White Lilies (A Mitchell Sisters Novel) (26 page)

I take a deep breath and look up at the darkening sky.  I don’t know why, but it makes me feel better to do it. Maybe I’m asking God to help me through this. Maybe I’m asking Erin. Either way, I probably need all the help I can get.

I ring the bell. I know I’m still part-owner of the townhouse, but after what I did, I think I lost the right to use my key. My body goes tense. I feel like a goddamn teenage boy calling on his first crush. What the hell is wrong with me?

I see movement when I peek through the sidelight. My breath catches when she turns on a light and comes into full view. My eyes instantly fall on her perfectly rounded stomach before making their way to her face. I’m not sure what I expected. I knew she’d be bigger by now, but I didn’t expect her to be more beautiful. Her dark-blonde hair is long and down, bouncing around her shoulders with every step. Her legs look toned and shapely in the leggings she’s wearing, and her tight green blouse is stressed by her growing breasts, accentuating her belly that’s now the size of a small soccer ball.

In the darkness of the porch, I know she can’t see me staring at her. It’s a good thing, because I can’t tear my eyes away. She’s so damn beautiful. Shivers, that I’m positive aren’t from the cold, run down my spine.

The porch light flickers on and she looks at me through the window. I can’t tell for sure, but I think she gasps. Her hand goes to her belly and she glances briefly over her shoulder before locking eyes with me. Those eyes—the shirt she’s wearing makes them an even more stunning green than they already are.

I have the sudden urge to photograph her. It’s a desire I haven’t felt in months. I haven’t snapped a picture of anyone or anything since the days before Erin’s death.

Right this second, I can’t wait to wrap my hands around a camera again. My fingers ache to move their way around the focus and bring Skylar into frame. I want to capture this look she has on her face. I can’t quite figure it out, but I think she’s warring with herself. I swear I see two different emotions behind those emerald eyes. Relief and . . . anger? Whatever they are, they contradict each other.

Her eyes fall to the bouquet of flowers in my hand. Her gaze softens as she lets out a visible sigh and regards the white lilies with her head tilted to one side. She returns her eyes to mine as she reaches out to unlock the deadbolt.

She opens the door and I feel a rush of warmth graze over me. She wraps her arms around her body and I wonder if it’s from the chill, or merely to protect herself. Both of us are quiet. I had rehearsed what to say a thousand times on the flight. But now, as I stand here, I’m not sure I can get my brain to form the words I need her to hear.

She raises her eyebrows in silence. She’s stubborn. She’s not going to give me the satisfaction of her saying the first words. She’s right. She has nothing to apologize for. This is all on me. My mind races for the appropriate thing to say. What does one say to the woman you abandoned who also happens to be your dead wife’s best friend who is carrying your baby? I step forward and shove the flowers at her as my unfiltered words escape my mouth. “Let’s do this.”

Her face falls. She was expecting so much more and I’ve let her down again. Let
them
down. Her disappointed eyes flicker to the flowers in my outstretched hand. I momentarily wonder if it’s the lilies that have made her sad, or the man holding them. Without a word, her arm reaches up to shut the door.

I put my foot in the doorway so she can’t close it on me. “Wait! That came out wrong. I mean, yes, I want to do this, but I should apologize. I need to apologize first. I’m so sorry for running out on you that way.”

She looks nervously behind her and then comes closer to the barely-open door. “You left, Griffin.” She shakes her head. “I know you loved her and I have no right to claim my grief was any worse than yours. In fact, I’m sure it pales in comparison. But you left. You said everything you needed to say in the note. It was a mistake. You can’t do this. So now, you show up after two months. After I’ve worried myself half to death that you would turn up dead. Or that you would leave the child that Erin so desperately wanted—that you’d leave him by choice. And now you come back and simply say ‘let’s do this?’ Do you expect me to fall at your feet? What exactly is it that you want, Griffin?”

Before I can begin to answer her, I hear a grating male voice. A voice I already know belongs to a man I’ll hate. “Everything okay, Skylar?”

“Yes, everything’s fine.” She opens the door to forge an introduction. “John, this is Griffin. He used to live here before his wife died.”

