by Robyn Grady
“Well, of course he does!”
“I have so many questions.”
“I know the feeling.”
“There’s so much time to make up for.”
“And it’s only a matter of time before they find your biological mom.”
“Even if she doesn’t want to be found. Maybe I’d be better off if they didn’t find her,” Ariella muttered at her desktop, then shot a concerned look up at Scarlet. “I didn’t mean—”
That perhaps Scarlet would’ve been better off not finding Imogene? “I know you didn’t,” Scarlet assured her friend.
Ariella was moving out from behind her desk. “And here we were a few months ago thinking we had uncomplicated lives.”
They met in the middle of the room and, facing each other, held hands.
Ariella said, “I don’t know what I’d do without my friends.”
From her heart, Scarlet replied, “You’ll never have to find out.”
Thirteen
Scowling, Daniel peddled harder. “I’m not calling her again.”
Morgan arched a brow. “Probably wise.”
“She can get all cut up about what happened in her past, she can blow off about it all she wants.” Daniel stepped up the speed on his state-of-the-art exercise bike from high to pretty-much-dying-here. “But I don’t have to stick around,” he panted, “and watch her hit the rocks.”
“Absolutely. Your Scarlet can navigate her own life.”
“She’s not my Scarlet.” He stopped peddling. “And why do I get the impression you’re not on my side?”
“Would I be here if I wasn’t?” Morgan moved to the treadmill next to his exercise bike and ran a finger over the arm. “It’s just… Well, I like her.”
“Me, too. Even if she drives me nuts.” He started peddling like crazy again. “When she finally told me that she’d had her memory back most of the time we were in Australia, I was upset. I felt like a fool but I let it slide. Back here, she wanted to find her biological mother, so I pulled out all the stops and got the best P.I. I could on the case. When he’d tracked that poor woman down, I flew Scarlet to South Carolina, no problem. But I’ll tell you something. It’s no fun watching a female get that distressed. Seeing her cry.” His chest hurt so much, he thought he was having a coronary, and not from the exercise. “Meeting her real mother again after so long…seeing her like that. Scarlet was devastated. I don’t blame her.” He eased up on the speed. “Thing is, what she’s doing now is wrong.”
“In your opinion.”
Morgan put down her Investor’s Business Daily to recalibrate the treadmill’s electronic display board.
“I think things through,” he said. “I determine outcomes. Make foolproof plans. To summarize, I’m rarely wrong.”
“Rarely.”
“Your point?”
“You’re not right. You hurt her deeply. Go over and apologize.”
“I already have. On the phone. Three times.”
“On the phone.”
“I tell her I’m sorry. She says good, thank you and hangs up. I say, I miss you. She says good and hangs up.”
“What did you say the third time?”
“I groveled. Big-time. She didn’t seem to believe me.”
“Why do you think that?”
“She hung up.”
“I’d have changed my number by now.” She swung up onto the treadmill track. “Do it again,” she said. “Do it in person and make it stick. In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re in love with that woman.”
He stopped dead. Considered. Morgan was intuitive….
“Do you think it’s possible?”
“There’s still talk we’ll colonize Mars.” Morgan set off on a jog. “You’re not a young man anymore.”
Grabbing his hand towel, he wiped the sweat pouring from his face, his chest. “I’m not that old.”
“If you want to wait, I suppose…” She jogged faster. “But don’t complain if she gets away.”
“You’re talking about falling down on one knee. Wedding bells.” He threw his towel at the wall. “Marriage.”
“Imagine the delightful guests.” Now she was running with the grace and speed of a gazelle. “Don’t forget a good band and accommodation should be provided.”
He didn’t crack a smile.
“What if I’m not cut out for a wife and kids?”
“You know the song. ‘Ev-erybody needs some-bod-y to love.’”
“Scarlet mentioned during that last call…” His voice lowered. “She’s worried that she might have inherited a predisposition to her mother’s disease.”
