by Kim Amos
The women all stared at her. “For real?” Audrey asked dumbly. “But why?”
Betty shrugged, her expression casual even as her eyes were sharp. “I think she needs us.”
Anna’s forehead was creased under her dark hair. “I don’t know, Betty. She hurt Audrey pretty badly. Maybe give it some time?”
Audrey was going to agree, except there was a nagging shard of an idea that wouldn’t loosen from her brain. Kieran had been a liar. He had been a gambler. Five years ago, those things had all been true, and Casey had known it. He was reformed now, but…
Her fingers twitched around the Scotch glass as she envisioned a marriage where Kieran was stealing from their retirement funds to gamble.
In her own messed-up way, Casey had saved her. In a strange way, maybe she’d even saved Kieran, too.
“Listen,” Betty said. “Audrey has told me some about how she and Casey grew up, and it wasn’t easy. Casey had to be an adult before her time, and that’s hard on any kid. I think what she needs are some friends. Some people to show her how to be a sister. She screwed up, no doubt, but I believe she did it in Audrey’s best interests. Call me sentimental—”
“No one would call you that,” Willa interjected.
“Fair enough. But either way I think Casey needs us.” She turned to Audrey. “Listen to me. You don’t have to forgive her until you’re ready. You don’t have to make plans with her. We’ll just invite her to Knots and Bolts on Thursdays and see if she comes, and we’ll go from there.”
Audrey stared at her friend. Betty might be tough and outspoken, but she might just have the biggest heart of all of them. Audrey remembered how, when Willa joined Knots and Bolts, Betty had her own road of forgiveness to walk. Willa had bullied Betty for years in middle school and high school—and maybe Betty knew that there were good things on the other side of giving someone the benefit of the doubt.
“I’m for it,” Willa said, as if reading Audrey’s thoughts. “I think she should come.”
“I think Audrey should have the final word,” Stephanie said. Anna nodded in agreement.
“I’ll sleep on it,” Audrey said. “I think I need some breakfast and a nap, and then maybe my head will be clearer.”
“Fair enough,” Betty said. “Let’s exit stage left, ladies, and let this poor girl get home.”
The group put away the Scotch and headed for the back door. Audrey was rooting for her keys when she stopped short—again.
“Can someone take me home?” she asked, exasperated to the limit. “My stupid car is still at the Wheelhouse.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Audrey studied her reflection in the mirror.
Her knee-length sleeveless black dress—the one she’d worn to every school awards ceremony or special occasion for the past three years—hugged her shape in the same familiar way it always had. Her comfortable flats were scuffed but sensible, and she wore her favorite bra—a soft pink satin affair that was delicate but didn’t push her boobs into her throat.
Audrey swished her hips a little, and couldn’t help but smile. Her hair was down, but not erupting all over her head. Instead, she’d curled it so it tumbled in soft auburn waves that ended just above her shoulders. Her eyeliner and mascara accented her deep brown eyes, but didn’t go as far as being Egyptian. More like Egyptian light, she thought.
Her Harley-Davidson clothes and position hadn’t been the answer to her new look, her new life, but they’d helped her find it. Now, for the first time since she’d been fired from her track job, Audrey felt like she was seeing—really seeing—herself. The woman looking back at her wasn’t a mousy gym teacher, and she wasn’t a vampy motorcycle model. She was just…Audrey.
She stared at her shape and tried to picture this woman walking through the opening of the music tent at the Asparagus Festival, and letting herself be pulled into Kieran Callaghan’s arms. Her skin prickled at the thought of his hands on her, of his wide mouth pressing against hers and her every curve fitting just right against his strong body.
If they came together now, it wouldn’t be for some hot sex.
She shook her head, knowing she could tumble into bed with Kieran again and again, but she’d always feel much more than the raw pleasure of it. She couldn’t have part of Kieran and not wish for more. This whole notion that she could allow herself a trickle of feeling for him and not have it turn into a wave of affection was ridiculous. The click was always there—ever present, like a playing card in a bicycle’s spokes.
