Breaking Lacy (Nick & Lacy Book 1)

by Tabitha Drake

  He shook his head, contemplating me as though I were speaking a foreign language. “Lace…” he drawled, trailing off, obviously not knowing what else to say. “Baby, you’ve let yourself get all worked up over something, but you don’t mean that.”

  “I do mean it. I want to stay here with you, having your babies and being your wife.”

  He stared at me with liquid sadness pooling in his eyes. “Lace, I’ve wanted you for so long that I can’t remember not wanting you. And hearing you say that you love me and want to be with me has been my most cherished fantasy for a lot longer than you realize. But the way you’re talking… The things you just said… That’s not the way it’s supposed to be, and you know it.”

  I swept away a tear that snaked from the corner of his eye and rolled into the crease of his nose. He took my hand and pulled it to his lips, then down further between us to his heart.

  “We’ll talk more about it after our trip to L.A. Who knows how you’ll feel when we get home.”

  “My mind is already made up,” I assured him, feeling the conviction of my decision with clarity and resolve.

  “Please, just hold off on making any decisions until we get back from our trip, okay?”

  Though in my heart, my mind was already made up, I agreed for the sake of wiping the troubled sheen from his teary eyes.

  He swept the hair from my forehead and replaced the locks with a kiss. “Good. Now, I had a rough day so let me just lay here and hold you for a few minutes before dinner.”

  Smiling up at him, I snuggled as close as his arms could enfold me. “Gladly.”

  Nick

  Friday evening, Chris and I occupied one of the small tables by the balustrade overlooking the stage where Gridlock performed their second set of the evening. I had tried convincing Lacy to take the night off to celebrate her high school graduation earlier in the afternoon, but she insisted the occasion wasn’t a big deal. Since she planned to spend two full weekends with me in L.A., I didn’t pressure her to renege on her commitment tonight.

  I sloshed my whiskey around in a glass, watching as Lacy excited the crowd of dancers on the floor below. The sexy, upbeat number made me marvel over the diversity and depths of her talent. As she danced around the small dais, her energy and enthusiasm were palpable, and I found myself reevaluating my original assessment of her motives for joining Alex’s band.

  When Chris and I had first come to discover her playing at the club, I had reluctantly subscribed to Kevin’s old criticisms—that Lacy was indeed selling out. I couldn’t believe that now. Lacy wasn’t selling out. She was growing and maturing, expanding the limits of her professional creativity. And I had to agree with her experimenting, trying new styles and genres. It was her way of finding herself. Watching her play with Gridlock, it appeared she had done so.

  Her mother’s death had changed her. Kevin’s betrayal had changed her. Her father had changed her. Living with me had changed her. Playing with Gridlock had changed her. Lacy wasn’t selling out. This was the outcome of a metamorphosis I had perpetrated one fateful night six months ago.

  “Does she know that you know?” asked Chris.

  I shook my head, taking in the scene below with the solemn resignation of one on his way to the gallows.

  I had found the envelope from Noah Mason containing the letter of invitation and four airfares, one for Lacy and each of her bandmates. She had hidden it in her nightstand drawer, and I found it earlier in the afternoon while searching for an item I need to pack for my trip Monday morning.

  “Are you sure you’re gonna be able to go through with this?”

  I snapped out of my despondency and tore my sights from Lacy down below, up to Chris. “Do you have any better ideas?”

  He shook his head, sympathy and remorse substituting the playful mischief usually found in his eyes. “You sure she was planning to blow it off?”

  “She made her intentions pretty clear the other night during all that talk of not wanting to go to New York anymore. From the date on the letter, she’s had it for weeks. If she were planning to go, she would have mentioned it by now.” I scrubbed my face with my hands, feeling my happy world crashing down around me, tattering my heart and soul with each broken shard.

  As though sensing the depths to my dark despair, Chris shook his head mournfully. I stared down at the stage below, never knowing how deeply my heart could break until that moment. Heartache and regret brought tears to my eyes, and I pounded my fist on the table to counteract them. “Dammit, Chris, it’s not supposed to be this way. Not for her, it’s not.”

  Yet, deep down, I knew that Lacy had made up her mind to stay with her band.

  To stay with me.

  Unless I did something about it.

  Nick

  Saturday evening, after Lacy left for the club and still hadn’t mentioned her invitation to work with Noah Mason in New York, I knew what had to be done.

  My father was in his work garage in town, his head bent under the propped-open hood of a car, finishing a few last-minute details before heading home for dinner.

  “Dad?”

  At the sound of my voice, he looked up, concern clear in his eyes. He pulled a grease rag from his back pocket and started wiping his hands. “Nick? What’s wrong, son?”

  “I need your help, Dad.”

  “Anything,” he said, placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “What’s the matter, son?”

  I bit back a sob and gushed everything out.

  “I’ve fucked everything up, Dad. You and mom are fighting over this. Mom I furious with me. Kevin hates me. Lace is talking about giving up her music. Jerry is dying. Grace is gone. The past six months have been nothing but a huge lie. I don’t know how to fix any of it without causing even more pain to everyone I love.”

