My Beloved: A Thin Love Novella (9 page)

Sixteen years she had kept her mother out of her mind. Keira never thought of her, never wanted to be reminded of her life in New Orleans and her mother’s cruelty. Then after the death she returned to the Lake House. Keira was the only one left to rummage through her mother’s belongings, years of pointless memories sorted and organized into albums and scrapbooks that Keira had no desire to keep.

But one day, Keira came across a box in the attic with her name scrawled across the top. When Keira opened it, all that she thought she knew about her mother fractured.

Inside were pictures, newspaper clippings, sheet music, articles and copies of record charts filling up dozens of scrapbooks and they were all of Keira. Her successes, media and PR materials that the record label insisted she participate in, pictures of Keira accepting her Grammy, speaking quietly, shyly to the press with her trophy in hand. Her mother had documented everything, was proud. Keira knew that from the tiny, elegant handwritten labels, titles that said “Keira’s First Number One” or “My Baby on the Grammys”.

Keira had taken those scrapbooks and held them close to her chest, confused that her mother hadn’t really hated her, that after all these years and everything she tried to force on Keira, she’d really loved her, was proud of her. And it broke Keira’s heart. Cora Michaels, her mother, had been abusive, horrible to Keira, angry that the girl had turned out too much like her father. She’d driven Keira away, kept her away because she hated the baby growing inside her daughter’s belly. She’d hated even more the boy who had put that baby there. It was her rearing, the small-minded bigotry that was engrained into her generation. Her parents, theirs, had only cared about social standing and money—how much they had, how much they could get, and that attitude had left Cora expectant, cold. She’d landed Keira’s father in college, then left him when he no longer wanted to pretend he believed in what she did. Keira had never understood her mother, but those clippings, those proud labels told a different story, and convinced Keira that she’d never really known the woman, either.

Keira had spent years trying to forget that her artistic, free-spirited father had loved her mother, that there had been something about her that he’d found irresistible once. That love hadn’t ever left her mother, not really. It had become displaced, hidden by expectation and ignorance, but it still lived in her and in a small, undeniable way, had been reserved for her daughter.

Keira had never forgiven her mother for all those years of criticism, for the abuse, the pain she had caused. She had never even told her mother goodbye when she walked out to start a life on her own with her unborn baby. So she sat in that attic that day with those scrapbooks around her and for the first time in sixteen years, Keira cried out for her mother. She’d told her she loved her, no matter what a vicious, entitled, racist woman she was, that Keira couldn’t help but love her. And she realized, with shocking clarity, that’s what real love is; loving blindly, loving despite flaws, despite the horrible things we all do to each other. Keira hated everything her mother believed in, she’d hated it so much that she’d purposefully run from it. Still, that drunk, ignorant woman had been her mother. She’d given Keira life. She’d made Keira the stubborn, determined woman she had become.

She didn’t want Kona to have to live with that same regret for his manipulative mother. Keira certainly wasn’t ready to hug Lalei Alana and tell her all was forgiven; in fact, she doubted her hatred for the woman would ever cool, but Lalei was Kona’s mother, he needed to tell her goodbye while she was around to hear it. Maybe after the wedding, once they returned to the mainland, they could make one last visit to his mother and make some kind of peace.

Keira relaxed against a plush patio chair, her feet reclined on a cold fire pit as she watched the empty beach in front of her through the spaces in the brick privacy fence. She would marry Kona in a few hours. Finally, they’d be always officially and that thought made her smile, had her pushing back the news about his mother, the memory of the heartache her own mother had caused her. She closed her eyes, smiling at the thought of Kona’s body over hers the night before, how hard he took her, how desperate he’d been to touch her.

The sudden sound of a rapid fire shutter clicking had Keira jerking alert, heart pounding, as she reactively pulled her robe closer together and let Mark stand in front of her when he stormed out onto the patio. Behind the bushes just a few yards beyond the patio, a lone photographer was snapping shot after shot.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” Mark screamed, pulling Keira from her stunned silence. “Get the fuck out of here you sick bastard!”

“You Keira’s fuck buddy? Does Kona know?”

Mark picked up a glass vase from the console table by the door and flung toward the slick-haired photographer as he continued to shoot picture after picture, moving around the fence to get a better shot of Keira as she hid behind Mark’s back.

“Move, you asshole! Fucking parasite!”

“Hey man, I’m just trying to feed my family.”

“No, motherfucker,” he said, pushing Keira further back, “you’re leeching off people who’ve actually done something with their lives. Get out of here!”

Mark slammed the glass door behind them, darting to the spa workers as they hurried toward his shouting voice. “Where the hell is the damn security your people said she’d have?”

Keira flinched as two small spa workers stepped back from her best friend as though his head might explode. “Sir, I’m sorry…” one started, but then pressed her lips together tight when Mark shot her a glare.

“This is the worst place…”

“Mark, that’s enough,” Keira said, pulling on his elbow. “Calm down.” To the workers at her side, Keira smiled, tilted her head when they didn’t return the gesture. “You’ll have to forgive my friend. He’s a little overprotective and has been without his boyfriend for a few weeks now.” That well timed nugget of information earned a grin and a small laugh from the workers and they nodded, moving behind Mark to close the curtains and lock the patio door.

When Keira had returned to the main spa room where the cousins and aunties and Leann were all sitting around getting their hair flat ironed or curled and their faces made up, Mark was at her heels, pulling her back. “Kona promised me this shit wasn’t going to happen again.”

“When did he say that?”

The sharp malice that bunched up Mark’s face eased and Keira folded her arms, cocking an eyebrow at her friend when she realized he and Kona had been plotting behind her back. She didn’t need to say anything to Mark. A small curl of her lip and the man rubbed the back of his neck and stared down at the floor, looking like he was trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t piss Keira off.

