Wild, Wounded Hearts

by Wild, Wounded Hearts (epub)

  “I’m hardly feeling dread. Okay, I’m a little concerned, that’s all,” her mom said, throwing up her hands when Ursa gave her a dark glance. “You hardly ever cancel for family events, and you’ve done it twice this summer. Plus, it seems like every time I’ve offered to take you out to lunch in Reno lately, you’ve had some excuse as to why you can’t make it.”

  “I have a life, Mom,” Ursa mumbled, picking up her fork and fiddling with her remaining Älplermagronen. Her burst of irritation had faded as fast as it came. She felt deflated, and she thought she knew why. She’d heard her own lie.

  You don’t have a life. You have a job and an apartment and you go back and forth between them.

  During those days and nights with Z, she’d experienced how full and vibrant her life might be. She’d felt the promise. She’d glimpsed joy, and embraced it.

  Now the doors had shut tight. She hadn’t heard a peep from Z Beckett. Not that she’d expected to, after he’d been so brutally honest that last time.

  But now, her existence struck her as pitiful, small and barren by comparison to how full and alive she’d felt being with him.

  Damn him, and every stubborn bone in his body.

  This had been the most miserable summer of her life, bar none. Autumn loomed ahead, looking just as depressing.

  Later that night, there was a light tap on her bedroom door while she was in the process of unpacking.

  “Come in,” Ursa called.

  Sadie peaked around the door. “Okay to come in?”

  “Of course.”

  She shut the bureau drawer and turned as her sister entered the room. Sadie looked stunning, as usual, wearing a pair of jean shorts that highlighted her long, often photographed legs, a well-worn UCLA T-shirt, and a pair of white Keds that showed off her tan. Her long hair with all the caramel, gold and pale blonde strands was pulled back into a ponytail. Sadie was the only person Ursa knew who could look chic and sophisticated, even dressed like a casual teenager.

  Her eldest sister had inherited their mother’s killer cheekbones and tall, lithesome figure. She’d inherited their father’s arresting, soulful dark eyes—eyes that translated remarkably well onto the big screen.

  Ursa was aware that a good portion of the population of the planet envied Sadie and her movie star status. Even Esme had always felt a little in awe of her. But as the oldest and youngest Esterbrook girls, Sadie and Ursa had always shared a special bond. Maybe it was because despite her beauty and glamorous life, Sadie always struck Ursa as a little bit sad and lonely…like she didn’t quite fit anywhere. It didn’t make sense that Sadie, the ultimate insider, and Ursa, the shy outcast, would get along so well.

  But for some reason, they did.

  “I wanted to tell you I was sorry about how we reacted at dinner,” Sadie said in her low, velvety voice. She sat on the edge of Ursa’s bed. “I think Mom is just more prone to worry, since—”

  “Dad passed. I know.” Ursa sunk into an easy chair, guilt sweeping through her. “And I did cancel for Memorial Day and the Fourth. I should be seeing Mom more than usual. Not less. I’m the one who lives close.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it. Just because you live the closest doesn’t make you more obligated than we are. One or more of us has managed to be with her, one way or another, during all of the holidays. I actually think she’s doing really well, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.” Ursa sighed. “It’s hard to believe it’s almost two years now, that he’s been gone.”

  “Yeah. Time moves on.”

  “Even if sometimes it does feel like you’re stuck in that moment, like it happened yesterday,” Ursa added softly. She noticed her sister’s dark eyes glistened with unshed tears. They shared a sad smile. Sadie cleared her throat.

  “So…not to beat at a dead topic—and you can tell me to shut up if you want to—”

  “I’m fine. I just had a checkup, I swear!”

  Sadie held up her hands and laughed. “Whoa, I wasn’t going to mention your health. I was just going to ask about your reaction earlier at dinner. You seem a little…edgy. I mean, I know we drive you nuts, treating you like you’re a fragile kid. It’s got to be annoying, when you’ve been so healthy for years, and when you have a job that requires more mental toughness than anything we do. But to be honest, Ursa, I couldn’t help but notice. What seemed to really set you off was when Esme brought up you dating. Well, being in love, to be exact.”

