by Kim Law
“You had a good reason,” Ginger reminded her. “He walked away before. He didn’t think of you, and he just walked away. And if he doesn’t deal with his past…”
Nausea washed over Andie, and she bent at the waist, arms crossed tight over her stomach. The ends of her hair dipped into the salty water. “I didn’t try. I should be helping him.” She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. “I gave up on him.”
“Shhh.” Roni soothed her. She pulled Andie’s hair back behind her head and smoothed a loving hand down her back. “You had to protect yourself, hon. You had to do what you thought was right.”
“But I sent him home. I didn’t even consider trying to help him.”
“And he didn’t consider doing anything but exactly what he did before. And that didn’t work, right?”
Damn Roni and her common sense. Andie nodded, still bent over, curled into a ball.
“So you did the right thing.”
Andie turned her head to Roni. “You’re saying I’m supposed to be without him? I’m going to hurt like this forever?”
“No, sweetheart.” Roni pulled Andie into her arms and Ginger followed suit. “I’m saying he needed to go home without you. You aren’t the only one in love here. I guarantee he’s missing you as much as you are him.”
“But what if it doesn’t matter? What if he can’t change?”
“What if it does?” Ginger whispered. “What if he can?”
Andie tilted her head back and rested it against Ginger’s arm. With her face to the sky, that dark cloud finally opened up and raindrops started bouncing over Andie’s face.
She laughed at the picture the three of them must make. The kids probably all thought they were crazy.
But for the first time in her life, she thought she was fine. Really, truly fine. Good even.
“There has to be a way,” she whispered, smiling now as she thought about Mark and going to him, forcing him to face his past. “For something that’s lasted this long and is this strong, wouldn’t there be a way?”
Ginger pressed her cheek to Andie’s. “Ginny would call it fate,” she said.
Andie laughed freely and let her tears mix in with the rain. Yes, Aunt Ginny would call it fate.
And just as she’d seen Aunt Ginny sometimes twist fate to suit her needs, Andie suddenly knew that she was going to do everything she could to twist it to suit hers.
She didn’t want to give up on Mark so easily. She didn’t want to give up on them.
If she loved him, shouldn’t she be there by his side? Helping him through his past?
So they could figure out how to make them last forever?
The rain suddenly stopped and the clouds parted, and there above the three of them was a perfect rainbow stretching to the horizon. It looked like the beginning.
And it looked like forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Monday evening brought with it the same thing the previous nine days had brought. Exhaustion, and several more hours of work to take home with him.
Mark grabbed his suit jacket off the back of his chair and headed for the door. First he was going to the pub for dinner and a nice dark stout. Maybe he’d check out a hot girl or two while he was at it.
He snorted. “Check out” was all he would do. What was the point? Andie was still right there, messing with his mind. He didn’t get through a single hour without thinking about something she’d said or something she’d done. Or how much he missed her.
And he had those thoughts multiple times each hour.
He was sick of it.
“I’m out of here,” he muttered to himself. His brother had headed out earlier, so he stopped at his dad’s office and poked his head in to say good-bye. Instead of his father, he found someone else.
“Mom?”
Celeste looked up from the papers she was reading on the desk. “Hi, baby.”
“Don’t call me baby. I’m thirty-one years old.”
“And still my baby.” His mother rose, and he noticed she wore a slim-fitting black dress.
“Going to a charity event?” he asked.
She looked down at herself and smiled secretively. “No. Your father is taking me out.”
“Nice,” he said. “Tell him I’m out of here, will you?”
He turned to go, but his mother stopped him by calling his name. He looked back.
She pointed to one of the chairs on the other side of the desk. “Have a seat,” she instructed. She used the voice that meant he couldn’t say no.
Feeling like a teenager in trouble, he grumbled but crossed the room and lowered himself to the chair. He’d done a good job avoiding her since they’d been back in Boston, and knowing his mother well, he had a good idea what the topic of this conversation was going to be.
He didn’t want to talk about Andie.
“I’ve convinced your father to hire a replacement for when he retires.”
Not what he was expecting to hear. “Excuse me? Seems that would be a conversation Jonathan and I should have been involved in, too.”
She nodded. “Jonathan was there.”
“Oh.” Well, hell. “Why exactly did you leave me out?”
“Because we knew you would resist.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What are you up to, Mother?”
She sat back down and crossed her hands on the desk in front of her. The innocent look wasn’t cutting it. “I don’t want you feeling as if you have to stay here your whole life just because your great-grandfather started the firm. There’s a whole world out there.”
Irritation snapped inside him. “I like it here.”
“Yes, but you might like it somewhere else, too. Civil litigation isn’t unique to Boston, you know? Your brother will be fine without you. Another partner—”
“Would be a decision I would be involved with.”
She dropped the act and eyed him. “You’re a moron, Mark. What did you do to lose Andie this time? Do you not know that she loves you?”
Irritation turned to anger. “Butt out.”
He stood.
“Sit down.”
Blood pounded through his system as he glared at his mother. “It is not your place to do this.”
