Barefoot in Lace (Barefoot Bay Brides Book 2) (33 page)

She looked hard at him, a spoonful of bright pink gelato poised between the cup and her mouth, which hung open. “She didn’t tell you.”

At the hurt and hint of anger in her voice, Tom sat up, shifting his full attention to Alex. “I can’t be sure until you tell me what it is.”

“Oh, you’d know if she told you.” She dropped the uneaten spoonful back in the cup and turned her body in the chair so she was no longer facing him.

“Alex, tell me.”

She shook her head. “Never mind. It isn’t important.”

“Of course it is, Alex, come on.”

Another firm shake.

“Well, don’t be too mad at her,” he said. “Her brother showed up, and her whole life changed in a day. She hasn’t had time for much else.”

She speared him with a look. “She had all night in your room.”

He felt the blood drain from his face. “We didn’t talk about”—much—“you.”

Looking down, she dug for another bite of gelato, the circles on her cheeks nearly the same color as her treat. “Of course not.”

“Alex.” He reached over. “Whatever you wanted her to tell me, you can tell me yourself. I’ll listen, I promise. We don’t have to talk to each other through Gussie.”

She still wouldn’t meet his gaze. “It’s easier that way, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t. I’m here and I’m listening. You can share anything. You can tell me about a boy you like or a problem in school or some dress you want to buy or how much you miss your mother. You can talk to me.” He might not have a clue how to answer, but they had to start somewhere.

She finally looked at him. “I want to live with Gussie, not you.”

For a second, he couldn’t speak. He opened his mouth, tried to make a sound, but nothing came out.

“I would be so happy to be part of”—she pointed her spoon at the McBain family, huddled in a circle on the rocks near the shore—“that.”

Tom still stared at her.

“That’s what I want,” she said. “I want to be”—her voice nearly snapped in two—“whole again. I can’t be that way with you. I can’t go on photo shoots or have a nanny or live in hotels. I can’t and I don’t want to, and I don’t think that’s what Momma wanted, either. She just forgot about hings. About signing papers and making arrangements. She didn’t think she’d ever die.”

Oh, God. What could he possibly say to that? “I can’t…”
Give you up
.

When did that happen? He didn’t know, but Alex was his, whole and completely, and that might suck logistically, but she was the only…

He turned and looked at Gussie and her family again, jealousy shocking him as it made a slow stomp up his chest.

Alex was the only family he had. And he
wasn’t about to give her up.

He turned to her, but she was standing, hoisting a canvas bag onto her shoulder. “I told you it wasn’t important.”

Not important? “Where are you going?”

“Back to the apartment.”

“No, no.” He stood, too, wanting to reach for her, wanting to find the words. But he had no words. He never had words. He spoke with a camera and…and…

He glanced at his arm.

And permanent ink. Why was he so surprised when people listened?

Alex was already ten feet away. “Alex!” He rushed toward her, reaching for her arm. “Please stay and talk to me.”

She shook out of his grasp. “Really, Uncle Tommy, it’s not that big a deal. I’m tired and want to go home. Or, you know, back to the apartment. It’s not really home.”

She took off at a good clip, but he could have easily caught her. Instead, he stood frozen, watching her hair swing as she darted away, feeling incredibly helpless and hopeless.

“Tom! Tom, guess what?” Gussie practically pranced toward him, breaking a few feet away from her family, the smile she’d worn all day firmly in place. “Where’s Alex?” she asked when she reached him.

He had to tell her. He had to tell her the entire conversation, but her parents and brother were twenty feet away, and throwing his own situation with Alex into the mix would put a damper on Gussie’s perfect day.

“She went back to the apartment,” he said.

“Alone? Is she with the Stone kids?”

“No, she said she was tired.”

“And you let her go alone?” A note of concern lifted her voice, of course. She cared. Deeply and truly.

“She was…” He shook his head as the others arrived, hoping she understood the conversation should be private.

“I better go check on her then,” Gussie said. “But I have to tell you something so exciting. We’ve made a huge decision.”

