For that one moment—one heart stopping moment—he thought it was Bobbi and he glanced up, eager to see her face, inhale her scent and make the world right.
The space was drenched in shadows and when his father stepped into the circle of light where Shane stood, his disappointment was obvious.
“I’m guessing, I’m not who you were expecting?”
“Don’t take it personally.”
James Gallagher attempted a smile. “I won’t.”
Shane wiped his hands and stretched, the muscles across his shoulders were killing him and his legs were stiff. He’d been standing in front of the easel for hours, not really doing much, spending most of that time thinking.
Planning on what to do and what to say and how to fix something that was obviously broken.
He moved toward his father and paused a few feet away, not really knowing what to say to him. He’d met with James Gallagher a few times over the last few weeks. Lunch had been first—in the city at Twisted Lemon—The Grill wasn’t exactly his father’s style.
Shane wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but he had been blown away when in fact, all his father was interested in was lunch.
The two of them had kept things on the safe side. They’d discussed things that didn’t matter. Hockey. Baseball. They’d even discussed the weather. He’d left their lunch, not feeling as if he knew his father any better, but thinking that maybe the man wasn’t as much of a bastard as he had thought.
“So I was in the neighborhood…” James said slowly, a hint of a grin toying with his mouth.
Shane arched an eyebrow, at his father’s attempt at humor.
“Thought I would stop in.”
“Good to know,” Shane said casually, noticing for the first time his father was still dressed in the clothes he had worn to dinner at the Barker’s. “Is everything alright?”
James shrugged. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
Shane rubbed his chin, running his fingers along the thick stubble that was now nearly two days old. He didn’t think he could do the buddy thing with his father. Not yet. Maybe never.
When in doubt. Change the subject.
“How’s Celia? I’m sorry I didn’t ask about her earlier. Eden said she started another round of chemo yesterday.”
James nodded, his hands in his front pockets. “She’s hanging in.” He paused. “So, this Barker girl…she means a lot to you.”
Shane nodded, unsure where this was headed.
“You know I was never a big fan of the two of you.”
No shit.
“You both just seemed so,” James shook his head and shuffled his feet. “You both did everything at warp speed and I thought she was bad for you. I thought that the two of you together would combust. I thought that you would crash and burn. You both lived without boundaries. You lived like you were dying, as if you needed to experience everything that there was to experience right then, in that moment. It scared me, Shane. You and her together scared the crap out of me.”
Huh. He hadn’t known that his father cared so much.
“Not that this gives me any sort of pleasure, but it seems as if you were right.”
“You love her.”
Shane exhaled, his chest tightening painfully. “Yeah, I do.”
His father’s eyes glittered. Even through the dim lighting Shane saw the tears and he glanced away, not able to deal with a father who was flesh and blood. This wasn’t the father he remembered. Who the hell was this guy?
“You’re so like her,” James said eventually, looking away and for that Shane was glad. He didn’t know how to handle the man who stood a few feet from him.
“I need you to know, Shane,” he stammered and then swore. “Hell, I need you to accept my apology.”
“Dad, I really don’t want to get into all this crap right now.”
But James carried on as if he hadn’t said a word.
“I was hard on you. Damn hard on you. I did everything I could to snuff out the light inside of you. The light that reminded me so much of your mother. The light that was your mother. The two of you…” James shook his head, a sad, wistful, smile on his lips. “The two of you were so much alike. You both loved art. You both liked to laugh and how many nights did the two of you wake me up because she let you of bed to watch those old Charlie Chaplin movies?”
Hearing his dad talk about his mother was bittersweet and Shane cleared his throat, that damn lump was back.
“The thing is Shane, after your mother died I pushed you away because you were a constant reminder of what I’d lost. Of what she had been. I did my damnedest to turn you into something totally different and it backfired. I lost you and you lost yourself.”
Shit. Did he have the strength to do this right now?
Taking a deep breath, Shane dug in. “Dad, I’m done with the blaming. Sure, you were an asshole. An absolute prick most of the time but I was no better. I hid behind you. I hid behind your pain and your sorrow and I used it to justify every shit thing I ever did. I did the same with Bobbi, but I’m done with that. I’ve been done with that for a while now I just need to…I just need to tie up all those loose ends before I can move on.”
For a moment James said nothing and then spoke, his voice barely a whisper. “I love Celia. I do. And Eden…she’s my life but there isn’t one day that goes by that I don’t think about your mother. And sometimes I let myself wonder what it would feel like if she was still here with us. Would she have been able to hold us together?”
“But there’s no point in that. She’s dead and we’re not.” Shane took a step back and motioned with his hands. “Come here.”
James followed him back toward the light. Back toward his easel and when he stood beside Shane and glanced at the canvas, a sound escaped from between his lips—a sound halfway between anguish and joy. It was the sound of the living.
“I sketched Eden yesterday while she was here and drew Celia from inside my head. But I think it’s a good depiction.”
