“You haven’t ruined anything.” His eyes meet mine and even twelve shades of tipsy, I can see the pain there, the confusion. His eyes stay locked on mine for so long, this should probably feel awkward. But this is Will and I’ve loved him forever. I could look at him forever. I could let him look at me forever. If I didn’t believe he deserved better.
“That’s you,” he says.
I blink and realize they’re calling my name.
Nodding, I only teeter a little as I push myself to standing.
I’m two steps toward the door before I realize he hasn’t moved. I stop and turn to him. “Come with me?” I bite my lip, watching the battle play out across his face. I don’t want to explain. The loneliness. This fear that it might swallow me whole and I’ll just disappear. The bigger fear that everything might be easier if it did. “Please?”
He stands and wraps his arm around me, and as he leads me back to the examination room, I tell myself I’m only leaning into him because I’m drunk. I tell myself it’s okay because I’m hurt. But the pleasure I feel at having his arm wrapped around me? The way his heat and low murmurs chase away the loneliness so much better than the vodka did?
I don’t have an excuse for that.
***
William
She’s drunk. She’s drunk and she’s hurt and she’s in shock.
But that doesn’t change the fact that I love the feel of her in my arms. I love having her need me like she does right now.
The doctor stitched up her wound, a gash that extended from the palm of her hand down into her wrist and required twelve stitches.
She’s stitched and bandaged and now they want her to sober up before they’ll release her.
“How’d you find me?” she asks. The alcohol is leaving her system. I can tell by the way she’s pulling away, remembering herself.
“You were making enough noise to wake the dead. I just heard all this glass breaking, and then I heard you crying.”
She blinks. “I wasn’t crying.”
I tuck her hair behind her ear. She still has streaks of blood on her cheeks. The doctor wanted to do a psych eval, but I talked her out of it, convinced her Maggie wasn’t a threat to herself, but I’m not even sure I believe that. When I saw all that blood…
Her eyes are on my mouth, and her lips are parted just so. “You saved me.”
“You would have sobered up enough to get yourself to the hospital eventually,” I offer, more for myself than her, because this thing that has me holding her so tightly is the soul-scorching fear that she wouldn’t have, that by the time she came to her senses she would have lost too much blood, and then it would have been too late.
She leans her head back, taking her eyes from me to focus on the ceiling—thank God. “You’re always there when I need someone. You’re always ready to save me.”
“Not always,” I say softly, and her eyes connect with mine so quickly, I’m sorry I said anything at all.
“That wasn’t your fault.”
I shrug. “I wasn’t there.” My gut twists at the memory. How many times can one man fail Maggie Thompson?
She gives me a sloppy grin. “Look, Will. I broke and you fixed me.”
“Maggie.” I remember that promise. It’s a promise I’d keep today if she’d take me up on it. There’s nothing I want more than to see her whole after years of walking around broken.
“Why didn’t you hate me? After? Everyone else hated me, but you…”
I focus on her bandaged hand as the memory takes me back to fifteen-year-old Maggie showing up unannounced in my dorm room in Notre Dame, her eyes sad, though she promised she was fine; her hands greedy, though I wouldn’t let her touch me. “Just don’t make me go back there. I can’t do it anymore. Let me stay. Please.” But I’d taken her to the bus station and sent her home. A month later, the town was overcome by the scandal. They blamed her, but I knew better because if she’d wanted any of it, she wouldn’t have been in my dorm room begging me not to send her home.
I rest my hand over her bandaged palm. “I could never hate you, Maggie. Not when you were the pipsqueak neighbor girl and not when you were breaking my heart by leaving me.”
She lifts her good hand to my face, her eyes on mine. “I was an idiot.” Then she leans toward me and our lips brush.
Hot, electric arousal grips me. “Would you ask me to leave her?” I whisper against her lips. “Would you tell me if you still needed me?”
She flinches as if I’ve struck her. “I can’t do that to her.”
Chapter Eight
Maggie
Last night, I dreamt of my father. His hurt, disappointed eyes stared back at me from behind my bathroom mirror, making me feel dirty in my own skin. Because of my own skin.
Then he was pushing me into church, but I wasn’t the fifteen-year-old girl he’d shamed into confession. I was an adult. Blood stained my hands as I folded them in prayer and he whispered in my ear, “Confess your sins and be forgiven.”
I woke to the sounds of a baby crying and jumped out of bed. I tripped over my feet as I scrambled toward the bassinet I don’t own to comfort a baby I don’t have.
Then I took a hot shower and scrubbed my skin until it was red and angry, and I dressed for church with my family. Operation New Me puts me in a church pew next to my mother at least once a month. Mom would prefer this happen weekly, but I’ve read that when you’re committed to a change, you should set realistic goals.