  Dad shook his head. “Oh, Nick, no-”

  “It’s true, Dad. Everything that’s gone wrong in all our lives, it’s all my fault.” I took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye. “I know it makes me a coward, and I’m prepared to live with that, but I think the only way to fix everything and get Lace back on track is to just leave. I’m heading out to L.A. Monday morning, and I think it might be best if I don’t come back. Will you please help me?”

  Lacy

  He woke me with kisses in the middle of the night. Fearing it was already time for him to leave, I dared a peek at the bedside clock and inwardly sighed with relief. We still had a few hours.

  We had made love before falling asleep earlier, and without the barrier of clothing, there was no need for preliminaries. He murmured his own sweet version of my name before kissing me with such fervor I could barely catch my breath.

  “I love you more than life,” he whispered, searching my eyes in the dim illumination of moonlight. “Tell me you know that.”

  “I do know that,” I assured him, feeling the absolute veracity of his love to the very core of my soul. “And I love you. You know that too, don’t you?”

  “I do,” he swore, before brandishing me with such a deep and intense kiss that it seemed he was trying to touch my very soul instead of just my lips. And then he was in me, claiming me with a slow, deliberate intensity he had never displayed before.

  “I think I could live the rest of my life off that one,” he said solemnly, as he curled me close against him afterward, his palm cupping my cheek over his thundering heart. Once our pulses returned to normal, he tilted my head up to plant a soft kiss on my forehead, then my nose, and finally my lips. “I’m going to miss you.”

  I tightened my grip around his waist. “Me, too. Thank goodness it’s only for a few days, right?”

  I fell asleep before he could respond, and didn’t wake again until he was kissing me goodbye on his way to the airport two hours later.

  Lacy

  Tuesday afternoon, Chris and I sat in front of the television, bored and at a loss for how to pass the hours now that graduation was over, and homework no longer dominated our free time.

&nb
sp; Nick had called the night before to let me know he arrived safely in Los Angeles. He had called again two hours ago to let me know he anticipated a late night at the gallery. His return flight home in the morning would depart too early to call and wake me; therefore, instead of calling again, he would see me when Chris and I picked him up at the airport.

  After watching an old sitcom rerun together, Chris dragged out his easel and paints, and I strummed out a tune on my guitar while he worked. He offered me a hit off his blue, skull-shaped bong, which I politely declined. Two hours, an entire bag of potato chips, and three cans of soda later, Chris finished his abstract masterpiece and invited me to join him at his favorite diner for an early dinner.

  “No, thank you. I would like to ask a favor, though,” I said, finally broaching the subject that had been on the tip of my tongue all day, just waiting to muster enough nerve to approach him with my request.

  “Sure, kiddo. What’s up?”

  I hem-hawed for a moment, fidgeting with a button on my silk blouse before finally coming right out with it. “Would you mind driving me home?”

  He eyed me carefully, obviously weighing his answer. I rushed to persuade him. “I promise if Nick finds out I’ll tell him Alex took me. I won’t tell him it was you. It’s just that this might be the only chance I get to go see my dad without Nick being here to talk me out of it, and I just miss my dad and want to see him. I want to tell him about Nick proposing. And I need to tell Kevin too. I want him to hear it from me, face to face—not over the phone—or before he finds out some other way.”

  “I don’t know, Lacy…”

  “You can let me out at the foot of my driveway and I’ll walk up if you’re worried someone will see us together. And I’ll get my dad or maybe Mark to drive me back home later. I’ll pay for the gas and-”

  “Oh, for fuck sake,” he scoffed. “I’m not worried about gas money. It’s just…” He looked on the verge of confessing something important but apparently changed his mind. “You know how Nick feels about your dad after what happened. You shouldn’t be alone with him.”

  “Nothing will happen, I promise.”

  Chris sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. “What if I say no?”

  “Then I’ll call and ask Alex. Would you rather have Nick mad at you for taking me, or for letting Alex take me?”

  He glared as though he couldn’t believe I’d just resorted to such a shrewd manipulation, and then grabbed his keys off the kitchen counter in a sulky swipe. “Get in the damned car.”

  Lacy

  I tried blinking back the tears, but they wouldn’t stay dammed no matter how valiant my efforts. My father’s nurse, Ms. Buckner, had greeted me with a chilly reception at my own front door, no doubt wondering why I hadn’t come sooner in light of his condition. Her accusatory frown made me feel ashamed of myself even though I had no cause to feel guilty. As she led me to the threshold of my father’s shrine, she explained that Andy had temporarily moved in to help care for my father until his demise, and should return at any moment from his errand-running excursion to town. I hastened to wipe my cheeks of the torrential downpour of tears as I crossed the room to my father’s frail, sleeping side.

  As though sensing my presence, his gaunt, sunken eyes fluttered open and his unfocused gaze settled on me. Obviously mistaking me for my mother in the final stages of his illness, his face lit up. The paper-thin, wrinkled flesh over his hand was cold to the touch when he lifted his fingers to slide them down my cheek in a gentle caress.

  “My beautiful Grace. You’ve finally come to escort me home.” He closed his eyes and licked his parched lips, the exertion of speaking enough to drain him it seemed. “I knew you’d come. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  I wrapped my fingers around his, holding his hand to my heart. “No, Daddy. It’s me, Lacy.”