“Um, last night, after you took off. I, ah, yelled at him for abandoning you all day and for whatever he did to piss you off last night.”

“Mark…”

“I
know
. I know it’s none of my business and you don’t want me getting between you and that damn gorilla when you’re fighting.”

“No. I don’t and do
not
call him that.”

Mark’s shoulders lowered and he pulled Keira further away from those prying bridesmaids. The loud conversation and cackling laughter had quieted as Keira and Mark’s little tiff continued. “You’re my oldest friend, Keira and I know when you’re worried and stressed. I see it written all over your face. You’re anxious. All this shit,” he waved a hand around the room, “it’s not you. Why haven’t you told Kona that? Why have you just let this damn train wreck keep pushing forward?”

It was a question she asked herself last night, had been asking since the fiasco at the airport. She’d seen the wedding and the over-the-top ridiculousness swelling for days now and had kept quiet, never mentioning to Kona that it was all too much for her. Coupled with their arguing, making up and Keira’s annoyingly incessant worry that she would get lost in the shuffle while Kona took Ransom along with him in his search for the spotlight, she hadn’t found the nerve to speak up. Things were already so stressful, so chaotic, and Keira simply didn’t think she could add more tension to an already tense situation.

The knot that had been so expertly rubbed away during her massage returned, pinching down into Keira’s shoulders and, without really thinking about it, she rubbed her fingers against her skin, watching over the activity in the crowded room while Mark stared at her, his gaze focused and scrutinizing.

“We can get through this. Once we do, things will get back to normal.” Mark didn’t seem convinced and Keira closed her eyes, moving her head in a shake when Mark’s frown only deepened. “Would you please do me a favor and stop stressing me out?” He began to speak, even opened his mouth in some weird variety of an appalled, insulted gasp, but Keira shook her head, stopping him before he could bicker back. “Mark, please. Shit is already more than I can handle. I know you’re worried and I love you for it, but I don’t need you getting in my business. Okay?”

He cleared his throat, looking unhappy and pissy, but nodded once to Keira. “Fine. But if shit like that,” he pointed to the closed glass door behind them, “happens again and Hale isn’t there to handle it, I’m personally going to get in his face.”

“Oh, sweetie, I’d hate for you to get your ass handed to you on my wedding day.” When Keira winked at him, Mark laughed, hugged her tight. She let herself rest against his chest, just for a moment, just for a second so that the pressure mounting in her mind didn’t consume her. It was a brief reprieve, one that Keira appreciated, one she hoped would help her with the escalating storm her wedding day had become.

Keira couldn’t breathe.

Literally.

“Malaine, I think the corset is too tight. I feel like my face is blue. Do I look blue?” Keira’s head felt like it weighed fifty pounds.. That didn’t help her as she looked around the large room just outside the hallway that led to the resort venue. A fifty pound head and a fifteen pound gown made movement nearly impossible and she wasn’t quite ready to test her mobility.

“Cuz, you look fine. Beautiful. Really.” Keira tried to return Malaine’s smile, but the woman tipped her chin and moved away too quickly, falling into a loud conversation with one of the bridesmaids whose name had never registered in Keira’s memory.

There were at least twenty-five people in this room. Bridesmaids decked out in various styles of the same dark pink gowns, large, fresh hibiscuses in their hair, photographers—those who were supposed to be there to document the big day—hair and make-up people touching up curls and cleaning up smeared mascara; resort staff who walked around with trays of champagne and, of course, Leann who’d helped Keira squeeze into the massive, overly expensive gown and Mark who sat in the corner of the room—black tux with the same dark pink tie and a small hibiscus on his lapel— and one hand holding his phone as he texted back and forth to Johnny, the other in a tight grip around a half empty glass of champagne.

Crowds of people. Faces she didn’t know, smiles she appreciated but didn’t find comforting or familiar. Lights, cameras, laughter… Keira thought she might pass out.

“Keira?” She grabbed onto Leann when her cousin knelt down in front of her, pushing a frigid glass of water in her hand. “You don’t look blue. You look pale. What’s wrong?”

“The corset. It’s so tight.”

Leann frowned, pushing aside the long, ornate veil before she moved behind Keira to examine the back of her strapless gown. “Honey, I’ve got two fingers between the corset and your back. It’s not tight at all.”

She handed Leann the water and got up on shaky legs, walking toward the bathroom at the back of the room, not bothering to acknowledge the nods she received around her. “I need a minute,” she told her cousin as she trailed behind Keira, waving to Mark to follow them over her shoulder.

“Sweetie, the ceremony is in forty-five minutes. If you have to pee, we need to be quick about it.”

Keira slipped into the bathroom, which wasn’t much bigger than the tiny apartment Keira had rented when she first landed in Nashville. The bathroom at least had large tile floors and Carrera marble countertops with an ornate mirror of vines and flowers carved into the dark wood frame. The dingy apartment in Nashville had plywood subfloors, sloppily patched holes in the drywall and a cheap orange and brown serape thrown on the floors to act as a rug. Keira had no idea why that stupid place had popped into her mind, but it stuck there as she moved toward the faucet and trickled cold water on her neck and the small wish that she was back at that apartment flittered through her thoughts.

“Keira, don’t get your gown wet,” Leann said, coming into the bathroom with Mark right behind her.

Keira glared at her cousin in the mirror then closed her eyes when she spotted Mark’s frown and the fierce way he chewed on his bottom lip. She didn’t want to hear it. Not now. Not when she only had a few minutes to catch her breath and break from the constant stream of people who kept approaching her, asking her to do one thing or another, asking if she was nervous, telling her she looked beautiful, commenting that Kona and Ransom both had asked why she wasn’t answering her cell.