Beneath the Patchwork Moon (Hope Springs, #2) (3 page)

“Until he found you in the house?”

“Yeah.” There was no need to elaborate. Her mother knew the significance of today’s date; it was the same date Luna’s hip had been broken, the same date her month-long confinement to bed had begun and she’d taken up weaving. But her mother didn’t know what had happened the weekend before the accident. Or all Angelo had meant to her before walking away for what she’d thought was good.

“Huh. Does he know you bought the property?”

She nodded. “I don’t know how, but yes.”

“Do you think he’ll get in your way?”

The very question had plagued Luna since she’d driven away from the house. She shrugged, curling deeper into her father’s chair, his dip in the cushions, his imagined warmth. “I’m more worried about the Gatlins’ reaction, but Angel has it in him to cause trouble. He’s still very angry.”

“Angel.” Her mother smiled, then sighed. “I’d forgotten you called him that.”

“I don’t know why I ever started. He’s not the least bit angelic.”

“Do you want him to be?”

The question surprised her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Her mother took another sip of her soda, returned the glass to the table, and pulled a cracker from its sleeve. “He’s beautiful, yes, but he possesses few other angelic traits. If he
did, he wouldn’t have been the boy you had such a crush on in high school.”

Heat flushed up Luna’s neck to her face, and she wondered, not for the first time, if her parents had suspected how far her relationship with Angelo had gone. “He’s who he is. I’m who I am. High school was a long time ago. Though since I still have the same bedroom, it’s hard to tell,” she said, latching onto the change of subject and leaving Angel behind. “Seriously. Who lives with their parents until they’re twenty-eight years old?”

Her mother laughed softly. “In this economy? More young people than you think.”

But Luna was shaking her head. “I understand staying for economic reasons. But I don’t have that excuse. I lucked into a very lucrative profession. I’ve just been too lazy to pack.”

“I don’t think your still being here has anything to do with being lazy.”

But it had everything to do with Sierra and Oscar and the accident. “The baby is going to love having her own suite of rooms. If you wanted to buy her a pony, there’s almost enough space to build a stall.”

Her mother chuckled, then grew pensive. “It’ll be strange, Skye filling those rooms with her things instead of yours being there. It’ll be even stranger not to have you here to run my errands.”

That made Luna smile. She’d been running them since the day she’d gotten her driver’s license. “I’m happy to stay and help out. I’ve waited this long, and the loft isn’t going anywhere. What’s a few more months?”

“No, you’ll go because it’s time.”

It had been time for years. Her mother was just too nice to say so. “You mean you don’t like having your adult daughter still living at home as if she were a child?”

“Of course I love having you here,” she said, closing her eyes for a moment as she drew in a slow, steady, stomach-settling breath. “You’ve needed to be here, and I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like not knowing you were just down the hall. But a new baby means a new schedule, new priorities, new everything. It’s a turning point in all of our lives.”

Was that what Angelo’s return was? What the next five days would bring? “You didn’t have to get pregnant to get me to move out, you know. You could’ve brought in movers while I was weaving.”

“Funny girl,” her mother said, reaching for her soda again and bringing the straw to her mouth. “I’m glad you’ll have enough space for your loom, too.”

“The light in the loft is amazing. I can’t wait for you to see it. I’m so used to holing up in my shed, all that sun and blue sky might distract me.”

“Who knows? It might show you new ways to tell your stories.”

Except she wasn’t sure what was going to happen with her weaving now that she was so busy with the arts center. “Do you realize how little weaving I’ve done the last few weeks?”

“You’ve been occupied elsewhere. That’s to be expected.”

“Yes, but I need to be working on Patchwork Moon’s winter holiday line.” The boutique in Austin where her collection was sold was expecting the new items by mid-October. Labor Day had already passed, and she was nowhere near being done. “I’m so far behind.”

Her mother took a sip of her drink and swallowed, her face paler than just moments ago. “Quality over quantity,
Luna. Your scarves becoming more exclusive won’t hurt your reputation or, I’m quite sure, your bank account. If anything, I worry about you suffering without what weaving provides.”