The water color was a portrait of the two girls—mother and daughter—Eden resting her head on Celia’s chest, gazing out into the eyes of whoever was looking her way, while Celia’s eyes were closed, a small smile gracing her lips, her arms around her daughter.
It was poignant. Powerful. Emotional.
“Son,” James said, clasping his arm. “It’s…it’s…perfect.”
“This is your reality and from what I can see, you’re one hell of a lucky man. It’s yours.” Shane cleared his throat. “I’ll get it framed and bring it over next week.”
James nodded and moved away, his eyes still on the canvas. He was nearly to the door when he paused and held out his hand. They shook, not like strangers, but not like father and son either. They were still in that grey area—the in-between area of acceptance—but they were headed in the right direction. For now that was enough.
“I’m proud of you son. I want you to know that.”
Shane exhaled roughly, not able to answer.
“What are your plans?”
Shane finally managed to dislodge the damn lump in his throat. “I’m moving into White Hall. I have to work for Logan at least for the next few years to keep compliance with my parole, but, I want to paint and make custom furniture and the farm will continue to run the way it’s always done.” He paused. “I want everything.”
James smiled and nodded. “That’s good to know, Son, but I was talking about your girl. If you love Bobbi as much as you say you do, then you had better get things cleared up. You better do something about it right now because life is too short to waste time on the bullshit that’s stuck between the cracks. You need to fix those cracks and make them stronger, and you need to do it before it’s too late.”
Shane stared at the door for a long time after his father left, so long in fact that he was surprised to note the time when he finally made it up to his loft. Four-thirty.
He glanced outside the window above his sink. Into the darkness that surrounded everything. And
it was dark. There wasn’t one star in the sky and the moon was nowhere to be seen.
Four-thirty.
Goddamn early, he thought…and then, not goddamn early enough.
He grabbed his cell phone off the counter and hit speed dial, while shoving his feet into his boots and reaching for his leather jacket. When he heard her, his heart twisted and he started to talk, but then realized it was her voice mail. Impatiently he waited for her message to finish and by then he was outside, his long strides carrying him to the garage.
“It’s me,” he said roughly. “I’m on my way over and I sure as hell hope you get this message because if I have to break the fucking door down to get to you I will. We need to talk and I’m not leaving until we do.”
Shane drove through the dark, deserted streets of New Waterford, seeing only Frank McQueen, the paper man, delivering newspapers to those who still slept. He turned along the river and followed it up a few blocks until he headed down Bobbi’s street.
He drove within the speed limits. This was good. This was controlled. It was Shane acting like an adult. He parked his truck in the driveway but felt his control begin to slip as soon as he glanced up at the house. It was in darkness and with adrenaline pumping through him, he hopped out and was charging up the steps when the door flew open.
And it took everything inside him to keep it together.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Bobbi stared down at Shane, her heart in her chest—no it was in her throat because she didn’t think she could speak if she wanted to. And that was going to be a problem since she had a lot to say.
He took the last step and stopped inches from her. So close that she could smell that hint of mint from the gum he liked to chew. So close that she could feel the heat of him. The largeness of him.
He filled the aches and pains inside her and it was all she could do to not run into his arms and melt into his strength.
“I’m glad you were up,” he said, his voice low. “I don’t think Travis and Herschel would like waking up to a splintered door.”
She was dressed in a white tank top and blue pajama bottoms that had little pink panthers all over them, and for a second Bobbi glanced down at her bare toes. At the sparkly blue paint she’d decorated them with a few days ago.
It was chipped and worn. Kind of like her heart.
She was hot but then she started to shiver because she was cold, her teeth knocking together so badly that pain fingered out along her jaw.
This was it. The end of the line. This was her Helm’s Deep. Her battle for Gondor. Jesus Christ, where were her riders of Rohan?
“Bobbi, we need to talk because I sure as hell don’t know what’s going on or where we stand and I’m done walking in the dark. I can’t do it anymore.”
“I know,” she whispered, moving aside so that he could come in.
Shane followed her into the kitchen and watched in silence as she busied herself making a pot of coffee. She wasn’t sure she could stomach the hot brew at the moment, but she needed to do something while she figured out how she was going to do and say everything that she needed to.
In the end, she pressed the ‘on’ button and turned around, her butt leaning against the countertop as she gazed across the room at Shane.
There was nothing to do but get on with it.
“I need to tell you some things,” she said slowly. “And I need you to listen and not say anything until I’m done. Because if you do, I’m not sure I can get everything out and…” her eyes slid from his. “There’s so much.”
A heartbeat passed.
Then two and then three.
And on the fourth she began.
“Remember those last months…how we used fight, break-up, make-up, then fight again?”
He nodded, but remained silent.
“And that one time you pissed me off so much, I’m not even sure why anymore, but it was enough for me to say screw you, and I went out Derek Danvers a few times.”
His mouth was tight, his expression grim, but again, he was silent.
“It didn’t last and of course we made up and then you found out about Derek and that was the end.” She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around her middle, trying to find some comfort. Some small piece of bravery to help her get through.