“It’s possible.” Morgan looked at him hard. “Would that matter to you?”
“You know it wouldn’t. I just didn’t know what to say. How to reassure her.”
“Something for your homework book.”
“What about you?” he asked. “Any love interests I should know about?”
“I’m looking at scheduling a regular love life into my planner one of these years.”
“When you meet Mr. Right, I want an invite to the wedding.”
“You’d have to give me time off for that.”
“You’re right. I’m a slave driver. Take a month off starting now. Take two.”
She jumped and left the tread flying. “I was looking at trekking through Italy. But it’d cost you a fortune.”
After Morgan left the penthouse gym and returned to her own suite, Daniel sat on the balcony until sunset, looking out at the capital. He went over his argument with Scarlet again, too many times to count. And then he went farther back.
Although he cringed, he forced his mind to pin down events of that fateful night so long ago. He went through every detail—sights, sounds, smells, anger, fear. Finally dread. When he’d played the scene through to the end, he rewound to the beginning and went over it again.
They’d said it was murder.
A couple of months after his mother had kicked her husband out, Daniel’s father hit rock bottom. Drunk as a skunk, not a penny to his name, he showed up on the front landing of the family home. While he’d bashed on the door, called out slurred abuse, Daniel and his mum had huddled inside, praying that he’d leave or the neighbors would call the police. They couldn’t make the call themselves. The bill hadn’t been paid for a year. As his father had railed on, Daniel covered his ears, tried to be brave, but soon he’d begun to cry.
His mother, however, stayed strong, wiping her son’s tears, holding him close. Finally she opened the door and told her husband—pleaded with him—to change for his family’s sake, for his son. She’d admitted they were ashamed of him, and it was true. Daniel couldn’t bring himself to look his father in the eye anymore.
When his father insulted her again, his mother said he could rot in hell. That’s when his dad got mad. The kind of mad that dims a man’s gaze with a bloodred fog. He’d growled that this was his house. No one was pushing him out. He was coming in and she’d better not try to stop him.
Daniel was only five at the time but he knew he had to run, get help. He was headed out the back door when he heard the screams, his mother’s, then his father’s. He found his father standing on the front landing, swaying, holding on to the rail and looking down. Then he kind of disintegrated, like a bag of sand split down the middle. Shaking, Daniel peered down the stairs to the scene below.
His mother lay on that square of concrete, broken. Still.
His father had committed suicide two weeks later.
In adulthood, Daniel had got hold of the police report relating to his mother’s accident. Right leg fracture. Fifth and sixth vertebrae shattered. Spinal cord snapped. He’d never spoken of that night. Not to anyone, not even Owen. What good did it do to remember? Whenever an image sneaked into the corners of his mind, he wanted to hit something. Wanted to beat it down. Change it back.
If he could, he’d destroy those memories before they had a chance to destroy him.
But he’d come to
understand. A person couldn’t always keep something like that locked away, hidden inside, without it manifesting itself in other ways.
Around midnight, Daniel found his feet and, exhausted, moved inside to brew coffee. Then, with a steaming full mug, he camped out on the couch and willed himself to take his memories farther back still. Finally he had a vision of his father, younger, smiling, singing. Even dancing. The family had plenty of food on the table and no one argued over unpaid bills. His life was easy, carefree, like a kid’s life ought to be. Whenever his dad stopped to kick a ball or ruffle his hair, Daniel had seen a superhero. A role model for the kind of man he wanted to be someday. Before things had turned rotten, there’d been good times. Lots of them.
He’d forgotten.
His jaw clenched. Hands, too. But he couldn’t rid himself of the urge. Perhaps in the back of his mind, he’d known this day would come.
Tucked way on a wardrobe shelf in one of the spare rooms, he found it, packed in a brown cardboard box. Years before he’d brought the box over with him from Australia. He couldn’t bear to think of it being stored in his primary home. Nor could he find the wherewithal to toss it away.