I could have done without the sermon—a self-important speech about the decline in American family values as illustrated by teenage promiscuity, extra-marital affairs, abortion, and babies born out of wedlock. The priest nailed me with his condemning gaze again and again as he spoke. I don’t have proof, but I’m pretty sure he planned this one for my return.
Asshole.
I sat through the whole sermon with Will’s voice in my head. “Would you ask me to leave her? Would you tell me if you still needed me?”
I tried to tune out the priest by figuring out what Will had meant by that. Does that mean that he wants me or that he wants to protect me? Does he even know there’s a difference? But I couldn’t come to any conclusions with the priest warning the congregation against Jezebels and guilt surging up in my throat.
Mom always has Sunday brunch at her house after church, but the food isn’t much to look forward to. As I study the buffet, my stomach growls in protest. Today’s fare consists of fresh veggies and yogurt dip, fresh fruit, low-carb deli “sandwiches” wrapped in lettuce, and mimosas made with half-calorie orange juice. Mom is clearly on the warpath again, attempting to prove her worth as a human being by the size of her daughters’ jeans.
Hanna is convinced this obsession is her fault and has apologized countless times for her “weight problem,” resulting in bland family meals. Hanna’s heavier than the rest of us, but she’s gorgeous and wears it so well she’s even been approached to be a plus-size model. Of course, that only embarrassed her, so she never pursued it.
“Hey,” Hanna says with a slight bob of her head toward the door. “Don’t look now, but I think Mrs. Bauer just came in.”
“Claudia? Ethan’s wife?” The words are out of my mouth before I realize the “Ethan’s wife” part would have been better left unsaid.
“I personally think she’s dense,” Lizzy says. “What woman in her right mind would stay married to Professor Infidelity? You can’t tell me she doesn’t know.”
I stiffen. “Know about what?”
“Oh, come on!” Lizzy turns her calculating gaze on me. “Everybody knows he sleeps with half his models. Be honest, haven’t you fantasized a little about getting yourself a piece of delectable art professor ass?”
“Me?” I clutch my chest. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Come on, Maggie, every girl at Sinclair with a pulse and an inclination toward men is hot for Dr. Bauer. I saw the way you looked at him. Hell, it’s the only time I’ve seen you go all gushy over a guy.”
“I did not go all gushy. There’s not a gushy bone in my body.”
“There was with Dr. Bauer!” Lizzy sings.
“I’m an artist. I admire his work!” I’m quickly edging into doth protest too much territory, so I back down. “Anyway, I’ve grown up since then.” And I have. Too bad I had to do it the hard way.
I fill my plate and take a seat between Hanna and Lizzy.
My youngest sister settles into a seat across from me, her plate heaping with fruit and low-carb sandwiches.
My mom clears her throat. “Portion control, Abby,” she says softly.
“She’s growing,” I protest.
“I’m just trying to save her the heartache of being overweight.”
Hanna winces beside me.
I push back from the table.
“Where are you going now, Maggie?”
“I need a cigarette.” I say, though I find smoking repulsive.
I step onto the back deck and close my eyes. The sound of the river rushing beyond the backyard calms me as I sink onto the steps.
“Are you okay, Maggie?”
Claudia Bauer closes the door behind her as she joins me on the deck. Just the sight of her makes guilt settle over me. My mom seems to have taken Claudia under her wing, and since I’ve been home it seems like she’s at the house as often as I am.
The woman has this classic, old-money kind of beauty. High cheekbones, delicately arched eyebrows, and a perfectly straight nose. Claudia keeps her hair bleached a platinum blond and cut just past her chin. Two-carat diamond stones sparkle at her ears.
Does Claudia know that her husband purchased those earrings for his mistress?
“I’m okay,” I lie. I’m not okay. I don’t want to be here, and I don’t want to pretend to be the good daughter. I don’t want to see my little sister grow up with the same unrealistic expectations I did, and I don’t want to continue to dodge my past.
“No, you’re not.” Claudia lowers herself next to me. As an awkward teen, I always wished for the grace of women like Claudia. As a cocky college student, I finally accepted it wasn’t in me.
Claudia sighs. “I always knew when you weren’t okay, darling. You can fool everyone else, but I’ve got you figured out.”
I turn to her. “Do you, now?” Though it’s a possibility. Like her art professor husband Ethan, Claudia is an artist, and my mom sent me to her studio for lessons as a teen. She always looked out for me. Then, when I started at Sinclair and moved into a little rental house with Lizzy and Hanna, Claudia looked out for all of us.
