Finding Lacey Moon

by Donya Lynne

  What she’d said to him last night before she left echoed in his mind, though. Scott, if I had told you I was Lacey Moon, would I have ever known how you really feel about me?

  He didn’t know the answer to that, but her question bothered him for some reason. Like a niggling headache sitting just behind his eyes, he couldn’t stop rolling her words around his mind.

  But it was what she had said right before saying good-bye and walking out the door that broke his heart. I’ve never known what real love felt like until I met you.

  Now that he’d slept, something about what she’d said didn’t sit right. How could she never have known love? Was there more to Mattie—Lacey—than he assumed?

  What did he know about her? He knew that she had come to Hope Falls because she was trying to figure herself out? Why? What did Lacey Moon have to figure out? She had everything.

  He remembered something she had said to him on one of their dates. Something about how sometimes you can feel alone even in a room full of people.

  At the time, he’d assumed she was speaking in generalities. But now…? A sad picture of the kind of life Lacey led began to form in his mind. Maybe she had come here to get away from all that. To reclaim happiness.

  To find herself.

  Wrapping the bath towel around his hips, he exited the bathroom and drew a pair of long johns out of his dresser and tossed them on the unmade bed.

  His thoughts continued to process the facts. What had driven her to leave and run away? Change her entire look, no less? He hadn’t even recognized her. She’d cut and colored her hair. And now that he thought about it, Lacey Moon had blue eyes. The striking blue of her eyes was almost as popular as her red-streaked hair. Mattie’s eyes were brown. Colored contacts? Obviously, Lacey had gone to a lot of trouble to keep anyone from recognizing her. Why?

  She hadn’t just come to Hope Falls looking for herself. She had fled. She had purposely disguised herself to escape. But escape what?

  He pulled on his long johns and a pair of jeans, his brain dissecting the facts.

  After what happened to me at the Olympics…after what I’ve been through…. You don’t know, Scott. You don’t know what it was like. How awful it was. How hard it’s been not to tell you the truth.

  That’s what she’d said last night. The words echoed in his mind. What did she mean? What had happened to her before she’d come here?

  For starters, she’d wiped out in the last Olympics and broken her leg. And she’d taken a beating from the media, as well as from her fellow teammates and competitors. He remembered how Savannah had gotten so angry at “the awful things” they said about her.

  The mystery that was Lacey Moon began to take shape. A picture of a battered, worn-down person seemed more appropriate for Lacey than a well-put-together, in-control athlete. The pressure on her shoulders had to be enormous. No wonder she had fled her life. No wonder she had disguised herself and hid behind a fake name. Well, not fake, but not the one she was known by.

  Scott could only imagine the circus that Lacey had to endure in her life. From what he’d learned from their time together, she preferred the quiet. She liked the calm moments, the tranquility of a peaceful walk in the woods.

  Maybe that was the problem. She had wanted to get away from the media circus after the Olympics. Perhaps she really had been trying to figure herself out after her horrible fall.

  And here he had said awful things to her last night and kicked her out of his home without even an ounce of compassion.

  Shit.

  He should go to her cabin and make sure she was okay. That was the least he could do. He was still hurt and angry, but he was a big boy. He would get over it. Right now she had to be hurting, too. He didn’t have to be a dick. He could show her he understood.

  And maybe…

  No, he didn’t want to think that they could work things out. At least not yet. He was still angry at what she’d done and not ready to forgive. Maybe in time he would see things differently. Maybe.

  He finished dressing, pulled his Oregon Ducks skullcap over his head and trudged out to the garage. A couple of minutes later, he pulled up to cabin thirty-six. Lacey’s SUV was gone.

  Ice unexpectedly chilled his heart. He hadn’t expected her to be gone. When had she left? Where had she gone?

  Jumping out of his truck, he rushed to the door and knocked. No answer. As if he expected one.

  He hopped off the porch and peered inside the windows. Nothing. No signs of life. He had a terrible feeling about this.

  Resorting to his master key, he unlocked the door and barged inside.

  “Lacey!”

  Surely, she had only just gone into town, but the chill running down his spine and freezing his veins told him she hadn’t…that her absence was of a more permanent nature. But he couldn’t believe she was gone for good. They needed to talk. They needed to work this out. Suddenly, that was more important than his anger and hurt feelings.

  In the bedroom, he opened the closet. The hangers were empty. When he opened the dresser drawers, they were empty, too. Her bags were gone, and the bathroom was cleared of all signs she’d even been there.

  He raced back through the living room. Her books weren’t on the coffee table, but in the kitchen, he found her Julia Child cookbook abandoned on the counter.

  His heart unexpectedly heavy, he picked up the cookbook and returned to the bedroom, where he sat on the edge of the unmade bed. What was this dreadful heaviness settling in his chest? It hurt. Ached. Gnawed and spread down his arms and into his gut.

  She was gone.

  “Damn it.” He slumped then rolled back on the rumpled bed. As he did, his head landed on something hard. “What the hell?” He sat back up and pulled aside the covers. Lacey’s journal lay in a nest of wrinkled sheets.