Settling the box on the floor, he knelt, tried to clear his head and opened the lid.
The wood of the fiddle was dark and smooth. The smell was old. Forgotten. When he scooped the fiddle up, leveled the instrument at his chin like his father had taught him to do, his fingers began to tingle. Inhaling the rich wood scent, closing his eyes, he let himself go back. Allowed himself to feel.
In his mind, his father was laughing, standing tapping his foot as friends who had gathered for the night clapped and danced. His mother was there and Daniel smiled, remembering that look on her face, the shine in her eyes and the admiring curve of her mouth.
She’d loved her husband. And he’d loved her. So deeply that people only had to see them together to know it was true. Their bond hadn’t needed words to describe it or a theory to explain it. It simply was. The way love was supposed to be.
Daniel opened his eyes.
And thought of Scarlet.
Fourteen
When Scarlet spied Daniel entering the reception ballroom, she told her stupid heart to stop thumping. Then, with suddenly shaky hands, she resumed smoothing one of the guest chair’s dress bows. With Cara and Max’s wedding due to start here at this highly sought-after venue in thirty minutes, she didn’t need distractions, particularly the kind this man routinely tossed her way.
“Thanks,” she called across the vacant room, “but I have everything under control. No need for you to be back here.”
When Daniel didn’t slow his advance, Scarlet tore her gaze from the mesmerizing roll of broad shoulders housed beneath that impeccably fitted dinner jacket and, straightening to her full height, showed him her back. She couldn’t be clearer than that.
“I’m not here to talk about the wedding,” he said.
“Well, that’s all I’m focused on at the moment.” She walked a resolute line to the next table. “If you’ll excuse me…”
Her stomach was knotted all the way up to her throat. But if there’d ever been a day she needed to keep it together, this was it. Cara would soon be making her big trip down the aisle. She and Max were so well suited, so in love, Scarlet couldn’t be more pleased for them both. But she’d be lying to deny that sharing in this time left her wondering all the more about her own future.
During her stay with Daniel in Australia, their issues had evaporated into so much steam. They’d found a common space to share, to live, to be wildly blissfully happy. But everyone had to return to reality sometime and Daniel’s was a bitter place to dwell. While he gave off an easygoing, carefree air, at his core lived a boy who had stomped on and buried his past.
How Daniel handled his affairs was his business. But Scarlet had chosen a different path. Even when the hurt of looking back was nearly unbearable, she’d taken steps to heal. To thrive, she needed to forgive, embrace and move on. Unfortunately, Daniel didn’t see things in quite the same way.
As she moved to straighten another bow, his deep voice reached out to touch her from behind.
“This all looks great, what you’ve done for the ceremony, in here and outside. Max and Cara will walk away with a lot of memories.”
“All good, I hope.”
“Earlier this week I took a tour of this place,” he went on.
Fixing the daisies in a floral centerpiece, Scarlet paused. She wasn’t nearly as starchy and uptight as she’d been a few weeks ago. Still she took pride in making certain all her events ran smoothly. No last-minute changes. No jack-in-the-box surprises. She rotated to face him.
“You came here earlier with Max?” she asked carefully.
“I came alone.” Rethinking that, he tugged an ear. “That’s not entirely true. I came with a gang of ghosts dragging on my heels.”
She returned to the centerpiece.
“I don’t blame you,” he said, “for not wanting to speak with me now. I didn’t listen when you needed me to. I didn’t know how.”
A crippling ache released in her chest. That’s right. He hadn’t listened and in that moment when they’d quarreled she’d never felt more invalidated. He might choose to hide behind a lead-lined wall. Scarlet did not.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his long legs in pressed black trousers come closer and the nerves kicking around in her stomach went into overdrive.
“How’s your mother, Imogene, doing?” he asked.
“Her illness…” Scarlet swallowed against the lump in her throat. “She needs full-time care.”
“Must be difficult.”
Difficult? She turned to face him.
