Now a Major Motion Picture (4 page)

“Hello?” Her voice was rough, images of Noah still rippling through her mind.

“Amelia? Did I wake you?” Brooke’s voice was an urgent whisper.

“Mom—what’s wrong?” Amelia’s thoughts grew sharper as worry broke through her haze. “Is somebody hurt?”

“I’m sorry to freak you out. I thought you might still be awake…I know you keep crazy hours.” Brooke took a ragged breath. “It’s Mama. I’m at the hospital. I just followed the ambulance over here.” She paused once more, and her voice was shaky when she spoke again. “Honestly, you might want to come home.”

Amelia sat up straighter, rubbed her eyes. Her grandma, Laura, who lived a couple streets away from the house where she and Henry had grown up and where Brooke still lived, was the glue that had held her tiny, dysfunctional family together. When Brooke had gotten caught up in one of her crazier schemes, Laura had been there to pick up the kids and later, if necessary, to pick up the pieces.

Laura still lived alone in the house she and Amelia’s grandfather, Sam, had shared until he’d succumbed to stomach cancer five years earlier. In June she’d had a mild stroke. Amelia had made an emergency trip home then, helping Brooke set her grandma up with in-home care. Lately she’d seemed to be improving.

Her thoughts raced over her mental calendar, figuring out ways to clear it for an immediate trip home to the flat planes of central Illinois.

“Have you called Henry?”

“Not yet,” Brooke said. “I didn’t want to wake the girls.”

“I’ll book a ticket first thing in the morning, Mom. I’ll get on the first flight I can.”

After learning a few more details, she hung up the phone, closed her eyes, and pressed one hand to her forehead. What a long day this had been.

She ejected the CD from the drive and slipped it back into its case, holding it to her lips for the briefest moment before dropping it back into the gray box and sliding the box into its spot on the high closet shelf.

She flipped her laptop shut, snapped off her desk lamp, and headed down the hall toward bed.

* * *

Five days later, Amelia—dazed from the sad flurry of activity that followed her grandmother’s passing—sat on the same front porch swing that had seen her through happier times. Laura, it turned out, had suffered another stroke, a massive one this time. Henry, his wife Alicia, and their girls had driven in from Chicago, picked Amelia up from the airport in Springfield, and rushed them all to St. John’s Hospital. They’d made it just in time to say good-bye.

With all the family together, the news of Amelia’s impending movie deal provided a bittersweet note to the reunion. Laura had been so proud of her success, and that fact helped Amelia face her grief—and fueled her desire to get back to work as soon as possible.

Impulsively, she stood from her perch above the front lawn, where she watched as her three-year-old twin nieces laughed and played, oblivious to the sad note of the gathering and just excited to have “Aunt Mel” and the rest of the family all together in one place.

Henry, sitting across from Amelia in one of two sagging, white-painted wicker chairs, raised an eyebrow.

“Going somewhere?”

“I think I might drive around town for a bit. I need to clear my head.”

He nodded once and then snorted.

“Well, that won’t take long.”

Girard had only twenty-five hundred residents and just a small smattering of stores and stoplights. Jokes about their tiny town and their long-shared desire to escape it were a staple of Amelia and Henry’s camaraderie, a mutual bond.

She gave her brother a quick, fond squeeze and leaned through the screen door to grab her bag from the table in the entry. Henry handed over the keys to his car, and she pecked her nieces on the head as she passed, promising them she’d be back soon. They were all leaving in the morning and she didn’t want to waste much of this precious time with her family. But she had a mission, and she felt an overwhelming desire to see it through.

As she backed Henry’s Honda Pilot out of the narrow drive, Amelia wasn’t sure where she was headed. She let her instincts guide her as she navigated the familiar streets, now somehow clouded over with a nostalgic haze. This place didn’t feel real to her anymore.

She groaned aloud as she realized the direction she’d taken.

It was the small park near her high school, a spot she knew almost too well, though she hadn’t so much as driven past it in eight years. She didn’t need to look around to know nothing about the place had changed.

