For once he wasn’t trapped in doubt; he was adrift in
certainty. He knew what he wanted, and it would never be his.
James picked up his iPod and clicked through the settings until
he found “repeat-one.” Music was his drug of choice these days, and right now,
he needed dark lyrics that spoke to him of passion and heartbreak. He selected
The Airborne Toxic Event and scrolled down to “A Letter to Georgia.” When he
reached the two lines that lumped fear, truth, love and pain together, James
began to cry. But the despair that split him open and lacerated his soul had
nothing to do with a failed love affair.
This was his third round with grief, and he would never
recover.
Chapter 29
“Hey, handsome. Want a lift?” Tilly held open the
passenger door and squinted into the Saturday morning sunshine. The world beyond
the interior of the Yaris was too sharp and too bright. Too intense. Of course,
that could be the result of a strong cocktail of sleep deprivation and a
pre-breakfast tête-à-tête with a lush-looking Rowena.
James yanked an earbud free and scowled into the car.
“Sorry?”
The roar of a village cricket match rose from the rec field.
Sebastian was playing today, Rowena cheering him on. Which meant it was time to
get out of Dodge.
“I have wanderlust.” Tilly inhaled the smell of freshly mown
grass. “Care to join me?”
“Why not.” His coldness unnerved her, gave her doubt when five
minutes earlier she had been so sure of her plan to find James and explain.
A boy skipped out of The Corner Stores and, with a screech,
dropped his iced lolly into a clutter of sickly begonias.
Begonias! Buy One Get One Free!
the chalkboard announced. Tilly
fingered the car keys. In the time James took to settle—goodness, he could faff
for all eternity—she could run inside and tell them to rewrite the sign so that
it read,
Free Plants Need Good Homes.
Bugger. She
was mutating into her mother, trying to live someone else’s life when she could
barely live her own.
“What’re you listening to?”
Radiate
bubbles of happiness, Tilly. Keep it light.
He placed one of the earbuds in her ear, and Tilly had to choke
back the shock. Of all the songs he could have chosen. She extracted the earbud
and returned it to James, but kept her eyes on the dashboard. “‘Stuck in a
Moment’ by U2. My grief song.”
“My OCD song. Musical therapy for when my thoughts get stuck.”
James wound the earbud cord around two fingers, pulled out the small aluminum
case and black twisty tie from his backpack, and secured the bundle. “I was
coming to find you.”
“Yeah?” The air in the car thinned.
“I’ve heard from a friend in Asheville. According to the news
there was one confirmed tornado in Wake county, and twenty-one thousand homes in
Orange are without power, but the damage is nothing like Fran. I’m sure your
house is fine.”
It wasn’t the house she was worried about, though. “Thanks.”
She glanced over her shoulder and pulled out onto the High Street. “Staying up
at the Farm?”
“How did you know?”
“I was out walking most of the night. Saw you in the
kitchen.”
James gave a wan smile. “Where are we heading?”
Good question.
“How about the
historic market town of Olney? It’s a great place to mooch, and I feel like
mooching.”
James didn’t answer.
“Cowper, the poet, lived in Olney, and so did John Newton. He
wrote ‘Amazing Grace’ while he was the curate there.”
Shut
up, Tilly.
“And it’s the site of the Olney Pancake Race, a mighty
sporting event dating back to the fifteenth century. Housewives race around the
town tossing pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. That’s the day you give up fat and
dairy before Lent. Sort of English Mardi Gras without the carnival.”
“My father was Irish Catholic, Tilly. I know what Shrove
Tuesday is.”
“Right.” Tilly’s hands slipped around the steering wheel. She
rubbed one hand, then the other, along her thighs. “There’s a fabulous kitchen
store you might like and a wonderful Oxfam bookshop.” Why was she telling him
this? “Historical fiction’s my true love, but I’ll grab anything that takes my
fancy.” Crap, that sounded so inappropriate. “How about you? What do you
read?”
She glanced at James as he turned away from her. “Fantasy,” he
said.
“What was your favorite novel, as a teenager?”
Let me guess, The Hobbit.
“
The Hobbit.
Yours?”
She checked the speedometer before driving under the speed
camera. “
Green Darkness
by Anya Seton. It’s about
past lives and unresolved issues. Ironic, huh?”
He picked up a scrap of paper from the dashboard shelf and
folded it in half, then into quarters. When he was done, he sharpened the crease
with his thumbnail before returning the paper to the same place. He paused, then
pushed it a fraction to the left.
