Wynn in Doubt (10 page)

C
RAIG
H
OUSE

C
IRCA 1878

T
HIS HOME HAS BEEN LOVINGLY RESTORED BY

THE
K
ENTUCKY
H
ISTORICAL
S
OCIETY.

V
ISITORS WELCOME.

P
LEASE STAY OFF THE GRASS.

“I don’t know about you, but I did not see that coming.” Oliver leans over in his seat to get a better look at the house.

I park in an area on the right marked for visitors. It feels like I’ll break into a million pieces as my feet touch the earth. Not only is Michael Craig’s home still standing, it’s a freaking museum.

“Don’t let me forget to send that receptionist a thank-you note for all her help.” My words drip with sarcasm.

“Go easy on her. It’s got to be hard remembering historical landmarks with everyone’s auras getting in the way all the time.”

We walk up the steps to the front door. I pull the handle, but it remains closed. Locked. Oliver bends to read a sign taped to a large front window.

“Closed weekends,” he says. His worried gaze darts to mine.

I keep hold of the knob. The excitement I felt in the car falls away.

“Shit. Wynn . . .”

“No.” I shake my head. “It’s fine, really. I wasn’t sure we’d find anything down here, let alone the house she may’ve lived in.”

“Still . . .”

He doesn’t need to say it. I know what he’s thinking. This was meant to be a weekend trip. I told Lucky I’d be back for my shift on Monday. I can’t leave him scrambling to cover for me. It’s not fair. It’s not what a
responsible
person would do. It’s not what
I
do.

“I’ll just come down another weekend. No big deal.” The voice inside, the one that whispers excuses, says the words are a lie. A front. A way to prevent me from feeling hurt or disappointment.

He reaches out, and I let him pull me against his chest. I put my arms around his back and hold him. We haven’t been this close since the night he kissed me. I’m very aware of him. Of the sound of his heart beneath my ear. Of the way his shirt smells, like fabric sheets. It’s warm and soft against my cheek. I snuggle as close as I can get. Oliver’s thumb finds a patch of skin above my shorts, and he rubs the spot tenderly. I close my fingers around his shirt, crumpling the material in my hand. His mouth moves against the top of my head as he presses a kiss against my hair.

“There’s nothing to worry about, you know.”

Only, I don’t know that. The thread that keeps tugging at my stomach is pulled so tight, it feels frayed, close to breaking. Finding out what happened to Lola and what drove her away from my grandmother feels urgent in a way I don’t fully understand. It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t explain it. I just know that somehow our paths are crossed, that her past and my future share a connection. But right now all I have are questions. And I need answers.

I lift my head, angling away from his body so I can see his eyes. Now they remind me of the sky just before the rain, a dark, swirling gray. I part my lips to draw in breath. I want him. I need him.

He raises a hand to my cheek and drags his calloused thumb across it. “The freckles on your nose are the same color as your eyes.” I watch his mouth form each word. “Did you know that?” His lips move closer to mine. I make a fist with the shirt in my hand, drawing the material tight across his back.

A buzzing feeling begins against my upper thigh. I ignore it. My eyelids get heavier the closer his lips come, but the vibration is persistent.

“What is that?” he says, his voice gruff.

I let my head fall forward against his chest, the moment gone. “My phone,” I mumble against his shirt as I reach into my pocket. Franny’s face lights up the screen. “It’s my sister.”

Oliver squeezes my shoulders. “Better get it.”

I tap the answer button with my thumb. “Hi, Franny.”

“Mom told me everything. She’s been crying, Wynn. What’s gotten into you?”

I sigh heavily and turn away from Oliver. “I don’t want to do this with you right now.”

“Too bad. Mom said she asked you not to go.”

“She did.”

“And you went anyway.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement of my poor judgment in her eyes. “The woman you’re chasing abandoned her child,
your
grandmother. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Of course it does, but . . . I just think there’s got to be a reason.”

“Yes, and here it is. She was an asshole.”

Her voice is loud. I pull the phone away from my ear. Oliver raises his dark eyebrows and smirks. Whatever else this journey is, it’s brought me something I didn’t know was possible. It’s brought me him. And it’s made me look at my life. I can’t turn back. I won’t.

