus on the moon, reflected from the window behind her off a mirror near the door, while he worked at the obstinate zipper. But it wouldn’t budge, and he grinned shyly up at her for help. She tried, too, and it wouldn’t move. Suzanne let out an exasperated groan.

  “Should we just…leave it on?” he suggested. She wanted to say yes, that would be such a turn-on. Let’s make love with my skirt on like we’re in an elevator stuck between floors or I’m your secretary or something hot like that. But her face contorted with pain and to her absolute frustration, tears dripped down her cheeks.

  “Fuck!” she said. She couldn’t get away from it. Her heart was broken. Whether Dylan had broken it, or Penny and Gunnar, or whether she’d done it herself, it almost didn’t matter. This was the feeling she’d been hiding from her entire adult life, the thing she’d done everything possible to avoid. And now she was in the middle of it with nowhere left to run.

  “Oh, God,” William said. “Did I do something wrong?”

  She shook her head. “No, I did. William, I’m so sorry. For everything.”

  His face softened. Suzanne was relieved to see that he didn’t seem to need an explanation, because she didn’t know whether she had the energy to give one. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said, putting his arms around her and stroking her hair. “I kind of had the feeling that wasn’t about me.”

  She sobbed freely now, while William held her. Minutes or hours passed—she wasn’t sure—lost in a nameless, shapeless grief for which there was no solution. After a long time, he released her and gently handed her the shirt she’d tossed on the floor, and then pulled on his undershirt and sat next to her again. “It’s Dylan, right?”

  She nodded. “Partly.”

  “You’re in love with him?”

  “I think so,” she said. “But it’s more than that. It’s me. My whole…life.”

  William put his hand on hers. “Do you think it’s possible that you may be being a little bit hard on yourself?”

  She laughed. He was probably right. She’d never known any other way to be: hard on herself, hard on everyone else.

  “Come on,” he said. “You need some sleep. It’s been a long day, a long few months, and you’re exhausted.”

  He led her to the bedroom where she changed into her pajamas and crawled under the covers. She wanted him to stay, so she wouldn’t be alone, but she didn’t want to be touched. William seemed to get this without having to be told. “I’m going to sleep with all those papers in the other room,” he said lightly. “Maybe if I have trouble sleeping I’ll read some contracts or something.”

  She smiled. He turned to go. “William?”

  “Yeah?”
r />   “All those years ago, when you proposed and I…”

  “Yes?”

  “Did I break your heart?”

  He laughed sourly. “It was pretty bad, yeah.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “Hey, no…That was a long time ago,” he said. “We’re not there anymore. Plus, several other girls have broken my heart since then, so you don’t get to be quite so special anymore.”

  “Oh,” she said. They hadn’t talked much about the years between their original romance and the present day, except in vague terms. She realized that she’d been arrogantly assuming his life had been ruined because of her.

  “I’ll say this, Suzanne. It gets easier.”

  “It does?”

  “Sure. What’s life without a little heartbreak? You know what they say…”

  She waited for the platitudes. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. Rain and rainbows…

  “Well, they say a lot of shit,” he said, a rare curse word coming from clean-cut William, “and in my experience none of it makes you feel one damn bit better.”

  She laughed. “Thank you, William.”

  “Goodnight, Suzanne.”

  She woke at dawn to the sound of a zipping suitcase in the next room. Suzanne had expected William to be gone early, and decided it was better to stay put, and let him leave on his own terms. She could ask no more of him than what he’d already done for her. He deserved not to face her today if that was what he wanted.

  When she heard the door pulled softly closed, she got out of bed to get herself ready for the same hasty exit. The note on the counter read: “Better if I go. Call anytime you need a friend.—WMF.” She packed quickly, showered without washing her hair, and slipped out of the cottage before seven a.m., leaving the key under the mat. The house was asleep in its usual post-party chaos, so she sneaked into the kitchen to grab a slice of cake for the road. The coffeepot was cold—obviously Dylan had not risen early to make it today—so she decided to skip the cake, too, and just stop at a gas station on her way home.

  She paused in her bustle to look out the back windows, realizing this could be the last time she’d be in this beautiful place. Quietly as she could, she sneaked out the back door and went to the deck. She was about to wander out to get a better view of the mountains, when she saw something that made her smile. At the far end of the deck, sleeping soundly in his favorite hammock, was Dylan Burke. She watched him for a moment, knowing this meant he had not stayed all night, at least, with Gretchen the redhead. It was small consolation, but it would have to do. She grabbed her bag and tiptoed out the house and out to her car.

  Chapter 24

  After the most tumultuous spring of her life, the hot Atlanta summer slipped away in relative quiet. Suzanne spent her time in June and July trying to establish a new order in her life. The experiences of recent months had changed her forever, and she was determined to make sure at least some of those changes were positive ones. She continued therapy twice a week, and went to a prenatal yoga class with Marci at least once or twice a week. Usually they would grab coffee or breakfast afterward, and Suzanne worked hard on listening more than she talked. She found that pregnancy was at least mildly fascinating, and that she and Marci were growing closer all the time.

  She also made it a point to spend more time with Rebecca, and to force Marci to do the same. They went out for Mexican food frequently, and they all became spectators of Manuel’s wedding plans with his future wife. They oohed and aahed over pictures of cakes and flowers and favors, and Suzanne consistently declined invitations to help them plan professionally. Her parents had her over for dinner at least once a week, and she and her dad would play cards for hours after each meal.