The question was, would she let herself go to him now, in order to hit the reset button on their relationship? Would she gather together every ounce of faith she had, and step off the cliff in front of her, trusting that she wouldn’t fall—but fly?
“Yes,” she said into the space of her empty house. Her heart pounded in her chest; her body was humming with the potential of this night.
Tonight, she would dance with Kieran Callaghan. Tonight, she would let herself fall.
And tonight, she would trust that he would catch her.
* * *
Audrey stepped from her front door into the dusky evening and inhaled the sweet spring air. Crickets and frogs were singing along the banks of the nearby Birch River, and a gentle breeze carried the smell of lilacs and freshly mown grass. Lights from neighborhood homes shone warmly in the deepening night.
She started for town, wanting the walk and the fresh air to help keep her head clear. A walk would force her to know with certainty, with every step, that she wanted to risk her heart to Kieran Callaghan all over again.
It was only when her heel slipped slightly that she looked down and saw her walkway littered with another batch of rose petals. In the thickening darkness they looked black, not red. Her neck hairs stood at attention as she studied the hundreds of teardrop shapes, their edges curling as they dried on the gray cement.
She swallowed back nervousness. It was a romantic gesture—but she was oddly unsettled by it.
She stared at the dark shapes until it dawned on her that Kieran couldn’t have left them. She’d been home all afternoon, and she hadn’t heard the rumble of his Harley. He also didn’t seem like the kind of man to keep repeating the same trick. Petals once? Awesome. Petals twice? Overkill. At least she suspected as much.
It must have been Dave Englund, she thought, but even that idea didn’t sit right with her. He’d professed to liking her platonically.
Audrey shrugged. It could be anyone, really. A neighbor she didn’t know. Someone from the dealership she’d helped. And until he showed himself, she wasn’t about to dwell on it.
Crushing the petals without remorse, she started out, returning her focus to Kieran. Every step of her sensible heel on the pavement was a confirmation of her instincts to trust him. Right—yes. Left—yes. The hem of her skirt swished at her knees. On and on, over and over, until she crossed the Birch River and even the water’s rush echoed the sound of an audience cheering in agreement.
Tonight, she would be with Kieran Callaghan again.
Tonight, she would let herself love him.
She smiled, already hearing strains from the music and beer tents. Main Street’s squat brick buildings were just on the other side of the bridge. She’d turn left, toward Knots and Bolts, and then just keep going—dipping her head as she entered the tent, crossing from under the stars to stand under the strands of white lights inside.
For the past five years, she felt as if her life had been leading up to this moment. This was what she had wanted, even if she’d never let herself desire it consciously. She had longed for Kieran’s return, had longed for his heart to be big enough to encompass her own. And now, it was.
Now, she was his.
She smiled to herself as she reached the end of the bridge. When a hand shot out of the darkness and grabbed her arm her smile didn’t fade—not immediately, anyway. Kieran, she thought, and turned, expecting to find his familiar shape next to hers.
Instead, she came face-to-face
with the blackness of Hunter Haglund’s eyes, and the thin line of his cold smile. “Audrey,” he said.
She jerked back with shock and fear, trying to pull away, but he’d anticipated the struggle and had clamped down on her. She screamed, twisting her body, but Hunter was as unmovable as bare iron. With his other hand, he produced something white. In her confusion and fear, Audrey thought it was a Kleenex. She was briefly baffled, until he brought the Kleenex to her face.
It wasn’t a tissue at all, she realized. It was cloth.
She screamed again, then knew immediately she’d made a terrible mistake by intensifying her struggle. As she pulled air into her lungs, she smelled a sharp chemical odor. The edges of everything started to fade.
No, she thought.
She resisted, fought to stay conscious, but the pull into darkness overtook her.
The lights around her extinguished completely.
