Love Blooms

by Jamie Pope

  “No!” She reached for him. “I don’t want you to go.”

  He sat up and quickly removed the rest of his clothing and then put them both beneath her oversized comforter.

  “I make it a policy not to make love to a crying woman.” He kissed the side of her face. “I need to know what’s wrong with the woman I love.”

  “Stop telling me that you love me.”

  “Why? I do love you. I’ve loved you for so long.”

  “You’re making this harder for me.” She shut her eyes. She couldn’t stand to look at him any longer.

  “What am I making harder?”

  “I’ve been getting job offers from all over the country the past month. Yesterday I was offered one that was too good to give up.”

  His body grew a little tighter, but his expression didn’t change. “Where is the job?”

  “Los Angeles. He’s starting me out at two hundred thousand dollars a year. He has a house for me to live in and a car to drive until I find my own. He’s letting me keep my schedule flexible. I wouldn’t have to travel outside of L.A. unless I wanted to. I can be home with Teo and I’ll get to do hair and makeup for celebrities and photo shoots. It’s a dream job.”

  “But is it your dream job?”

  “You knew I was planning to move off island when we started this up. You went with me into that salon in Boston. You’re the one who encouraged me to take the job in Nantucket. You knew I always wanted a better life.”

  “And a life with me isn’t good enough?”

  “I never said that. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  “You can have whatever you want with me. I could give you a life you never even dreamed about. I can take care of you. You would never want for another thing.”

  He was saying the same thing Elijah had said to her all those years ago. It was the way her ex-husband had seduced her into giving up her dreams for him. She couldn’t go through that again.

  “I don’t want you to take care of me. Everything I’ve done these past four years was to get to this point. I need to take this job to show all those people who thought I was nothing but trash, that I made myself into something. I have to take this job for Mansi who paid my way through school, and for my mother who had big dreams for me. I’ve got to take this job for Teo—”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You don’t have to take this job for Teo. He would be happy here on this island, surrounded by the family that loves him. With the man who wants to raise him as his son. I love him Nova. I would be a good father to him.”

  There was nothing she could say to deny that. Teo loved Tanner. Teo was happier now that Tanner was a big part of his life. Teo would be terribly sad without him. And it would be all Nova’s fault. “Don’t do this to me, Tanner. Don’t force me to choose between you and my dreams.”

  “I’ll come out to L.A. with you. I’ll find work out there eventually. I can take care of Teo until I do.”

  “You just went into business with Wylie. You can’t leave him high and dry and you wouldn’t be happy there. We both know that.”

  “You won’t be happy there, either. I know you well enough to know that, but I love you enough to make the move. I love you enough to do anything you ask.”

  “Stop telling me you love me.”

  “No. It’s true. I love you as much as you love me. Don’t try to deny that you’re in love with me. I know you are. I can feel it in everything that you do.”

  She wouldn’t deny it. It was too hard to, but she wasn’t going to admit it either. There was something big inside her blocking her from saying those words. “You don’t really know who I am. You don’t know the kind of person I am. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

  “What did you do? Steal to keep you and Teo fed? It doesn’t matter. All of that is in the past.”

  “It’s not in the past for me. It’s there underneath the surface and it could all come back to get me.”

  He narrowed his eyes; some of the anger she had seen there was gone, now replaced by concern. “What are you talking about?”

  “The reason I ran away.” She had never told anyone about that. Not even Mansi. She had been far too scared, too ashamed to admit that she had left a man on the floor to die, but more than that, she had left her mother. Already dying from the alcohol that had poisoned her liver. She had left that night and had never spoken to her again.

  “What happened?”

  “When I was seventeen, I came home from work to find my mother passed out on the couch and a naked man in our bathroom. He was the complex’s maintenance man and someone my mother slept with from time to time when rent was due or she needed more booze. He—he tried to force me to have sex with him. My mother always had these men around. Ever since I was a little kid they would leer at me, or grope me. They would always say disgusting things to me when my mother wasn’t around. And for a long time I avoided it. I never allowed myself to be alone with them, but that night my mother had been so drunk. And the guy just wouldn’t stop and when he reached for my zipper, I grabbed a knife off the kitchen counter and plunged it into his chest and then I ran like hell. I left a man to die on the floor. I left my alcoholic mother with no one to take care of her. I left and I married an abusive asshole just because he promised me that I would have a home to always come back to. You see? There is no reason for you to love me. I can’t even love myself.”

  He shook his head, but she didn’t see condemnation in his eyes, just profound sadness. “He tried to rape you, Nova. What you did was self-defense. You wouldn’t have been in trouble.”

  “For years I’ve waited for the police to come after me, but they never have. It’s been nine years and I’ve never been able to piece together what happened. Did Mama see what I did and cover it up? That was a big thing she had done for me and I just left her there. She died alone, you know. If I had stayed I could have gotten her to a doctor sooner. She wouldn’t have had to die alone.”

