Hurricanes in Paradise (25 page)

“Yeah, so corporate has scheduled a meeting early evening for us to go over procedures.”

“What time?”

Before she knew it, Laine had reached out and jerked the phone from her hand. “Yes, she will have dinner with you tonight. I will not be needing her services. So I will make sure she is there. What time would you like her to be there?”

Riley grabbed for the phone.

Laine wouldn’t let go. “Oh, there’s a meeting tonight. Okay, well, take her out after that.”

Riley reached for the phone and snatched it back. “Excuse me for that, Christian.” She bugged her eyes out at Laine, who stuck a big bite of pineapple in her mouth and grinned from ear to ear.

Christian laughed. “Not a replay of the other night?”

“No, no. So what time is the meeting?”

“It’s at 5:30 in the Poseidon Room at the conference center. And then I’ll take you to a great little place off the island that I know you’ll love.”

“Oh, Christian, I . . .”

Laine scooted to the edge of the booth as if she were coming over to snatch the phone away again.

Riley changed her tune suddenly. “I’d love to. That sounds wonderful.”

“Great! I’ll see you tonight. Looking forward to it.”

“Me too. Yes, it will be nice.” She closed her phone and put it back on her hip. “I can’t believe you.”

“I can’t believe
you
. What in the world is wrong with you? This amazing man is apparently crazy for you and you keep brushing him off like dander on a suit coat.”

“Horrible metaphor for a writer.”

“Don’t be snide.”

Riley leaned back in the booth. “I don’t know why I keep brushing him off. Honestly, I really like him. He is so ridiculously nice and charming . . .” She smiled involuntarily.

“And gorgeous.”

Riley laughed. “Yes, he’s gorgeous.”

“So what is it?” Laine leaned against the leather seat and crossed her arms. “What is it really, Riley?”

Riley took in a deep breath. “I just don’t think I’m ready.”

“Ready, schmeady.” Laine’s words stopped abruptly. Riley watched as a flash of recognition of some kind swept over her face. “Oh, my word.” Laine leaned into the table and placed her elbows on top of the dark wood. “Here you are preaching to me, and you are just like me. You haven’t forgiven yourself either. Everything I was telling you last night, you are. Living in perpetual regret. Refusing yourself happiness. Like you don’t deserve it or something. Oh, my word! You are me!” she announced with laughter as if it were the best discovery she’d made in years.

“I’ve completely forgiven myself.”

“Hogwash.” Laine slapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, my word, now I’m Winnie.” Her words were muffled through her fingers. She dropped her hand. “We’ve spent so much time together, we’re becoming each other.”

Riley shook her head. “I’ll believe it when you give up your mourning.”

“This isn’t about my attire. This is about you. And you have not ever forgiven yourself.” Laine leaned back again, her body softening. “Tell me what happened, Riley. I know Winnie’s story. I’m pretty certain I know Tamyra’s even though she won’t give up any of it. And I know your brief outbursts. But I want to know your story. Your whole story. What happened?”

Riley felt a surge of emotion start somewhere near her gut. The fork shook in her hand. She set it down quickly on the edge of her plate. The memories were fast and fluid. Her chest began to rise and fall more rapidly. Laine reached across the table and grabbed her hands. “It’s okay. I promise. I will not make you a character in my next book.”

A laugh bubbled up and broke through her lips; tears followed right behind. Riley removed her hands from under Laine’s and swiped at them. “You’re crazy.” She leaned against the smooth padded leather booth and took in a deep breath. She had recounted this story to Mia yesterday through her torrent of tears that were laced with anger at Laine. But these tears were different. Laine had pegged her and she knew it.

“It was a beautiful summer afternoon. Gabby and I were coming home from the grocery store to get dinner ready. I had just pulled into our neighborhood. The speed limit was only twenty miles an hour because of all the children. Gabby was two, and since having her, I did everything differently. Drove slower. Ate better. Far more cautious about everything in life. But I never saw him. He apparently darted out from behind the front of a car that was parked on the side of the street. He was chasing a ball. I thought I had just run over something in the road until I looked and saw the horror on his mother’s face. She had watched me run over her son.

“She was screaming wildly by the time I could get out of the car. I ran over to where she was.” The stinging from hot tears burned at the top of her nose. “He was still breathing in her arms, though the tire had gone right over his little body. The rest is a blur. We called 911. Neighbors came out from everywhere. The ambulance got there and rushed him to the hospital, and that was when I fell completely apart.”

She dabbed at her face with her napkin.

“My neighbors got me home and Jeremy was there in just a few moments. I don’t even know who called him. Then one of my neighbors took Gabby until my mother could get her. I pulled myself together enough for Jeremy and I to get to the hospital. But the baby was pronounced dead two hours later.” She twirled her napkin mindlessly in her fingers. “It was all downhill from there. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. The feeling of his little body underneath the car, the look on Janet’s face.”

“Did you and she ever talk?”

“Yes, she and her husband were precious. I couldn’t get out of bed for days. Didn’t go to the funeral. Couldn’t take care of Gabby. About a week after the accident, both Janet and her husband, Craig, came over to see me. They told me that they forgave me. That they knew it was an accident and that I had in no way been careless. And the four of us just sat in our family room and wept. It was the most horrible—and most precious—moment of the entire journey.”

“Why wasn’t that enough?”

Riley looked at Laine, her head moving slowly from side to side. “I just couldn’t make it quit playing in my mind. Then it became all the what-ifs. ‘What if it had been Gabby?’ ‘What if I was that mother?’ ‘What if I really was speeding?’ Every night it plagued me. I couldn’t sleep. I had no appetite. And the only way I could shut down my mind was to drink. Crazy, because I had never been a real drinker. Would rather have calories in a glass of sweet tea than in a glass of wine.”

“Were you drinking wine?”