  He picked it up and stared at the cover. It was black with one of those weird skulls—he thought he remembered hearing Savannah call it a sugar skull—on it. The thought that he was holding Lacey’s innermost thoughts in his hands made for a surreal moment. He’d wanted answers. Here they were. But this was her journal. It was private.

  But something made him turn to the first page, anyway. He couldn’t explain it, but it just felt…right. As if she’d left the journal there for a reason. For him to find.

  Turning to the first page, he read what she had written.

  My name is Lacey Moon, but I don’t know who I am. I’m trying to figure that out…

  Once he started reading, he couldn’t stop. He suddenly needed to know everything about Lacey Moon, the woman he had fallen in love with. The woman he still loved.

  Chapter 22

  After stopping for lunch around two o’clock, Lacey pulled into her parents’ driveway around five in the afternoon. Thank God the press wasn’t waiting for her.

  “Lacey!” Her mom burst through the front door, arms wide.

  Lacey suddenly needed her mom more than anything and ran into her arms as the sobs she had fought all the way home readily spilled. Her arm still hurt, and her body ached like road kill, but she didn’t care. She just wanted her mom. The physical and emotional trauma of the past twenty-four hours had rendered her eight years old again and sorely in need of the kind of comfort only a mom could give. The kind that came with hot cocoa, a bowl of chicken noodle soup, and an order to do nothing but watch cartoons in her pajamas.

  “Mom!” She cried against her mom’s shoulder, racking sobs hiccupping her body.

  “We saw you on the news. Are you okay? Are you hurt?” She looked up and down the residential street. “Come on, let’s go inside.”

  Against the brace of her mom’s body, Lacey dragged herself inside and collapsed on the couch, defeated. She was physically and emotionally drained. She had only barely held it together for the eight-hour drive home, not including stops for breakfast and lunch, but now she could let herself go.

  “God, honey, you look awful.”

  Lacey hadn’t showered since yesterday morning
, so she had to look and smell a mess, and then of course was the disaster of how her life had imploded in a matter of seconds yesterday on the slopes, and of the fallout last night at Scott’s cabin, which had set her on what had to be a record-setting crying binge that had left her eyes dry, irritated, bloodshot and swollen beyond description.

  Mom sat down on the chair across from the couch. “Honey, tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I can’t right now, Mom. Okay? I just need…” She rolled to her side and began crying again. “I just need to be here for a while. I promise, I’ll tell you everything later, but right now, I just need…” What? She had no idea what she needed. No, that wasn’t entirely true. She needed Scott. But he wasn’t there, and he never would be again. He was gone, and she had to learn to deal with that, but right now, all she wanted to do was cry, and sleep, and then maybe when she woke up, this would have all been just a bad dream and Scott would walk in and make everything right.

  “Ssssshhh,” her mom said, leaving the chair to kneel beside the couch. “Just rest right now, okay? You can tell me what happened later.”

  Lacey nodded, tears streaking her face as she burrowed into the throw pillow. Her mom draped a blanket over her, kissed her cheek, and then quietly left the room. A moment later, Lacey heard her on the phone, talking in hushed tones. To her dad, from the sound of it.

  “She’s home.” She paused then said, “I think so, but she’s pretty upset.” Another pause as she listened to whatever Dad was saying from his side. “I don’t know.” Short pause. “No, don’t come home. She’s resting…She seems okay, just shaken…Okay, I’ll call you if I need you. Love you, honey.”

  Love you, honey.

  Her mom and dad had been married for thirty years. She wanted that. She wanted what her parents had, and she’d almost had it with Scott. But she’d blown it.

  The tears renewed once more until she finally cried herself out and into sleep a few minutes later. The stress of the last twenty-four hours, along with less than ten hours of sleep in two-and-a-half stressful days, finally caught up to her, and she passed out like a vampire at dawn.

  Scott filled her dreams, and for that, she was grateful.

  Chapter 23

  Scott read the last sentence in Lacey’s journal, turned the page to find it blank, and let out a shaky breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

  Tears pooled on the brims of his eyes, and he quickly scrubbed his palm up and down his face as he dragged in a heavy inhale.

  Lacey had been hurting so much, especially when she’d written last night’s entry, and his heart broke for her. He should have listened to her. He should have pushed back his pride and listened, because then maybe she would have told him all of these things she had been forced to pour into her journal instead.

  The ink was smeared and the pages wrinkled as if they’d gotten wet. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why.

  In two months, they had fallen in love, and it was clear from every word Lacey had written about him that she was as in love with him as he was with her. But now what? He couldn’t just leave to be with her. He had responsibilities here. And just because they had these incredible feelings for each other, it didn’t change the fact that she was who she was. He didn’t want a long-distance relationship, and with Lacey, that’s exactly what he would get. She lived in Utah and would be traveling and competing, and where would that leave him? At home, alone, which was right where he was now.

  But at least he would have known she was coming back if she were merely traveling. Right now, she wasn’t coming back at all. And, yeah, that sucked.

  God, why was he even entertaining such thoughts? She had lied. He couldn’t forgive her for that. It was over, and it was better this way. End of story.