  Ursa gasped softly in surprise. She hadn’t thought that was the direction Sadie was going.

  “Anyway, it suddenly struck me you had a point. I’ve been thinking about it, and I started to feel really stupid,” Sadie said.

  “What do you mean?” Ursa asked, dumbfounded.

  “I think I owe you an apology. You’re young and beautiful and have a great job. And yet I hardly ever ask you about your dating status.” She shook her head, appearing dazed. “It’s like I’ve had a blind spot all this time. I talk about dating with my friends. I ask Esme all the time about guys. And yet I rarely bring it up with you.”

  Ursa flushed in embarrassment. “Probably because you’ve learned from experience I never have anything to report.”

  Sadie seemed to hesitate. “Ursa…do you want to date? Are you interested?”

  “Of course I’m interested,” she exclaimed, her frustration bubbling over.

  Again, Sadie made that hushing gesture with her hands. “I’m sorry if I’m being insensitive. I’m sorry that I haven’t brought it up before. Truly. I have no excuse. I guess it was just the air we breathed—”

  “To think of me as asexual?”

  Sadie’s mouth dropped open at her blunt question.

  “Not asexual. No. I guess it’s just that you’re younger than we are, and for so much of our lives—”

  “I was sick. And then when I wasn’t sick anymore, I still had the social skills of a sick kid. I got healthy enough, but the aura of the fragile girl—the outcast girl—lingered. And to this day, nobody looks at me and thinks: ‘Now there’s a sassy, sexy girl. I’ll bet she gets lots of dates.’ They look at me and see Ursa, the littlest, most insignificant Esterbrook girl, the one who’ll fade into the wallpaper if you don’t stare at her hard enough.”

  “Ursa—”

  “Well I’m not invisible,” she shouted, standing up from her chair. Her cheeks had grown very hot, and it felt like her hair was standing on end. “I’m strong, and I’m healthy, and I’m certainly not asexual. If you had any idea about my sexual fantasies, you’d probably keel over. We’re talking X-rated to the tenth degree. In other words, it’s about time you opened your eyes, Sadie. I wish Mom and Esme and…and every one else would as well!”

  Sadie just stared at her in blank shock.

  “Does it surprise you that I have it all worked out in my head about why I ended up being a twenty-two-year-old virgin? Do you honestly think I never thought about it, Sadie? Did you really think I wanted to be single all this time? Or did you all just overlook what I wanted, what I longed for, because it was convenient for you never to consider me as a sexual being?”

  A tear skittered down her sister’s cheek.

  “God, Ursa. I’m so, so sorry. Please forgive me. I had no idea you were holding all this inside you.”

  “Obviously,” Ursa muttered, collapsing back into her chair.

  “I’ll talk to Esme and Mom about it. We shouldn’t be treating you like a child.”

  “Don’t. Please,” Ursa added when she realized how sharp she’d sounded. She exhaled, regret rolling through her at her outburst. Lately, it felt like her emotions were always right there, simmering so close to the surface.

  “Don’t say anything to them. If anyone should, it’s me. I’m sorry I let loose on you like that. You were just an easy target, I guess. I’ve just felt a little raw lately. It’s like…everything has b
een coming to a head for me.”

  “That’s understandable, I guess. You’ve clearly been feeling alone about the whole thing, and you’ve obviously been thinking about it a lot. It can’t help that your family hasn’t been there for you.”

  “It’s not your fault. I certainly haven’t been honest and open about the topic. You were probably following my lead, and I was following yours…and somehow we ended up in a pact of silence that none of us ever intended.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Sadie asked after a pause. “Do you want me to introduce you to some guys? Between Esme and me, we could come up with some decent potentials in the Reno area.”

  “No.”

  “But how else are you going to meet men?”

  “I don’t want to meet men,” Ursa exclaimed, irritated when an angry tear popped onto her cheek. I want one man, but he doesn’t want me! She noticed Sadie’s bewilderment and gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Sadie, I don’t know exactly what I want at this second. I know I want a relationship with a man. I want great sex. I want romance. But I don’t want to be foisted on a stranger. I’m not asking you to figure this out for me.”