“I’m sorry, Franny. I know the timing isn’t right, and I don’t want to hurt Mom or disrespect Grams’s wishes, but I know that there’s more to this story. I want to know what it is.”

My sister is quiet. I imagine her face pinched in irritation, a look she usually reserves for Tabby. “She asked you not to go, Wynn. You have to do the right thing here. Drop this and come home.”

The porch creaks beneath my Keds. I’m so tired of have-tos. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Tell Mom . . . tell her I love her.” I press “End” and look at the man across from me.

His lips are tilted up in approval. “So what now?”

I wave the phone in front of me. “Now I get to text my boss that I’m not coming back on time and hope he doesn’t fire me.”

“He won’t fire you.”

“Oh yeah?” I fire off a quick text to Lucky.

Trip delayed, don’t know how long. Will text when I’m back. Sorry.

My eyes return to Oliver. “Well, maybe you can put in a good word for me.”

He lifts his arms and runs both hands over the top of his hair, making it slightly disheveled. “Hey, if anyone’s getting fired, it’s the new guy,” he says, jabbing a thumb into his chest. “Anyway, what makes you think he’ll listen to a word I’ve got to say?”

“Since you came back, business has tripled.”

“I do know how to make a mean bottle of beer.”

I laugh. What else am I going to do? “Well, I guess this means we’re staying through the weekend, and that we’ll soon be unemployed.”

“I guess it does.”

“Alright.” I try to keep the exhilaration from overtaking my face. This moment. Right here. This is me falling. “Let’s get out of here.”

He extends his arm and bows. “After you.”

I walk to the car and he follows. I’m spending the weekend with Oliver Reeves. I don’t know if I’ll have a job when I get back. I told my sister to shove it (sort of). I smile, big and stupid, and head for the car.

The interior is hot and muggy. I turn the ignition and run the AC at full power. Oliver sits contented as ever, watching as I melt in the dense Kentucky heat.

“Well? Thoughts? Ideas?” I ask.

He cranes his neck to look out the back window. “Get a hotel?”

I busy myself with getting back to the main road as a heat wave that has nothing to do with the temperature outside spreads across my chest. I stop just ahead of the entrance ramp. “Okay. We’re in Kentucky for the weekend. What’re we going to do until Monday?”

He shrugs. “I think we’re pretty close to Bardstown. Why don’t we check it out? Just see where the road takes us?”

“Which one? The open road, the road to perdition, the one less traveled?”

He barely suppresses a grin and points left. “Just drive, nerd.”

The sheets are stretched to a military standard beneath the coverlet. I get out of bed and pull until every inch of starched white cotton hangs loose over the mattress. I can’t sleep confined. I need room to flail and toss. I flip the switch on the lamp beside the bed and close my eyes.

It’s impossible. When Oliver Reeves is sleeping on the other side of a wall from you, sleep is impossible. He booked two rooms in a show of polite chivalry, and I cursed him for it. When he left me at my door after dinner, I thought, for a moment, that he might ask to come inside. But he just told me good night and opened the door adjacent to my own. I’m embarrassed to admit I allowed my hand to linger on the wall between us for a moment.

I hold my breath and listen. A faint rustle, a cough, definitely the sound of the faucet running. I don’t know what I’m hoping to hear. A groan, a laugh, possibly my name on his lips? Lips that have almost touched mine twice in as many days.

The phone on the nightstand rings loudly. “Shit.” I place one hand over my racing heart and pick up the receiver with the other. “Hello?”

“Hi.” His voice is deep and playful.

“Hi.”

“What’re you doing in there?”

“I just got in bed.”

“Really? I think I’d like to hear more about that,” he mutters in a deep, gravelly voice. “What’re you wearing?”

I smile. His soft chuckle makes my toes curl.

“It’s kind of fun talking on the phone from a few feet away.”

“You’d probably prefer a tin can and string,” I tease.

“And what’s so wrong with that? There’s something romantic about doing things the old-fashioned way.”

I hide my head and the stupid grin on my face beneath the blankets. In case he can see through walls.

“I was just thinking about that night in the auditorium,” he continues seriously. “Actually, I’ve thought about that night a lot over the years.”

The phone in my hand has become precious.

“I even wrote a song about it.”

“You did?”

“I did. Never played it for the band. It was too . . . personal. I wanted to keep it for myself.”