* * *
In the center of the music tent, a fiddler and a washboard player soloed their instruments, and a large bassist kept up the beat. Kieran listened to the twang of the music, watched couples whirling on the dance floor around him, and took another sip of his asparagus beer. He glanced at his watch. Eight fifteen.
She would come.
Any minute, Audrey Tanner would walk toward him, the inky night silhouetting her from behind and the tent lights illuminating her from above, and he would capture that moment in his mind’s eye to hold the rest of his life. He’d play it back to himself when they were eighty years old, having grown wrinkled and stooped together, and he’d always see a young, beautiful woman striding toward him on a warm night.
He’d believed so firmly she would come when he’d knelt in front of her on the wooden bench earlier today. The softness in her honey brown eyes was unmistakable. She cared for him. And he would spend his life endeavoring to be worthy of that care.
Audrey Tanner was the most incredible woman he’d ever known. She was kind and compassionate and strong and forgiving—all wrapped up in a smoldering hot package. She’d believed the best in him five years ago, when she’d had no reason to. She’d trusted him, and he’d let her down.
Come hell or high water, he would never let it happen again. Ever.
And when she arrived tonight, her eyes sparkling and her perfect mouth turning into a smile, he would tell her as much. If she let him, he’d show her as much.
He took another sip of beer, trying to wash away the thoughts of how, exactly, he’d show her. He could imagine his hands trailing along her sweet skin, up her shapely calves to her thighs, then to the soft flesh between them. He would part her there, and slip a finger inside, then two as she heated for him. The heavenly feel of her would engulf him as he pleasured her. He could almost hear her weak moans, could see the way her thick hair tumbled as she arched her neck.
He would pay for his sins in strokes and kisses and thrusts. It would be a glorious repentance.
He shifted, hoping his aching hardness wasn’t visible to everyone around him. Instead of fantasizing about Audrey naked, he pictured them in Boston instead. He’d take her to his favorite oyster shack on the harbor, and they’d drink good Boston beer. He’d introduce her to his brother, show her Southie, and even point out the crumbling brick apartment building where he’d grown up. He’d reveal all of his past because there wasn’t a single corner of his life he wasn’t willing to bare to her, nothing left that he wouldn’t show her or confide in her.
Not anymore.
The tent was getting crowded. Someone bumped his shoulder, and irritation flared. He wanted everyone to clear out so he could see Audrey the moment she walked into the tent.
If she walked in.
He clutched his drink, pushing away his worry. There was no if. She would come.
Wouldn’t she?
He was straining for another look over people’s heads, scanning the throngs for Audrey, when two teenage girls approached him.
“Hey, we saw you in the pageant,” one of them said, her dark ponytail swinging. “And it was amazing. I mean, the way you carried off Ms. Tanner? It was awesome. Are you guys in love?”
Kieran studied the long-limbed girl. She was familiar somehow.
“That was seriously the coolest thing ever,” said the other girl. Her blonde hair was pulled into twin braids. “The way you rushed the stage? Incredible.”
He studied the pair until it finally dawned on him. The tall one. He’d been at her house. With Audrey.
“I saw you the other day,” he said evenly. “Audrey was there to talk to you. About a guy.”
“Oh, totally. I’m Alexis, this is my friend Sonja. We run with Ms. Tanner on Sundays. And a couple weeks ago, my dumbass ex-boyfriend Hunter stalked us, and Ms. Tanner was amazing about the whole thing.”
Of course she was, Kieran thought. Audrey was amazing about most everything.
“Things are straightened out, then?” he asked, realizing that he hadn’t been able to follow up with Audrey after visiting this girl’s house.
“Once Ms. Tanner got involved, Hunter totally stopped being a jerk, even when I dumped him,” Alexis was saying. “It was amazing. I mean, I didn’t think anyone could get him to leave me alone, but she totally did. It was tough because I had to tell my mom and the school principal, but then, poof, just like that he stopped. I think it’s because Ms. Tanner has super powers.”
Kieran smiled at the way the girls adored Audrey. And no wonder. If he’d had a teacher like her, he’d be babbling about it, too.
