I could count on Shawn to break the magic though. “Let’s not get too emotional. At least, not before we’re totally wasted.”
Sam led me away from his stool to a bench and one of the tables alongside the glass window. I sat down, unable to break away from him because his grip around me made me feel safe. “What are you doing in L.A? The last time we spoke you were going back to England.”
He moved away from me but his hand remained against the nape of my neck, forcing me to face him. For a moment, he simply stared at me as if he could read all my secrets. “It was six months ago.”
Six months since he came to Steep Hill to propose to me. My life had turned on its head since that night, but I hadn’t tried to call him. Maybe I should have but instead I’d listened to that voice inside my head warning me against it.
“Don’t worry, kitten. I understand your silence.”
“I guess Shawn updated you anyway.”
“He did even if he isn’t always the sharpest observer. How this guy made it as a songwriter is a real mystery to me.”
I checked on Shawn who was already chatting up the barmaid while waiting for more booze. “Yeah, he doesn’t show that side of himself off every day.”
Sam and I shared a smile. I’d only known this man for a few weeks last summer, but he’d stolen a part of me. And maybe that was why I hadn’t called him. I shuffled away from him on the bench.
“So how are the Almighty Joshua MacBride and his plans for world domination? I take it he’s getting closer to the White House every day.”
This time my smile was strained. “He works hard.”
“Some things never change.” He tilted his head sideways and the hair he wore mid-length hung down and softened his jawline. “Like you going all Mother Teresa again.” I felt the frown between my eyebrows. “You’re giving up on your dreams so that MacBride can have his successful career and the perfect happy family to go with it.”
My spin stiffened. “You’re right: Some things never change. You can’t help trashing Josh.”
Sam ran his fingers through his hair and let out a heavy sigh. “Maybe I’m more like him than I’d care to admit. That’s my way of exorcising my guilt. Shit, that sounded like a lot of psycho-babble.”
I searched his face but Sam was pretty good at being unreadable. “Is there someone you’ve been selfish to?”
“So you’re admitting MacBride is being selfish and you’re being selfless.”
I squared my shoulders. “That’s not what I… You’re not answering my question. Anyway if I was sacrificing everything, I wouldn’t be here—”
“Mojitos for everybody.” Shawn placed tall glasses filled with leaves and crushed ice cubes in front of us.
I grabbed one of them and started sipping the cocktail through a straw. The sugary, minty flavor tasted damn nice and I enjoyed it much more than the throat-slicing Gin & Tonic. Shawn and Sam started chatting. I guessed they hadn’t seen each other in a while. They’d been best friends since they were kids in New Orleans but their lives had taken different directions after high school. I still didn’t know what Sam’s life was all about though.
Would it have been the same for Josh and me? We used to be best friends too, but would we have kept that connection if I hadn’t gotten pregnant? If he hadn’t done the ‘right thing’ and married me? We were back to the question I asked him in the barn at Woodie’s wedding. The question he hadn’t answered.
I tried to make my brain blank out while Shawn and Sam caught up. I stared at the sunset over the ocean, at the crowd outside, the couples passing by, the families of tourists holding cameras. It felt all foreign to me because Josh wasn’t here by my side.
“You haven’t touched any of the nachos.” Sam startled me and drew me back to reality.
“Not hungry.” His gaze kept weighing on me so I dipped a nacho into some guacamole and took a bite. “Happy?” I enjoyed its tangy, creamy taste though.
Sam was about to answer when the very blonde, very busty waitress chimed in, “Can I get you more cocktails”
She was flashing the brightest, toothiest grin I’d seen in ages and kept shuffling on her feet. Girls’ I.Q.’s tended to crash into their panties around guys like my drinking partners. My brain cells were already all burned out because I was living with Josh.
I ordered a Coke and made my way to the restroom. When I got back, the star-struck waitress was still standing in the same spot being chatted up by Shawn. I looked for Sam but the only other familiar face in the bar was Mr. Bodyguard.
