This Time for Keeps, page 14
“It’s been a year,” Faith said, her smile sad but somehow brave at the same time. “It’s been tough.”
“I’m sure,” Russell said. “Look, if there’s anything I can do…”
“I’m sorry about Ainsley,” Faith said in an oddly wistful voice. “She was so good to us in those first few weeks after the funeral. She was as pregnant as she could be, but that didn’t stop her from taking Hannah to the park day after day.”
Faith kept talking, but one word drowned out all those that came after it.
Funeral.
Todd Redington hadn’t walked out on his family. At least not on purpose. The high school football coach only a year or two younger than Russell had died.
Everything inside Russell went cold. His chest felt as though it had a rope around it. His throat, hands. Why hadn’t Ainsley told him?
“…so sorry she’s gone…”
He made out those words, forced himself to move, pulling Meg’s cousin into his arms, this time more gently than before. A widow at thirty. Sometimes life could be so goddamn unfair.
After a long moment he pulled back and put his hands to her face, slid the hair back from her cheeks and looked into brown eyes brimming with devastation—and resilience. “I wish I’d been here.”
Her smile was tight. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You were missed.”
Automatically he glanced toward the auction tent.
“She needed you,” Faith said, lifting her eyes to his as he turned back to her. “So, so badly.”
“Mom—” Hannah tugged on Faith’s arm. “When are we gonna go?”
“It wasn’t until I lost Todd that I realized what it had been like for her. Except Todd didn’t have a choice. I just couldn’t help but think if you’d been here…” Faith’s voice trailed off as Trey turned back toward them. Their eyes met. Something silent flashed between them.
Russell didn’t need to be a trained journalist to see the unspoken. It had been happening repeatedly since he returned to Pecan Creek.
“If I’d been here…what?” he asked.
But Faith just shook her head. “This time are you going to stay?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE QUESTION WAS A SIMPLE one, obvious even, but the edge to Faith’s tone made it sound more like an indictment.
“Get to know your niece,” she added.
Russell stepped back, not sure why he hadn’t realized how hard coming home would be. Home.
The word stung.
“Mom,” little Hannah said again, with a hard tug to her mother’s purse. Faith finally looked down at the little girl.
“Didn’t mean to keep you,” Russell said by way of extracting himself. Faith glanced up and flashed him a tight smile, reminding him so much of her cousin as she’d been that last night when he’d left for Africa. At the time he’d thought Meg cold, unfeeling.
Now, with Faith, the realization that she felt far more than she wanted anyone to see pierced him in a way he didn’t understand.
“What the hell happened?” he asked a few minutes later as he and Trey made their way toward the growing crowd at the auction tent.
His friend finished off a bottle of water and tossed it in a nearby recycle can. “One of those fluke things…thought it was just the flu.”
Russell stepped around a group of lanky teens with those stupid baggy jeans down around their asses and headed toward the front door of the tent.
“Turned into pneumonia,” Trey said. “There was some underlying infection. Took him fast.”
Russell frowned. Faith was such a sweetheart. Like Julia and Lance, she and Todd had been together since high school.
“There you are,” Lori said, materializing from the back of the tent. She swept in and pressed up for a quick kiss, running her hand from Trey’s forehead to his cheek as she did so. “Everything okay?”
He slid an arm around his wife and anchored her to his side. “You tell me,” he said. “Do we have any money left?”
She grinned. “We’ll know soon enough.” Then to Russell, “Pretty impressive, isn’t it?”
It was. He looked around the huge tent, with its six long tables of auction items, the proceeds benefiting the March of Dimes. From what he could tell, almost every item had at least one bid.
“She worked her tail off,” Lori said, gesturing toward the temporary stage, where Meg spoke with two older women he recognized but could no longer name. “She made it happen.”
The ping of pride surprised him. He watched her, the warmth of her smile and the excitement in her eyes, the way her hair fell against her shoulders as she moved effortlessly, laughing and shaking hands. Dressed in cargo capris and a simple feminine-cut T-shirt in melon, she looked so much like the girl she’d been all those years ago, when he’d first come to Pecan Creek, before heartbreak had stripped away that sense of vitality that had always made Meg…Meg.
“Now, if she can just save the paper,” Lori muttered, but as Russell turned back toward her, his gaze snagged on a picture instead. Meg sat surrounded by bluebonnets and poppies, knees to her chest, her smile radiant. But it was the auction form that stopped him…
Amount: $10,000
Bidder: Anonymous
“Pretty impressive,” Lori said as Trey let out a low whistle. “So when are you going to tell her about the bid?”