I choose one hell of a way to return the favor.
My gut folds on itself under the weight of my self-loathing.
“Yes.” Claudia’s pink lined lips curve up in a smile. “You were always so tough. It never occurred to anyone that you might have some of those same college-girl insecurities as your sisters. I could always tell when you were upset. You’d storm into the studio worried about Hanna or on a mission to save Lizzy from flunking out when she’d been on another party binge.”
“So, you’re saying I was always upset?” I say, trying for humor.
“I’m saying”—Claudia twirls the cross at her neck—“that you don’t fool people as well as you think you do.” She smiles sweetly. “Now I’m going to go back inside. After you finish that cigarette of yours, I hope you join us.”
“Thanks,” I mutter, suddenly wishing I did smoke so I could delay my return.
When I join them, Claudia is chatting with my mother in the corner, and a small shiver runs from my toes all the way up my spine.
At fifteen, I fell from my father’s grace. He would tell me I was a harlot sent by the devil to destroy men. He never said this to my sisters, never suspected they were anything but innocent. I was special in this way alone. Of course, I’d given him all the proof he needed.
Over the last year, I’ve wondered if he knew who I would become, what I would do. Or if I became what I am because his speeches were so damn convincing.
***
William
My always-beautiful fiancée is forever exfoliating and moisturizing and wrinkle-removing. I watch her as she rubs lotion onto her utterly perfect legs.
“I kissed her. I kissed Maggie. At the hospital.”
Krystal freezes for one heartbeat. Two. Then she swallows so hard I can hear it before she resumes her task. “Is that all?”
“Krys, it was stupid. I was caught up in the past, so worried about her. I wasn’t even thinking.” I force myself to stop. There’s no explanation that can make this okay. “I’m worried about her.”
“Thank you for telling me,” she says softly.
“Don’t do this. Don’t pretend it’s no big deal. This matters, Krystal. I f**ked up and it’s not okay.”
When she lifts her gaze to mine, her big brown eyes are so sad they make my chest ache. I wish she’d say something, anything. I wish she’d scream at me. At least then I’d know she still cares.
“Let’s just leave town.” I’m pacing the length of the bedroom. “We can open a gallery somewhere else. We can start a new life somewhere.”
“You know we can’t do that.”
“We’ll take Grandma with us. Some of her friends moved to a retirement community in Naples. We could take her there and find a place of our own.” I squeeze her hands between both of mine. “You love the beach.”
“That’s you,” he says.
I blink and realize they’re calling my name.
Nodding, I only teeter a little as I push myself to standing.
I’m two steps toward the door before I realize he hasn’t moved. I stop and turn to him. “Come with me?” I bite my lip, watching the battle play out across his face. I don’t want to explain. The loneliness. This fear that it might swallow me whole and I’ll just disappear. The bigger fear that everything might be easier if it did. “Please?”
He stands and wraps his arm around me, and as he leads me back to the examination room, I tell myself I’m only leaning into him because I’m drunk. I tell myself it’s okay because I’m hurt. But the pleasure I feel at having his arm wrapped around me? The way his heat and low murmurs chase away the loneliness so much better than the vodka did?
I don’t have an excuse for that.
***
William
She’s drunk. She’s drunk and she’s hurt and she’s in shock.
But that doesn’t change the fact that I love the feel of her in my arms. I love having her need me like she does right now.
The doctor stitched up her wound, a gash that extended from the palm of her hand down into her wrist and required twelve stitches.
She’s stitched and bandaged and now they want her to sober up before they’ll release her.
“How’d you find me?” she asks. The alcohol is leaving her system. I can tell by the way she’s pulling away, remembering herself.
“You were making enough noise to wake the dead. I just heard all this glass breaking, and then I heard you crying.”
She blinks. “I wasn’t crying.”
I tuck her hair behind her ear. She still has streaks of blood on her cheeks. The doctor wanted to do a psych eval, but I talked her out of it, convinced her Maggie wasn’t a threat to herself, but I’m not even sure I believe that. When I saw all that blood…
Her eyes are on my mouth, and her lips are parted just so. “You saved me.”
“You would have sobered up enough to get yourself to the hospital eventually,” I offer, more for myself than her, because this thing that has me holding her so tightly is the soul-scorching fear that she wouldn’t have, that by the time she came to her senses she would have lost too much blood, and then it would have been too late.
She leans her head back, taking her eyes from me to focus on the ceiling—thank God. “You’re always there when I need someone. You’re always ready to save me.”
“Not always,” I say softly, and her eyes connect with mine so quickly, I’m sorry I said anything at all.