  “Damn it, Nova. It wasn’t your job to take care of an alcoholic woman. You were a kid. Your mother was supposed to take care of you. You were neglected and abused your entire life. I know you loved her, but you didn’t owe her anything more than what you already gave her. Don’t feel guilty about it, and your mother was dying then. I doubt she was strong enough or clearheaded enough to carry out any cover-up. You probably didn’t kill that man.”

  “There was so much blood. You should have heard the scream that came out of him. I still hear it. Sometimes it wakes me up at night.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Archie La Forge.”

  “None of what you said makes me love you any less. In fact, I think it makes me love you even more.”

  A sharp pain surged in Nova’s chest. “But I didn’t want this. I told you that in the beginning. I was always planning to leave here. It took me so long to get here, and I refuse to miss my chance again.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No. You came to this island for a reason. You belong here. You’ll meet someone else. Someone who is sweet and doesn’t like to argue and who knows how to be loved. You’ll be so much happier with her than you will with me.”

  “She doesn’t exist!” He sat up and roughly rubbed his face. “There is no one else for me but you.”

  “I told him I wouldn’t start the job until September. We can still have the summer. We can still go on vacation like we planned. We can still have these next few weeks.”

  “What’s the point?” he asked, getting out of the bed. “It won’t be any easier to lose you then. I love you, Nova, and if you can’t love me back then I don’t think there is anything left for us to talk about.”

  He got dressed and walked out of the room without looking back at her. As soon as she heard the front door close, the reality of what just had taken place hit her. She had just lost the best thing that ever happened to her and it was entirely her doing.

  * * *

  “You look like shit,” Wylie said to Ta
nner as he walked into Tanner’s office.

  “Well, I feel like shit, too. So there’s that.”

  The corner of Wylie’s mouth curved into a slight smile. “You still haven’t spoken to Nova?”

  “No. There’s nothing left to say. We want two different things.” It had been a week since he walked out on her. “Teo misses you. He was crying, he was so upset.”

  “Don’t tell me that.” He rubbed his aching forehead. “It makes this thing so much damn harder.” There were a hundred times that he wanted to storm over there and force her to change her mind, but he knew that nothing would change her mind. She would just dig her heels in more. He loved her stubbornness, her determination, but it was also the thing about her that made him want to shake her.

  “There’s no handbook for a breakup like this. It’s not like you can sue my sister for visitation. But Teo is miserable without you.”

  “His birthday is coming up. I was going to take him to a baseball game and then out to dinner.”

  “You can still do that. Nova will let you see him.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah, because when he started to cry, she started to cry, too. I’ve never seen her so upset. She always hides her feelings, but she can’t this time. She’s a wreck.”

  “You think she’s having second thoughts about us?”

  “Fourth and fifth thoughts, but I doubt she is going to change her mind. She’s already started packing. They are going to go out to California early. Nova asked Mansi to stay with them until they get settled. Cass and Sunny and me are going to go with them, too. We’re going to Disneyland and do a bunch of touristy stuff for about ten days, to make the transition easier on Teo.”

  It was a good plan. Nova was taking her son from his entire family. The separation would be brutal. He was glad it wasn’t going to be so abrupt. But he couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for himself. Nova was going to California and taking everyone he cared about with her. “How do you feel about it? You moved here to be with your family and now half of them are moving to the other side of the country.”

  “I’m upset, but what the hell can I do? Nova worked hard for this. She’s good at her job and people all over the country want her. She would be crazy to not take these opportunities. I’ll miss them, but I can’t be selfish. I just have to be supportive and make sure she knows that I’ll be here if she ever needs me.”

  “What do you suggest I do?” He couldn’t ask her to stay. She had said from the beginning that she didn’t want anything serious. She had told him that there was to be no falling in love, but by that point it already had been too late.

  “I don’t know. I never know the right thing to do when it comes to my sister. It seems to me you have two options. You can let her go and move on or you can follow her to California and convince her that you will be happy making a life there.”

  “Convince her? You sound as if you don’t think I’ll be happy there either.”

  “You’re a veteran. You work with your hands. You hated the wealthy people you grew up with. How are you going to fit in in L.A. where you’ll be surrounded by people who are the exact opposite of everything you worked so hard to become?”

  Wylie was right. He didn’t want to leave Martha’s Vineyard, or the quiet life he had carved out for himself, but he didn’t want to let Nova go, either. It didn’t feel like it right now, but maybe there was someone else out there for him. Someone who would like this life. Someone who would easily accept his love. Someone who wanted to make a family with him, because in the end that’s all he ever really wanted. His own family.

  “I got an e-mail from my biological father’s office.”

  Wylie’s eyes widened. “What does it say?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t open it yet.”

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “I don’t know. I have enough shit going on this week. I’m not sure if I want to deal with this now.”

  “If you ask me, one way to forget something is to get involved with something that’s a bigger pain in the ass.”

  Tanner opened the e-mail that had landed in his box an hour ago. It was short, just two lines and some contact information. “It says that he would like to meet me. Next Friday. He’ll meet me at my house.”

  “He knows where it is?”

  “He probably does. I wouldn’t be surprised if my mother and he snuck away and met at my grandparents’ house here.”

  “It’s your house now,” Wylie reminded him. “I’m assuming you’re going to want to change some things.”