  She signed up for a refresher painting course through the Atlanta campus of Savannah College of Art and Design, and found that her talents had not atrophied as much as she had thought during the last decade of neglect. By July, she’d sold two paintings just by sending an email out with pictures to her Junior League address list. Normally she would’ve been too embarrassed to accept money for her artwork, especially from people she knew, but she couldn’t argue with the four months’ rent the paintings brought in. She felt the same sense of pride receiving those checks that she had felt when she made her first dollars as an independent event planner.

  Her list of men was long gone, and she put it out of her mind for the most part. She had called Rick, however, to apologize for the ungracious way that she’d left him and the unfairness of the way things had ended. In her mind she also apologized for thinking he was her stalker, but she was too embarrassed to say it out loud. He’d sounded awkward but eventually laughed, told her he was seeing a nice girl from Augusta, a kindergarten teacher. She saw William once a week or so, for a movie or to wander through an art festival. They were just friends now, and she knew the day was coming soon when he’d begin dating someone else and be less available to her. But she enjoyed what she had.

  Suzanne wasn’t surprised that she did not hear from Dylan. They had not talked since the night of Kate’s wedding. When really honest with herself, she thought it was possible she might never talk to him again.

  Suzanne did, however, hear from Kate periodically. She had sent Suzanne a sweet thank-you email when she and Jeff returned from their surprise honeymoon, and the two of them had been corresponding off and on ever since. Once Jeff rejoined Dylan’s tour, Kate had spent a couple of weeks at her parents’ home in Nashville, and then flown to visit Carla and Guillermo in Madrid. She emailed Suzanne beautiful pictures of her sightseeing trips into the Spanish countryside, and mailed her a lovely inlaid-gold bracelet from Toledo “to thank you for all your kindness.”

  Only once in their email exchanges did the subject of Kate’s brother come up. Kate had been responding to a casual question about the challenges of a long-distance marriage: It is very hard, definitely, being apart. But it’s easier knowing that Jeff’s job is with my brother. I know Dylan will look after him and make sure he gets back to me whenever he can. He treats all the guys like they’re his family. He treated Jeff that way long before he and I got together. He’s a good man, Suzanne. I know it seems hard to believe when you see the parties and the girls and everything, but Dylan is actually very kind, and extremely loyal. He’s one of those people who, once you’re part of his family, he will do anything for you and defend you at all costs. It’s hard to find people like that.

  Suzanne had stared at the email for a long time after reading it. She knew or intuited this about Dylan, but why had Kate made such a point of telling her? Had she sensed the tension between them at the wedding? Or had Dylan said something to his sister that he had not said to Suzanne? After a half hour or so, she decided she was simply reading too much into it and responded with a casualness she did not exactly feel: You are so right. Dylan is one of a kind. :)

  Though she resisted contacting him, she looked at the online tour schedule periodically to see where he was: Peoria, Illinois; Lubbock, Texas; Sacramento, California. Sometimes she imagined what he might be doing or how he was feeling, but she found this led her to a deep sadness from which it took a while to recover, especially when she was alone. Only when she was with Marci or her therapist could she really allow herself to talk freely about him. Even those conversations became less frequent and lengthy as the oppressive summer wore on.

  The one time she did see Dylan that summer, it was for a few minutes in late August, and under tragic circumstances.

  Suzanne had been at Jake and Marci’s for a couple of days when it happened. Jake was out of town filming for a piece on Olympic fencing, so Suzanne had been at their house keeping Marci company. She still had two full months before the baby was due, but Jake felt better if Marci had someone with her. He was so cute and overprotective. But Suzanne hardly needed the excuse to spend entire days with her best friend, taking walks and shopping for the nursery, and evenings eating junk food togethe
r in front of reality television.

  So they had been doing that Wednesday evening, plowing through a gallon of Edy’s and watching Big Brother, when a teaser for the ten o’clock news gave them the first hint of what happened. “Atlanta PD Officer killed in traffic accident. Details tonight.”

  Marci and Suzanne exchanged a sad look and shook their heads, but forgot about the story when Big Brother came back on. At ten o’clock, Marci was half-asleep and Suzanne was clearing the spoons and bowls from the coffee table when the news returned. The anchor, a black woman with short-cropped hair and a lavender suit, looked particularly grave as she spoke to the camera. “Channel Two has received confirmation that an Atlanta police officer struck by a car early this morning has died of her injuries this evening at Grady Hospital. Officer Bonita Daniels—”

  The bowls clattered to the floor from Suzanne’s hands and Marci awoke with a start, gripping her belly reflexively. “Shit! Suzanne! What’s wrong? Suzanne?”

  Suzanne pointed numbly at the television, where there was a picture of a younger Bonita in dress blues and her patrol hat, in front of a blue background and an American flag. She looked serious and confident, with bright lipstick standing out against her dark skin. The lipstick was different, definitely, but it was the same firm, confident face she had brought to Suzanne during one of the hardest experiences of her life.

  “—was struck by a vehicle around two thirty this morning while assisting a stranded motorist. Witnesses described a black or dark blue SUV, license plate ending in 384, that veered out of its lane and struck Officer Daniels as she assisted with a disabled vehicle. She was airlifted to Grady Hospital, where she later died. Police are still searching for the driver of the vehicle, asking anyone with information on the car or its driver to contact Crime Stoppers or dial the Atlanta police department directly.”

  “Oh, Suze,” Marci said.

  “Shh!” Suzanne hissed. It couldn’t be right. There was a mistake. The news had cut to a man in a suit, standing in front of Grady Hospital, with a red cross symbol lit up behind him.