“Someone has to,” she said. “Sit down, Mark. Tell me what happened.”
He paused, forcibly relaxing his fingers from their tight clench, and quickly came up with an easy explanation.
“It didn’t work out,” he said. He shrugged one shoulder as if he couldn’t care less. “We shouldn’t have gotten back together in the first place.” Lying sack of shit. He shouldn’t have let her walk away from him. “She wants something else.”
“She wants you,” his mother insisted. “What did you offer her?”
“What?” Uncomfortable now just standing there, he returned to his seat. “What do you mean, what did I offer her? Andie isn’t something you barter for.”
“I mean, did you offer to move there? Did it ever even cross your mind?”
“Of course it didn’t. Our firm is here. I live here.”
“And she lives there.” His mother shook her head at him, a look of disgust on her face. “Did you even consider that? She has a career there. She’s making a good life for herself. She can’t just pick up and leave because you would rather be here.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He did not want to get into all the problems between him and Andie. “And what makes you think I could just pick up and leave?”
She went quiet and sat back in the chair, pressing her shoulders to the leather. The look she wore was one of pride. “Because you’re a Kavanaugh. For the woman you love, you should be willing to pick up and go anywhere. You aren’t defined by your job, son, but by what you make of your life.”
If only any of it were that simple. “And you would be okay if I left Boston? I thought you liked us here. Aren’t you the one I hear complaining that you’ve already lost two sons to other cities?”
“I als
o get on a plane and go see them. And they come here.”
He shook his head, pain returning to his chest. He needed to move on and forget that he wanted Andie. “It’s not that simple for us, Mom. She…” He glanced away, embarrassed to admit that he couldn’t keep her. “She wouldn’t want me there.”
“Of course she would. Go to her, Mark. You can work long distance on the important cases. You can open a firm there. You don’t have to stay here for us.”
He closed his eyes, exhausted. “I’m telling you, Mother, she doesn’t want me there. Let it go.”
He knew this without a doubt. Andie didn’t trust him to follow through with marriage.
He was beginning to wonder if she had a point.
“That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
It wasn’t as ridiculous as what Andie thought. That his problems stemmed from Tiffany.
An unmistakable sound registered, and he popped his eyes open. His mother had the phone’s handset to her ear.
“What are you doing?” he barked out.
“I’m going to call and ask her myself.”
“Like hell you are.” He reached across the desk and snatched the phone from her hand, slamming it onto the base. “Stay out of it.”
“I’m going to fix it.”
“You can’t fix it, Mother. It’s not fixable.” Their voices had risen until they were yelling at each other, both of them now on their feet, inches separating their faces.
“Explain why not,” she growled out.
“Because I killed Tiffany!” he shouted.
Silence echoed through the room as pain flashed across his mother’s face. She dropped back into her seat, and Mark forced himself to return to his, reality hitting him as sharply as a bucket of ice water in the face.
He couldn’t protect Andie because he’d killed Tiffany.
Son of a bitch, she was right.
And he was screwed. Any way he looked at it.
Marriage wasn’t in the cards for him at all. No wife. No kids. No nothing. Just the damned job. The one his mother was trying to push him out of.
Andie had done the right thing by walking away.
They sat there staring at each other, neither speaking. His breathing the only noise in the room. He didn’t know what else to say.
Finally, his mother reached out a hand to him. He ignored it.
Her eyes clouded in pain. “This is what you’ve always believed?” she asked.
“It’s what I’ve always known.” No need to tiptoe around it. “I got drunk, and I put her in a car on wet roads in a place she didn’t know. Of course it was my fault. Who else’s could it have been?”
She shook her head at him. “It was an accident.”
“That shouldn’t have happened.”
“No accident should happen, yet you see them every day. You go to bat for people on a regular basis, fighting that they weren’t the cause of them.”
That statement gave him pause. He did do that. And he believed it.
But this was different.
He shook his head and stood. “Not the same.”
Mark walked out the door, ignoring her plea for him to return, and headed to his car. When he got behind the wheel, instead of pulling out and heading to the pub, he went the opposite direction. He didn’t know where he was going, but after that exchange all he wanted to do was drive.
He’d been surprised, actually, to learn that his mother didn’t believe Tiffany’s death was his fault. He’d always assumed everyone thought it was.
He knew that if asked, Tiffany’s father would say Mark was to blame.
His foot pressed harder on the accelerator, taking the busy streets faster than he should. He didn’t slow, sliding back and forth between other cars, as the ache inside him grew.
If only he could go back fourteen years, he’d do it differently. Then, maybe, he could marry Andie. He could make her proud.
And he could make her happy forever.
It occurred to him that he hadn’t just thought he wanted to take care of her forever. He did, but only in the way that he wanted her to take care of him. By nurturing what they had. Each of them being there when the other needed someone.
Not protect, as if to keep alive. Which was exactly how he’d always thought of it.
Something had changed. He just wanted to make her happy. He wanted to love her, and see her love for him shining back.
And he wanted babies.