  “You’re right. You’re just being honest about your experience. Sorry for trying to rush in with a big-sister Band-Aid.”

  Ursa smiled and shook her head. The flash fire of fury and passion had fizzled out entirely. She wasn’t any better off than she had been before she unleashed it on poor, unsuspecting Sadie.

  Except she actually was feeling lighter, Ursa realized.

  “I am sorry for unloading on you. But it helped, I think. I wonder why that is?”

  Sadie stood and came to kneel in front of her. She circled her waist with her arms and placed her cheek on Ursa’s knee.

  “Maybe it’s because you’re not keeping it all locked inside anymore,” Sadie chuckled. “You let the badass Ursa come out, and she put me in my place with her roar.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The next morning, Esme and Ursa were the first to arise. They sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and eating Honey Nut Cheerios.

  “You got me hooked on these when I was a kid,” Ursa said, munching on the cereal.

  “Jude got me addicted to it ages ago.”

  “Is he going to be here for Labor Day?” Ursa asked hopefully. While Esme and Jude Beckett had long been best friends, Ursa loved Jude like a brother. It’d be wonderful to see him. She realized with a slight sinking feeling that possibly one of the reasons she’d like seeing Jude so much was that he looked a lot like his older brother. The Beckett boys shared a strong family resemblance.

  Esme shook her head. “His new job with the Treasury Secretary keeps him crazy busy. Everyone’s hoping Z will show up unexpectedly, though.”

  Ursa set down her spoon and fiddled with her coffee cup handle. “That’s not very likely, is it?”

  “Since when are you so cynical?” Esme laughed. “I thought you were Z’s biggest cheerleader…the apple of his eye.”

  Ursa felt her cheeks go warm. It irritated her, to hear Esme’s glib assessment of Z’s and her former relationship. “I’m hardly his cheerleader. I just meant, if he hasn’t been showing up in Tahoe Shores for all this time, then I doubt he’ll show up now.”

  “He came for Labor Day last year, and the year before, too. He likes to do that marathon at Squaw.”

  Ursa pushed back her bowl with half of her cereal left. She’d suddenly lost her appetite. Esme gave her a quizzical glance and set down her spoon.

  “Is something going on with you, Ursa? Be honest.”

  To her horror, the raw emotion she’d experienced yesterday with Sadie rose up in her again, making her throat go tight. She was losing the ability to control herself. God, why hadn’t anyone warned her that falling in love and being rejected hurt this bad. It wouldn’t have mattered. A voice in her head said. You were wild to get your feet wet. You were dead set on drowning yourself in the experience.

  She actually did feel like she was drowning for a few seconds. It had struck her full force, talking to Esme about Z, exactly what she had lost when she’d slept with him. Fallen in love with him. She’d sacrificed their former relationship with a shocking, casual disregard.

  The recognition of the enormity of the loss shook her to the core.

  She finally got her lungs to work, gasping softly as she inhaled. The whole time, she was aware of Esme staring at her with an eagle eye.

  “Ursa, were you telling the truth about your last doctor’s appointment?”

  Ursa slammed her hands down on the table and stood. “Are you crazy, Es? Do you honestly think I’d lie about something like that? What kind of a sociopath would that make me?”

  “Sociopath? I’m not accusing you of that, just plain old-fashioned lying. We all do it occasionally. Well, you don’t of course—”

  “For the last time, I’m perfectly healthy!”

  Esme looked surprised, and then a little impressed. “Nothing wrong with your temper, anyway,” she said before she picked up her spoon and resumed eating.

  Ursa made a disgusted sound and picked up her bowl. “I’m going to put on my suit and start hauling some stuff down to the beach. See you down there.”

  The Esterbrook home was part of Sierra Estates, a wooded community of twenty homes set along Lake Tahoe’s north shore. The residences shared a community clubhouse and gardens for parties and gatherings, along with a stretch of white sand beach. It was the location of a lifetime of hundreds of fond childhood memories for Ursa. On the Saturday before Labor Day, only four other neighborhood families were on the beach along with the Beckett/Esterbrook party, despite a warm, clear, brilliantly sunny day.