She waited as a beat-up station wagon rattled by in a cloud of exhaust and then pulled Henry’s car into one of the few spaces at the rim of the park. She cut the engine and stared out over the grassy expanse, dizzy with the force of the memory of the last time she’d been here.

It was early in their senior year of college. She and Noah were in his car, home for the weekend, and they’d just arrived in town. It was a perfect fall day, a slight chill in the air, the sky streaked with pink and orange as the sun began its daily descent, casting long shadows on the grass.

Noah parked in one of the spaces lining the park and jumped out, rushing to the passenger side to open Amelia’s door. He pressed his lips to hers, and she felt a familiar tingle shiver down her spine. Then he tugged on her hand, a strange half-smile on his face and excitement dancing in his eyes.

“Where are we going?” She giggled.

He turned and started walking, his hand still wrapped around hers. “Just follow me.”

She trailed him through the thin line of trees and past a playground to a small gazebo that looked out over a narrow creek. She loved this spot—some of her favorite memories with him had happened right here, her leaning into his warmth as they enjoyed the peace of small-town nights, snuggling together and talking for hours about everything and nothing. He stepped into the pavilion and sat on one of its two facing benches, pulling her down beside him. Her heart reacted as she noted the serious look on his face, all playfulness gone.

“Amelia,” he said, staring at her in a way that made her insides go all soft and fluttery. “I love you. I want to be with you, like this, for the rest of my life.”

She stared into his deep eyes, disbelieving. She’d assumed this moment would come—she’d always known, even before they were together somehow, that she’d never want to be with anyone but him—but she wasn’t expecting it now. Her eyes widened as he slid from the bench and knelt in front of her.

“Will you marry me, Lia?” He used the name only he called her, his eyes filled with more tenderness than she’d ever seen in them. He pulled a small, black box from his jacket pocket and opened it, revealing a perfect, small round diamond on a simple white gold band.

Unable to speak, she threw her arms around his neck and trailed kisses along his jaw before finding his mouth with hers.

“Yes.” The word was muffled as she said it against his lips. She pulled back just enough to see his eyes. “Yes, Noah. I love you so much.”

She’d buried her face in his neck and they’d held each other for what could have been one minute or could have been twenty—time in that moment had ceased to exist. When the sound of a car rounding the corner pulled them from the private world they occupied, Noah slipped the ring from the small black box and, fingers trembling, placed it on the fourth finger of her left hand.

* * *

Now, staring at the exact spot where that moment had occurred—eight years ago to the day, she realized—a shudder rippled through Amelia from the potency of the memory coupled with the deeper meaning of time and place. She got out of the car and walked toward the gazebo, questioning her judgment with every step. She pulled her cardigan tighter around her body as a soft breeze blew through the park—it ruffled her hair, burnished auburn in the scorching light of the late afternoon sun. She resisted the urge to turn around and flee this spot. Instead she forced herself forward, coming face to face with more than the place she’d avoided for so long. She gave herself over to her most painful memories, welcoming the dreaded ache they brought with them.

Briefly, she pondered where to sit. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, place herself in the very spot of her happiest moment—not now, when her thoughts were tinged with the bitterness of the events that destroyed that happiness. Instead she perched on the distended roots of an aged oak tree and gazed at that spot, thinking how untrue it was that time healed all wounds.

Looking back now, she could admit that part of the reason she’d never recovered from Noah’s betrayal was because she’d never allowed herself to grieve the loss of him. Hurt and angry beyond words, she’d walked out and closed the door, never planning to reopen it.

She pondered that time in her life. She’d thought at the time that she
had
gotten over it. She’d allowed a numbness to wash over her where Noah was concerned, hiding the hurt and, eventually, even the anger. She’d thrown herself into her schoolwork, finishing her degree and leaving Illinois as fast as she could. She’d picked New York in part because it was where the best PR jobs were, but mostly because she knew its distractions would help her move on.

It was the best decision she’d ever made, she thought now, the one thing that had kept her from coming completely unglued. Three years blurred by in a whirlwind of working long hours and trying to keep from thinking, at all costs.