  His nearly lifeless eyes tried to focus. “Lacy?”

  “Yes, Daddy?”

  “I told Nick I didn’t want you here. He promised he wouldn’t tell you,” he barely managed, before the effort of speaking took its laborious toll on him.

  My breath caught. When I first arrived to discover my father’s condition, my fury with Nick knew no bounds. How he could have kept my father’s illness from me for so long was unconscionable and unforgivable. My disappointment in him was overshadowed only by the ensuing heartbreak over the sight that greeted me when I saw my father. Now, to find out that my father had coerced Nick into keeping his secret?

  “How could you have asked him to keep something like this from me, Daddy?” I demanded, hoping the sharp edge in my tone would bring him back to me, if only for a few more stolen moments. “I can’t believe you made Nick lie to me, just so you wouldn’t have to face me again after what you did!”

  He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “Don’t blame Nick. He wanted to tell you.”

  My patience reached its end. I stood and glowered down at my father, my heart shredding over this double betrayal. “You selfish, drunk son-of-a-bitch! After what you did to me? And then if that wasn’t bad enough, you sent me away without a tear in your eye! How dare you have the gall to ask the man I love to lie for you! You’re warped and demented in that sick, drunken, dying head of yours and-”

  “Lacy, stop it! Dammit, stop it this instant!”

  I whirled around to find Andy standing in the doorway, looking as red-faced with fury as I felt.

  “Did you know about this, too?” I snapped, not sure who I wanted to unleash my wrath on the most at that moment: My father who deserved it, or Andy for simply being the only other available target.

  Before I could vent my rage on either of them, with his unforgiving grip bruising my arm, and the look in his eyes as merciless as the one in my own, Andy dragged me out into the hallway, saving all the gentleness I knew he had in him for softly closing the door behind us. Once he had me in the kitchen and out of my father’s earshot, he tore into me with a vehemence I hadn’t heard him use since Nick wrecked the family car four years ago.

  “Regardless of what you’ve been through, it doesn’t give you the right to scream at a dying man that way. Now get out this instant if you can’t show a little respect for a decent man lying on his deathbed.”

  “Decent?” I let out a derisive snort and jerked my arm free. I glared at him for a moment longer before turning away to stand in front of the double sinks, looking out the window toward the tree in my backyard with liquid trails of frustration and betrayal streaming down my cheeks.

  My father was dying. From the looks of him, he wouldn’t last more than a few days. And yet, it wasn’t pity over my father’s end that fueled my tears, it was heartbreak over knowing he had somehow coerced Nick into keeping it from me. Looking back now, I had seen the torment in Nick’s eyes each time I asked about my father. He had known but couldn’t—or wouldn’t—tell me. How could he have lied to me for all these months! He loved me! I knew it in my heart to be true. Yet, how could Nick, of all people, who had seen firsthand what Kevin’s betrayal had done to me, have lied to me about something so important? How could I forgive him for it?

  I glanced down at my mother’s beloved ring that Nick had lovingly slipped on my finger. Then, my sights fell further down to my flat belly, and I laid a protective palm over the middle where a lump would soon swell. A sob broke free. I had to find a way to forgive him. I loved Nick. I loved our unborn child. And he loved me too. In my heart, I knew he hadn’t meant to hurt me deliberately.

  “Oh, bird,” Andy said softly. He came up behind me and pulled me back against him, his chin resting on the top of my head, much the way Nick would have done. As though reading my mind, his voice penetrated the cobweb of emotions still holding me slave to tears. “He wanted to tell you, baby girl, but Jerry wouldn’t let him. If you’re going to be upset with anyone, it ought not be Nick.”

  It took a moment for his meaning to sink in, and I sniffled back my sorrow enough to turn and face Andy. “You know about us?”

/>   He started to shake his head, but then stopped to let out a sigh. “I didn’t find out until a few days ago when Nick came home to tell Jerry about this.” Taking my hand, he nodded to the ring on my finger.

  I stepped back out of his reach, shaking my head as though my adamant denial would be enough to ward off my fears. “Kevin doesn’t…”

  Dear God, I couldn’t even say it. How had I honestly thought I could tell Kevin about Nick when just the possibility of him already knowing filled me with this much dread?

  “No, bird. Kevin doesn’t know.”

  My shoulders sagged under the weight of relief. In the same instant, I realized the depths of my sudden emotional exhaustion. It was then that my first bout of morning sickness gripped me.

  “Bird? You okay?”

  Closing my eyes tight and taking a few deep breaths, I forced the scant contents of my stomach to stay put. Once the dizzying nausea passed, I let out a deep breath. “Yes. I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep well last night, and I haven’t eaten much today. And now, finding out all this about my dad… I think it’s all catching up to me at once.”

  Andy put his arm around me and ushered me to the back door, where he planted a firm kiss on my forehead. “Go on over and see Rhonda. She’s been so worried about you.” He gave me an insistent shove out the door when it became clear I intended to resist. “Go on now. She’ll fix you up a plate of leftovers from dinner, and then you can take a nap.”