And then he knew he couldn't blame her. He had to rise above this anger because he didn't know what had happened back then.
He blamed himself. Guilt racked him. Why did she never tell him? What was it about himself she hated that much?
He stayed up, staring over at the pirate's ship, where the ghost of Mike would protect him from doing something stupid.
He perused the knuckles of his right hand. They were raw from the night's activities.
But Rojas no longer mattered.
Only Laurel mattered. Her betrayal of him, his own guilt. The anger and devastation flipflopped back and forth inside him. He felt like he was wrestling with alligators. Life or death. His secrets, her secrets. Meted out a piece at a time because they both feared the future.
At least he saw it that way. Their futures at stake. Facing her on all this now mattered to Cole. A great deal. They'd had a son. She hadn't told him. It gnawed at his soul, crowded his throbbing head.
Betrayal and guilt.
Could they ever find trust for each other again?
* * * *
THE BRILLIANT sunshine of morning dappling the lake with rainbows sent Laurel out into the yard looking for Cole to ask him about last night. When she spotted him, hands in pockets down at the end of the dock, she retreated to her garden to weed. She knew that stance well. Something bothered him. But the fact that he'd made sure he was out of the house when she awoke said much more to her. Her heart pumped, worrying about the unknown. He knew something. And he was wrestling with how to talk to her about it.
They spent an exhaustive day, but each going their separate ways. Cole worked on a boat, repaired the hole in the fence and brought over yet another load of wood from the mansion, while she tended the animals.
Underneath her efficient doctor's facade, her nerves coiled. She mindlessly bandaged, gave shots, stuffed weak animals in overcrowded cages. What was bothering Cole?
After a lunch of salad made from her garden, in which Cole always seem to avert both his gaze and the subject matter from anything too serious, he took off for a walk, ignoring her admonishments about his sore leg.
When the sun began to droop toward the western horizon to mark late afternoon, Laurel couldn't stand the not-knowing any longer and decided to head off down the trail after Cole.
She stopped when she spotted him emerging from the forest with flowers clutched in his big fist.
“Brown-eyed susans,” she said inanely.
“Our special flower.” The breeze tousled the bouquet. The rich brown of the flower stamens matched his eyes. She yearned to run to him. She knew he would smell of the richness of their meadow, where he must have picked the tall-stemmed beauties.
“I was beginning to wonder where you'd disappeared to,” she said, leading him through the doorway at the front of the cabin.
“I'll get some water for the flowers,” he said, making her feel oddly like the guest instead of the hostess of the house. He added, “Iced tea? I feel like something cool after the long walk."
He shifted, but winced, and shifted back again to take the weight off his leg, his eyes not veering from her now.
Shaken, she licked her lips against a sudden dryness and rushed to the refrigerator. “I made sun tea. I'll pour us a glass."
She flicked on the kitchen light.
Putting the flowers in a quart jar, he mused, “You rarely turn on the lights at night, much less in the afternoon."
When he glanced her way while turning the faucet on to fill the jar with water, a flicker crossed his eyes. What was wrong?
She decided she needed to take the initiative or she'd burst. She plunked ice in Mickey Mouse glasses. When Cole raised a brow at them, she was glad for a reason to smile. “The fourth grade class last year. They were a thank you for telling them about small rodents and how important they are on the food chain."
“Suddenly I'm not hungry but I bet the children loved it. You and children just seem to go together."
The way he looked at her then could have chased the sun behind the clouds forever.
Her stomach turned colder than the ice in the glass she handed him. “You know the truth. Don't you?"
He flinched, his coal-dark eyes piercing her. “Why didn't you tell me?"
Sweat broke out on the back of Laurel's neck and in the valley next to her heart.
“Damnit,” he said when she turned away to seek the shadows of the livingroom. “Say something. For fifteen years you kept quiet about this. Why?"
Echoing, his voice vibrated through her body, pushing her to reply. Pushing. “Because ... I didn't think you cared. And telling you couldn't resurrect him,” she whispered, not daring to look at him. “Why did you leave me?"
“Your father's threats."
“Threats?” She whirled around to face him, but he averted his gaze. “What were they?"
“He's gone. It's not important.” Raking his hair, he paced to the kitchen window. “Why didn't you tell me?"
“It would also bring all the hurt back to me. I'd have to live everything we had all over again and I wasn't strong enough for that.” Heaving a heavy sigh in search of clarifying oxygen, she added, “And I didn't see the point in hurting you either."
When he turned around, Cole's gaze softened. “All last night, all today, I wanted to see his face, to look into the innocence, to breathe life into him, to feel him wiggle in my arms."
He guzzled desperately at the ice tea, downing it before slamming the glass down on the counter.
She lowered her glass to the dining table before she dropped it. “Cole, I'm sorry."
“No you're not."
She came to him, placed a hand on his shoulder. It scorched like fire. “I did what I had to do to protect myself from you."
“From me?” Flinching her off, he limped over to the fireplace where he kicked at the hearth bricks with his good leg.
“I knew you'd be angry. I knew you wouldn't understand."
