Breaking Lacy (Nick & Lacy Book 1)

by Tabitha Drake

  Now, the frail man before me appeared more skeletal than alive. Indeed, the disease had feasted away everything but flesh and bone, leaving gaunt concave depressions everywhere healthy fat and muscle had once filled. Stubble marred his sunken jaws. Hazel eyes that had once been bright and full of life stared back at me dull and unfocused now, as though he were already on death's door and only watching this world from the threshold of the next. I choked down a sob and finally sat in the chair by his bed.

  I didn’t realize I was crying until he reached out to ruffle the top of my bowed head. I took his frail hand between my own strong ones and gave him a feeble smile. “God, Jerry, how did everything get so fucked up?”

  His thin, pale lips quivered into a brief smile. “You’re taking good care of my baby girl?”

  My dry laugh came out mixed with a sob, and I lowered my head prayerfully to his hand, still clasped tight in my own. “Yes.” Then I looked up and tried to put forth a convincing smile. “I asked her to marry me this morning.”

  “And she said yes,” he surmised.

  “I know it’s a little sooner than what I planned when we discussed it, but she accidentally found the ring, and once she saw it she wanted to wear it.”

  “Of course, she did,” he barely managed to breathe out, before going into a spasm of coughs. I rose, preparing to fetch Mrs. Buckner, but he waved me back down. I relaxed into the chair again when his hacking subsided.

  “You gotta let me tell her, Jer. Especially now that mom knows. You’re worse now. It’ll be too late soon.”

  I explained what happened earlier with my mother and he shook his head. “You swore you wouldn’t…”

  “But, Jerry, you-”

  “You swore. If Rhonda hassles you, you send her over to me and I’ll straighten her out.”

  “Jerry,” I said firmly, retaking his hand and meeting his eyes with firm resolve. “I love her. You’re probably the only person who knows just how much. And that’s why I have to tell her. Now.”

  He could barely breathe, but somehow, he mustered enough strength to pull himself up on his elbows to face me with grim determination, his eyes showing the last vestige of will his body likely still possessed.

  “It’s bad enough that she’ll remember me for what I did to her. I don’t want her to remember me like this, with a sick, haggard body and the face of a dead man. I’m not the man she knew, Nick. I’m not her father anymore. Her father died the same day as her mother, and that’s the man I want her to remember when she misses me after I’m gone.”

  With that, he collapsed back against his pillow, his plea having drained him beyond being able to hold his eyes open any longer. “Just promise me you’ll love her and take care of her.”

  “I will,” I vowed.

  Allowing him a few moments to catch his breath, I held his hand and tried not to let my sights wander around the room too much. Here was a man who missed his wife and had done whatever he could to keep her memory alive and with him for as long as possible. Just because I thought his methods bizarre and unhealthy, I loved Lacy enough to understand the motives behind his madness.

  Giving Jerry’s hand a goodbye squeeze, I promised him, “I’ll love her until my dying breath, Jerry. That’s one vow you can take with you, and don’t worry about anything else.”

  When I left the room, I found my mother with Ms. Buckner out in the kitchen.

  “See what I mean?” mother snapped as a greeting.

  “I’m not going to listen to another one of your lectures. I think you made yourself clear this morning over at my house. I need to leave. I still have classes to get to.”

  Mother grabbed my shirtsleeve when I started past her. “No, I called your father home from work. He’s over at our house waiting for us. We’re going to get this straightened out right now before your brother comes home from school, so he doesn’t walk in and find us arguing about you and his fiancé.”

  “My fiancé,” I corrected.

  Ignoring me, she held out her arm, motioning toward the door. Feeling like a child being reprimanded for something he didn’t do, I skulked out in front of her.

  Nick

  “What do you mean, you already know!”

  My father cringed at my mother’s shrill cry. His exasperated gaze met mine across the kitchen table while she paced back and forth beside us.

  “Rhonda, for crying out loud, will you just sit down and calm down so we can discuss this.”

  “Why bother discussing it now? You knew your son was trying to steal his brother’s fiancé this whole time and you let him do it without a word of warning to poor Kevin.”