She’d thought about that, too, the drying up of her emotional well. “I’ll have plenty to keep me busy.”

“It’s not about staying busy. It’s about nurturing the part of you you’ve poured into your craft. Yes, the arts center will easily fill your hours, but you can’t neglect the artist inside of you.”

“I’m not so sure I’ve ever been an artist. The weaving… it gave me an outlet for the grief. Everything I was feeling, losing Sierra… I put all of that into the scarves. Sometimes I wonder if I’d had to find the words instead of the right color of yarn, maybe I wouldn’t still be dealing with the loss years later. I’d be over it. Or at least at peace with it.” And even as the words left her mouth, others rose to taunt her.

She would never be at peace as long as she was living a lie.

“There are some things in life we never get over, or make peace with,” her mother was saying. “They’re just there, a part of us. They make us who we are. Your accident changed everything. You became a celebrity in your own right because of it. Don’t ever regret that, or feel guilty about it. You survived. And you’ve dealt with it positively. So many others wouldn’t have had your strength or coping ability.”

“Any strength I have is due to you and Daddy. You’re the best parents I could imagine having.”

Her mother chuckled. “I seem to recall more than a few times in high school you holding a different view.”

“It was high school. What does anyone know in high school?” She left her father’s chair and moved to sit on the floor at her mother’s side, holding her hand, damp from the cloth and cool from the glass of iced soda, lacing their
fingers, pressing their palms together. “Skye’s going to be so lucky. Not only will she have the best parents in the world, she’ll have me.”

“That’s the part that worries me,” her mother said, working hard to keep a straight face.

“I promise to never let her wear a tiara. And only the best in scarves.”

“Speaking of accessorizing, I still can’t find the necklace your father’s mother gave me. I have no idea what I did with it. I hadn’t even thought about it until recently. I gave you the one from my mother, and I’d like to give Skye the one from his.”

“The gold cross with the five opals? I wore it to Sierra’s last spring recital, but I’m sure I gave it back to you.”

“I’m sure you did, too. And I’m sure I would’ve put it back in my jewelry box, but I can’t find it.”

“Maybe it’ll turn up when I start packing… meaning I should probably get on that.”

Her mother brought their joined hands to her mouth and kissed Luna’s knuckles. “Are you leaving soon? It’s getting late.”

Luna nodded, waiting to hear the offer her mother made every year, ready to respond the way she always did. This was something she had to do alone, no matter how much she longed to have her mother’s arms around her while there.

But her mother didn’t say what she’d said on this date for the last nine years, suggesting they go together, mourn together, remember. Another turning point. A significant one. The first step in drawing the veil between the present and the past. Luna didn’t know if she was ready. What she did know was that it was time.

“I do need to go,” she said, pulling her hand from her mother’s, getting to her feet, and then leaning down to kiss her mother’s forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, my firstborn girl,” her mother replied, cupping her cheek with her palm, her eyes as misty as Luna’s. “I could never love you more.”

CHAPTER FOUR

I
t was 7:42 p.m., and Luna shivered as she placed the bouquet of white calla lilies atop Sierra’s headstone. As hard as it was to believe, today’s commemorative visit was the tenth she’d made, mourning Sierra even longer than she’d had the girl in her life. She thought at times it wasn’t natural, her attachment to her friend. Thought, too, her guilt at surviving her own accident wouldn’t have lingered as long were it not for the truth of what they’d done that weekend.

When Angelo had accused her earlier of not being honest, it had taken all the willpower she had not to blurt out every detail she’d stoppered up like a genie in a bottle, fearing the havoc the truth could wreak. It was the first time since the accident she’d been tempted to tell all. She had no idea why, unless it was the combination of the date and Angel’s appearance, and the recent urging from her conscience to come clean. And that was the hardest thing to understand.

Why, after all this time, was the genie knocking?

The sound of a car purring to a stop, the engine going silent before the door opened and closed, brought her back to the words on the simple granite marker.
Sierra Gracia Caffey. Our pride. Our joy. Our daughter.
So simple, but nothing else
needed to be said—though every time she read the inscription, Luna added the words
my friend
.