“Really?” He glanced at the others, all of them wearing expressions of joy. Whatever they’d talked about out there on the beach, this family was solid.

“We’re going back to the States,” Gussie’s father said in his strong New England accent as he put a hand on Luke’s shoulder.

Tom drew back. “You just got here.”

“I know,” Gussie agreed. “But we were talking, and we all feel like, as a family, we need to be home. And Luke’s coming with us!”

“To heal.” Wendy McBain’s green eyes, sixty-year-old versions of Gussie’s, danced. “I still live in the same house these two grew up in, you know, and this is what I want.”

“Oh, that’s…great.” But Tom didn’t think it was great at all. “I…”
Hate the idea
. But he had no right to say that. He had his own family problems to deal with. And this was Gussie’s greatest dream. “That’s really awesome for you.”

“I have an idea,” Gussie’s mother said. “Why don’t you two figure out the logistics while we go back to Luke’s hotel? And we’ll call you with the final travel plans in a bit.”

“Okay,” Gussie agreed, giving them all reluctant kisses and hugs. “Don’t be long.”

After they said good-bye, Tom slipped his arm around her, swallowing all the arguments against her going. She had to do this, and he needed to understand. “You really do have everything you wanted,” he said, giving her a hug. “I’m happy for you.”

“Except you don’t want me to go,” she whispered.

“Of course I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be happy for you.”

She looked up at him, the smile faltering for the first time since she’d awakened in his arms. “You know it’s inevitable that we’re going our ways.”

He managed a nod, even though that inevitability felt less and less, well, inevitable every minute they were together.

“Come on.” She tugged at him. “Let’s tell Alex. I doubt she’ll be any happier than you are.”

“She’s definitely not thrilled with me now,” he said as they walked in the direction of the apartment, wending through the flow of tourists on the wide beach walkway.

“What happened, Tom?”

He puffed out a breath. “I guess she thought you were going to tell me that—”

She slammed a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God, I never told you about that conversation. We got home and Luke was there and the day was crazy and then, last night was so…good. And this morning my parents came. Damn. She told you what she asked me?”

“Yes.”

“What did you say?”

He just looked at her, hardly remembering his words because he’d been so sucker-punched by the request, he hadn’t really responded. “Not much, I’m afraid.”

“Are you sure she’s gone to the apartment?” She yanked him into a trot.

“Yes.” He thought she had. “Why wouldn’t she?”

“Tom, she told me if she couldn’t live with me, then she’s going to try to find her father.”

He froze midstep. “Like, now? From France?”

“I don’t know, but let’s find her.”

Holding hands so the crowds didn’t separate them, they snaked their way back to the apartment, silent in their determination. To find her father? She wouldn’t do anything that foolish, would she?

Of course she would. The child desperately wanted a parent, and all Tom had done was worry about his stupid job and travel and lifestyle. What the hell was wrong with him?

At the bottom of the stairway, they nearly smacked into Annie and her two kids.

“Oh! Thank God,” Gussie exclaimed. “Did you see Alex up there?”

Annie shook her head, frowning. “She’s not home.”

“Are you sure?” Tom barked the question.

“Well, no one answered when we knocked, so we figured—”

Tom didn’t wait for her to finish, but took off up the steps, snippets of the conversation behind him fading as he barged into the apartment.

“Alex?”

Nothing. He charged down the hall.

“Alex!”

Her door was wide open, her bed made, her room neat, her suitcase under the bed…gone.

“Alex.” He dropped to his knees, spying the notebook she was always writing in, tucked against the wall as if it had accidentally slipped behind the bed.

He reached for it, grabbing the edge with his fingertips and dragging it out. Should he read it? Should he invade her privacy?

“What does it say?” Gussie dropped to her knees next to him. “Open it, Tom. Maybe she left us a note.”

He flipped the cover and read the girlish scrawling.

Dear Daddy…I wait every day for you to call.

He turned to a few more pages.

Dear Daddy…I would love to send you pictures from France.

And to the last page.

Dear Daddy…I found your name on Facebook and I think I can find your house.