  “Oh, ‘poor Kevin’ my ass.” My father rarely swore, and this time he sounded as though he were hanging on to his patience by a thread. “Nick is right. He didn’t twist Kevin’s arm to make him cheat on Lacy with Claire. And if you tell me you didn’t see that one coming, then you’re the only one in town who didn’t.”

  Mother opened her mouth to speak, only to change her mind a moment later, creating an opening for my father to continue.

  “And if you mean to stand there and defend one of your sons over the other, if you’re going to take sides on this matter, then I have to go on the record as supporting Nick.”

  “Andy!” My mother glared at my father as though he were speaking blasphemy. “He connived and schemed to break them up!”

  “And from the looks of things, he was right. All Nick did was create an opportunity for two people who were already looking for one. And if you’d come off your high horse for just a second, you’d see that how that night played out, and who was to blame for what—it really doesn’t matter. The point is that Lacy got hurt and it changed her. She doesn’t want to be with Kevin so why shouldn’t Nick have a chance?”

  “But he’s my baby, Andy, and he’s miserable.”

  “Oh, okay. So fuck your first-born, is that right, Mom?” I grabbed my keys and stood up so fast my chair nearly toppled over. “Well, fuck you!”

  My mother slapped me with such force my head spun.

  My father was on his feet in such haste that she didn’t see him coming until he had her wrist locked in his grasp with his sneering face up close to hers. “Lay a hand on my son again and I’ll…” He obviously couldn’t think of a threat that wouldn’t seem trifling or idle. He would never hit her, and my mother could hold her own against him in a verbal spar.

  “You’re going to let him get away with talking to me like that?”

  “Seeing as how he took the words right out of my mouth? Yes.”

  “Then you go to hell too,” she snarled, jerking her arm free and shoving my father away. “Get out of my house.”

  My father cast a fleeting glance toward me and then back to her, apparently not believing he had heard her correctly. “Excuse me?”

  A rainbow of pain, hurt, and fury distorted my mother’s pretty face, and a stab of guilt tore through me. My father might have needed her to clarify the command, but I caught the meaning quite clearly.

  “I said get out of my house if you’re going to let him speak to me like that. If you’re going to condone what he’s doing to poor Kevin and Lacy then-”

  “Just because you’re choosing Kevin over Nick does not mean I have to,” my father argued, looking at my mother as though she had just lost her wits. “Rhonda, be reasonable, honey.”

  “I am being reasonable. Grace is dead. Jerry is dying. Kevin and Lacy getting married the way they planned is the only normal and right thing left in our lives. It's what Grace wanted.” When she realized we didn’t agree with her logic, her face fell into a defeated, sulky frown, her eyes brimming with tears. “Grace is probably rolling in her grave over this whole mess.” Her instant of melancholia passed as quickly as it struck, for she turned her glare back on me in full force. “And it’s your fault.”

  Then she turned on my father again. “And yours too, for not trying to reason with him. For allowing him to break Kevin’s heart.” Crossing her arms over he
r chest, she stared at neither of us, but rather focused her attention to a lone spot of dirt on the otherwise clean floor. “Now, please leave. Both of you.”

  My father’s shoulders slumped under the weight of his fatigued emotions. “I’ll go stay with Jerry for a few days until you have a chance to calm down.”

  Staring back and forth between my parents, shocked over the extent of damage I had inadvertently caused, it took a moment for me to regain my bearing. I looked down at the table searching for my keys, only to remember they were already in my hand. My gaze drifted to my father, who stared back at my mother, looking just as thunderstruck as I felt. He started to turn away, presumably to go next door to Jerry’s. I took a step toward the back door to leave as well. My mother stopped us both.

  “I don’t want Kevin to find out about this,” she declared with finality. “It would break his heart to know that the four people he loves and respects most in this world have turned on him this way.” Me, for stealing his girl. Lacy, for allowing herself to be stolen. Jerry, for giving me his blessing. And my father, for supporting all three of us. “And Lacy doesn’t need to know either. She’s not to blame for being too young and innocent and impressionable to fend off the seduction of a grown man whom she trusted. And she doesn’t deserve to be burdened with the guilt of what all this has caused, on top of everything else she’s had to suffer.”