“But you let me find out by myself.” He slammed a balled hand against the mantle. “I'm worried about you, protecting you by chasing a man out of your house last night and then I stumble on the grave and the truth by accident. By accident. As if my knowing anything didn't matter. Do you have any idea what that did to me?"
She whispered, “I do. It's called betrayal. And blame. That fence we have between us, that we can't ever seem to cross."
Seeking the sofa by the fire, wishing it could carry her away like a magic carpet, she added, “Sit down. Let's try to talk calmly for once."
But her own heart pulsated toward an attack, and the cabin's usual sweet fireplace smell only burned at her throat and the lump in it. They settled in, each at opposite ends, with a cushion of space between them. An invisible wall.
Scared at the sight of her shaking fingers, she clutched them into a fist on her lap. “I can only begin with, I'm sorry. What I kept from you, was awful."
He grabbed a pillow and crushed it between his hands. “I wanted to pull out every damn one of those stinking geraniums you planted. I wanted us to take it all back, to go back in time."
“It was a nightmare.” She swallowed hard.
Lunging up again, he tossed the pillow behind him and took up a poker to stir the fire to life. “Get mad at me, damnit, because I'm mad. I want to yell and scream at you and I can't when you look at me like that!"
With his back to her, how did he know she was looking at him with eyes that registered and shared all the hurt in his sagging shoulders? Why was he always able to read her so completely? Why wouldn't he tell her why he'd abandoned their love back then?
“Cole, I'd do anything to make you not hurt. I used to think it would be good to see you in pain, just as I was. Thoughts of revenge felt good for a long time. But I have to face the truth. You even told me that. And the truth was, we didn't love each other enough. You left me because you didn't love me enough, and I didn't love you enough to run after you."
“Stop it!” After slamming his
fist against the mantle again, he swung around with eyes glazed, but rimmed with shadows. “This wasn't your fault."
With her mouth gone dry, and her heart stuttering faster in fear, she asked, “What are you talking about?"
“Why I really left. Why I didn't come back. It was your father. It was more than just his intercepting my phone calls to you. He made sure I couldn't come back."
“Why?"
“Because of my careless actions. When I was about to leave, he made it a point to come find me out at my aunt's place."
“He was still mad about the car we wrecked. He could never stop talking about it."
“It wasn't about the car anymore.” He limped to the edge of the fireplace mantle and rested an elbow there. His shoulders visibly shuddered. “He was waving his rifle around, pointing it mostly at me, telling me never to come back. My aunt came out of the house then, scared him and a shot went off."
“Oh no.” Her heart turned to ash.
“He narrowly missed her. I charged him, ripped the rifle out of his hand and pointing the thing at him, I told him he was a fool. I told him he didn't own you, that what we had was special, that you had a mind of your own and he should listen to you.” He shook visibly, wrinkles carving deeper into his face. “I let fly with a shot over your father's head. Just missed him."
It was her turn to shudder.
The fireplace embers crackled. A flicker of flame came to life next to Cole.
Rubbing his furrowed brow, he continued, “It was quite a scene. He didn't like it at all, and when he came at me, I ended up punching him to the ground and we got into a regular fight. Enough to draw blood. I busted your father's nose."
Her body curled in on itself, heavy as stone. She could only look at him, stalking the shadows thrown by the fireplace.
“Evidently my aunt had called the sheriff at the sight of the rifle and pretty soon I was handcuffed and facing charges that could have sent me to prison."
Rippling with cold disbelief, she sunk deeper into the sofa, holding onto her temples before her head exploded. “Nobody told me about this."
“Because that was the deal. Lawyers huddled over the phone lines that very afternoon, and if I left that day and never came back, charges would be dropped and everyone would get on with their lives as if nothing happened."
Staring at her, leaning back against the corner of the fireplace, he tucked his fists in his pockets. “I'm sorry,” came the hoarse whisper. “If I'd have known about the baby, I would have stood by you. I told you that when I thought it was Kipp's."
Her calm finally exploded, her hands growing into tight fists of her own when she stood. “Penance is why you'd have come back, out of your guilt. You're doing penance now for not raising your son Tyler yourself! Look what you're doing now to your own living son! He's in hiding and growing up without you. It's guilt that drives you. Not love. I want no part of that guilt from you."
Nerves burning, she slammed back down into the sofa, punching at the tufted arm of the furniture, then picking at the nap, hating the feel of his eyes roving over her.
“I would have married you,” he said, showing her the full force of his deep pools. They held fast, not a flicker. “Married you for real."
A flush heated her cheeks.
An ember snapped, fire sizzling in his eyes, dredging guilt out of her.
She rose to meet the truth sullying her, but paused to slake her thirst with the tea. “You would have been a caged animal, with marriage to me like some trap on your paw that you were doomed never to shake off. A wild animal always looking to the horizon, pacing, waiting for escape."
“We could have made it work."
She came back, picked up the afghan, hugging it with fists. “Even if I'd caught up with you in Florida, I would have resented being dragged away from my family. All that strife to live with, it wouldn't have worked. And we were young, awfully young."
