Summer's Road (23 page)

I had questions for Sharon. Like why had she come back only to leave again? Or how was it a mother could abandon her child? What happened to keep her away? Why had Daddy lied?

To be comfortable enough in my decision to officially end things with Matt and go for it with Ian required me to look into my past, possibly explain some things and get answers. Maybe it would help me understand myself, why I was the way I was. The past had shaped me into who I am, good and bad, and I guess I just didn’t trust I could be happy.

Or, really, that I deserved it.

I couldn’t keep doing this to myself. Dee had been right to confront me. It was the kick I’d needed.

An image of Matt standing in my driveway holding a bouquet of daisies flooded my mind. It had been a simple and sweet offer. And it had meant something to me. Daisies, my favorite. It meant Matt cared enough to notice the details, to get beneath the surface of what I showed others and really know me. That one tiny little gesture kept tripping me up because...it was more than Ian had ever tried to do. Yes, Ian took care of me. Yes, Ian cared. Yet, I thought he’d been so wrapped up in those things, he couldn’t see past that to...
me
.

If I mailed this invitation, maybe I could get answers. Closure. Family.

Or forgive myself.

I sighed. That was a lot of maybes.

Placing the invitation in an envelope, I addressed it, stamped it, and prayed to God it was the right thing to do.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Four Years Ago—Age Twenty-Four

T
he fact I’d been plateau-ing on my current anti-depressants only added to the downslide. I’d been too busy taking care of Daddy to let my doc know my body had built up a tolerance and they were no longer affective. My friends were here, had been talking about me as if I wasn’t aware, like I’d already vanished into the void of nothing that beckoned. They’d come after the funeral...two days ago? A week? Ian, Rick, Dee...one after another. They never left me alone. Ian most of all. Begging me to get up. To shower. To look at him. To drink tea. To say something.

Their voices rose from the living room, up the stairs to where I was, and I just wanted them to go the hell away. White noise. Nothing but white noise. Static and humming rattling in my ears.

Nothing mattered anymore.

The kitchen door opened and closed. Blessed silence followed.

With great effort, I turned my head, avoiding the fragments of light reflecting off the IV bag. The mechanical bed’s mattress was too firm, digging into my joints now that I’d turned off the circulation machine.

Daddy had spent his remaining few months here in this bed until that last trip to the hospital. My last ditch attempt to get him to change his mind about a feeding tube to prolong the process. He wouldn’t do it.

In the aftermath, I’d gotten through the funeral in autopilot. Did what I had to do to put Daddy to rest. I hadn’t eaten in I couldn’t remember how long. I couldn’t muster the energy to care about anything. My bones ached and my muscles were flaccid and my stomach clutched. I wanted nothing more than to be left alone. I deserved that, didn’t I? After everything? And sleep. I needed more sleep. I was so damn tired all the time, my eyelids so heavy. Maybe if I slept long enough, I wouldn’t wake up and this agonizing pain would end.

I burrowed deeper into Daddy’s bed, covering my head with the quilt. It didn’t smell like him anymore, like aged pine and Ivory soap. The expulsion of that little vice nearly tore me in half. A sob ripped from my chest. Tears poured from my eyes, hot against my cheeks and trailing onto the pillow. Even his scent had been taken away. Everything had been taken away. I was alone now. With Daddy dead and my mother nothing but a ghost of someone’s memory, I was utterly, utterly alone.

I just wanted to curl up and die, too.

Ian had taken the medicine out of the room once before, but a bottle of sleeping pills and an old Morphine prescription of Daddy’s were clutched in my hand. Two more bottles of painkillers sat on the nightstand within reach. I’d snuck them out of the bathroom earlier. Yesterday? That should be enough pills. When I could move, I would use them. Swallow them like I’d tried and failed to do with the pain and it would all end.

God, it hurt so bad.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. I almost groaned, but it required too much energy. Someone stopped outside the room and sighed. In my cocoon of blankets, I couldn’t see who, but I knew it was Ian. He paused, and I assumed he was staring at me, trying to find a way to reach me. He wouldn’t. The dark was too welcoming, the end my only hope.

“Summer, sweetheart.” His voice was rough, like he’d been yelling. The bed dipped with his weight and the corner of the quilt lifted from my head.

I blinked, frowning at the needling invasion of light, and tried to pull the blanket back. It wouldn’t give. His face appeared before mine, cheek resting on the pillow beside me. His eyes were red-rimmed, his hair disheveled, and more than a week’s worth of whiskers covered his jaw. Shadows pooled under his eyes as he looked at me, looked right inside me, and our pain collided. His lips pressed together in a tight line and his eyebrows connected in a frown as if he were holding on by a thread not to weep.

The bed shifted. He lifted his hand and drew a ragged breath, skimming his palm over my matted hair. “Sweetheart, please. I’m five seconds from carting you off to the hospital. Don’t make me take you there. I’m worried fucking sick. What can I do? Tell me, and I’ll do it.”

I closed my eyes, not wanting to see his pain, feel it. The burden of his on top of mine would cripple me.

His forehead rested against mine, and his movement caused the pills in my hands to rattle. He stilled, then eased away slowly, eyes round in horror. “Summer?” His voice broke on my name, a panicked, jagged whisper. He sat up so fast dizziness swamped me. The blanket tore off my body. “Christ, no.” He muttered to himself, to me, babbling incoherent words. I tried to hold on, but he forced my fingers loose and took the meds away. He held up the bottles, studying them as if counting how many were left, his hands shaking.

