Forever Family (Forever #5) (12 page)

I reached up and jiggled the key. Yes. I felt the lock twist and tugged the handle.

The door was open, but I couldn’t really see inside. It was too high. I needed a taller ladder. I jumped down and made a note on my sketch of the cabinets that key #5 opened it.

Taller ladder. I hadn’t seen one anywhere in the house. But I hadn’t searched the four-car garage. The one time I popped my head in there, I spotted Albert’s small Alfa Romeo and a ton of shop machine tools. Everything there seemed in order, so I hadn’t explored.

But before I could leave, something moved beyond the bushes outside the wall of windows. I paused, peering out. A car was pulling up to the driveway. I couldn’t see it clearly, due to the shrubbery.

I had gotten the exterior door cleared, although it wasn’t easy to open, sticking unless you jerked on it. I braced my feet and clasped the handle. After a couple sharp tugs, it pulled free.

The cool evening breeze was refreshing. I always forgot how dense the air in the studio was, heavy with the smells of old paints and chemicals. I stepped out so I could see the circle drive.

It was Darion.

He stood beside his Mercedes, looking up at the front doors. He hadn’t been here before. How had he gotten in the gate?

“Darion?” I said.

He turned and spotted me, giving me a broad smile. He wore jeans and a sweatshirt, so his shift was long over. I swallowed my guilt. I really had lost track of time.

He turned back to his car and removed a picnic basket. I recognized it from the place we’d gone to on an early date, when I first saw the cliff where I would paint the image of me and Peanut. My throat tightened. Darion always knew what to do.

“Figured you’d be hungry by now,” he said, striding over.

“How did you get in the gate?”

“A little trick an ambulance driver told me.” He held out his hand to me.

I took it. “Oh,” I said. “I’m glad you’re here.” And I tried to be. This was Darion. I should be happy to see him. But still, I felt uneasy, like my secret life was getting exposed.

I looked back at the house. “Do you want the grim tour?”

“Maybe later.” He still held the smile, but I could see the question in his eyes. The
how are you?

“Good idea,” I said, forcing a smile of my own. “It might make you lose your appetite.”

He pulled me tight against him as we walked back to the studio door. He gestured to the gray brick walls by lifting the basket. “Cheerful.”

“I know. Albert was not exactly a picture of mental health during the years he lived here.” I let go of Darion so we could pass through the door.

He stopped once he got inside to look over the room. “Wow. This is a nice setup.” He placed the basket on an empty counter and walked around, looking at easels and some of the completed paintings. He paused in front of an image of a sunflower. “That doesn’t seem like Albert.”

“I’m trying to identify the artist,” I said. “There were some students and interns working here too.”

Darion nodded. He glanced up and noticed the step stool and open cabinet, the key ring still stuck inside the lock. “Were you able to reach that?”

“I was looking for a taller ladder when you arrived,” I said.

He headed for the wall. “You want me to pull down whatever’s up there?”

“Sure.” I stuffed down my resistance, the need to go through Albert’s things alone. This was Darion. Maybe sharing the moment with him would help.

He stepped up. He could easily reach inside. “Sort of dark,” he said, “but it looks like some wrapped paintings.” He turned and stuck his arm farther back. “And something bulky.”

“Be careful,” I said, my excitement rising. Finished works! I knew it! I just hoped they were Albert’s, and not someone else’s being stored.

Darion pulled down a strangely shaped parcel in brown paper. I hurried over and took it from him. The point of something sharp poked my arm as I held it.

I set it on the desk and waited for Darion to bring down the paintings. They were also carefully taped up in brown paper. He brought them over to the desk.

“This is like a treasure hunt,” Darion said. “An archaeological dig, maybe.”

I carefully peeled the paper away from what felt like a sculpture. Hopefully it wasn’t just some old piece of equipment.

But when the glint of a twisting gold horn was revealed, I knew exactly what I had found.

Albert’s unicorns.

My knees wobbled, and Darion took my elbow to steady me. “What is it?” he asked.

“Albert made these…” I couldn’t go on. It was like a relic from some bygone era, a place where no one could ever go again.

Darion tugged the rest of the paper away. “It’s really beautiful.”

