What Endures (13 page)

“I’m not mad at you.” She went over and sat down on the couch. “It’s not your fault. You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I mean, you can’t help how you feel. Or don’t feel. You can’t help that you don’t remember me.”

“But that’s just it. I don’t know how I feel. And I. . .” He stopped and shook his head tiredly. “I don’t remember and I want to. But separate from that, I want to get to know you. Even if there wasn’t all this stuff between us, I know that you’re the kind of person I’d want to get to know.”

She could feel some of her resolve crumbling and fought against it.
Stay in control
she reminded herself. But her heart was desperately crying out for her to let him in. “I. . ..” And then her head unceremoniously and decisively regained control. “I can’t.”

He studied her, as if gauging the strength of her resolve and she fought to keep her face impassive, to show no cracks. He indicated the papers. “What if I don’t sign these?”

“Then you’re going to have some problems,” she returned, her voice light to take away some of the harshness of her words.

“You’d really leave me hanging like that?”

She sighed.
Damn it.
He didn’t know her and yet, in some ways he did. “No. But I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t force my hand like that.”

He looked at the papers for several long beats before he finally nodded. “Got a pen?” She got up and retrieved a pen from the desk and handed it to him. His fingers brushed across her hand and she fought, hard, to ignore the fluttery sensation in her stomach. He scribbled his signature on the forms. When he was done, he held the papers out to her but when she reached for them, he didn’t let go. She looked at him questioningly. “Why does this feel familiar?” His eyes met hers. “Like the last time I signed something to end things with you, I hated it just as much?”

She gasped softly. Involuntarily. She had told herself not to be affected by these moments anymore. Brief flashes of memory on his part didn’t mean anything, she told herself. And yet, it was hard not to react when they popped out of nowhere, especially at that instant, because she had been thinking about the same thing – when they had signed their divorce papers.

“I-I. . .don’t know.”

“You’re a terrible liar, did you know that?” he asked with a small smile.

She flinched. “It’s not important.”

He cleared his throat. “I guess, uh, I guess I should get going then. You probably have a lot to do before you leave.”

She nodded. “Thanks for-”  She indicated the papers.

“Yeah.” An awkward pause. “Have a, um, safe trip.”

“Thanks.”

He looked at her questioningly. “Will you at least call sometime? Just to, you know, check in. I mean if you don’t want to talk to me, I’d understand but there’s Tyler.”

“I’ll call,” she said softly.

 He nodded as he gazed at her with an expression she couldn’t read. She forced herself to meet his gaze unwaveringly. Finally he offered her a smile and then headed for the door. He was almost out in the hallway when he suddenly paused and half-turned to her. His voice was soft, and yet there was no mistaking the intensity in it.  “I really wish I could remember you, Megan.”

Then he was gone and it took every ounce of strength she had not to go running after him.

CHAPTER NINE

May. . .

The nice thing about a small, yet urban, city like Harbor Bay was that, despite the changes that an urban area inevitably went through, Harbor Bay seemed to stay the same in so many ways.

The homes got new coats of paint, and sometimes the owners added on a deck or a porch, but the houses remained essentially the same. As did their occupants. There were new shops and restaurants, but the ones she had grown up with were still there. That old adage, ‘the more things changed, the more they stayed the same’ really applied to Harbor Bay. Past, present and future seemed to co-exist in perfect harmony here.

The last time she had been back here was Christmas. She and Jason had just gotten engaged the month before, and wanted to break the news to their friends and family. Mostly everyone took the news well, some had even joked about them finally getting it right this time. It had been a happy time. How quickly things could change.

One brief instant could change so much.