  “I was going to let Nova do whatever she wanted to the house, but now . . .”

  “I’m here for you, man. Just let me know what you need.”

  Tanner nodded. He didn’t know what he needed right now, but he appreciated that he finally had a friend in his life that he could count on.

  Chapter 18

  Elijah had been arrested. It was the last thing she heard before she boarded the bus for Massachusetts. Her father-in-law had delivered the news to her. His face was grim, his jaw tight. She had gone to the police after Elijah had beat her. If it were just her, she wouldn’t have bothered, but she had looked at the small baby in her arms and she knew she couldn’t let it go. What kind of message would she be sending to her son if she had?

  The police officer who sat at the desk when she walked into the station cursed upon seeing her. She hadn’t known how bad she looked at the time. She was more concerned about her baby who had been flung across the room like he was nothing at all. She was in too much pain to make it to the hospital, but she had gone to the police first in hopes that they would get her boy checked out. They took them right to the hospital. A warrant was issued for Elijah’s arrest and it was that night she learned that it hadn’t been the only one.

  He was wanted for questioning in a murder case in Mississippi. A wealthy family in Biloxi had had their home invaded. Their children tied up. The mother beaten. The father shot. It had been the same time she had been in the hospital giving birth. They couldn’t prove that Elijah pulled the trigger or even that he was there but they knew he was involved, that he was the ringleader for a crew that had been hitting rich families up and down the coast in three states.

  That was the kind of man she had married. Had had a baby with. She had turned a blind eye to his activities for so long. She knew he was up to something, but it hadn’t been clear to her until last week when he brought home an antique diamond bracelet for her. It wasn’t the usual stuff he brought for her. This one was far too exquisite to be slipped off some woman’s arm as she walked down the street.

  She had confronted him about it and he called her ungrateful. He had said his stealing was all to take care of her and the baby she had saddled him with. She knew he had been high at the time. He was far too twitchy and agitated, but she couldn’t let his comment go. She raged back at him and he hit her. She hit him back, not wanting to back down, but he had gone ballistic. He had beaten her until she stopped moving.

  She still couldn’t see out of her left eye. Her in-laws had taken her in that night. She hadn’t wanted to call them but there was no place left for her to go and she didn’t want Teo to spend the night in a shelter. They gave her the bus money to go up north. Her father-in-law even promised to fly her back down for the trial. He said there would be one, that this time Elijah needed to be punished. At the time, he had no idea how heavily involved his son was involved in crime, but he would learn soon enough.

  Mansi was going to be waiting for her at the bus station closest to Martha’s Vineyard. She told her how happy she was that she was coming home. How much she had missed her all these years, but Nova was ashamed to go back to her grandmother like this. Totally defeated. Unable to take care of herself and her child. She was supposed to be better than her own mother. But she found herself in the same pattern. Alone with a small child to raise. With no education. With no skills and no way out. As she got closer to the bus station her stomach grew
tighter, the anxiety in her chest making it hard to breathe.

  Teo was fussy from being on a bus for two whole days. She couldn’t seem to soothe him. Nothing she ever did with him seemed right and she wondered if she had made the right choice to keep him. If she would have left Elijah when she found out she was pregnant, she could have given him away to the nice couple who wanted to love a child so much, it was painful to see. But Nova wanted to keep her son, and because she had chosen to do that, her baby could have been killed. He could have hit the wall or bounced off the couch and broken his neck on the coffee table. It would have been her fault. She was the one who confronted Elijah. She was the one who decided to keep the baby. She was the one who married a man she knew in her gut was all trouble, and the more she thought about her mistakes, the harder it was for her to breathe. And just when she thought her lungs were going to collapse, the bus stopped.

  They were at the station and her grandmother was standing there, her white hair loose around her shoulders, looking as anxious as Nova felt.

  Tears pricked the back of her eyes, but she told herself that she wouldn’t cry. She needed to be stronger than she was. But the moment she stepped off the bus in front of her grandmother and removed the hood that shielded her head and the sunglasses that covered half her face, she knew that she wasn’t going to make it.

  Mansi was made of strong stuff, but the gasp that escaped her was one that Nova would never forget. Mansi’s eyes filled with so much sadness, so much pity, that Nova wanted to hide from her again.

  “I’ll kill him. That son of a bitch. I’ll kill him for doing this to you.” She took Teo from her arms, having never met him before, and soothed the baby as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “It’s okay, little one.” She kissed his hair. “You are home now.” Mansi wrapped her free arm around Nova and hugged her tightly as she began to weep. “It’s okay, sweet girl. You are home, too. You’ll never have to leave again.”

  * * *

  A few nights later, a knock on Nova’s door shook her from her thoughts. She hopped up from her spot on her couch, knowing exactly who would be on the other side of it. Teo followed by Wylie came through the door when she opened it. She was glad Teo was back. The apartment had been far too quiet with just her and the kitten there. Last year at this time she had been home alone a lot. Teo would be off at Mansi’s or with Wylie. Nova would be at the apartment studying, trying to improve herself so she could get them out of here. and now that time had come.