“And then a month later I found out I was pregnant.”
The steady drip of the water into the coffee pot filled the silence, each drop louder than the last. She took a deep breath and continued.
“I lied. I didn’t have the abortion, Shane. I couldn’t go through with it.” She shuddered, aware that he’d moved closer to her. “I went to that clinic with every intention of ending the pregnancy. I mean, I was twenty and we just had the biggest fight ever. How could I have a baby? Betty was home from one of her modeling assignments, thank god, and she took me one bright, sunny morning. I remember the lilac bushes were in bloom along the driveway. Purple and white. They were so pretty…”
Drip, drip, drip. She glanced at the coffee pot.
“The room smelled sterile, like rubbing alcohol. It was cold and grey, like all the color had bled out of the walls. They wouldn’t let Betty come in with me so I had to go into the procedure room alone.”
God, if she closed her eyes it felt as if was there. As if the smell was inside her nose. Inside her heart.
So, Bobbi kept her eyes open, desperately trying to keep her head above the water that lapped at her neck. The cold, grey, dead water.
“I was on the table with my legs spread, in some ugly gown and I wore purple socks. I stared at my feet in the stirrups because I was afraid to look anywhere else. And then the doctor came in and the nurse stood at the end of the table and they were talking to each other about something stupid, something that had nothing to do with me or the baby or…”
She swallowed hard and fought to keep the tears from her eyes but it was no use. They pooled in the corners and slowly made their way down her face.
“There was this big machine with tubes and it was making this god awful suction sound. It’s all I heard. It was so loud it even drowned out the doctor and the nurse. And when she grabbed the tube thing and the doctor turned to me I froze. I tried to speak but nothing came out and then I tried to close my legs but they were in those stirrups.”
“Bobbi.”
But she held up her hand and he was silent.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been as scared as I was then, in that moment, because I couldn’t speak. The doctor must have seen something in my face because he stopped…he stopped what he was doing and wiped the sweat off my forehead and he asked me if I was sure. All I could do was shake my head, tell him no with my eyes, and then I started to cry and the nurse called for Betty.”
“Bobbi,” Shane said again. He reached for her but she stepped back, her eyes on his, her heart in her mouth.
“You need to let me finish. You need to hear everything. When I came to you that night, at your house, that’s what I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you that I didn’t go through with it. But then I walked in and found you with Jane and…”
“Oh, god.” His face was white. “I told you that you looked great and then I asked you how much money I owed.”
“Yes,” she said woodenly. “And I told you not to worry about it since it wasn’t your baby anyway. I told you it was Derek Danvers and then I walked out and left you naked with Jane Lawson.”
Crunch time.
“Shit, Bobbi. I…”
“It was pretty awful to see you with, Jane. But we weren’t together so don’t...I lied to you, Shane. It wasn’t Derek’s. I was never with Derek, not in that way. I just wanted to hurt you as badly as I was hurting.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “To see you in bed, in bed…with Jane Lawson was almost too much for me.”
She was quiet for a bit, letting the words sink in and when Shane finally spoke, she jumped.
“So, what happened to the baby?”
“I lost it about a month later.”
“Oh, Bobbi,” he said, his voice full of sorrow.
Hearing the emotion in his voice was nearly her undoing. She held her hand up when he would have gathered her close. “There’s more,” she managed to say. “There’s more you need to know because earlier at dinner, when you were angry and upset and confused, I saw something else in your eyes and it’s that something else that kept me awake tonight. I saw hope, Shane, and it broke my heart.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“I’m saying that you’ll never have a family with me. I can’t have kids.”
“I don’t understand,” he said slowly. “It was a miscarriage. It happens.”
“No. I lost the baby because I have something called endometriosis and because of that I had a tubal pregnancy. I only have one left and while the condition isn’t as bad, the chances of me getting pregnant are really low. Like five percent or less.”
Her voice was wooden. And god, she was cold. “So you see, if you want a family you better start looking for someone who’s all in one piece because I’m sure as hell not. I’m damaged goods.”
There. She got it all out, except one last thing.
“I’m so sorry, Shane.”
“Sorry?” he asked hoarsely. “What the hell do you have to be sorry about? You were young and scared and I was a fucking asshole to leave you alone like that.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Jesus Christ, Bobbi, I can’t imagine what you went through.”
“But, if I was strong enough to have been honest with you then maybe things would have turned out differently. You would have gone to college instead of jail and—”
His mouth on hers, stopped everything.
It stopped time and space and most importantly, it stopped the pain that had thrummed inside her heart for years. Shane’s hands were in her hair, pulling her into him as if he needed her so badly it hurt. His mouth spoke without words and he kissed her until her knees buckled. Until her head swam. Until the noise in her ears fell away.
Until there was only Shane and Bobbi.
When they finally pulled apart, they were both breathing heavily and Shane rested his forehead on hers, his arms still around her so she wouldn’t fall.
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