She pondered this as she sat in her favorite little coffee place, at the same little corner table where she had spent countless hours reading. The view was the same, except Tyler's mom's store across the street was bigger now. When she and Diana had become partners, they had bought the shop next door and had expanded. Who knew Harbor Bay would need a gourmet specialty food store, but
Delights
had really taken off, particularly their mail order business. People would always appreciate quality, and Diana and Marie provided this in spades. Diana did most of the financial and business management while Marie took regular trips to incredible places like Hawaii, Greece, Italy, France and Australia to find and arrange the sale of wonderful treats from around the world. She had spent a few summers working as a clerk in the store, and it had been wonderful.  As she sipped her coffee, she gazed at the store and found the sight comforting.  

On the flight to Harbor Bay, she had her doubts about whether coming to the place where she and Jason had fallen in love was really the best plan. Her doubts had magnified when she had passed the sign at the city’s limits that declared,

Welcome to Harbor Bay. Home of All-Star Outfielder Jason Kincaid.

Bruce Kincaid had harassed the city until they had erected that sign and Jason had hated it. He played baseball for the love of the sport, not for the fame and glory his father was still chasing after all these years. But once she had been inside the city itself, and had seen the familiar sights, she knew she had been right. She needed this familiar and comforting sense of home.

Harbor Bay was the only home she had really known, since she and Jason hadn't really gotten a chance to settle into the Seattle area yet. And as she grew older, her memories of her life in Charleston with her parents seemed to fade a little more. She remembered some places but none of them really meant as much to her as the places and people in Harbor Bay.

She had been back in Harbor Bay for more than a week now, and the familiarity which she thought boring in her youth was now like a baby blanket that she could wrap around herself. Her world had undergone some drastic changes in the last few months.  To be in a place with so much familiarity was soothing. Her soul needed this.

“Ugh!” Marie Adams exclaimed as she came into the coffee shop. “I swear I don't know how Diana makes sense of all those numbers. They look like a secret code to me.” She smiled at Tyler’s mother. Marie didn’t seem to age. If you looked closely enough, you could make out the fine lines around her eyes and lips. She still moved with the same effortless grace, her eyes were perpetually friendly yet probing, and her smile as warm as ever. Marie had been like a second mother to Megan in a lot of ways, and Megan loved her as much as she had loved her aunt and mother. "Sorry I'm late, honey."

She waved off Marie’s apology. “You never did like doing the accounting. I remember when I worked there in the summers, you let me count up the daily receipts.”

“You were better at it."

"On my first day at work!"

Marie smiled at the girl who placed a cup of coffee in front of her.  “I knew you could do it. And I trusted you."

"And you didn't want to do it."

Marie gave her a sheepish smile. "Guilty as charged."

Megan laughed. "I could help if you want."

"Diana's coming back tomorrow." Marie offered her a gentle smile. "She said Jason looked good when she checked in on him."

She offered Marie a small smile. "Tyler tells me the same thing. I'm glad he's doing good."

"Really?"

"I don't want him to suffer."

"Not even a little bit?" Marie probed.

"No," she denied, although Marie was right. The more she heard about how 'good' Jason was doing, the more her heart irrationally hated it. If he meant what he had said in her hotel suite, he would be more broken up. She knew this made no sense. She left so they could both move on.  Wanting him to pine for her was ridiculous but her heart wasn't exactly driven by logic. Which was why she refused to let it take control anymore.

"She said he was doing good," Marie said gently, 'but not great."

"Marie. . ."

"You're looking better too."

"Sleep helps." Then needing to steer the conversation in a different direction, she indicated the store. "You're doing so well. It's like you and Diana are the Martha Stewarts of eastern Maryland."

Marie laughed. "Except we don't have a billion dollars, which would be so nice." Marie made a face. "And Diana and I are the last two people to be giving advice on how to make a good home. I mean we both thought Bruce Kincaid would be good husband material."

"I didn't say you were Dear Abby," Megan teased.

They shared a laugh before Marie checked her watch. "Break's over. I'm the boss and I'm still ruled by the clock." She got up and reached over to give Megan a hug. She straightened but kept her hands on Megan’s shoulders, her expression suddenly serious. “Regret is the hardest thing in the world to fix."

