Barefoot in White (Barefoot Bay Brides) (32 page)

Definitely start over—

A man stood in the shadows of her driveway. She caught the silhouette, moving slowly. Waiting for her.

Of course Nick would be there. He’d ambush her with kisses and sweet talk, groveling with apologies and promises. Then maybe he’d take her…to bed.

A slow, low heat rolled through her, and it had nothing to do with how long and hard she’d run. What did that make her, other than slutty and stupid and maybe a little desperate to do it?

It.

That’s all sex was. A two-letter pronoun that could mean nothing, anything, or everything.
It
could be mind-bogglingly beautiful lovemaking that left a person’s soul soaring with joy. Or it could mean up-against-the-wall toe-curlingly hot sex.

And, honestly, the hot wall sex was
all
Willow had ever wanted when she asked—both times.

It was Nick who’d turned the whole event into something bigger and more meaningful than she’d ever had in mind. She wanted to
do it
. He wanted to do
It
. But now, nobody was doing anything except Ona, who was probably gloating that she’d orchestrated a dramatic conclusion to Willow’s one and only brush with love.

No, no. Not love.
Sex
.

Willow shook off the frustrations and jogged up the street, bracing herself for the encounter.

“Hey.” She called out to the shadow behind the hibiscus tree. “I know you’re there.”

He didn’t step out, probably waiting to see if she’d attack.

“You want to know the worst part? The very worst part about all of this?”

He still didn’t answer.

“I’m
still
a freaking virgin, Nick. You dragged the whole thing out so long and now I—”

“No way.”

She froze the second she realized it wasn’t Nick, then letting out a low, long grunt of disbelief when she recognized the gravelly voice and slightly aged posture.

“A virgin? At twenty-nine? You can’t possibly be my daughter, and if you are, don’t let anyone know. I’d be the laughing stock of rock ’n’ roll.”

Oh, great. Just great. Could her day get any worse?

Her father stepped out of the shadows, arms extended, and Willow almost gave in to the need to throw herself into the arms of the one member of her tiny family she actually missed and loved. Except…when push came to shove, he was always on her mother’s side, and no doubt that’s why he was here.

“Hey, Daddy,” she whispered, using the little girl’s name because…because it felt right. “What are you doing here?”

“Finding out more about you than I could have imagined. C’mere, sweet Ambrosia.”

Oh, why not? She let herself be folded into his hug, and a rare and completely uninvited lump formed in her chest as sadness swamped her. Why had she let so many months and years pass without seeing this man?

“I’m sweaty,” she apologized, but didn’t pull away.

“You’re skinny,” he replied, giving a squeeze and then putting both hands on her waist. “Holy hell, woman, where did you go?”

She finally inched back, the streetlight casting a yellow glow on his wrinkled face, but adding to the glimmer that always danced in his eyes. His hair stood up in the front, the sides nearly hitting his shoulders, a pink diamond twinkling in one ear. Her father, the world’s sweetest rock star.

“Dad.” She took another hug of his wiry frame. “I’ve missed you.”

“Not enough to come home.”

A litany of old, lame excuses played in her head.
I’ve been busy. You guys were traveling. I had weddings every weekend
. She tossed them all aside for the truth. “I couldn’t handle it. I’m sorry.”

He broke their embrace, but kept his hands on her shoulders, looking hard at her. “Look at you, girl. You look like a freaking model.”

She rolled her eyes. “And you know how much I want to be one of those.”

“How about a virgin? Do you want to be one of those?”

“Not particularly. And, God, does the free world have to know my dark secret?”

He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “I hope not, because, damn, that would annihilate my reputation.”

“I know, right? What kind of self-respecting rock god raises a twenty-nine-year-old virgin?”

“Apparently, this one.” The soft hint of pride in his voice touched her heart.

“How’d you find me out here?”

“I knocked on your apartment door, and when you didn’t answer I went upstairs and met a pretty girl with pink hair.”

“Gussie. She’s one of my business partners.”

“What’s she trying to cover up with all that makeup?” he asked.

She just smiled at him. “I forgot how you know people so well.”

“Oh, I do,” he agreed. “It’s my superpower. How about we walk and talk while you cool down?”

“Of course, but you aren’t going to change my mind about Mom.”

“Oh, she’ll change your mind all by herself, believe me. She’ll tell you what happened while she was up there and how she met God or Saint Peter or some such nonsense and had a vision about you and woke up with a new purpose in life.”

Willow stopped mid-step. “What?”

“Your mother died, honey.”

She blinked at him, unable to even process what he was saying.

“Oh, she’ll tell you she didn’t. She has quite a story, and I swear one of these days she’s going to sell it and make another fortune.”

“What happened to her?” A cold, numb feeling tingled in her limbs. Ona had nearly died? Or had died? “Why didn’t anyone tell me? When? What was it?”

He gave her a sideways smile. “You sound pretty concerned for a girl who just claimed she wouldn’t ever change her mind about her mother.”

She shook off the admonishment. “Dad, what happened to her?”

“She drowned in the ocean during her morning swim.”

“
What
?” The numbing turned icy, freezing her blood and hollowing out a hole in her chest. “I just saw her today.”

“She’s not dead now, but she was.” He brushed back some of his long hair, the heels of his boots tapping on the pavement as they headed toward the harbor. “She was utterly flat-lined.”

But obviously she had survived, so Willow exhaled. “Oh, Dad. How did you bear it? You must have lost your mind.”