“That wasn’t your fault.”
I shrug. “I wasn’t there.” My gut twists at the memory. How many times can one man fail Maggie Thompson?
She gives me a sloppy grin. “Look, Will. I broke and you fixed me.”
“Maggie.” I remember that promise. It’s a promise I’d keep today if she’d take me up on it. There’s nothing I want more than to see her whole after years of walking around broken.
“Why didn’t you hate me? After? Everyone else hated me, but you…”
I focus on her bandaged hand as the memory takes me back to fifteen-year-old Maggie showing up unannounced in my dorm room in Notre Dame, her eyes sad, though she promised she was fine; her hands greedy, though I wouldn’t let her touch me. “Just don’t make me go back there. I can’t do it anymore. Let me stay. Please.” But I’d taken her to the bus station and sent her home. A month later, the town was overcome by the scandal. They blamed her, but I knew better because if she’d wanted any of it, she wouldn’t have been in my dorm room begging me not to send her home.
I rest my hand over her bandaged palm. “I could never hate you, Maggie. Not when you were the pipsqueak neighbor girl and not when you were breaking my heart by leaving me.”
She lifts her good hand to my face, her eyes on mine. “I was an idiot.” Then she leans toward me and our lips brush.
Hot, electric arousal grips me. “Would you ask me to leave her?” I whisper against her lips. “Would you tell me if you still needed me?”
She flinches as if I’ve struck her. “I can’t do that to her.”
Chapter Eight
Maggie
Last night, I dreamt of my father. His hurt, disappointed eyes stared back at me from behind my bathroom mirror, making me feel dirty in my own skin. Because of my own skin.
Then he was pushing me into church, but I wasn’t the fifteen-year-old girl he’d shamed into confession. I was an adult. Blood stained my hands as I folded them in prayer and he whispered in my ear, “Confess your sins and be forgiven.”
I woke to the sounds of a baby crying and jumped out of bed. I tripped over my feet as I scrambled toward the bassinet I don’t own to comfort a baby I don’t have.
Then I took a hot shower and scrubbed my skin until it was red and angry, and I dressed for church with my family. Operation New Me puts me in a church pew next to my mother at least once a month. Mom would prefer this happen weekly, but I’ve read that when you’re committed to a change, you should set realistic goals.
I could have done without the sermon—a self-important speech about the decline in American family values as illustrated by teenage promiscuity, extra-marital affairs, abortion, and babies born out of wedlock. The priest nailed me with his condemning gaze again and again as he spoke. I don’t have proof, but I’m pretty sure he planned this one for my return.
Asshole.
I sat through the whole sermon with Will’s voice in my head. “Would you ask me to leave her? Would you tell me if you still needed me?”
I tried to tune out the priest by figuring out what Will had meant by that. Does that mean that he wants me or that he wants to protect me? Does he even know there’s a difference? But I couldn’t come to any conclusions with the priest warning the congregation against Jezebels and guilt surging up in my throat.
Mom always has Sunday brunch at her house after church, but the food isn’t much to look forward to. As I study the buffet, my stomach growls in protest. Today’s fare consists of fresh veggies and yogurt dip, fresh fruit, low-carb deli “sandwiches” wrapped in lettuce, and mimosas made with half-calorie orange juice. Mom is clearly on the warpath again, attempting to prove her worth as a human being by the size of her daughters’ jeans.
Hanna is convinced this obsession is her fault and has apologized countless times for her “weight problem,” resulting in bland family meals. Hanna’s heavier than the rest of us, but she’s gorgeous and wears it so well she’s even been approached to be a plus-size model. Of course, that only embarrassed her, so she never pursued it.
“Hey,” Hanna says with a slight bob of her head toward the door. “Don’t look now, but I think Mrs. Bauer just came in.”
“Claudia? Ethan’s wife?” The words are out of my mouth before I realize the “Ethan’s wife” part would have been better left unsaid.
“I personally think she’s dense,” Lizzy says. “What woman in her right mind would stay married to Professor Infidelity? You can’t tell me she doesn’t know.”
I stiffen. “Know about what?”
“Oh, come on!” Lizzy turns her calculating gaze on me. “Everybody knows he sleeps with half his models. Be honest, haven’t you fantasized a little about getting yourself a piece of delectable art professor ass?”
“Me?” I clutch my chest. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Come on, Maggie, every girl at Sinclair with a pulse and an inclination toward men is hot for Dr. Bauer. I saw the way you looked at him. Hell, it’s the only time I’ve seen you go all gushy over a guy.”
“I did not go all gushy. There’s not a gushy bone in my body.”