All this time, he’d thought it was her diary, or bad poetry, or whatever preteen girls wrote about. He never dreamed she’d been writing
to her father
.

He
had to be that for her, whether he wanted to or not. The thing was, he
wanted
to. “Tom.” Gussie reached up and touched his cheek, her fingers sliding over a tear he hadn’t even realized he’d shed.

“How do we find her?” he asked. “Where would she go? The airport? A—”

“
Gare routière
!”

“The bus station?”

“She knows exactly where it is,” Gussie said. “Let’s go!”

He froze for a second, a punch of pain slamming his gut. “Would she really do that?”

Gussie yanked at him. “Do not underestimate the willpower of a girl who wants a family. A real family.”

He closed his eyes. “Let’s find her and give her one.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Gare routière. Gare routière
. She had to get there, fast, because they might come after her.

But who knew? Uncle Tommy certainly made it clear he didn’t want her, and Gussie was so wrapped up with her family, she probably hadn’t even noticed Alex was missing. Fighting a sting of tears, she paused on a street corner, turning around with one hand on the roller bag she’d packed. Where was the
gare routière
? Hadn’t they been right here when Gussie had read the name and translated it to
bus station
?

But the streets were so much more crowded this afternoon than they’d been early in the morning with Gussie. And Alex was turned around, confused, and scared to death.

But fear was not going to stop her. She had one chance, and she was taking it. She knew Steve Whitman lived in someplace called Bend, Oregon, and that place was small enough that she could find him. First, she had to get out of Nice, and then France, and then…take it one step at a time. She had an emergency credit card that her mother had given her a long time ago, about fifty dollars, and a passport.

She could do this.

It just wouldn’t be easy.

Well, nothing worth having is easy, Momma used to say. Oh, she used to say so many things, like how a woman can never be overeducated or overdressed. And how you can tell how good a man is by the way he treats animals. And how no one can hurt you if you don’t give them power.

So she would not give them the power. She’d give it to her father, and if he didn’t want her after she turned up at his front door, then…then…then she’d kill herself and be with Momma.

She turned one more time, this time glancing at passersby, trying to find someone who would help her. But the French never looked right at anyone, and the tourists ignored her, so like always, she felt completely alone.

Not always. Not with Momma. And not with Gussie, but…

She hadn’t even talked to him about it! Biting back Gussie’s betrayal, Alex made a decision and charged across the street with the crowd, her bag clunking on cobblestones until it tipped over, off its wheels.

“Oh, shoot! Come
on
!” she cried, trying to right the bag in the middle of the street.

“You need help?” a man asked.

She looked up and met the gaze of an older man, maybe a little older than her uncle.

Nearly thirteen years of stranger-danger lessons bubbled up. “No,” she said quickly, shaking her head.

“Looking for the bus station?” he asked in French-accented English.

Maybe she shouldn’t ignore a stranger. After all, her very own father would be one when she knocked on his door. “Um, yeah, actually, I am.”

He gave a slight nod in the other direction. “Right over there and around the next corner.”

“Oh, thank you!” She gushed gratitude because she was headed in exactly the wrong direction. She pivoted, bungled the bag, then gave up and scooped it up by the regular handle, hauling it across the next street.

Her sneakers pounded on the pavement—her white sneakers that screamed American tourist—but she didn’t care. She had to get to the
gare routière
.

She finally reached the corner, turned it, and—

A park? “Come on!” she moaned. Instinctively, she turned back the way she’d come and saw the same man not fifty feet behind her, walking slowly in her direction.

Fear clutched at her, freezing her for a minute before she turned again, the fear quickly icing into panic. Now what? Cross the street! She had to cross the street.

She looked again, and he was on a phone.

Oh my God, what if he was calling in more men? They would surround her and kidnap her. Things like that happened in foreign countries.

She darted toward the street, barely slowing to look one way then the other, trying to find a break in the traffic.

It looked like she could make it, so she started to cross the street, getting a loud honk from a car that had to swerve around her, the surprise making her almost drop her bag.