“Give them back,” I begged. Didn’t he get it? I needed them. They’d all be so much better off without me.

His tortured gaze landed on the nightstand and he made a noise like a wounded animal. Swiping the remaining medicine into his hands, he stormed from the room. The toilet lid cracked against the tank. Pills landed in water with a
splat
. The
whoosh
of a flush followed.

I clutched the sheets, weeping. Now what would I do to end it all? In the distance, just beyond the buzz and hum in my ears, water started running.

Ian reemerged and lifted me, carrying me away from the sanctity of bed. Wanting to fight, I raised my arm, but I was too weak and it fell limp. He took us into the bathroom, stepped over the threshold of the tub, and banded his arms around me.

A shock of freezing water poured over my head, my neck, down my back, and I screamed. Clawing at him, I attempted to climb up his body, get away from the jarring cold, but he held me firm. I lifted my head and glared at him, hissing through clenched teeth. A shiver wracked my body, convulsing through my limbs as my teeth chattered.

We were nose to nose, fully dressed, and at a standstill. Fierce determination and frenetic worry looked back at me through dark chocolate eyes. Water sluiced over his head. He blinked past the torrent, gaze never leaving mine.

After a few moments, his rigid muscles relaxed and he sighed. “There you are.” His tone was still wrecked, but relief seeped through the rough timbre, as if he’d been searching for and finally had found me. “There’s my girl.”

Reaching behind us, he adjusted the spray to a hotter setting, never looking away from my eyes. Like a beacon, I latched onto the connection and fisted my hands in his drenched shirt. Hot water replaced the cold and he sat on the floor of the tub, me cradled in his lap.

He pushed wet strands of hair from my face and cupped my cheek, his calloused palm rough in contrast to the gentle touch. “I got you. I’ve always got you.” His gaze swept my face and tears shone in his eyes. “Never forget that.”

I nodded. Sobbed. “I’m sorry.”

His chest hitched and he pressed a kiss to my forehead, trembling despite the steam swirling around us.

Present

“
I
still say you should have Ian here with you for this, not me.” Rick shoved his hands into his pockets.

I gave him a baleful look. “
You’re
the accountant.”

“
He’s
the business owner, and you’re avoiding him.”

Yeah, well, couldn’t deny that one. I couldn’t shake all the doubts in my head. We had such a good thing going. I’d cook dinner at his place, we’d have eyes-rolling-back-in-my-head, I-can’t-move sex afterward. We laughed. We talked. We acted like a normal couple. But the past couple days, I’d made excuses about needing to paint in order to avoid him. The painting part was true, not that I’d gotten any work done.

I just...I just couldn’t lose him. And I somehow knew I would. The kind of happy he made me never lasted.

I was trying, though. So hard, I was trying. For him. Ian had been right in what he’d said at Seasmoke. I couldn’t trust myself to be happy. And the only time in my life I could remember ever being that way was with him. Our childhood, our teen years—all him. It was like being inside a glass room. I could see the possibilities, but couldn’t reach them. I didn’t know how to break the window.

Sighing, I looked around the commercial space for sale. I had been toying with the idea of opening my own store for so long now. And Rick was right. Ian should be here. He worried about me so much that any time something was wrong or I thought about moving forward, a part inside of me froze when it came time to include him. I loved him so much, first as friends, then as more, that the thought of hurting him like I’d selfishly done after Daddy died tore me to shreds. I was trying so hard to be brave for him when I didn’t need to anymore. Another cycle I couldn’t break. He enabled the pattern, too. Thing was, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t trust me. He didn’t either. His reactions all our lives proved he didn’t think I could stand on my own two feet, couldn’t be strong enough to make it.

Glass room.

The realtor impatiently tapped the toe of her navy blue, open-toed pump on the linoleum floor. I wondered how a foot her size squeezed into them. Darcy Mae Wilmot of Wilmot Realty was a three hundred pound woman with big bar hair straight out of 1985, and she didn’t look pleased to be here. Apparently, office space was beneath her. She lifted her brows and cleared her throat. Loudly.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and looked at Rick. “What do you think?”

He pondered a moment, tilting his head. “Honestly, this is a really tough economy to be starting a business right now. It’s going to eat up the rest of your dad’s life insurance money.” Rick rubbed his chin. “On the other hand, it is reasonably priced and you would have quite a few customers, or students, already. The location is right smack dab in the tourist trap.”

I wanted to have a summer art program for school age kids and move the Saturday art therapy classes here year round. I could sell my paintings, too. That was the tentative business plan, with other ideas Rick had incorporated for later.

I pointed to the west wall. “I could hang paintings there. It’s right behind the counter and easily seen. And back there,” I pointed to my right, “I could put up the kids’ work for display. There’s room for at least fifteen easel stations and the back area is perfect for storage. Good light.”

Rick looked at me with a knowing grin. “Thought a lot about it, eh?” He turned to the realtor. “I think she’ll take it.”

I flung myself into his arms, holding tight as he spun me around.

W
ith the old owners anxious to sell, I was able to close on my new studio in a little less than four days. I was beside myself with excitement. It was a ginormous step, but I was going to make it work.