Second Chance Girl
Page 54

“Don’t worry about me.”
“I can’t help it. You’re Mathias’s brother and you’re my friend.” Sort of. She thought of him as a friend, but she had no idea how he saw her. “You’re being so generous. I don’t want to see that repaid with something unpleasant.”
“My father stealing the spotlight and making the night about him?” Ronan sounded bored. “Trust me, I’ve seen that one before. It’s how he lives his life. I don’t give a damn.”
“You do give a damn. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have left Fool’s Gold.”
His gaze settled on her face, but he didn’t speak.
“You know I’m right,” she continued. “Ronan, I know it’s confusing to have your family here. You love them and want to be with them and your dad is really difficult. Plus your mom is—”
“She’s not my mother.”
Carol decided not to argue that point. Whatever his lack of biological connection with Elaine, the woman was still his mother in every sense of the word. She thought about pointing out that his being unable to accept that might be the heart of whatever problem he was having but doubted he would listen. Worse, he might dismiss everything she had to say and she couldn’t let him do that. There was too much on the line.
“Why are you here?” Ronan asked. “It’s not to talk about Elaine.”
“No, it’s not.”
She’d hoped to come up with something really compelling and inspiring, but now that the moment had arrived, all she had was the truth.
“Please don’t leave. I know this visit is hard for you, but the wedding is Saturday, then everyone will be gone and you can get back to normal.”
“Why would you think I would leave?”
She twisted her hands together. “I don’t know. I have a gut feeling you might and that is not going to go well. Mathias needs you. You’re his twin.”
He started to speak, but she cut him off with another glare. “Don’t say you’re not. You spent the first twenty-plus years of your life believing you were a unit. Nothing is ever going to change that. It’s who each of you are. He doesn’t want to leave and if you go, I’m not sure he’ll follow you again. And then what? You’ll both be alone. You’ll lose each other and I know you don’t want that.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know enough.”
“Why are you doing this? What do you get out of it?”
Finally a question she could answer without having to plan what she was going to say. “There’s nothing in it for me. This is about Mathias and you. Please don’t leave.”
Ronan rose. She had no choice but to stand and follow him to the front door. He waited until she was on the porch to speak.
“I’ll think about what you said,” he told her. “But no promises.”
“Thank you.”
It wasn’t much but at this point, she would take whatever she could get.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CAROL AND VIOLET sat on a blanket in the shade of a tree. The afternoon was warm and sunny, the air still. The zebras grazed in the distance. Millie was a little closer, foraging for the occasional leaf.
“How does she get what she needs to eat?” Violet asked. “Are there enough trees for her to nibble on?”
“No. In the wild, giraffe territories can be as large as a hundred square miles, which means there’s time for trees to grow back leaves before the giraffes return.” She pointed to a tall pole by the grove of trees. “I hoist up branches every morning for her. We’re having three more poles installed for the new giraffes. They can feed together but have their own space.”
Construction would take a couple of days. The poles would be mounted in concrete to make sure they were secure enough to endure wildlife butts and brushes.
Her sister smiled at her. “Buttons are much easier.”
“Yes,” Carol said with a laugh. “And there’s no poop to clean up.”
Violet wrinkled her nose. “How often do you have to do that?”
“If we had more land, we could let it decompose into the soil, but we’re all at closer quarters here. I send one of the interns out every couple of weeks.” She smiled. “One of the perks of being the boss. Not that I haven’t collected my share of animal poop in my day.”
Violet laughed. “I swear, if I had a blog, I would so put this conversation on it. Even though it has nothing to do with anything.” She flopped back on the blanket and stared at the sky. “I want to freeze this moment forever.”
“Because I’m such good company?”
Her sister’s mouth twisted. “You are, of course, but there’s more to it than that.”
“Ulrich?”
Violet sat up and seemed to be fighting tears. “I’m a mess. Everything is wonderful and he’s so great and I’m happy and it’s all going to end and I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive that.”
Carol had the brief thought that she was grateful for having to think about her sister’s dilemma because it allowed her to forget her own.
“Are you in love with him?” she asked bluntly.
Violet sniffed, then nodded. “I know part of the reason is he’s safe to love. If he’s leaving, then he can’t hurt me. Outside of his going home, of course, but that was always a given.”
Carol thought about the irony of them both falling for men who were totally out of reach, but for very different reasons.
“What does he think about you?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. He likes me. I’m clear on that. We get along. I know he’ll miss me. He’s asked me to visit him in England.”
“There you go. That’s good.”
“It is, but it’s not love.” She bit her lower lip. “I want him to be wildly and madly in love with me. I want him to sweep me off my feet.”
“Didn’t he break his leg?”
Violet rolled her eyes. “Figuratively, not literally, and his leg isn’t broken. I want him to...”
“You want him to propose.”
Violet shrieked, causing the zebras to stare at them before returning to their foraging. She covered her face and rocked back and forth, then dropped her arms to her sides.
“I do want that. How pathetic, right? What is it about women that we all want to get married?”
“The need to pair bond is biological,” Carol said gently. “We want to be part of a community and that includes having a romantic partner and then having children. You want to belong just as much as Millie wants a herd.”
“But Millie’s herd isn’t going to break her heart. They’re going to love her back and be friends and they’ll all be happy together.”
“How do you know Ulrich doesn’t want what you want?”
“Because there are complications. He has to live in England and I live here.”
“You don’t have to live here,” Carol pointed out, ignoring the fierce ache in her chest at the thought of her sister moving so far away. There were airplanes, she told herself. They would still see each other. There was email and texting and Skype. Carol and Violet stayed in touch with their mother that way.
Funny how she was willing to urge her sister to follow her dream not three hours after begging Ronan to stay put. She supposed the difference was Violet was running to something, she was going to be happy, while Ronan would simply be running away.