The room is dark and quiet, but it feels as though a lit fuse is burning toward a quick explosion inside my body. “Will you play it for me?”

He sighs. “I haven’t played anything in a while now.”

“Why not?”

“It just wasn’t fun anymore. It began to feel like a job. Something I had to do, rather than something I was passionate about doing.”

I know exactly how he feels.

“I was afraid if I kept going, it would be ruined for me forever.”

“The music?”

“The pureness of doing something I loved.”

I bring my knees up and curl into a ball. “I’m jealous. I’ve never loved anything as much as you love music.”

“You’ll find something. Just keep looking.”

“I don’t know. I look at my friends and my family, and sometimes it feels like the best we can do is . . . survive. It makes me wonder how many of us are capable of being more than only what we have to be.”

Oliver’s voice is softer now. “Is that what scares you? Living, but not really being alive?”

I hold myself tight.

“Can I tell you something honest? And then you tell
me
something honest?”

I wait, silent.

“I think I came back for you,” he says.

I close my eyes. His quiet admission echoes loudly in my ear. “I always wanted you to.”

eight

“Apparently this place is famous.” Oliver picks up his fork as a waitress places two plates of biscuits covered in thick, white sausage gravy on our table. The small café is packed with Sunday-morning customers, locals by the looks of them. Women in pajama pants on their cell phones and men wrangling rambunctious toddlers at the front door. All for Mammy’s famous breakfasts.

Oliver moans obscenely. “So good.” He motions for me to take a bite.

What do they say? When in Kentucky? I bring the fork to my mouth. It’s the kind of food that makes you close your eyes because you want to divert as many senses as you can to your taste buds. The gravy is a savory contrast to the light, fluffy biscuit. It may well be the best thing I’ve ever had in my mouth.

“So good,” I agree, taking a too-large bite. There’s a lot of nodding and chewing as we devour the meal. Neither of us spares a moment’s concern for Southern decorum as we lick our plates clean. Oliver sits back and pats his stomach, though it remains flat as ever. We haven’t spoken about last night. After our mutual confession, the conversation turned toward our lives post–high school. I learned that he traded college for Nashville and a job busing tables while auditioning for bands.

“No one wanted me,” he laughed into the phone. “But I was persistent. Eventually a guy named Decker hired me to lay down a track on a studio recording. That’s how I met Tony. He’s a genius on the drums, but he can’t write a song to save his life. We met Pete and Dan at a festival, and everything just sort of evolved from there.”

Oliver credits their success to luck, but I know better. He’s magnetic. People see it. That’s why they follow him. Why they root for him. While I was busy putting my dreams aside, he was headlining shows and playing stadium arenas. He was a star. And then he walked away from everything.

I had a million questions, but he didn’t seem ready to talk more. So I told him my story instead. It began with Loyola, my first taste of freedom, and my unfortunate-looking roommate with her vast collection of unicorn figurines. I was less than three minutes into my story when I ran out of things to say.

The truth is, just as with my life post-Loyola, I shut college out, choosing to study night and day and only occasionally remembering to be young.

My parents had big ideas for my future.
“You have so much promise,”
they’d say. It was meant to be a compliment, inspirational, but it made me feel pressured to become someone else. I didn’t know who I wanted to be.

When I dreamed of my future, the career, the lifestyle, those were secondary to what I was really chasing. Experience. Freedom. Courage. Intangible dreams that lived as secrets in my heart. And the problem with dreams is that, in reality, they’re often little more than sacrifices turned upside down. They require all of you, and much of others.

So I devised a plan. I’d study hard, join all the right clubs, intern at any firm or museum with international branches, and wait. Making the grades, pleasing people, being a good daughter, those things were easy. Safe. Admitting I had no real desires beyond leaving, traveling the world like a gypsy? I knew no one would understand, least of all my family.

How many times have I dreamed aloud, only to be dissuaded by their reality? “
Where will you live? What will you live on? You’ll be lonely. You’ll be miserable. It’s not feasible. It’s not responsible. You’re not thinking this through. You’re not a child anymore, Wynn. “It’s time to grow up.”

I told myself I wasn’t missing anything. That if I just put in the time, it would pay off in the long run. I’d leave with a degree, and it would open doors. I could work in New York or London or Paris. Somewhere new and exciting. My family would support me because it would be for a job, and not simply because I
needed
to go.