“He’s having a smoke outside,” Shawn told me.
I had no intention of intruding into his thing with the girl so I walked outside.
I picked out the sight of Sam on the sidewalk. He leaned against the outside wall of the bar, the tip of his cigarette burning through the night air.
“I thought you liked blondes?” I teased him and came to stand by his side.
“Only the real ones.” His gaze brushed at my hair blowing in the wind.
“So tell me, Sam, where have you been the last six months?”
“Here and there.” He puffed out a large cloud of smoke.
“Okay. So what have you being doing then?”
“This and that.” Another drag.
I pivoted so that I was now facing him. “You are so frustrating, Sam Blackhawk. You think you can tell me what’s wrong with my relationship, but, at least I have one.”
His face didn’t betray any reaction and I was a fraction away from stomping my feet in anger. I didn’t know much about Sam, while I was an open book to him. The silence between us was interrupted by the crowd that passed by. Sam kept on smoking as if my outburst hadn’t happened at all.
“I wanted a relationship with you.” His sentence fell between us like a dead-weight. “I’d still want that if you weren’t so fixated on making it work with your childhood sweetheart.”
“I’m fixated on making my family work. I’m not pretending it’s easy, but it’s worth it.”
Sam straightened. He threw the butt of his cigarette away and stepped towards me. “I’m not going to mess with that, Cass.” He clasped my chin between his fingers and tilted my face upward. “I respect you a helluva lot for always trying to do the right thing, no matter what it costs you. But if things don’t go your way back in D.C., I’ll be there for you… whenever you want me. I’m not promising forever, but I’d like to share some of the road with you and see where it takes us.”
No one in his right mind could promise forever anyway. No one. That one single word echoed in my head.
Forever.
I remembered Sweet Angel Point and one summer sunset there not so long ago. The cottonwood tree and the Kansas prairie stretched for as far as I could see. And I remembered a different night. One after Homecoming and my ‘first time.’
I choose you now and forever. Those were Josh’s words.
I laid my hand on Sam’s chest and I felt his heartbeat beneath my palm. “You deserve more than just ‘getting by’…” That was Josh’s mantra. “… and until you meet your own forever, you should keep looking.”
Sam answered with a sexy chuckle. “What a gentle way to let me down, kitten.”
His arm circled around my shoulders and we started moving towards the revolving door of the restaurant. “Let’s get back inside. It’s too tempting to kiss you right now.” He kissed the top of my head anyway. “Plus that politician husband of yours knows how to use his fists and I’m far too pretty to get into a fight with him.”
I tried to smile to him but what I managed must have looked weak at best. I hoped—I really hoped—Josh wouldn’t let me down. Because he was my life. Always had been. Always would be.
CHAPTER 23
Josh
I closed the sliding door and strode across the manicured lawn in front of Megan’s Hamptons’ home. The night was dark, with the occasional moonlight, and the icy wind penetrated through the layers I was wearing. Anyone in their right mind wouldn
‘t have dared to venture outside. I did. I’d had enough of the company—Megan’s spoilt friends plus Jack. Besides, all the beers that were running through my system made me crave fresh air.
I walked down the steps leading from the Alistair’s property onto the beach. The shifting feeling of the sand underneath my shoes didn’t help my already drunken state. I stopped to get my bearings while the wind persistently whistled through my ears. I took a big gulp of salty sea air and exhaled in a roar.
I managed to anchor my eyes on a lighthouse further down the coast. Lenor’s family house was on the other side of it. I wondered where she was now and if she was with that Zach Murdoch. I hoped she’d found a home in him. But had I found mine?
Or, for that matter, did my home actually want to be my home… still? Could a person be a home anyway… to anybody?
Fuck! I wasn’t just drunk. I was drunk as a skunk and the space inside my head was a rambling mess baring all my insecurities. I stepped closer to the water. Given the wind and the noise of the waves crashing against the shore, maybe not the best idea. The water started licking at my feet and I jumped backwards.