I eye the man who may not even realize he just became the competition. He has short hair, cut precise and above the ears. His eyes are pale-brown and unassuming. He’s shorter and stockier than I am. He’s got a clean-cut military look and I momentarily wonder if she prefers her men that way. My hand comes up to run through my wavy mane as I finish my assessment of him.

John winces, and then reaches out to shake my hand. “Oh, man. I’m so sorry to hear that.”

I get the idea he doesn’t know the whole story. I want to stare him down and tell him to get the hell out. That Skylar is carrying my baby and what right does he have to be here. I’m not sure why I don’t speak up. Hell, I did it to ward off men in the past. But common sense gets the better of me and keeps me from blurting out anything that could have the potential of upsetting her more than she already is.

“Thanks. I, uh . . . just need a few things. My cameras. My phone. Is it okay if I grab them?”

She breathes out a sigh of relief. She thought I was going to tell him. Ruin her date, or whatever this is. I stretch my neck around them to see the dining room table is set for two and there are candles lit in the center.
Date. Shit.

Why did I think this wouldn’t happen? Because she’s pregnant?

She steps aside and waves me in. “Of course.”

I suddenly remember the flowers I’m holding and feel like a dick intruding on her without warning. I nonchalantly place them on the entry table on my way by.

John walks to the back door. “I’d better check on the steaks. Nice to meet you, Griffin.”

I nod my chin at him as a foreign feeling courses through my body. He’s walking out of
my
back door onto
my
patio, to check on steaks he’s grilling on
my
grill. I want nothing more than to follow him out and pummel his unsuspecting head into
my
concrete wall. I’ve never before wanted to claim anything as badly as I want to claim her right now. She’s carrying my kid, dammit.

Skylar’s eyes find my fisted hands and she questions them with a raise of her brow.

It takes everything I have to relax them before I walk by her. “I’ll just be a minute,” I say.

I take the stairs two at a time and race to my room. The sooner I can get out of here, the better. I stop cold when I reach the threshold of the master suite. The room has been transformed. The furniture Erin and I had in here is all gone, replaced by some pieces from the guest room, the couch that was in my studio, and some stuff I recognize from Skylar’s old place. I briefly close my eyes as the light scent of her flowery perfume hits me.

My eyes fall on her bed. The bed we made love on. The sheets are rumpled and I have a moment of unbridled anger wondering if John has been on it.

Then I see the picture on her nightstand. It’s one I took at the picnic when Erin and Skylar both had the same shade of brown hair. Skylar is standing, looking down at Erin who is kneeling next to her, touching her barely-there baby bump. It’s the kind of picture you would expect to see of a husband as he admires his pregnant wife. Yet it speaks volumes of their special friendship. I think Erin might have been right about the two of them being soul mates. This picture is a testament to that. Even being the professional I am, I couldn’t have picked a better picture to display.

“I’m sorry,” Skylar says, coming up behind me. “I know it must be hard for you seeing my things in here.”

“It’s fine.” If she only knew. If I could only tell her that’s not it at all. If I only had the balls to say my reaction is not because this room is no longer Erin’s, but purely because I want nothing more than to take Skylar in my arms and have another incredible night with her. Only this time, I wouldn’t run away. I would stay and worship every single inch of her over and over again. But I can’t say it. Especially not with
him
just down the stairs.

“I had Mason move your belongings down the hall, and I boxed up Erin’s clothes and moved them to the basement.” I turn to look at her and she says in barely a whisper, “I didn’t know what to do with them.”

“I know. It’s okay.” I walk past her, taking one last glance back at the bed. On the way to the guest room, I pass the nursery. I pause in the doorway and see it hasn’t been changed a bit since Erin decorated it. I make my way into the guest room to see my furniture. It overtakes the room, this huge, oak, four-poster bed Erin insisted we buy as our first piece of furniture in our new home.

When I see the nightstand on my side of the bed—
do I even have a side anymore?
—my breath catches as I spot the picture of Erin when she was young and going through chemo. Skylar set up this room exactly like it had been before. Right down to my cell phone that still sits plugged in and on top of a book I was reading.

I retrieve my phone and charger and I open the closet to grab a few of my favorite shirts. I walk out into the hallway to see Skylar leaning against the wall. “I’ll come back another time for more.”

She doesn’t say a word, she just nods.