“There was with Dr. Bauer!” Lizzy sings.
“I’m an artist. I admire his work!” I’m quickly edging into doth protest too much territory, so I back down. “Anyway, I’ve grown up since then.” And I have. Too bad I had to do it the hard way.
I fill my plate and take a seat between Hanna and Lizzy.
My youngest sister settles into a seat across from me, her plate heaping with fruit and low-carb sandwiches.
My mom clears her throat. “Portion control, Abby,” she says softly.
“She’s growing,” I protest.
“I’m just trying to save her the heartache of being overweight.”
Hanna winces beside me.
I push back from the table.
“Where are you going now, Maggie?”
“I need a cigarette.” I say, though I find smoking repulsive.
I step onto the back deck and close my eyes. The sound of the river rushing beyond the backyard calms me as I sink onto the steps.
“Are you okay, Maggie?”
Claudia Bauer closes the door behind her as she joins me on the deck. Just the sight of her makes guilt settle over me. My mom seems to have taken Claudia under her wing, and since I’ve been home it seems like she’s at the house as often as I am.
The woman has this classic, old-money kind of beauty. High cheekbones, delicately arched eyebrows, and a perfectly straight nose. Claudia keeps her hair bleached a platinum blond and cut just past her chin. Two-carat diamond stones sparkle at her ears.
Does Claudia know that her husband purchased those earrings for his mistress?
“I’m okay,” I lie. I’m not okay. I don’t want to be here, and I don’t want to pretend to be the good daughter. I don’t want to see my little sister grow up with the same unrealistic expectations I did, and I don’t want to continue to dodge my past.
“No, you’re not.” Claudia lowers herself next to me. As an awkward teen, I always wished for the grace of women like Claudia. As a cocky college student, I finally accepted it wasn’t in me.
Claudia sighs. “I always knew when you weren’t okay, darling. You can fool everyone else, but I’ve got you figured out.”
I turn to her. “Do you, now?” Though it’s a possibility. Like her art professor husband Ethan, Claudia is an artist, and my mom sent me to her studio for lessons as a teen. She always looked out for me. Then, when I started at Sinclair and moved into a little rental house with Lizzy and Hanna, Claudia looked out for all of us.
I choose one hell of a way to return the favor.
My gut folds on itself under the weight of my self-loathing.
“Yes.” Claudia’s pink lined lips curve up in a smile. “You were always so tough. It never occurred to anyone that you might have some of those same college-girl insecurities as your sisters. I could always tell when you were upset. You’d storm into the studio worried about Hanna or on a mission to save Lizzy from flunking out when she’d been on another party binge.”
“So, you’re saying I was always upset?” I say, trying for humor.
“I’m saying”—Claudia twirls the cross at her neck—“that you don’t fool people as well as you think you do.” She smiles sweetly. “Now I’m going to go back inside. After you finish that cigarette of yours, I hope you join us.”
“Thanks,” I mutter, suddenly wishing I did smoke so I could delay my return.
When I join them, Claudia is chatting with my mother in the corner, and a small shiver runs from my toes all the way up my spine.
At fifteen, I fell from my father’s grace. He would tell me I was a harlot sent by the devil to destroy men. He never said this to my sisters, never suspected they were anything but innocent. I was special in this way alone. Of course, I’d given him all the proof he needed.
Over the last year, I’ve wondered if he knew who I would become, what I would do. Or if I became what I am because his speeches were so damn convincing.
***
William
My always-beautiful fiancée is forever exfoliating and moisturizing and wrinkle-removing. I watch her as she rubs lotion onto her utterly perfect legs.
“I kissed her. I kissed Maggie. At the hospital.”
Krystal freezes for one heartbeat. Two. Then she swallows so hard I can hear it before she resumes her task. “Is that all?”
“Krys, it was stupid. I was caught up in the past, so worried about her. I wasn’t even thinking.” I force myself to stop. There’s no explanation that can make this okay. “I’m worried about her.”
“Thank you for telling me,” she says softly.
“Don’t do this. Don’t pretend it’s no big deal. This matters, Krystal. I f**ked up and it’s not okay.”
When she lifts her gaze to mine, her big brown eyes are so sad they make my chest ache. I wish she’d say something, anything. I wish she’d scream at me. At least then I’d know she still cares.
“Let’s just leave town.” I’m pacing the length of the bedroom. “We can open a gallery somewhere else. We can start a new life somewhere.”
“You know we can’t do that.”
“We’ll take Grandma with us. Some of her friends moved to a retirement community in Naples. We could take her there and find a place of our own.” I squeeze her hands between both of mine. “You love the beach.”