  Ursa and her sisters took out the Wave Runners in the morning. When they returned, their mother had set up a lunch table beneath the pavilion. Stephen had wheeled Grandpa Joe in his specialized beach wheelchair, with the thick balloon sand wheels. Grandpa Joe was smiling beneath the summer straw fedora he wore. Grandpa Joe never went out without a hat.

  All three of them lined up to greet the much-loved elderly gentleman and his handsome caregiver. Ursa got a huge bear hug from Stephen Jackson, whom had always been a little extra fond of her ever since he’d brought her into the world twenty-two years ago.

  “Any exciting news from Reno?” Stephen asked her when they all sat down to a delicious lunch of chopped chicken salad and Ilsa’s homemade seven-grain bread.

  “Not really,” Ursa said, making a face. “Pretty boring, actually.”

  Stephen looked politely surprised. “I thought your mom had mentioned that the hospital had been keeping you very busy.”

  “It is,” Ursa said quickly, glancing at her mother guiltily. She’d canceled a few lunch engagements with her mom during the summer, and had often used work as an excuse. “But that doesn’t mean it’s exciting.”

  When Stephen and her mother shared a warm smile and the conversation turned, Ursa experienced a moment of relief. They clearly hadn’t suspected she’d been lying.

  Everyone felt drowsy and mellow after lunch. Stephen, Grandpa Joe, and her mom stayed under the shade of the pavilion and played cards, while Ursa and her sisters sunbathed with their chairs perched partially in the lake’s gentle surf, cooling their feet.

  “Mom seems like she’s doing pretty well, doesn’t she?” she heard Esme murmur to Sadie after a while.

  “Yeah. A world of difference.”

  Ursa knew her sisters were referring to their mother’s emotional well-being in the months following her husband’s death. She silently agreed with her sisters’ assessment. During the luncheon, for instance, Ilsa had smiled brightly several times, and even laughed in a way they hadn’t heard since their dad passed away last September.

  She’s coming out of her grief, Ursa realized with a poignant mixture of happiness and sadness. She was grateful that her mothe
r enjoyed moments in her life again, of course. But it made her sad, as well, because it underlined the passage of time. It firmly placed her father in the past.

  Feeling a little moody, she stood from her lounge chair. She stopped herself from making an excuse to her sisters when she noticed both Sadie and Esme slept while the sun turned their bikini-clad bodies golden brown.

  “I’m going to take a walk,” Ursa softly told her mom, Stephen and Grandpa Joe after she’d shrugged on a beach cover-up, and grabbed a towel and a book from her bag. They nodded and waved before turning their attention back to their game, all of them used to her heading out for a walk with a book in her hand.

  She strolled down the beach, lulled by the surf soughing against the beach and the warm sun. By the time she reached the sun-bleached, stacked boulders, she’d grown warm and craved some shade. Just like she’d done countless times as a child, she climbed over the giant, smooth stones and dropped down a crevice. Here, there was the tiny cavern that had been her hideaway as a child.

  It wasn’t a real cave, just a six by three by four-foot space created by the unevenly stacked boulders. The lowest smooth stone that formed the “floor” of the cavern was about three feet above the sandy beach. She spread her towel on the stone.

  She crawled up into the little enclosure, smiling with satisfaction when she realized she could still stretch out fully. She rolled onto her side, propped up her head with her bent arm, and opened her book. The rocks above her shaded most of her body, although part of her head and left arm were exposed to the warm sun. The contrast of the comfortable, cool interior of the hidey-hole and the heat on her head made her drowsy.

  It wasn’t long before she let her head drop, cushioning it with her upper arm. The last thing she recalled seeing before drifting off to sleep was two of the pages of her book flickering lazily in the gentle breeze.

  “Wake up, fairy girl.”

  The low, gruff voice penetrated her aching, erotic dream. For a brief moment as her heavy eyelids fluttered open, she existed both in the unconscious and conscious world. A large, dark figure blocked the brilliant sun. She blinked, disoriented, and realized it was a man. He stood next to the hidey-hole. She experienced no fear.