And it was. So powerful, almost alive with energy and purpose. Its eyes bored right into you, and staring into them was unsettling, as if you’d uncovered some mysterious power.

I couldn’t believe this work hadn’t helped his career. But it had to be the subject matter. The world wanted pain, not beauty, in art. Suffering. The human condition.

Seeing it made me despair all the more for the life Albert could have led. His daughter could be here instead of me. He could have had grandchildren, perhaps another talented hand among his descendants.

Just the thought of passing down your passion to children brought me full circle back to the pain of my loss.

“Do you want to look at the paintings?” he asked.

I nodded, unable to speak, afraid that if I started talking, I would not be able to stop. A breakdown seemed imminent. My face flushed hot, but my body felt cold. I was all chemicals, imbalanced, blasting through me, throwing me off. Despite knowing this, I couldn’t help it. Despair began to creep over me like night falling.

Keep it together,
I told myself.
Focus.
I watched intently as Darion unwrapped a canvas.

Yes, another unicorn, this one just as mighty and strong as the sculpture.

Then another. But this one was different. On the unicorn’s back was a small girl. Her hair was riotous with curls, just like Albert’s, and light brown. She held on to the unicorn’s mane with one tightened fist. The other hand was upraised, a shout into the sky.

They rode through dark green woods, sunlight shafting in between the trees.

So this was her. His little girl.

Seeing her made me lose it all the more. I couldn’t look at it, look at anything. Darion reached for me, extended his hand.

I backed away. I felt sick, hot and cold and hot and cold. The weight of the engagement ring on my finger was suddenly too heavy to bear. The picnic basket. His concerned expression. His need.

He would want a family.

He would want more than I could give.

It was too much. Peanut. Albert’s daughter. Albert himself.

So much loss.

“Tina?” Darion asked. “Are you all right?”

I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t go with Darion. I was too lost. Too far gone. I should never have gotten in a relationship. I was supposed to stick to my one-and-done. One night. One time.

Not this.

This hope.

I couldn’t hold on to hope.

I had to let it go.

I had to go.

I snatched up my purse and keys and sprinted for the door.

Darion shouted my name, but I was well ahead. I dashed for my car and dove inside. Before he could get to me, I had the car in gear and jetted around the circle driveway.

I didn’t know where I was going.

But I couldn’t stay here.

Chapter 14: Jenny

The baby was sucking like a wee vacuum cleaner when I got the frantic text from Corabelle.

Tina has taken off.

I instinctively shifted Phoenix closer to my body, a flash of fear coursing through me. Tina had always been the one of us who acted the toughest but was the softest underneath.

It was super hard to type with the baby crushed against me, so I hit the call button instead.

“What do you mean?” I asked as soon as Corabelle answered.

Corabelle’s voice was frantic. “She and Darion were at Albert’s studio, and she just bolted. Drove off in her car.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. Darion thought she’d come back eventually, but now it’s been a whole night and she won’t answer calls or texts.”

“I got a chipper little text from her about six yesterday,” I said. “She left after that, I guess?”

“Yes, I got one too right then. Darion said he got there around seven.”

“What the hell happened?” I glanced down at Phoenix, wincing at the word
hell
. Forget Mama or Dada, her first four-letter word was probably going to be a lot more colorful.

“Darion said they found some old work of Albert’s, some unicorns, and she just freaked out and took off.”

“Damn.” I shot another doleful look at the baby. I couldn’t even think without cursing. “This is Tina through and through. Does he have any idea where she is?”

“None,” Corabelle said. “He sounds pretty panicked, but I can’t do anything to help. Gavin just went back for surgery.”

“That’s today?” Gavin had scheduled his vasectomy reversal shortly after they got the money. The docs said his best chance was to do it as soon as possible, while he was young. Not to wait until they wanted to get pregnant.

“I’m stuck,” Corabelle said. “He’s going to be down for a little while. I don’t even know where she’d go.”

“Me neither.” Phoenix slipped off the latch, asleep. I shifted her on my arm. “Maybe when it comes down to it, we don’t really know her that well.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Corabelle said. “We hang out with her. We’re friends. But we don’t know anything about her past. Where she’d go.”