“I’m sorry about Sebastian and Rowena.” For the first time
since he’d got in the car, she heard friendship in his voice.
“Yeah, well. I have this theory, a Tilly-ism. Want to hear
it?”
He shrugged, and Tilly swallowed her sigh. There was so much to
say and only one chance to get it right. “Bad things are like the summer hail
that covers my deck in minutes,” she spoke slowly and carefully, trying to
ignore the sensation that her heart was performing Olympic-standard gymnastics
on an imaginary trampoline. Why the sudden attack of nerves? This was James. Her
friend, her ally, her…what? “Then the storm blows through, the ice melts and the
air feels cleansed. It’s a respite from the heat, an unexpected gift, like
dogwood days.”
“Dogwood days?” James sounded bored by his own question.
Bugger, this had sounded so much better when she’d practiced it
in front of the bathroom mirror.
“Indian summer in reverse, when the dogwoods are blooming and a
cold snap drags you back to winter. The correct phrase is dogwood winter, but I
like to put my own spin on things.” She offered him the biggest grin she could
muster; he didn’t respond. “Spring is gorgeous in the Piedmont—brings out the
inner gardener in everyone. Plant sales boom, business explodes. A snow day can
seem like a gift. It forces me back inside, gives me the chance to goof off and
concoct wacky planting ideas.” She paused. “I guess that’s where I am now,
entering my own personal dogwood days. Stepping aside from my life, giving
myself a breather.”
“Did you not see this coming? In all your years of
friendship?”
Damn, right to the core. “No. But you did, didn’t you?”
“Her flamboyance reminded me of how handicapped people adapt. I
assumed she was overcompensating. And then the night before your date with
Sebastian—”
“James, that was a courtesy call to tell me about Woodend, not
a date.”
He smirked. “We got drunk together that night. Didn’t take long
to establish we were seeking oblivion for the same reason.”
“You didn’t think to mention any of this?”
“Would it have made a difference?”
Aftershocks of the previous night’s headache crowded her. “I
guess not.”
They had moved beyond the vision of the speed cameras, but
Tilly continued to drive at 30 mph, hugging the edge of the road. “Turns out
they had a drunken grope to ‘Nights in White Satin’ at some party before
Sebastian and I met. Ro, who was drinking by twelve, remembered enough to know
she was smitten. All Sebastian remembers, or so I’m told, is his first
hangover.” She sighed. “Ro was at boarding school then, so we wrote letters.
She’d been rabbiting on about Mystery Boy, and then I met Sebastian. When I
introduced them, he didn’t recognize her. Can you imagine how that made her
feel?”
It also explained the only fight she and Rowena ever had, after
Tilly scratched Rowena’s copy of “Nights in White Satin.” Tilly stole the boy
and then trashed the soundtrack. Whereas Ro had sacrificed everything and
betrayed nothing. And Tilly had never loved her more than that morning, when
Rowena stood in the great hall, hands clasped behind her back, feet firmly
apart, chin raised and declared, “It’s bollocks, because I love him beyond
measure, but one night is more than I ever dreamed of. Go ahead, ask me to give
him up.” And Tilly said, “So you don’t want my blessing?” And then they both
cried. Since meeting James, she’d cried a lifetime.
“Sebastian and I were merely flirting with the past. Besides, a
relationship right now—” she’d reached the point she needed to make “—
any
relationship, would complicate the decision I’ve
made about the business.”
“Expanding?”
“Yup. But not into landscaping. I’m thinking retail nursery.
James, I—”
“It’s okay, Tilly. It’s okay. I’ve cut myself open, shown you
my blackened, burned-out heart. The rest is up to you. I won’t crowd you, but I
will hope that one day you’ll pick up the phone and say ‘come to me.’ And I
will.” He swiveled around to study her profile, and a tiny part of her wanted to
throw her arms around him and never let go. Which was beyond potty, since she
was behind the wheel of a car.
“I’m a little confused here. You said you wouldn’t wait for
me.”
“I was trying to push you into a corner, but you outsmarted
me.”
“No, I believed you.” Tilly gave a feeble laugh. “You surprise
me constantly.”
“Interesting. I think I’m boringly predictable. I’m also a
persistent bastard, which is why I left. Or tried to. I had to walk away before
I repeated my past, before I forced you into a decision you may have regretted
for the rest of your life.”
“Meaning?” she murmured.