I checked the house behind me. The lights still shone brightly through the ground floor windows. The place was more a mansion than a house, with its pitched roof, elegant mix of timber and stucco, and its wide French doors. I wasn’t ready to return there yet.
I missed Cassie. There was no fun away from her, and getting wasted with people I didn’t give a shit about was the lamest way of coping with her absence. I gave the sand a frustrated kick. I retreated farther up the beach and sat down on the damp sand. I couldn’t avoid it any longer. I wanted to hear her voice. Badly.
I checked my phone. No voicemail. No text. What was she doing? What time was it on the West Coast? Close to midnight. Was she in bed? I punched the sand and forced my hand downwards until my knuckles screamed in pain. I wasn’t going to think about her in bed with Dupret.
I decided to check my emails to keep my mind from wandering. Nothing there either except… When Sweet Second started climbing the charts, I’d set up a Google alert for Cassie’s name. I didn’t care if that made me a digital stalker. She didn’t have a publicist yet and I wanted to check whatever was said about her. I’d received one alert in the last hour though: a couple of hits.
It could have waited, but I clicked on the first link anyway. I focused on the illuminated screen of my smartphone and read through the lines from a gossip blog. I scrolled upward to check when the post had been published. Two hours ago.
I scrolled back down again to land on a vertical line of photos. Cassie with Dupret getting out of a limo. Strolling together arm-in-arm in what looked like L.A. Like L.A. yesterday. I had to squint to make sense of the comments under each photo.
“Shawn Dupret in Love”. “Long-time girlfriend and duet singer back on the scene... and in his heart.”
WHAT.THE.FUCK?
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
The voice made it to me through my anger, the wind and the waves. I looked up. Megan stood there, tucked inside a fur coat. Her loose hair flew around her face. With only the silvery light of a half-moon, I could have mistaken her for Cass. “I had to clear my mind. Too much booze.”
Like a Belle at a summer party, Megan sat by my side on the wet, frozen sand. “I’ve a weakness for Tequila and now my head is spinning like a merry-go-round.”
“Where is Jack?”
My friend had been hanging on Megan’s every word and smile since we flew yesterday from Ronald Reagan Airport, but she kept treating him like an overeager puppy lapping at her heals.
She answered with a dismissive shrug. “He’s puking up beer. Just like a freshman.”
He’d never been able to hold his drink. “Some things never change.”
Megan turned sideways and tucked a wisp of her hair behind her ear. It was in vain as the wind blew it out again right away. For once, she didn’t look like her usual bitchy self.
“You’re right, Josh. Some things never change.” Even her voice had lost its steely edge.
“What do you mean?”
“I still feel the same way about you as I did back in our freshman year.” Her hand came to rest on my knee. “I never let it go.”
I stared at her hand. I kept staring at it when it snaked down my knee along my thigh and… there I stopped it. “I’m married.”
“I know.”
She snuggled her face in the hollow of my neck and soon her lips were tracing along my jawline. I shut my eyes. I wanted those lips to belong to someone else. But the scent of wild daisies wasn’t there to make the kiss what it should have been. What it always was with Cassie.
Mine.
Ours.
“Josh, please. Let yourself go.” Her mouth landed on my mouth this time.
I pushed her away— more roughly than I’d wanted to—and stood. She jumped to her feet too, this time looking nothing like a Southern Belle.
“Megan, I’m sorry if coming here misled you. I needed a break from D.C.—”
“—from her. Don’t fool yourself, Josh. I saw how you both were at the Langford. You need more than a break. You need a divorce.”
“Shut up!”
She stepped closer and her hand now cupped my jaw. “This marriage of yours is all wrong. It’s going to cost you your future. You already have Bruce Carrington on your back. You don’t need—”
My fingers gripped her wrist tightly. She flinched and I pushed her away from me. “My marriage and my career are two different things.”