So I buried those bohemian dreams deep within and tried to be clever. And I was. I made all the right decisions. But I was never honest about what I wanted, who I really was, inside, and my applications post-Loyola were met with rejection.

At first I made excuses. The other applicants had more gallery experience than me, they were better artists, had the right connections. It took me a long time to admit those weren’t the reasons I failed to get one job after the other. It was because I didn’t really want them, and people saw through me.

I took the position at Lucky’s the winter following graduation. It was supposed to be for only three months. Time enough to come up with a new plan. But when twenty-two became twenty-four, I began to worry. I was running out of youth and excuses.

One day I woke up and found that somewhere along the way, I’d lost what little courage I’d had. And I felt stupid and useless and afraid. Because life was passing me by, and I lacked the strength to even care. That’s when I went back to school and got my teacher’s certification. Not because it was doing something, but because it wasn’t doing nothing.

Oliver sets a Styrofoam cup in front of me. Black coffee swirls inside. “You’re looking a little lost there. Maybe I kept you up too late last night?”

I pull myself away from my thoughts and try to reassure him with a smile I hope seems genuine.

“Alright.” He pulls a map from his back pocket and spreads it across the table. “The hour is early and the day is long. What do you want to do?”

Colorful icons of parks, historical sites, and distilleries dot the green background. “I don’t know. Let me check Yelp.” I take the iPhone from my purse.

He snatches it from my hand. “No way. We’re on a research trip of historic proportions. We’re doing this old school.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“It means we’re leaving this”—he waves the phone at me—“in the room.”

I worry my bottom lip with my teeth. “But what if we get lost and need directions?”

“We’ll hail someone down and ask.”

“What if we get lost, and the car runs out of gas?”

“We’ll walk to the nearest station.”

“What if we fall into a ravine and break our legs and can’t get out?”

He relaxes against his chair, clearly enjoying our back and forth. “Then we’ll get eaten by a pack of wild dogs, and it’ll be
your
great-granddaughter who comes searching next time.”

“Ah, but if we die, I’ll never have any children, and therefore no great-granddaughter to come and find me.”

He lowers his voice and leans across the table. “Who knows. Maybe we can work on that, too.”

His innuendo, paired with the fitted cut of his blue jeans, renders me incapable of doing anything more than watch as he stands.

“Are you ready?” he asks, holding out his hand.

Oliver’s idea of a good time is less erotic and more morose than I would’ve imagined. Cracked granite headstones lean against one another like old drinking buddies. My fingers touch a faded imprint. A name I can’t make out, the word “Father” carved deeply beneath it. A designation that outlasts both name and time. I squint into the midday sun. “Nineteen oh-one,” I read aloud, calling the date over my shoulder.

“Not good enough.” He waves me off. “I’ve got 1824 over here.”

Back before YouTube and Xbox, my sisters and I relied on our imaginations for entertainment. One-up was our favorite game. It could be played anywhere, anytime, and with anything. The object was to continuously one-up each other until a single victor could be declared. I would find a daisy with ten petals, and Franny would scour the field for one with eleven. Tabby would drink an entire can of cherry pop in thirty-three seconds. I’d do it in twenty-nine.

The look on his face should have warned me. I can equate Oliver’s competitiveness only to a man seeking water in the desert. I’m not a very competitive person, and even less so when my opponent is so distractingly handsome. I watch him jog between rows of headstones, determined to find the oldest one in the overgrown cemetery. Every time he bends over to check a date, I get an unobstructed view of his perfect ass. It makes me feel like I’ve won already. I asked if he wouldn’t be too hot out here in long pants, but he only shrugged, grunted, and moved on to find the largest rock in the path we took to get here.

My green cotton tank dress is sensible, cool, and short. I’ve been waiting for him to notice. I perch on a bulky granite headstone. Is it sacrilegious to sit on a grave marker? I look up. No lightning in sight. A horsefly intent on making a meal of my shin buzzes around me. The headstone in front of me reads “Beloved Mother. Eleanor Anne Fredrickson. 1799.”

“Seventeen ninety-nine!” I call out.