“I thought of that, too, when I got back to Miami. Shock set in. I may have been eighteen, but I was fresh out of high school. Time to figure out what to do with my life. You still had a year of high school left. I reasoned my guilt away by thinking we weren't ready. I thought I was helping you, by making the clean break. By keeping your father's secret about me. About what might have happened.” He drew in a long breath. “You didn't deserve a stupid punk like me who couldn't control his temper."
The fire spit sparks. Tossing on another log, he glanced back at her. “I've never had such a hard time talking with you,” he ventured.
“Because this is about more than truth. It's about us being adults and admitting to things. That takes courage I've discovered.” Sinking back, she smoothed the dent in the upholstery she'd punched.
His eyes, framed by the wildness of his dark hair, crackled with energy. “It's hard admitting to mistakes that alter people's lives forever."
He stood tall, menacing almost, his muscles filling out an old denim shirt she'd bought way oversized because she liked them that way. But then he slumped down on the hearth, watching the embers, the firelight assigning a vulnerability about him. “I ache for the loss of our son, for you, for what I missed."
And the way he turned to her, with his face haunted, brought tears ebbing down her cheeks, a freeflow for both of them.
Coming over to her, he sunk to the floor at her knees, clasping hungrily at her hands. The warmth of his firm, strong fingers spiked through her.
“Tell me about him,” he said, rubbing his thumbs over her fingers, the reassuring ministrations helping to stop the tears. “I missed everything about him. He was part of me, but I never had a chance to touch him, to smell his baby sweet smell, to press him against my cheek, to lay down next to him and you in the hospital bed and count his toes."
She almost couldn't bear seeing the despair in his eyes.
“Laurel Lee,” he whispered, a hand brushing her hair back off her face, drying her tears in the wake of his gentle heat.
When he rose, she followed him, seeking the solid wall of comfort his chest provided.
Then her tears came again, ancient ones, saved up all the years for this moment, mingling with his, with one cheek held tightly against the other, him cradling her head against his sturdy muscles, a hand burrowed into her hair, both bodies trembling in unison.
“All right,” she managed in a whisper, feeling a sense of relief pouring out of her, a cleansing. “I'll tell you everything. You deserve to know it all."
* * * *
THE FIRE ROARED behind them, its pungency soothing. Cole clung to Laurel, wishing he could change the world for her, glad that she accepted his comfort now.
He held her like he'd held the baby rabbits, trying to warm them, make them whole again. He was beginning to understand what peace the animals brought to her heart.
Breaking from him, she led them outdoors, out onto the steps where they could sit side by side to look past the garden and the pines, and view Spirit Lake. Her misty emerald eyes reflected the specks of sunlight glinting off the water.
Confusion and pain welled up in her eyes. “Mother and father sent me away."
“Because of me."
She nodded. His gut wrenched. Lines furrowed her face, and it pained him to see what she'd come to because of him.
“I had a year of high school left,” she said. “But I knew by September I was pregnant. That's when I wrote to you."
“And your father found out when he intercepted the letters."
“Yes, but I told him we were married.” Her attempt at a laugh fizzled on the breeze. “That we'd promised ourselves to each other in a church already. He had choice words about our promises."
When she closed her eyes, Cole swallowed down the sudden chill of fear. “What did he do? What did you do?"
“I begged him to help me find you, to bring you back so that you could marry me for real. I thought you would."
Launching off the stoop, she poked around at the nearby garden, pulling at quackgrass, tidying up the earth b
y her cabin.
“The marriage couldn't have happened anyway,” she muttered, tomato plants bending to her touch. “Not with your ... with your marriage coming at you so soon and with your son Tyler coming along."
Straightening and looking at him with eyes a vibrant hue that made him pay attention, she added, “That's the irony here, isn't it? I wanted something, and it was for the best that I didn't get it. You may not have ever had Tyler..."
“Don't make it sound like you were selfish. You weren't. This was our child you were carrying.” Beads of sweat popped onto his forehead. “Once you knew about the pregnancy, where did you go?"
She went back to tending the sturdy tomato plants. More weeds flew. “My mother has a cousin in Phoenix. I went there after Christmas, when I began to show. I finished high school there. I hated Arizona. No grass and the lawns were made of painted rocks."
Cole couldn't imagine Laurel surviving in such an environment. “And the baby?"
She straightened to gaze at the lake. “The baby, our son, was born during Easter break. I was alone. My parents didn't even call."
“I'm sorry.” He limped to her, drew her against his chest and into his arms. She didn't resist, and together they looked at the lake, listening to its ripples slapping gently against the dock.
He dropped a kiss on her warm hair. “What happened?"
“I could never eat. I worried."
It registered with him that she needed him. That he knew how to keep her from worrying all the time, that he wanted to scoop her up and carry her onto a cloud. They would fly forever. What a thing to do for a woman.
But she continued, not in the clouds at all. “I searched for answers, who to blame."
An ache swelled in his chest. “I would have given anything to have been there."
Stroking her hair, turning her toward himself, looking into eyes gone dim, Cole felt a purpose rise inside him. To rekindle the light in Laurel. In himself. To build something together again. Even a family. But his breathing grew uneven, doubts crowding him, telling him to listen first to Laurel.
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