Tracing the engraved name with a fingertip, she found herself smiling. Oh, how Sierra had hated her middle name. She’d said it might as well have been
gracious
for all the people who got it wrong, or
gracias
for all those who thought she was thanking them for asking when she said it.

Bringing her fingers to her lips for a kiss she then placed on the headstone, Luna mouthed a private good-bye, her heart heavy. Tomorrow she’d return to the present and think more about the future that had started to feel very real: moving into her own place, starting work on the Caffey-Gatlin Academy. Both terrified and excited her as, she supposed, did all leaps of faith. And then there were the next five days she’d promised to Angelo, a promise she hoped she wouldn’t regret. But next year she’d be back here again, because so much of her life had been defined in the very moment her best friend had lost hers.

Turning to go, she looked up, stopping almost as soon as she’d taken a step, and wishing for another path to her car. Hers was blocked, the man standing there with his hands shoved in his pockets obviously waiting for her. She’d known she wasn’t alone, having heard the car’s arrival, but to find Oliver Gatlin on the tree-lined path from the parking lot that wound through the grounds…

She couldn’t think of anyone she wanted to see less, except, as always, he was hard to look away from, making her uncomfortable as she approached. While Oscar had been a teen heartthrob, deep dimples and smiling green eyes and a shock of dark hair always falling forward, Oliver was something else.
Male model something else, all sharp cheekbones and elegant nose. A mouth with a natural smirk. Eyes to match Oscar’s beneath a hooded brow. Feathered lashes like a chimney sweep’s brush.

“Excuse me,” she said, rather than ignoring him the way she wanted to as she walked by. Why had he come here today of all days to leave his mark on her private communion with her friend? Really, though. It spoke to who he was—entitled, selfish, uncaring… the opposite of everything his brother had been.

He turned and followed as she made her way to her car. “I heard you bought the Caffey place.”

It was hardly a secret. She stopped, glanced back. “And that brought you here why?”

“I like knowing that family’s connection to Hope Springs is severed for good. Except for that,” he said, nodding toward Sierra’s grave. “Too bad they had to leave her here.”

“You’re a jerk, Oliver,” she said, the urge to strike out rising as she started walking again.

His footsteps sounded close behind. “And your good friend wasn’t? The friend who ruined my brother’s life?”

She spun, jabbed her finger toward him. “Have you ever thought you might have it all wrong? That Oscar cost Sierra hers? He was the one driving, after all. Or have you forgotten about that?”

His brow lifted. The corner of his mouth followed. He looked from her finger to her face, his hands at his hips, the tails of his blazer flaring. “You’re the only one who would know, aren’t you, since you’re the only one who saw what happened?”

Why was he questioning who’d been behind the wheel? She couldn’t fathom. “You’re right. I am. So you’ll just have to take my word for it, won’t you?”

“I heard Angelo’s in town.”

“He is, yes,” she said, her keys now in her hand, this conversation ridiculous, Oliver keeping pace at her side where the path widened.

“Not for long, I hope.”

“He’ll be here as long as he needs to be for what he’s doing,” she said, walking faster, wishing she could run and escape his long stride. “And before you ask, no, I don’t know how long that is, and it’s not your business anyway.”

“Unless I make it my business.”

“Good-bye, Oliver. I’d say it was nice to see you again, but it never is.”

“I drove out to the crash site this morning,” he said, and Luna’s steps slowed, her feet moving on their own, her mind whirring. “Have you been back there since the accident?”

She shook her head, unable to imagine a reason to return, or one he would have, and rushing now, desperately needing the safety of her car. The locks clicked and the lights flashed as she hit the button on her key fob. But she wasn’t fast enough.

Oliver reached the Audi the same time she did, blocking her with his hip from opening her door. “Someone’s put up a new cross. I thought it might’ve been you. The original was on its last legs when I was through there this summer. I was hoping that would be the end of it, but I guess your girl here had other friends.”

She hadn’t known there was a cross at all, though she knew the custom and shouldn’t have been surprised. What
surprised her was hearing about it from Oliver. Why hadn’t anyone else told her? “Move, please, so I can get in.”