Oliver pauses between tombstones, his forehead creasing as he frowns. “I’m not giving up!” He jogs to a new row, his navy shirt stretching nicely over his back. So far he’s one-upped me three times. He blew the biggest bubble, whistled the loudest, and found the largest rock. If he finds the oldest headstone, it’ll be a shutout.

He bends over to read an inscription, and I know I’ve lost again. His face practically shines with victory. “Seventeen ninety-two.” He crosses his arms, smug.

I’m having serious regrets about teaching him this game. The man never loses.

I walk between gray and white stones in various shapes, sizes, and states of decay. The tall grass tickles the backs of my legs. Oliver bows and extends his arm toward the grave marker of one Eugene Early, who died 1792. Son of a bitch.

“Alright, fine, you win. Again!” I throw my hands in the air, happy to tease him, and stalk away. He follows hot on my heels.

“Oh, no you don’t. We’re just getting started.” He rubs his hands together. “What next? Who can climb highest? Yell loudest?”

“How about who can hold their breath longest?” I suggest.

“You”—he points at me—“are a sore loser.”

“No. You are an annoying winner. And I’m done.” I toss my hair over my shoulder and walk faster.

Oliver skips beside me, mock outrage on his face. “You’re going to quit just because you didn’t find the oldest headstone?”

I stop and face him, crossing my arms. “Yep.”

He mirrors me. “I don’t accept your surrender.”

“I didn’t surrender. I’m merely refusing to encourage you further.”

“Tell me, have you always been a quitter?”

The way he grins, as though he’s the cat and I’m the mouse, thrills me. “I’m not a quitter.”
Liar.
“I just know when I’ve been beat.”

“Because you’re a quitter.” He takes a step toward me.

I match his step with one of my own. “I. Am. Not.”
Liar.

Another step and he’s within two feet of me. “Prove it.”

I cast my eyes around us. The air is thick with heat. Tiny bugs leap from tall grass and hover, as though they’ve gotten stuck in the humidity. I wipe my brow. Oliver stands, patiently waiting for me to make a move.

The desire to run as we did the night of Luke’s party bubbles inside me. Something about this man makes me feel . . . free. Like I’m a kid again. Someone who hasn’t quit yet. I can’t stifle my smile. He returns it readily, moving to touch me. And I run. I sprint away from him before he knows what’s happening, weaving between the headstones and laughing loudly for no reason other than that it feels good to be happy.

He catches me quickly, wrapping strong arms around my waist and hoisting me into the air. “Where do you think you’re going?” His lips graze my neck.

The feel of him pressed against my back makes my stomach jump. I laugh, asking him to put me down, but he swings me around until I’m gasping for air. We fall together to the soft earth. He lands half on top of me, his arms still wrapped around my waist. It takes a few moments to catch my breath and grasp the situation. Oliver’s smile fades. He’s trapped me beneath him.

I lick my lips and draw a heavy breath through my nose. A bead of sweat clings to his temple, and I wipe it away, then run my fingers through his hair. His mouth is open, his breathing shallow. He moves one arm out from under me, and his fingertips trail from my shoulder down to the back of my hand. I move mine from his cheek to the coarse stubble of his jaw. Oliver Reeves is going to kiss me again, this time on a summer afternoon, and I wonder how life will ever be the same.

I trace his lips with my thumb. They’re full and soft. We meet in the air between, his lips fitting around mine in a light, sweet kiss. I hold his head close. His lips move in lazy indulgence, unhurried in their pursuit to pluck every drop of pleasure from mine.

I open my mouth a fraction and run the tip of my tongue across his bottom lip. I don’t know what possesses me to do it. I don’t know anything right now. Oliver presses me into the grass and dirt and fits his hand around the curve of my hip. He slants his mouth across mine, and I let him taste me. His breathing isn’t shallow anymore. It’s labored and noisy against my cheek.

My hand runs down his back. He always looks so calm, so cool, but I can feel the perspiration beneath his shirt. There’s a satisfaction knowing it wasn’t the heat that finally got to him, but me. My lips. My hips and short dress and the bare leg he’s stroking with strong fingers.

Our kisses become faster, needier. I hold his face in both hands as he touches every exposed part of me. His fingers skim the cotton over my ribs, and I move against him, desperate for the feel of his hand on my breast. He cups me there, groaning quietly against my mouth.