“He even knocked off the crap with the rose petals,” Sonja was saying. “Ms. Tanner got Hunter to quit everything.”
Sonja flipped one of her braids off her shoulder. “God, it was so dumb anyway. Hunter would leave rose petals on Alexis’s front walkway, and she’d have to clean them up before her mom got home. He thought it was super romantic, but it was more like super annoying.”
“Yeah. Never do that to a girl. It’s messy. Seriously. Just save the money you’d spend on flowers and take her out to dinner.”
Kieran smiled, thinking that he’d do all that and more for Audrey. He’d empty himself out to help her see how much he loved her. By giving everything he had to her, he could be filled up by her, near to bursting, every day.
That is, if he got the chance. His eyes flicked to the entrance again, but all he saw was darkness.
“When you see her, tell her we said hi,” Alexis said. Kieran nodded, even as his guts twisted. With every passing minute, he became increasingly worried she wouldn’t come. That he’d misread the whole situation somehow. Or that she’d changed her mind.
Alexis elbowed Sonja, and the pair made their way out of the tent. He watched them go, his stomach sinking. He could picture the tilt of Audrey’s head, the brightness in her eyes if they danced together tonight.
If she came. If she forgave him.
If.
He glanced at his watch. Nearly eight thirty. His chest ached as the minutes stretched on and on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Audrey awoke to soft light and warm surroundings. She straightened her stiff neck and struggled to get her bearings—and make sense of what had happened.
The bridge. Blackness. Hunter.
She twisted her head to look around—which was a mistake. Nausea rolled inside her, and she was forced to stay still until it passed. When she could, she turned slowly, to get her bearings. She was alone, seated on a plush leather couch. There was a fire crackling in a fireplace made of smooth, gray fieldstones. Polished hardwood floors gleamed in the firelight, and enormous windows looked onto the black water of a nearby lake.
She blinked. Where was she?
More importantly, where was Hunter?
She stood unsteadily, forcing her brain to think. To process this logically.
Don’t panic. Find a way to get out of here now.
She looked down—her shoes were still on her feet. But her purse was gone, and so was her cell. She looked around for a landline, but couldn�
�t see any kind of phone.
The fire popped. She jumped. Clapping her hands over her mouth, she fought to keep from screaming. No, she told herself, you will not lose it. Not now.
There was a hallway off the high-ceilinged room she was in, but no obvious door to the outside. She took a breath, the traces of the chemical Hunter had used on her still in her nostrils.
She would just have to bolt down the hallway and pray she could make it to a door before Hunter caught her. Wherever he was.
She swallowed, wondering if he was watching her right this instant. She tiptoed closer to the room’s only exit.
She couldn’t hear anything above the crackle and pop of the fire.
Taking a steadying breath, she was ready to sprint when she heard his voice.
“Ah, you’re awake!”
She froze. He appeared at the end of the hallway holding two glasses of wine. “Your shadow gave you away,” he said, flicking his sandy-haired head toward the wall, where the outline of Audrey’s body flickered in grays and blacks. Her shape was hunched and contorted with fear. Anyone coming down the hallway would see it.
She forced herself to straighten, to stay calm.
This is Hunter—he’s a kid, she thought. Let him know you’re the teacher and he’s the student.
He kept his black eyes on her as he set the two glasses of wine down on the sleek coffee table. “Sorry about the bridge,” he said casually, as if he’d accidentally bumped her shoulder and not drugged her. “I wanted to make sure we could go somewhere private. To talk.”
“What do you want, Hunter?” She kept her eyes on him, kept her voice even. She struggled to remember the training all the teachers had when they’d prepared for an emergency at school. It was an active shooter training, and Hunter didn’t have a gun that she could see. Still, Audrey recalled as much of the training as she could, keeping her hands visible, palms out. Only as a last resort were they supposed to engage the person—to confront him or her in any way. They were supposed to flee, or hide quietly. Too bad those weren’t options right now.