  Except the personal barb embedded in her claim, I agreed. “How are you going to explain dad moving out?”

  “Jerry is dying. He could go at any minute, and your father wants to be there by his side when the time comes.”

  With that, my mother turned and stalked from the kitchen. After a moment of torturous silence, I finally crossed the room to my father, placing my hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I never meant for any of this.”

  He cast me a weak smile and pulled me into an outright embrace. “You love her, don’t you?”

  “More than my own life.”

  He slapped me on the back and tightened his arms around me. “Then you have nothing to be sorry for, son. Just take care of our bird. Make sure she doesn’t suffer too much when all this finally comes out and hits the fan.”

  Indeed, would it even be possible to protect her from the fallout of our love?

  Lacy

  Nick hadn’t returned from his last class yet when I came home from school. My first stop was the bathroom, so I could take the home pregnancy test I bought on the way home.

  It had been well over a month since that first time we had unprotected sex on my birthday. We’d been careless on several other occasions since then as well. I was at least two weeks late now. I had been putting off buying a test sooner, thinking I would start any day, but now that he had proposed, it seemed important to know for sure suddenly.

  I threw the evidence in the trash bin on the curb, so he wouldn’t inadvertently find out before I was ready to tell him. I would wait until the moment was perfect, perhaps during a moonlit stroll on the beach while we were in Los Angles. That would be perfect!

  I went back to our bedroom and lay on the bed with a giddy smile. I held up my hand and studied my ring, thinking of my mother.

  She would have rejoiced in this day. She had adored Nick as though he was her own son. Nothing would have made her prouder than to see me marry and start a family with him.

  The sting of tears found me, along with the realization that my mother wouldn’t be there on my wedding day. She wouldn’t be here to kiss my cheek while helping me fix my hair and makeup before the ceremony, giving me motherly advice on how to be the best wife possible for him. She wouldn’t be here to share in my joyous excitement over her first grandchild. She wouldn’t be able to offer home remedies to cure the morning sickness that was bound to strike, or help me pick out maternity clothes and prepare a nursery, or be there with Nick, holding my hand in the delivery room. She wouldn’t be there for a million special moments. I had realized this fact on the day of her death, but it didn’t fully sink in until I lay there daydreaming about my future with Nick and our baby, itemizing all the cherished moments she was going to miss.

  In my sudden bout of melancholia, my thoughts switched from my mother to my father. I still had a father, and I loved him just as dearly as I had loved my mother, but he was gone to me too. Gone the second he touched me in a moment of drunken confusion. Before momma had died, I’d dreamed of a wedding day where my father would walk me down the aisle. He would have stopped in front of the minister and kissed my cheek before proudly handing me over to Nick. He would have cried while I said my vows, and then danced with me during the reception afterward. The only difference between losing my father and my mother was that my father could have danced with me on my wedding day. He could have toasted the bride and groom before we rushed away to our honeymoon. He could be there to help Nick pass out cigars after his first grandchild was born. He could be there to play with my children in the backyard, or sit them proudly on his lap during birthday parties. He could be there for all those things, but he wouldn’t be there.

  Then my thoughts wandered to Kevin, the boy for whom my heart had belonged to since the night we were born. We’d shared a bed for a week with the chicken-pox, and I learned more about the disgusting habits of boys than I ever wanted to know, and grew to love him even more because of all I knew. I’d written songs in honor of him, songs that would glorify him and all that he had meant to me, what he still meant to me. He was the boy who had broken my heart, yet I loved him so much I had been willing to forgive his momentary weakness. I’d loved him so much that I had desperately tried to resist falling in love with his brother. And now, I was going to marry his brother. Kevin would hate me when he found out.

  Kevin wouldn’t be Nick’s best man at our wedding. He wouldn’t even show up probably. He wouldn’t come to look upon his niece or nephew with pride through the hospital nursery window. He wouldn’t be a doting uncle to my children. He wouldn’t want to take my child out for ice cream after school, or teach them how to fish the way he had taught me. He wouldn’t come to t-ball games or school plays or sit proudly beside Nick and me during piano recitals. He would never be our honored guest for Christmas dinner or birthday parties. Once he found out about Nick, Kevin would be just as gone to me as my mother and father were now.