“If you want to know, seeing her like this breaks my heart. I’ll never know my real mother and now she’ll never know me again.” She drew up tall, crossed her arms. “But I’m done feeling sorry for myself. I’m trying to accept the past—in fact, I’ve embraced it despite your advice.”
As a pulse beat high in his cheek, he ran a hand through his hair, leaving a trail of dark blond spikes.
“It was bad advice,” he admitted.
She uncrossed her arms. She supposed he deserved to hear the rest. That he hadn’t been entirely wrong.
“Mrs. Rampling, the doctor and I have spoken at great length. We’ve decided that Imogene ought to go back to Carolina. To the home they both know. I’ll find a full-time nurse to help down there, and I’ll visit as often as I can.”
“Build some new memories.” He sauntered closer. “You know I have some memories of my own. Good ones, I mean.”
She was curious. “Of when you were young?”
“Of my father laughing and helping his neighbors, his friends. Of him swinging me over his shoulder so we could hurry in from the shed and be on time for tea. Lately I’ve thought about those times a lot.” His blue gaze glistened. “I’m a slow teach but it finally sank in. That’s the stuff I need to hold on to and remember. The good parts. The happy times.”
Scarlet studied him hard. Had he truly accepted all the loss and frustration from his childhood? She wasn’t sure she believed it. But if she were wrong and he had become friends with the past—with that part of himself—then hats off. Either way, Daniel would continue on his own path, as would she. And Scarlet wished them both luck. More challenges lay ahead. For better or worse, that was life.
Daniel shucked back those big shoulders of his. “Can you spare a minute? I have something I’d like to show you.”
“Sorry. No time.”
Scarlet might be ahead of schedule but going off with Daniel anywhere, for any reason, simply was not smart. He was too distracting, particularly looking so unusually humble.
“Two minutes,” he said.
“I’m sorry but—”
Before she finished, he’d taken her hand. Those strong warm fingers folded around hers and her icy shell thawed enough to allow in a thin shard of maybe. Scarlet wouldn’t change her mind about da
ting him again, if that’s what he was after; she and Daniel could never go back. Frankly, she’d have a hard time with them being anything close to friends, even for Cara and Max’s sake. Simply to look at him and remember hurt too much.
But she didn’t wish him any ill will. And if life was about growing, he’d given her more to sow in these past weeks than anyone who had ever come before. He’d made a huge difference in how she viewed relationships. Saw herself. For that she was grateful.
She pulled her hand away and, after a torn moment, feeling strong enough, she followed him out.
When he fanned open the door to an adjoining room in this usually fully booked venue, a different world seemed to leap out at her. Photos were positioned everywhere. Lots were blown up to various sizes. Others remained in their original state. They hung on the walls, were mounted on easels, dangled from the ceiling on ribbon or twine. The majority were in color but more than a few captured a timeless moment in poignant black and white. Each snap was from the past, either Daniel’s or her own.
Dazed—amazed—Scarlet edged inside.
The shot directly in front of her portrayed Scarlet as a tot, wearing a white pinafore and sitting on her father’s knee while he read Goldilocks from a gold-leafed storybook. Turning around, she saw Daniel as a toddler dressed in worn shorts and a football team’s T-shirt. His cheeks big, he blew bubbles with a woman who had the same fair hair and laughing blue eyes. Moving on, Scarlet and her twin stood on the front seat of a brand-new green sedan while her biological mother fooled around, pretending to steer the stationary car. A memory trace lit, igniting flashes on a runaway fuse, and suddenly she could smell that fresh seat leather. Again she was inhaling her mother’s sweet perfume.
Further on, a four- or five-year-old Daniel hugged his mom and dad in the scrubby backyard of a suburban weatherboard home. Beside that photo, on a battered stool, lay a violin that looked a hundred years old. Scarlet thought back. Who did that instrument belong to? Had Daniel ever played as a boy? Not likely. He enjoyed rock―the heavier, the better.