He snorted. “That would be putting it mildly.” Then he gave her a smile and hugged her a little. “You know, I think you’re the first person to think about me in that situation. Everyone who hears the story is all enraptured with Ona’s account of her trip through the light and the visions she saw. Oh, wait until you hear about the rainbows that wrapped around her, each color a different degree of warmth.” His tone was rich with sarcasm.

“I take it you’re not buying that?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t on that side of things. I didn’t come here to tell you that story.” He slowed as they reached the open docks of Pleasure Pointe Harbor, stopping to let the clanging of sail rigging punctuate his comment. “I wanted to tell you what happened to me.”

She studied him in the dim light, doing a quick inventory of his lines—there were definitely new ones. Worry lines between his brows that must have formed while he sat in some emergency room waiting area.

“Oh, God, Dad, why didn’t you call me?”

“Honestly, it happened so fast and was so chaotic while they were trying to revive her, I didn’t think to call you. Then she woke up and insisted I not tell you a thing.”

And, of course, he did what Ona wanted.

She wrapped her arms around him again and held him tight. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry you went through that alone.”

He took the hug, but she could feel him shaking his head. “No, no. Didn’t come here for pity or your apologies.”

She didn’t quite understand why, but she let it go. “When did this happen?”

“Six, seven months ago.”

Oh, God. She’d had no idea. She should have—

“Hey.” He tapped her chin, reading her expression as he always had. “Regrets are for idiots. Don’t bother with them.”

She tried to take that advice, but she couldn’t help feeling like shit. “I’m the worst daughter.”

“She was no picnic as a mother.” He guided her to a bench that faced the long wharves with sailboats and pleasure cruises lined up, a yellow glow from a dock light illuminating the area. “But here’s the thing, Willie.”

She didn’t cringe at the name for once. Yes, it reminded her of her old fat self, but that was what her Dad called her, and it sounded right.

“What’s the thing, Dad?” she asked, taking one of his hands between hers and holding on to it.

“Life is so fucking short.”

She just looked at him.

“One second you’re here, living, working, singing, bitching, golfing, laughing…loving. And the next, you’re watching a corpse be wheeled into an ambulance, and everything that you thought mattered…poof.” He made his fingers explode. “Gone.”

“God, Dad. How did you keep it out of the media?” At least if she’d read about her mother going to the hospital, she would have gone home.

Or would she have stayed and…stewed?

He laughed at her question, and she knew the answer. Money, of course. “And while she was wrapped in rainbows and making deals with the Big Man, I realized that nothing—and I do mean
nothing
, child—matters in this world, because it’s over in a blink of an eye.”

“I know that, Dad, but—”

He held a hand up to silence her. “The people you love and the people who love you, no matter how piss-poor a job they do of showing it, are all you have in this life.” He took her hands this time, squeezing. “If she had died—or, if she had stayed dead, because she was gone—you would have spent the rest of your life despising her for how she treated you.”

Yes, she would have. She planned to, in fact.

“Then you would have gotten older and maybe had a child of your own.” He angled his head and lifted one of his brows. “You do know you have to actually have sex for that to happen, right?”

She elbowed him. “Finish.”

“Well, when you are a mother yourself and you make all manner of dumb decisions because you don’t know any other way to do a job that is really too hard for anyone, then…” He took a deep, slow inhale to elevate the drama of his pronouncement. “Then you probably would wish you had made up with her before she died.”

“Maybe I would or will, Dad, but you don’t understand how trapped she made me. I spent more than half my life—which doesn’t seem short when you’re in the middle of it—hating myself because I couldn’t be what she wanted me to be.”

“No one can be that,” he said. “Even I can’t be what she wants, but you won’t be find me running away, avoiding her, and hating her. You’ll only be free to be and love yourself—and someone else, I might add—when you forgive, forget, and be a family again.”

“I’m free,” she said, sounding defensive. “I’m completely free for the first time in my life. Free of the weight, literally and figuratively.”

“Are you? Is that why you’ve never fallen for a man long enough to unload that virginity you carry around like a big ol’ suitcase?”

“You don’t know how I carry it around.”

He grinned. “Did we not just discuss my superpower of knowing people better than they know themselves?”

“I appreciate what you’re trying to tell me, Dad.”

“Do you?” he asked. “Because if there is one simple, single lesson I can impart to you, it’s this: Don’t waste time, because you don’t have any time to waste.” He frowned and tilted his head. “There’s a song in there somewhere.”

She stared up at the night sky, all the day’s thoughts muddled in her mind. “What would you have me do, then? Act like the last thirty years never happened?”

“They don’t matter, Willie. What matters is the next thirty years or days or, possibly, minutes. They may be all you have.” He took her hand again and looked into her eyes. “Use them wisely.”

He was right, of course. And how could she most wisely use the next thirty minutes?

Nick.

The thought hit her like a hammer to the head—and heart. Nick.
He
was how she should use her next thirty minutes…or maybe thirty hours. Nick was all she wanted. Maybe it
was
just sex, but damn it, she wanted that.

She shot up. “You know what, Dad? You make a lot of sense.”

A smile tugged at his lips as he reached for her hand. “Music to a father’s ears, those words.”

“You’re right. I’m going.”

He stood next to her. “Fantastic. She’s waiting at the Ritz in Naples.”

“Let her.” Willow worked a crick out of her neck, her own broad smile pulling. “I gotta go somewhere else, Dad.”

“Where?”

She reached down and kissed him on the cheek, then started backing away. “No time to waste. I’ve got some baggage to unload.” And only one man in the world could do that job. “You understand that, don’t you?”

She saw the moment the realization hit his eyes, followed by a wry smile. “I’m afraid I do.”

Chapter Twenty-seven