“She was doing that painting on that cliff. You think she’d go there?” I asked.

“Darion went there after he checked the hospital. No dice.”

“Where else?” I shifted in the chair in preparation for putting Phoenix down. It was harder to think with her there, as if my jitters couldn’t jitter with her in my arms.

“With Albert gone, I don’t really know who she hangs out with,” Corabelle said.

“What about that girlfriend of Albert’s?”

“Layla hasn’t seen her.”

“Darion would know as much as us,” I said. I pinched the phone between my cheek and shoulder and carried the baby to her swing. I eased her down, holding my breath that she wouldn’t wake.

“I know,” Corabelle said. “He’s all out of ideas.”

I walked swiftly away from Phoenix now that she was down. “Okay, the baby’s asleep, and I can talk better,” I said. “What should we do?”

“I don’t have a clue,” Corabelle said. Her voice was thick. “I’m sick with worry. You know what she did before.”

And I did. I’d seen those scars on Tina’s arms more than once.

I paced my kitchen, closing the cabinet doors Chance had left open before taking off for some meeting. I opened the refrigerator, then closed it again. The sight of food made my stomach turn. “Well, Corabelle, if it were you — where would you go?”

Silence. I sank down into a padded chair by the little breakfast table at the end of the kitchen. My elbow in the pink robe stuck to something sticky, but I ignored it. I had no time or energy to ponder my less-than-glamorous life. We were in full-on crisis mode.

“Corabelle?”

She sighed. Her voice was more distraught than ever when she said, “She’s been talking about her baby a lot. But I don’t really know much about where she’s from or if she’d go back home.”

“No way,” I said. “She hated that place. She tried talking to her parents again after her engagement, but that didn’t go too well.”

“Surely she’ll come back eventually,” Corabelle said. “Shoot, there’s Gavin’s doctor. Gotta run. I’ll call back later.”

The signal cut out.

I set my phone on the table, wincing when I saw the source of the sticky. Something spilled. I didn’t have the energy to get up and clean it right now. Phoenix was getting up twice a night again. Probably a growth spurt or something.

And now Tina was missing.

I made myself stand up again, pulling the furry robe away from whatever had it caught. A bit of pink fuzz stayed behind on the table.

I shrugged the robe off. Into the wash with that. I shivered in the T-shirt with its damp spots in front and my worn yoga pants. They had been stylish at one time, but too many spit-ups and washings had made them nubby and shapeless.

I left the robe on the chair and took my phone to the sofa to lie down. Phoenix was still out cold in the swing. Maybe I could think of something to say to Tina to get her to respond. Surely she was seeing our messages. Just not replying. Too much pain, maybe. She could definitely get into a funk.

“Hey,” I typed.

Profound, Jenny. I backspaced over it.

I tried again.

We’re worried about you. A little shout-out would help us out.

I stared at the words. Self-serving, really. I was already a mother trying to make people feel guilty. I erased them.

Let me know how you’re doing. I care.

That was better. But I didn’t hit send. I needed to get to where Tina was. Losing Albert was just too much. I understood that part.

When Chance’s sister died last year, it really felt piled on. Like there was just too much tragedy getting dumped on us, you know? It can be hard to dig yourself out, but I’ve got a shovel. And even though it might wreck my perfect nails, I know how to use it. Just tell me where to break soil.

That was better. I hit send, then stared dolefully at my wrecked nails. I hadn’t even bothered to do a home manicure in weeks. I glanced around the room. Clothes piled up on the back of the sofa. We mostly didn’t bother changing the baby in the nursery, but had a stack of diapers and a wipe warmer right here on the coffee table.

I held the phone to my chest and stared at the ceiling, the only uncluttered part of my house. It didn’t matter. Nobody came over here except my mother. I had no friends with kids, so I couldn’t really hang out with anyone. A lady with a baby was a buzzkill on a red carpet. I didn’t know how to meet people like me.

Meanwhile, Chance was living the life. Industry parties. Preparation for the album release. Because he’d gotten a leg up by meeting Dylan Wolf, he always had someone to see, people to talk to, events to attend.