Written on Her Heart (20 page)

“You’re amazing.” Clarissa wiped renegade tears from her cheek.

“Sure. When everyone assumed I was on house arrest or something, I let them.” She barked a laugh. “I preferred people think I was arrested than know I had a heart attack. By the time I moved home again, it felt like old news. ‘I had a heart attack three years ago.’ So, I kept up the big secret act.” She stuffed her mouth with Combos, shaking her head with every crunch. “How twisted am I?”

“Not. You were young and hurt and afraid. I was hurt too, you know. That was my problem. I got my feathers ruffled when you wouldn’t return my calls. At first I figured you were
pissy
about getting kicked out of school, or whatever happened. Then, I started seeing you with Heather, and I was straight ticked.” She frowned. “Listen to me. I’m twelve years old.”

Emma never considered Clarissa could be hurt until she laid into her at the festival. She definitely never thought about how she might feel cast off when Heather took her place as confidant. Emotion curled over her tongue.

“Heather’s a nurse at the hospital where I recovered. She stayed after her shifts playing Euchre with me. I guess we bonded, and when I came home, she checked up on me. We kept in touch, and then she got a job at the hospital in Circleville, so she moved home to Honey Creek. You know she remembers us from high school. I don’t remember her, but she hated us.”

“We were mean.”

“Yeah.” The girls relaxed side by side into Clarissa’s porch swing and talked until the leftover twinkle lights of the festival told them they’d better eat something more substantial than Pop Rocks and Combos.

“You want pizza?” Clarissa pulled her phone from her pocket.

“Salad?” She’d eaten enough sugar and starch already to send her mom into a complete panic. Better to balance it out with something green.

“Right.” Clarissa looked sternly at the phone. When Catch 22 answered, she said, “I’d like to order two cob salads please.”

Emma knew the world would be right again soon. With Clarissa and her mother back on her team, she couldn’t lose. Heather would flip out when she heard about this spontaneously rekindled friendship. Best of all, she’d be happy for her.

“Isn’t that your guy?” Clarissa poked her shoulder with one long pink fingernail.

Across the street, Nicholas disassembled the judges’ tents. Even in the evening light and with his back to her, she recognized him. She loved him. What she didn’t know was whether he’d ever forgive her. He tried hard for days to get her to talk to him, and she’d done everything she could to pretend he didn’t exist. She’d hoped her heart would believe her.

Her heart hadn’t listened, but he had.

Chapter Seventeen

“Fancy running into you here.” Dr. Kennedy meandered across the grass toward the willow tree. An expectant expression on her face. She looked different in a ponytail and sundress. In fact, if she hadn’t spoken, he wouldn’t have recognized her at all. The navy dress was casual, unlike anything he’d ever seen her in, and he commended her attempt to stray from brown. Perhaps the red framed photo in her office was rubbing off on her.

Nicholas wiped his brow with the back of his arm and squinted in her direction. Sweat stung his eyes. He turned back to the earth he’d worked all morning. He’d been cultivating the area around the tree since sun up, eager to get started putting his life back together. The work had an unexpected effect on him. Instead of taking his mind off things like it had before Emma, all he could think about was her. Life had come to an apex. He felt a sad smile creep up. He didn’t want to be the guy who classified his life into two parts, before and after one girl. Resting on one knee, he surveyed his work. Honing his attention somewhere useful. All the grass inside his stick and twine perimeter was gone. Thanks to two hard hours of shoveling and rolling, things were starting to level up.

“Back to your old busy self?” She blocked the sun. One hand shaded her eyes. Considering the drive she made to find him, he was in trouble. Probably he needed to talk his way out of it.

“Yep.”

“You haven’t come to see me in two weeks. I miss our little chats.” She tossed her purse on the ground and squatted beside him, clutching her arms around her knees and dress. “I’m starting to take it personally.”

“So, you didn’t come to enjoy the beach? Take a swim? Play some volleyball? The fishing’s good.”

“Nope.”

When he dared face the music, he found a tight little smile on her lips. Guess they needed to get on with it. Whatever she had to say, he planned to appreciate it, thank her and walk her back to her car. Nicholas had plenty to do, and daylight didn’t last forever.

“You stalk all your patients?”

“Only the ones who dump me without notice. Last time we talked you had things happening. Things besides more work.” Dr. Kennedy ducked her head.

“I got the gazebo job.” He held a hand out to showcase the dirt all around them.

“Looks nice.”

Nicholas took a deep breath and turned to sit in the grass. Maybe he could wait her out. They watched the children running along the beach for several minutes. Parents chasing frantically behind. The day was plenty hot, but the beach crowd had thinned. Kids would be back in school soon. Summer wrapped up before it ended.

“I always hated August. There’s another two or three months of weather warm enough to go barefoot, but everyone says fall’s here. Last year I helped Old Man
MacIntosh
pick pumpkins in flip-flops.”

“Sounds like what you’re saying is things aren’t over until they’re over.”

He snorted and looked away. Nicholas shook his head. She had him. He meant people pack up and leave too soon, but she’d think those words meant something else too. Pointing out the ones who walk away and miss another month of summer wouldn’t get him any farther. He didn’t walk away. Did she think he did? He’d begged, and Emma shut him out like he was a door-to-door salesman: unwanted, unimportant, rejected. She didn’t even bother to scream at him. Didn’t waste the effort to tell him he sucked. She cut him loose.