“At first. But Jeremy put an end to that really quick. So I went to vodka. I would hide it in the house. That’s when you know you’re in bad shape, when you begin to hide it.”

“Did he find it?”

Riley smiled softly at Laine’s compassion. It was on her face. It was in her voice. “Oh yeah, he found it. One day he came home and I was so drunk. And it was just Gabby and I there. Here I was trying to drink away the torment of thinking that it could have been my baby that died, and I’m putting her in danger anyway. It was crazy. And that was his final straw. He told me I couldn’t live there anymore if I was going to drink. That he would take me anywhere. Get me any help I needed.”

“Did you go?”

“Yes, I went. For two weeks. And then got kicked out for getting drunk. I just couldn’t stop the scene in my head. It tormented me.”

Laine leaned across the table. “I’m so sorry, Riley.”

“Me too. Jeremy wouldn’t let me come back home, so I moved in with my parents.”

“How long were you there?”

“Two months. My parents tried everything. My mother had the ladies from her church come over and do an intervention. My dad tried to talk me through it. But they kicked me out when my mom came home one day and found me stealing from her. Here my parents are, some of Charleston’s premier citizens, and I, their once-respected daughter, was now crashing on friends’ sofas.”

“Did you ever try AA?”

“Yes. My dad took me to AA himself. Sat right there in the meetings with me for a month. But I didn’t want any part of it. The lowest point came one night when I was in this run-down hotel off of King Street in Charleston, and I walked out into the street with nothing on but a T-shirt and my underwear. It’s pouring down rain and I beg God for someone to hit me. Run me over. I wanted to end the pain the way it had all begun.”

Laine wiped at the tears that were falling down her cheeks.

Riley laughed softly. “The manager of the hotel ran out into the street and told me I could get back inside, that there wasn’t any of that happening while he was on duty.”

“What got you sober?”

“Reality. One day my dad came and picked me up at the hotel. He had someone keeping tabs on me most of the time. He took me out to a restaurant to feed me and told me that Jeremy had filed for divorce. That it wasn’t because he didn’t love me, but he needed to protect Gabby, and that he and my mother had encouraged it.”

“That must have devastated you.”

“It was the best thing that happened to me, honestly. When he dropped me back off, all I wanted was a drink. I walked down the street and heard this loud music. I thought there must be a bar nearby, so I kept following the sound. But when I got closer, it was a black church with the doors swung wide open and music pouring out. I was drawn inside like a praying mantis draws its prey. I sneaked into the back row and started crying. At the end of the service everyone had left, but I couldn’t move. That was when my old nanny Josalyn found me. It was her church. Of all the churches in Charleston, I had walked right into hers. She had been our nanny for years and years. She had retired just a few years earlier and had been kept up by my family about what was going on with me. I was curled up on the pew like a baby when she got to me. She said two words: ‘You ready?’ I knew exactly what she meant.”

“What did you tell her?” Laine asked.

“I said, ‘Yes. I’m ready.’ She put me in her car, took me to her house, prayed over me, fed me, read the Bible to me until the wee hours of the morning, and I never had one moment of withdrawal.”

Riley picked up her glass and took a drink of water. Laine didn’t say a word.

“Not one night sweat. Not one seizure. And not another craving. Josalyn let me know that it was time to let it go. She reminded me of everything I knew, but somehow hearing her say it, it all made sense. She took me to church, where they danced a Holy Ghost jig all around me.”

Laine wrinkled her nose. “I’ve heard about that stuff.”

Riley laughed. “They were harmless. Happy, but harmless. Those precious ladies in white loved me back to wholeness. I spent a month with Josalyn until she finally told me it was time to go home. She walked me right up to Mama and Daddy’s door. We all sat in the living room and cried together. Jeremy came over to see me and asked if he could watch me for the next couple months before he brought Gabby back around. I completely understood his hesitation. But Josalyn took him by the shoulders, said, ‘My baby’s gone and been set free and knows it’s fine time she needs to be seein’ her baby too.’ He knew she would know. And the next day he brought Gabby over. That was the beginning of putting our life back together.”

“And he never tried to keep her from you?”

“Not one day. He knew she needed her mother as much as her mother needed her.”

“So how did you get here?”

“Max had known my family for years. He and my dad go way back. I was working as head of guest relations at the Kiawah Resort’s Sanctuary Hotel, and Max called me with the offer to come here. I saw it as a real chance to start fresh, no skeletons, no whispers over dinner at 82 Queen. A real beginning. And everyone agreed. So here we are. Two years sober. And Josalyn still checks in often. She talks me off my ledge every now and then, prays over me, and sends me back out to face the devil.” Riley smiled slyly.

“Please tell me I didn’t almost send you back to the bottle or that you just called me the devil.”

Riley bit her lip slightly. She could never tell Laine how frustrated she had really made her. “No, you almost sent me to an asylum, which is much less destructive. And there were moments where you could have been the devil himself.”

“I’m so sorry, Riley. I had no idea. You’d never know you have been through all this to look at you.”

“Nor would you know it to look at you.”

Laine gave her a soft smile. “Can I ask you another question?”

“We both know you will regardless.”

“Why didn’t you ever put your home back together?”

She shook her head, put her napkin back in her lap, and picked up her fork, though her food was way past cold. “He’d been through enough. It was really for the best when he decided to marry Amanda. I had hurt him enough.”

Laine shook her head vehemently. “That’s a lie. It’s you. It’s like I said in the very beginning. You haven’t forgiven yourself; that’s why you never tried to work things out with Jeremy.”

Riley let the words fall on her ears. They sounded all too familiar. Josalyn had said the same thing to her over and over. She studied Laine. She’d come so far in her healing, but a sense of shame remained. Could she even get past it? Laine made it sound like she could. And Laine should know.