Little redheads. He’d seen pictures of Andie when she’d been younger. Her hair had been as red as Ginny’s. He could imagine a miniature Andie, with wild red curls, running around.
Maybe a boy, too. Love swelled inside him at the thought of them as a family. He could make her proud. He knew he could. And she would be a wonderful mother.
He glanced around, realizing he’d driven out of the city and had turned into a neighborhood. And then his breath caught as it occurred to him where he was. He was about three blocks from where Tiffany had died.
At one point, he’d come by here every year on the anniversary of her death.
Oh shit. He pulled out his phone and looked at the date. Today was fourteen years since the wreck.
He gulped. His mouth had gone dry.
His pulse sped up and he took the next left. Then another left.
In the distance he could see the tree standing just outside the curve of the road. The car had damaged the bark but hadn’t hurt the tree long-term.
That had always struck him as odd. She’d been wiped out in an instant, but the tree just kept growing.
As he neared the spot, he noticed a red pickup pulled over about twenty yards before the curve. He had the thought that it could be Tiffany’s parents, but he didn’t see anyone around. He pulled in behind the truck and got out. After he stepped across the guardrail and crossed the ditch, he saw him.
Tiffany’s dad was stooped against the tree as if in prayer. He clutched a single pink flower in one hand and rested the other against the misshapen bark where Mark’s car had once been wedged into the wood.
Mark turned back. He didn’t need to be there.
He didn’t need Tiffany’s dad to see him.
“Mark,” Mr. Avery said behind him.
Mark stopped. He didn’t move, terrified to look at the man.
He remembered seeing Tiffany’s family at the funeral but had been in no shape to talk to them, and neither had they. Plus, what was he supposed to say? Sorry I killed your daughter?
But he was a grown man now. A civil conversation was possible, surely. And if the man threw a punch, well then, Mark deserved it. He turned back around and headed to the tree.
“Mr. Avery,” he said as he approached. He nodded politely.
The man was nearing sixty but looked a good fifteen years older.
“It’s good to see you,” Mr. Avery said. He held out a hand, motioning for Mark to come closer.
Mark hesitantly headed his way.
“I want to show you something,” Mr. Avery said. The man sounded excited.
What could he possibly be excited about?
When Mark stepped beside him, he noticed several bushes of pink flowers matching the one in Mr. Avery’s hand. They circled the base of the tree on one side. He remembered seeing them there before.
“They bloomed again,” Mr. Avery said. “Every year they’ve bloomed.”
Seemed an odd place for bushes like this to be. Mark nodded. “I noticed them years ago. I’m surprised…” He stopped. Why would he bring up the wreck right off the bat? If felt as if his rib cage was trying to crush his organs.
“What?”
Mark shrugged, not wanting to say it but seeing the man was going to push. “I’m surprised the wreck didn’t kill them,” he said. “I seem to recall there being a lot of dirt disturbed.”
“Oh, Mark.” Mr. Avery reached out a hand and patted his shoulder. Mark could feel his own muscles bunching under the touch. “We planted these here the year after Tiffany die
d. Her mother and I. On the first anniversary. They were her favorite flowers — peonies — and they’ve bloomed every year.”
Ah, geez. He’d never known these flowers were here for her.
“That’s pretty amazing,” Mark said. Especially considering hers hadn’t been the only wreck that had happened in this curve. No one else had been killed that he knew about, but he’d heard of several wrecks over the years.
Finally, the city had installed the guardrail.
Mr. Avery turned back to the tree, and a calmness grew inside Mark as he stood there studying the blooms. They were lovely. He could see these being Tiff’s favorite flower. They were big and bushy, and they seemed to be too heavy for their stems. They flopped around in all directions, doing their own thing instead of standing up straight as flowers in a vase would.
They were a little wild. And a lot of fun.
“They remind me of her,” Mark said.
“Yeah?” Mr. Avery looked at him. He nodded. “I know. Out of control. They were her mother’s favorite, too.”
He chuckled and Mark couldn’t help doing the same. “She was so fun to be around,” Mark said.
Mr. Avery nodded. A weathered sadness colored his features, but he smiled. “So full of life. Just like her mom.” He glanced at Mark. “I lost her last year, you know? Her mother. She was a good woman.”
“Oh, sir. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
He nodded. “We had a lot of years together. And we managed to hold on after we lost Tiffany. A lot of couples couldn’t have done that. But we had a lot of love.”
Mark understood. Losing a child had to be the worst thing in the world.
The calmness he’d felt only moments earlier disappeared, replaced by the weight of his guilt. He’d taken this man’s daughter from him. After all these years, the least he could do was offer an apology.
Bracing himself for backlash, he cleared his throat. “Sir?” he said. “I’d like to, uhm…” Hell. Sound like a child?
Mr. Avery put a hand on Mark’s shoulder again. It felt heavy. “What is it?” Mr. Avery asked.
Mark looked at the grass for a moment and blew out a breath. He then raised his gaze to the older man’s. He looked him straight in the eye and could hear Andie telling him to grow a pair. He almost smiled.