And then Reese had finished law school at Vandy and taken a job at a Memphis firm.
“C’mon, Mel. Come with me. C’mon, I miss you. C’mon, I don’t know anybody in Memphis.”
Amelia smiled to herself as she remembered how much and how long Reese had begged.

In the end it didn’t take much convincing. Amelia had loved New York and liked her job, but she was tired and her lease was almost up, and she missed Reese…missed the ties to her past she’d been so desperate to escape. She scouted job openings and sent resumes. She took a few days of her barely used vacation time for interviews and got a job offer right away. The local economy at the time was booming, and her big-city agency experience made her a hot commodity.

Within a month she’d made the move. Within a year she’d decided she loved the city enough to put down roots. She took advantage of the dirt-cheap real estate market, found her version of a dream house, and bought it. Within another year she’d been promoted as far as the ladder stretched at Katie’s small, downtown PR firm.

All in all, she’d carved out a comfortable spot for herself.

And it had worked out for the best, she thought now. She was happy, despite the pain that bubbled below the surface, threatening to spring forth only at her most vulnerable moments.

This was one of those moments. Granted, she was bringing this on herself, but in the past eight years, never had the pain of losing Noah felt as crippling as it did at this instant, in this spot, staring at the ghosts of her past.

Betrayal

She still couldn’t believe he’d cheated on her. With more than four years of dating behind them, their wedding so close she could see, feel, and taste it, she’d never have believed him capable of it if she hadn’t walked in on the act.

Hugging her knees tightly to her chest, Amelia pulled up the image with a vivid clarity that wasn’t fair after all this time. Noah hadn’t had sex with
her
, his own fiancée, and yet she’d caught him with Ashley Howell, a sophomore architecture student he’d met while serving on his department’s mentoring panel. Ashley had followed Noah around like a doting kid sister for three semesters, showing up at parties at his fraternity house, nosing in on him and his friends on campus, even turning up while he was at work. And, as in the case of a kid sister, he’d claimed to find it annoying.

It had happened Christmas break of their senior year. Amelia had just driven back to campus after a few days at home making wedding plans, and she’d planned to surprise Noah by being at his house when he got home from work.

When she pulled up at his place, she was thrown off by the sight of his car in the driveway—he wasn’t due home for another half hour—and by a gold Nissan that was parked in her usual spot beside it. She squeezed in behind the unfamiliar car, her headlights illuminating its Missouri tag, and assumed it was a friend of Zack’s, Noah’s roommate.
Or…isn’t Ashley from Missouri?

She got out of her car so fast she almost slipped on the slick pavement. She walked as quickly as she dared up the path to the familiar, peeling front door, the heels of her boots clicking briskly on the frigid concrete. The bitter wind nipped at her cheeks, and big tufts of snow swirled around her feet and lighted in her hair. Winter had come late that year, but it had come with an almost malevolent vengeance. Pulling her long wool coat tighter around her, she climbed the porch steps and tried the door handle. When it didn’t budge, she used her key.

She stepped over the threshold into the darkened front room and was confused to see that no one was home. Noah’s car was there. Where was he? She was standing in the middle of the living room, trying to decide what to do next, when a muffled noise echoed from the back of the house.

Whirling toward the sound, she headed down the hallway toward Noah’s room. As she approached his door she heard another noise—kind of a grunt, or a groan. Her vague sense of unease turned into dread that twisted knots in the pit of her stomach.

When she reached the closed bedroom door she heard Noah’s voice, muffled only somewhat by the thin, hollow wood separating her from him.

“You’ve got to go. Get out of here,” he slurred.
Slurred?

“I’ll be back, though,” said a female voice—
Ashley?
—and then she giggled.

Fury like Amelia had never felt ripped through her from the top of her scalp to the tips of her toes. Did the girl have no shame? What had she done, followed him home? Amelia braced herself for the coming fight, preparing to scream at Ashley—”Leave him alone. You are
never
coming back here.” She turned the doorknob without another thought, the words ready to fly through her lips.