  The only thing I knew to clear my troubled mind was to focus on the song taking shape in my head. Grabbing a handful of staff paper from my backpack, I pulled out my guitar and set about pouring my heartbreak out in song. I played for a few minutes, and then scribbled for a few more, working in such alternating fashion for over two hours before I finished the first draft. Without bothering to take a break, I then continued with the task of jotting down lyrics. Finally, just as darkness fell on the end of what I knew would be one of the most important days of my life, a song that I knew was my best work yet was complete.

  Concentrating only on the music and singing, I played my newest creation, which was a haunting melody that matched my earlier mood to perfection, with lyrics that were equally dark and melancholy. While I sang and played, the emotions that had overwhelmed me to inspire the song spilled forth, and my tears returned with them. By the time I strummed the last note, I was shivering from the power of my gift.

  “Wow,” Nick softly said from the doorway. I looked up, smiling through my tears, and set aside my guitar as he came to me. He picked up a sheet of music and glanced over the score. Then he lifted his eyes to mine. “The world had better get ready for Lace Martin.”

  I choked on a self-deprecating chuckle and threw my arms around his neck. “As long as Nick Martin is ready for me, that’s all that matters.”

  “Oh, I’m ready all right,” he said wickedly, before guiding me back onto the pillow. Leaning over me, he plied light kisses to my eyelids and nose, all over my face, squeezing in a few words in the process. “I’ve already got the mansion on the hill planned out. All we gotta do is have kids for the private schools and chauffeurs to haul them arou
nd, and we’ll be all set,” he teased, obviously remembering the dreams I’d shared with him on the eve of my mother’s death.

  His words, so soon after my depressing bout of nostalgia and loss, renewed my tears. I sniffed them back, trying to sound unwavering. “I don’t want it anymore.”

  He pulled away and stared down at me, his face pale in light of my shocking declaration. “What do you mean you don’t want it anymore? Lace, that’s all you’ve dreamed about since your mother gave you your first singing lesson when you were four.” My tears came gushing out hot and fast, frightening him. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

  He cradled my head to his chest. I breathed in the scent of him that I’d grown to love, nestling even closer. “I just don’t want any of it anymore. I have you. You’re all I want,” I said, openly saying the words that in another place and another time, I would have rather died than ever say out loud to any man. I hadn’t even been willing to entertain the notion of giving up my dreams when Kevin was the one I was supposed to marry. But here was Nick, wanting me to succeed, supporting me and encouraging me, yet for him, I was willing to throw it all away when he wasn’t even asking me to.

  I swiped my cheeks dry with the back of my hand. “You’re proud of me, aren’t you?”

  “Of course, I am,” he said, as if that fact were so obvious that he shouldn’t have needed to say it.

  “You’d still love me even if all I ever did with my music was help your mom run the store, and teach music lessons to little kids the way my mom did?”

  “Yes,” he said with a sigh of resignation, once he seemed to realize where I was going with the conversation. “But I wouldn’t ask you to do that, Lace. You’re going to New York. We’re going,” he amended, “together. It’s what you’re meant to do, and I want it for you as badly as you want it for yourself. What happened to start you talking like this?”

  “Nick, I love you, and I wouldn’t give up being with you for a million of my dreams come true. But I’ve already lost momma, and after what happened with daddy, he is as good as gone to me now too. No matter what happened between Kevin and me, he will always be in my heart. You must know that. And now he’s gone too, because once he finds out about us, he’ll hate us both for this. It’s going to kill him. I couldn’t bear for him to think that either of us meant for this to happen. It’s just that all the people in the world—besides you—who mean anything to me, they aren’t going to be there to see me do all these great things that I’ve spent my whole life planning to do. Even if I went to New York and made a success of myself, it wouldn’t mean anything to me now that all the reasons I wanted it so badly are gone.”