  * * *

  That evening, with Lacey’s journal taunting him from the corner of his desk and a slew of news vans invading Hope Falls—and in particular McCord Cabin Rentals—Scott kept his nose in the books, even though he’d already paid all the bills and recorded all the payments.

  But staring at his payables and receivables beat heading outside and dodging the vultures gripping microphones and aiming their cameras at everything that moved. No wonder Lacey had needed to get away. Just a few hours with these mongers, and he was ready to put on a wig and a hat if it would help him leave undetected.

  “Knock-knock.”

  Scott looked up to find Liam standing in the doorway. He turned back to his computer, not interested in whatever Liam had to say. “I thought you’d left for the day.” Which was why Scott had waited until after he’d left to come to the office. “Did you come to tell me you told me so?”

  “‘I told you so’ isn’t my style.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re thinking it, aren’t you?”

  “Actually, no. You should have listened to me, on the other hand…”

  Scott glared at him.

  Liam held up his hands. “Only kidding. I didn’t come here to rub it in. You weren’t answering your phone, so I thought I’d check on you and bring you dinner.” He tossed a bag from Pappy’s on his desk.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Damn it, Liam. I’m not. Hungry.”

  “Then I’ll eat it. I’m starved.” Liam reached for the bag, but Scott grabbed his wrist, preventing him from taking it. “That’s what I thought.” Liam pulled his hand away and slowly lowered himself into one of the chairs in front of Scott’s desk.

  Fine, so he was hungry. But he wouldn’t give Liam the satisfaction of eating in front of him. He’d wait.

  “Did I invite you to sit down?” Scott said.

  Without answering, Liam leaned back and crossed his ankle over his knee as if he planned on getting good and comfortable and intended to stay a while.

  “How’re you doing?”

  “I don’t need a shrink.”

  “I didn’t say you did.”

  Why couldn’t Liam just leave him alone?

  “Scott…” Liam’s eyes fell to the small Oregon Ducks figurine on his desk, and he sounded subdued. “You’ve made me realize a few things about myself in the last couple months. Maybe your methods were indelicate, but you woke me up.” His eyebrows pulled inward. “You’re right, I haven’t been the same since Lisa died.” He let out a long, uneasy exhale. “Maybe it’s time I got some help.”

  “Liam—”

  He held up his hand, cutting Scott off. “I’ve been a jerk, and for that I’m sorry.”

  “You were hurting.” If anyone knew how hard losing a relationship was, it was Scott. He’d lost Theresa and now Lacey.

  Liam gave him a dubious look. “That’s no excuse, and you know it.” His eyes slid to the left. “What’s this?” He picked up the journal and the Julia Child cookbook.

  Scott took them back. “They’re Lacey’s. I found them in her cabin this morning. She left them.”

  “Is that a journal?”

  Scott set them on the opposite side of his desk where Liam couldn’t get to them. “Yes. I thought I could get her address off her rental contract and ship them to her.” He turned back to his computer, wanting the subject dropped.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What?”

  “You read it, didn’t you?”

  His silence was as good as an admission. A knowing expression spread over Liam’s face.

  Scott pulled out his financial binder, even though he didn’t need it. “It doesn’t matter whether I read it or not. She’s gone. She lied. I’m done.”

  “You make it sound so cut and dry.”

  Scott blindly flipped through his binder. “She’s not who I thought she was. She’s Lacey Goddamn Moon, not Mattie Moon. She’s not the woman I fell in love with.”

  Liam sat forward and smacked his hand inside the binder to make Scott stop paging through it. “Isn’t she?”

  Scott scowled at him. “She lied.”

  “All she lied about was her name, Scott. Her name. That’s it. Do y
ou think the rest was just a lie, too? That she made up this alter ego to come here and fuck with your head and play games?”

  “What is this? I thought you didn’t like her. Now you’re suddenly all up on the Lacey Train?”

  “That’s your fault for making me realize what a dick I’ve been.” Liam sat back and crossed his arms. “You were right, Scott. I’ve seen how happy you are, and it pissed me off. Both of us have been in the same boat for so long. It felt…comfortable. Like I really wasn’t all alone. Then she came to town, and you changed. Suddenly, I was on the outside looking in. You got happier every day, and every day, I felt shittier.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Liam shook his head in disregard. “Like I said, you woke me. I see now how bad I got…and how bad I came after you.” He uncrossed his arms and scooted forward to the edge of the chair. “The point is, you were happy with her, Scott. Genuinely happy. I tried to ruin that, but thank God I didn’t. You fell in love with her, and you deserve to be happy.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” It was the anger and his wounded pride talking, because after reading Lacey’s journal, he knew things weren’t what he’d assumed barely twenty-four hours ago. “But none of that matters anyway, because she’s gone.”

  “Then go after her.”

  “I can’t.”

  “What is it you’re really afraid of, Scott?”

  “I’m not afraid.” But now he was the one telling lies, because he was terrified he had chased Lacey away for good. When she had needed him the most, he hadn’t been there for her. What kind of man left the woman he loved hanging out to dry like that?