Going back down the stairs, I look over the family pictures that Erin had so tastefully displayed on our wall. Skylar hasn’t removed any of them. The photo from our wedding is still in a prominent place in the center of the wall. There are new additions in the mix, however, that include pictures from Skylar’s family. There’s even a picture of Erin and me holding the ultrasound photo. It was one of the last pictures taken of her before she started looking really sick, right before she asked us not to take any more of her.

Walking through the living room, the silver urn on the mantle catches my eye, making me stop in my tracks. I go over to it and trace Erin’s etched name with my finger.

“I didn’t know what to do with that, either,” Skylar’s soft voice speaks behind me. “I couldn’t bear to put it in storage with her clothes. It didn’t seem right.”

“No, it’s the perfect place, until we can figure out a better one.” I thought about it a lot the past few months, where to scatter her ashes. I have an idea. But it’s not entirely my decision to make.

I glance out the back door to see John pretending to mind the steaks, which are probably overdone by now. He’s shivering, having gone out without a coat. I debate telling him it’s okay to come back inside, but then I think better of it. Let him freeze his balls off out there. Cold balls, tough steak, unwelcome visitor. Makes for one bad date if you ask me.

I head down to the basement. My studio is exactly as I left it, with a few exceptions. The couch from my bedroom has been switched with the couch that was once here. On the couch is a picture of me. One Skylar took of my dad and me at the picnic. Sitting next to it is my favorite camera. I know for a fact I didn’t leave it there.

I pick up the camera and find a large duffle bag to put it and some of my others into. I stare at the wall full of pictures. Pictures of Erin. Pictures of Skylar. They all make me happy. They all make me sad. I look for my favorite one, but it’s not there. Then I notice it on the floor.

That’s right; I dropped it there when I started kissing Skylar that night. She left it there. For two months, she’s left it sitting on the floor. Discarded like a piece of forgotten trash. Is that how she felt? How she feels? Like something I so carelessly discarded? I stare at it. She’s so beautiful lying on the grass, her small hand pressed against the side of her barely-there belly. And the look on her face, I’m not sure I’ve ever captured a look like it in any photo I’ve ever taken. It makes me wonder if Aaron was moving inside her. She looks more at peace than I’ve ever seen anyone.

I pick it up and put it in my bag.

Not that I need a picture to remember Skylar. Her heart-shaped face. Her wavy hair that wants to be brown as much as it wants to be blonde. Her emerald eyes that put even the most priceless gems to shame. They are all burned into my memory.

Seeing the photos reminds me of what’s in my pocket. I take the box out and run my fingers over it. I swing my bag over my shoulder and go back up the stairs.

“Maybe it would be best if I left, Skylar,” John says, as I ascend the last few steps unnoticed.

Yes, John. Leave
. I wonder if he feels the tension between Skylar and me. Surely it’s thick enough to penetrate his rough exterior and clean-shaven pretty-boy face.

“No, don’t leave. He’ll only be another minute, I’m sure.”

Damn
. She didn’t take the out. Maybe this is when I play the baby-daddy card. Get rid of him for good. I round the corner, ready to play my hand and damn the consequences. Then I see his hand on her arm, rubbing up and down as she looks into his eyes. They like each other. This isn’t a first date. Maybe it isn’t even a second date. All I can think of right now is punching Mason in the jaw for not warning me that she’s found someone. Someone to replace me. Someone to raise Aaron. Because the way he’s looking at her right now, it’s the way I want to be looking at her. It’s the way I want to be touching her.

She notices me and jerks her arm away from him, much to his dismay. His eyes look back and forth between us before falling on her belly. I wonder if he’s just now putting it all together. He puts a possessive arm around her as her guilty eyes find mine. What are her eyes trying to tell me? That she’s with him but doesn’t want to be? That she’s moved on but doesn’t want to flaunt it?

Maybe he’s the only one she could find willing to take on a pregnant single woman.

I shake my head at the ridiculous thought. Even twenty-eight weeks pregnant, she probably has guys lining up to date her. She’s got this uncanny ability to draw men in and place them under her spell. She has no idea about all the men I had to drive away. No idea that eyes followed her everywhere. No idea of the intimidating stares, threats, and even punches I doled out to keep away the masses.