“I don’t. . .”

Marie patted her cheek affectionately. “Just something I learned the hard way and would hate for you to have to do the same.” Marie gave her one last squeeze. "Oh and next time you talk to my son, tell him he's about several weeks overdue on our phone call."

Megan nodded and watched Marie cross the street, hurrying into the store. She sighed. She had limited her contact with Tyler in the last few days. Inevitably, Jason would come up during the course of their conversation and she didn’t know how to deal with it. It also made her realize just how intertwined their lives were. She couldn’t get a complete clean break from Jason even if she wanted to. He was tied to too many people that she loved.

That was the whole point of sharing your life, but right now, it wasn't what she needed. So despite assuring Jason that she would call to ‘check-in,’ she was opting for avoidance at the moment. How long that tactic would last, she didn’t know but for now, it was working.

#

Megan smiled, inhaling the clean air. The woodsy pine smell from the trees behind the baseball field felt good. Even the cold, hard metallic bench of the rusting bleachers, set to the left of home plate and behind the tall, chain linked fence felt good.  

She had spent a lot of time here. Both she and Jason had over the years. They had joked about having their wedding here, partly to piss off his father, who had wanted to have a huge affair, something 'worthy' of Jason’s status as a professional ball player. And partly because they knew it couldn’t happen. The press would have been impossible to control in such a public place and Jason had wanted a private, intimate ceremony. And they would never let the press invade this peaceful haven.

Her father had been the first man to bring her to a baseball field. She remembered he had tried to teach her how to catch. It was one of her enduring memories of him. He had failed spectacularly at that task, but he had instilled in her a love of baseball. They had often taken road trips to see the Rays and Marlins play in Florida, and had even ventured to Texas a few times. They had been regulars at the Knights' and Riverdogs' games in South Carolina. She had loved that time with her father.  They had bonded during those trips and games. And it was often the baseball field where they had their talks, so seeing home plate and the pitcher's mound always invoked a special feeling of comfort in her.

And of course, she had met Jason on a baseball field.

“Hey!”

Megan’s head snapped up from the textbook she had been reading. She spotted the owner of the voice and groaned. A little peace and quiet was apparently too much to ask for. “What?”

Jason Kincaid’s eyebrows rose at her curt response. She would bet most females her age didn’t respond to him in that way. If her observation of her peers at school was any indication, the usual behavior around him involved lots of giggling, fawning and other actions that made her want to barf. Sometimes Megan was ashamed of her gender. “I’m about to do some drills.”

“So?”

His eyes widened in surprise before they narrowed. “So you might want to leave.”

“Last time I checked, you didn’t own this park.”

He shrugged, coming closer. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m sitting behind home plate,” she pointed out. “If your drills have you throwing or hitting anything behind that, maybe baseball’s not your sport.”

His face stilled in shock before he burst out laughing. “Damn. You don’t pull any punches.”

“You don’t miss much.”

He grinned, coming around the fence to stand by the bleachers where she sat. Megan couldn’t help noticing how handsome he was. She might not be a fawning female but she had eyes and Jason Kincaid was, she had to agree with her peers, hot. He was wearing work out shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt that displayed his muscular, tanned arms to perfection. He had the classic baseball player build, but he wasn’t as bulky like a lot of pro outfielders. He was tall, with broad shoulders, a muscular chest and narrow waist that tapered down to lean hips and strong, powerful legs. He had taken off his baseball cap so his eyes were no longer covered and the vivid green of his eyes coupled with the long dark lashes had her stomach fluttering. Especially since those eyes were focused intently on her.

“You’re Tyler’s girl aren’t you?”

“What?”

“You guys are always around each other.” Jason’s eyebrows furrowed. “Although he never has you over to the house, or up in his room.” He gave her a teasing grin. “Are you his beard?”

“So if a guy isn’t a manwhore like you, he must be gay?”