She shook her head as if she was negotiating a business deal. “Not on the Hill and you’re smart enough to know that.”
“And I’m smart enough to know what makes me happy. My family does and it’ll always take priority over everything else.”
Megan threw her head backwards and broke into a cruel laugh that made me question her sanity. “Listen to yourself, Josh. If you don’t sound like a politician right now, I’ll be damned. You make family values sound sexy.”
My own voice came from the frozen depths. “You’re right. Some things never change. You were already a waste of space back in freshman year and you still are.”
Megan wasn’t used to being told it like it is. Her mouth gaped open like a fish at feeding time. She recovered quickly though, and when she spoke, her words dripped with acid. “You should be more careful. I know a lot of people and—”
“—Stop right there, Megan.” I stepped towards her so that I towered over her with my full height. “Behind that pretty face of yours, there’s actually a sharp brain. I’ve never doubted that. So think twice before threatening me. Then think ten years down the line and of how much damage I could do to you… and whoever you end up married to.”
She chuckled bitterly. “Don’t dream too big.”
“Don’t get in my way.”
That sealed the end of my weekend in the Hamptons. I turned back towards the house, but Megan wasn’t done yet.
“You’re not fooling me, Josh. The day that wife of yours becomes too much of a burden, you’ll get her a one-way ticket back to Kansas.”
I turned back to face her. “You mention my wife one more time and I’ll get you a one-way ticket to hell. She’s off-limits.”
I hurried back to my bedroom because I had to find my one-way ticket to D.C.
I managed to fly from New York early that morning, then spent the entire afternoon spread on the sofa of our living room. I hadn’t closed my eyes after my four-a.m-‘chat’ with Megan Alistair. Boarding a plane with a hangover was the lamest idea after going to Megan’s weekender.
The Advil I’d taken was just starting to kick in. My senses were operating again because I picked up on the sound of keys rattling by the entrance. I quickly closed my laptop. It was a relief not to watch the same picture again.
“Hi,” Cassie said with a bright smile.
“Hi.” My voice was flat.
I watched her dropping her duffel bag
on the floor. That bag used to belong to Mrs. O’s husband when he was in the Marines. I wished Mrs. O. could be here to tell me how to handle her granddaughter. Or handle myself.
I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my thighs. Cassie was watching me and, for once, I couldn’t read her. For once I couldn’t find my words either. Her shoulders drooped and she headed to the kitchen. I heard the water running in the faucet. It stopped and she walked back into the living room, then sat in the chair directly across from me. The only thing between us was the large metal coffee table.
Her hands were linked together on her lap. Her back was stiff, her lips tight.
The scene was the perfect rendition of ‘awkward silence.’
With one hand, I opened the laptop again, and turned it around so that the screen faced her.
She stretched forward to get a closer look at the picture and started to bite her lower lip. Her hands flew to the keyboard and I guessed she was scrolling up or down the screen. The blogger hadn’t kept much to himself: There were at least ten photos of my wife with Dupret.
I saw her mouth shaping into a ‘oh’ then a ‘ha’, then she bit her lip again.
“Do you believe any of this?” I didn’t miss the strain in her voice. Whether it was because she was fighting back tears or anger, I didn’t know.
“I don’t want to believe it.”
Fire flicked through her eyes. “Yes or no?”
Some of the snapshots flashed in front of my eyes once again. I swept them aside. I decided to trust my heart not my head. “No, I don’t.”
Relief spread over Cassie’s face. “Absolutely nothing happened with Shawn or… but I saw Sam there.”
“You mean the guy who proposed to you last summer and graciously offered to adopt my son? That Sam?”
“Yes, Sam Blackhawk. I had no idea he’d be there. It was meant to be a surprise.”
“Sure.”
Cassie slowly pushed the laptop back to my side of the table. “It’s a bit rich coming from you anyway. You spent the last couple of days with one of your exes. Anything to share?”
Fast Forward (Second Chances, #2) Page 17