James circled his lips with his index finger. “When I was
fifteen, my father fell in love and I forced him to choose—her or me. Needless
to say, I won. She left the area and got married. We didn’t know this for years,
not until Dad bumped into her on a street corner in Chicago. Can you imagine the
chances?”
Yes, she could. How was coming together with James any
different? Their lives crossed and they recognized each other. All that remained
was to separate.
“My relationship with my father was so tenuous at that point.”
James leaned forward and slid the control on the air vent one way, then the
other. “Seeing her again was enough to shred what was left, and he died before
we reconciled.” He slumped back into his seat. “I lost one person I loved to
hate. I couldn’t live through that again. Not with you.”
“I assumed you and your father drifted apart because of your
OCD.”
“OCD began the process…my temper finished it.” James scraped
back his hair. He held it, for a moment, then let it bounce free. It had grown
so much over the summer, long enough now for a ponytail. “Tilly, I want to be
with you—every day for the rest of my life. I have no doubts. But you have to
want the same thing.”
She turned the wheel and they followed a curve. Soon they’d be
back on the A5, the Roman road that launched itself at the horizon without
curves, without detours.
“Half of me wants it, James. That’s the problem.”
“But I want it all, and you can’t give me that. Can you?”
The sun was shining, the road was straight and she knew where
she was heading.
She shook her head. “I’m not ready.”
“I fly out tomorrow.” He lowered his voice and added, “If I can
get on the plane.”
“What happened yesterday, at the airport?”
James hesitated before answering. “I’ve decided to bypass
Chapel Hill, give my contractor a break. No doubt he’s the only person in the
Triangle thrilled to be incommunicado. I fly to Chicago for a week, then on to
Seattle for an extended visit.”
So, he was shutting her out. Could she blame him?
“I need to spend time with Daniel. Until my father’s funeral,
we hadn’t spoken in ten years. I want to repair our relationship—” James tapped
his leg twice, then twice again “—and meet his fiancée, the woman who’s carrying
my grandchild.”
“A grandchild? Wow! Congratulations.” Tilly wanted to say more,
but she’d barely processed the existence of Daniel. What would James confess to
next, a ménage à trois?
“I wanted to tell you, but vanity got in the way.” James
twizzled an ear stud. “And since I’ve screwed up fatherhood, talking about
becoming a granddad felt like a jinx. God, Tilly, if you really knew me.”
“I do, James.” Why did she ever question that?
“No, you don’t. You know what I’ve allowed you to know.”
“Then tell me the rest. And I’ll promise to respect you in the
morning.” She paused, but he didn’t follow her cue. Yes, she could leave him be,
let the unspoken truths fizzle out between them, but that wasn’t her way.
There was only one thing left to do. It was a cheap shot, but
it would work.
“If you love me—” goose bumps erupted on her forearms “—you’ll
tell me everything.”
James sighed. “My son suffered from clinical depression as a
teenager. I thought if I could handle my monsters, so could he. I offered tough
love, and Daniel had a breakdown. Amazing how little I’ve learned from my
behavior. Take us, for example. I wish we could start over. I’d get it right,
make it perfect from the start.”
“I don’t want perfect. Perfect is boring. I like messy with
lots of flaws. I like us, James. I like that we’re two damaged people who
understand each other. I’ve learned so much from you, about fighting back, about
trusting myself. Now it’s your turn to trust me. Tell me what happened at the
airport. Let me help.”
“I don’t want to discuss it.”
Tilly pulled into a lay-by and shut the engine. James glared at
her, defiant.
“Isn’t that avoiding your fears?” she said. “Exactly what
you’ve taught me not to do?”
“I’ve hit rock bottom. I listened to the OCD and now the cycle
of anxiety begins again. How much worse can it get?”
A soft-sided lorry belted past and the car shook.
“You got me through the hospital, I’m getting you through this.
Like it or not, James, we make a kick-ass team when it comes to fighting
fear.”
“I will not relive what happened at the airport.” His voice was
quiet but guttural, the warning clear. “Don’t make me.”
Tilly laughed silently. Did he think he could scare her off?
She draped her arm over the steering wheel and leaned into his space. She owed
him, and it was payback time. She breathed in the scent of him—cedar, honey and
the mystery ingredient that was James—and felt her purpose take root. “What were
you frightened of?”
“Stop, Tilly. Please, stop.”
“No. Not till you tell me what you were frightened of.”