Nicholas rubbed a filthy hand over the back of his neck and tried not to growl. His heart belonged to her, and she couldn’t care less. “Are we having a session now? Can I pay you in chili cheese fries from the concession stand because I don’t have my insurance card on me?” He dared a look her way, patting his pockets.

She raised her eyebrows. “I’ve been seeing you for years. You’ve never missed an appointment without a call. Even on days you sat there the entire hour telling me about nothing, avoiding the issues with stories about Mavis’s gray muzzle or how some train made you late for a movie, you still came. Still pretended the session mattered.”

“It matters. I like coming to see you. You’re the only person who knows all my stuff, good and bad. And you’re okay with it. I’ve never found that anywhere before.”

“Haven’t you?”

Sneaky. Her husband must have his hands full. Ten to one he never got away with anything.

A glint of light in the distance caught his eye. He knew without looking what it was. He’d become so sensitive to the flash he whipped his head up and watched for the reflecting light, hoping to find her. This time she sat on the dam, adjusting her focus. Sunlight caught in the glass of the lens as she adjusted her position, swinging the camera in her hand. His eyes trailed over her tiny form. From where he sat she looked like a drawing, and it took all his strength not to dig out his journal and sketch her there. She was delicate and beautiful against a strong cement wall. Peaceful above angry rushing water.

Dr. Kennedy watched her too. “She’s beautiful.”

As much as he wanted to play dumb, he wouldn’t. She’d catch him. Love struck blinked like a neon sign over his forehead. Everyone else he talked to saw it. And gave advice. “Yep.”

“Have you tried talking to her?”

He felt his face crunch. A stupid question for a smart lady.

“Okay. What did she say? Why does she tell you she’s unhappy? What’s the complaint? If you know the problem, you can appeal to it.”

“She won’t talk me, look at me, listen to me. She’s done with me. Period. And I know the complaint. I betrayed her. Right off the start and before she ever knew how I felt. The first thing she learned about me is I’m deceitful. Hell, I don’t blame her for writing me off.”

Dr. Kennedy smiled wide. All her perfect white teeth exposed. Nice to know his misery brought her some entertainment. He looked away from her face aggravated, tempted to toss a handful of sod onto her pretty blue dress.

“You’re on to something there.”

“On to what? I’m a class-A douche? I got the message loud and clear.”

“No.” She made a disgusted face. “No. You think she’s written you off. Maybe. Maybe not. We each express hurt in our own ways. Shutting you out is a standard defense mechanism. She’s protecting herself emotionally. Maybe you need to write to her.”

“Like in my journal?”

She smiled. “Interesting idea.”

Hope touched his chest, compressing his breath. Heat flickered over the back of his neck and he rubbed it away. “Don’t you think showing up with the journal I lied about is a
bad
idea, Doc? Seems like that’d tick her off.” He looked back to see Emma had shifted onto her tummy and leaned over the dam’s edge. He hated when she did that. What if she fell? No one even knew she was there.

What did he have to lose? She’s already read all his other private thoughts, and she accepted him anyway. He needed a way to tell her he loved her too.

“My advice is make sure the people you love know it. We aren’t promised tomorrow.”

“And if she doesn’t love me back?” Nicholas jumped to his feet. Emma crossed the grass at the bottom of the dam, walking swiftly in his direction.

Dr. Kennedy laid one hand on his shoulder. “I need to go. I’ll see you next week. I want to hear about how you handle this.”

He turned to ask what made her think he still had a chance. To demand more information. More hope. But Dr. Kennedy jogged away toward the parking lot. She did drive all the way to the lake to talk to him. Somehow his therapist cared about his love life. Though, she was a strange bird to take off the way she did. He chuckled to himself and hoped to share the smile with Emma.

She stood stalk still 100 yards away. For a long beat, he thought he might have the chance to talk to her face to face. She teetered another minute before turning on her toes and heading for the lodge. Chasing her was out of the question. Running her down didn’t say, “I love you.” His gaze fell to the satchel near his water bottle and work gloves. He hadn’t made a single entry since he got his journal back. Writing in it felt wrong.

Emma disappeared around the front of the lodge in one direction, and Dr. Kennedy was long gone, to the parking lot in the other.

****

Mavis puttered around the front porch, looking unsettled. Her nails click-clacked until Nicholas gave in. He patted the wicker bench beside him and her tail flopped once in excitement. She reached one paw up and then the other. That was the end of her effort.

Yawrrr
, she yodeled.

“Jeez.” He put the journal down on the side table and bent to hoist her up alongside him. Hard to believe how much she’d grown. Coming back from Iraq had left him troubled. Nightmares plagued him, and the emptiness of his new house gave him chills. When his mom showed up with a puppy she claimed to have found along the road, he kissed her. Back then Mavis fit into his hands. She could sleep on his forearm, legs dangling over each side.

“Your vet’s going to give me hell about your weight again,” he complained. She rolled her big eyes up at him. “It wouldn’t hurt to get a little exercise, like jumping onto the bench for example, instead of waiting for a boost. If you get any bigger I’m going to need a forklift to get you into the truck.”