Russell looked up, watched Meg move toward the podium. “There’s nothing to tell.” He’d always known time moved forward. He knew life went on. But standing there watching Meg reach for the microphone and knowing some son of a bitch would soon step forward to claim his evening with the editor of the Piney Woods Gazette, Russell wanted to grab the stupid form and rip it to shreds. Meg was a young, healthy woman, alone in that big house night after night….
His whole body tightened. Two years was a damn long time. He knew that. He’d lived it. But he’d been in the field, on assignment. He’d lost himself in his work.
What had Meg lost herself in?
Who?
Who’d been there to keep her company? To keep her warm?
Who’d been there to comfort her when she cried…?
Something inside him started to boil. It was slow and insidious, just like the images. He’d never imagined her life going on, goddamn it. When he’d thought of her, it had always been as his wife.
The one who’d shut him out.
Now as he watched her greet the crowd, this beautiful, confident woman who’d pieced her life back together and moved on—who’d told him explicitly and repeatedly that she did not want him here—something dark and possessive twisted through him.
Not able to just stand there one second longer, he turned from the sight of her and cut his way through the crowd.
SHE COULDN’T SEE HIM. He’d been there, with Lori and Trey, scowling up at the stage with a ferocity that had made her blood hum, even as it unsettled her. Then she’d turned to say hello to someone, and when she’d looked back out toward the tent, he’d been gone. But she’d swear she could feel him still, somewhere. Watching.
Uncharacteristically edgy, Meg worked her way through the stack of auction forms, reading off the description of each item and the winning bid, smiling as each bidder came forward. All the while she scanned the crowd, looking.
For a ridiculous, fleeting moment there, when she’d seen Russell with Lori and Trey—and the embarrassing auction photo and evening she had so not authorized—her heart had kicked hard against her ribs, and deep inside, she’d started to wonder. What if he did stay? What if she said yes? What if they gave it a try…raising Charlotte?
What if they were a family?
He’d made it sound so easy.
Fear, she knew. It was fear that had led her to say no. Fear that made her protect herself, when a vast part of her just wanted to trust—and try again.
But now the crowd waited for the next auction item, and Russell was nowhere in sight.
“Okay, folks, looks like we’ve got some adventurous souls among us,” she said with a breeziness she didn’t really feel, “if you’ll excuse the pun, that is.”
Lori and Trey stood toward the front, but Julia was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Lance—or Noah Black stone.
“We’ve all heard the stories,” she said. “We all know the history. It’s been almost two years since we lost our beloved Magnolia Manor to fire and foreclosure, but Rita Mae and Hank’s granddaughter has managed to resurrect the family’s legacy, and the Magnolia Manor is again ready to tempt those who enjoy tempting fate.”
Her quick twinge of unease surprised her. Sure Russell was staying there—the only guest at the moment. And sure Liz was several years younger, a complete knockout and, with absolutely no baggage, a definite temptress of fate.
But when was the last time Meg had felt…jealous?
“With a bid of twenty-five hundred dollars, our winner of a weekend for two at the Magnolia Manor is…bidder 100423A.”
A shriek rose from the back of the crowd as a young couple Meg had never seen made their way to the front of the tent. She shook their hands and directed them to the far side of the platform, where Uncle Ralph’s wife, Ruby, was taking care of formalities.
Meg worked through the rest of the auction items, before reaching the last sheet of paper…the one she’d been avoiding for over half an hour. The picture stared up at her, the smile Ray had captured without her knowing it. Only minutes before he’d snapped the picture, she’d stood with Russell, had looked into the green of his eyes for the first time in almost two years.
She should not have been smiling.
But against the sterile auction form, the warm, visceral glow could not be denied.
Nor could the breathtakingly high bid. There were three entries on the form, the third and final so ridiculously high it was as if someone had staked their claim and scared everyone else off.
She looked up abruptly and saw him just inside the entrance, arms crossed, eyes narrowed and focused exclusively on her. A good fifty yards separated them, but she would have sworn she could feel him.
Everything else kind of blurred. She knew she had to say something, that everyone was watching her, waiting, but when she opened her mouth, the cottony feeling forced her to clear her throat.
The rush of warmth crept up her neck and burned her cheeks, made her want to step back from the spotlight, so no one else would see. No one else would know.
But that was a lie and she knew it. It wasn’t the crowd of friends and strangers that made her want to step back. It wasn’t them she cared about seeing…noticing. Knowing.
It was him. It was Russell. He just stood there, his dark shirt and faded jeans not so different from the other men’s, but the very stillness of him set him apart.
In sync with the storm outside, her heart thrummed hard and low and deep. He’d done that in class sometimes, walked into the buzzing lecture hall and taken his place at the lecturn, standing absolutely still until silence fell, waiting with excruciating patience until he was in full command of the moment.
Of her.
Sometimes he’d done the same thing in bed.
The thought shook her.
She couldn’t remember the last time they’d been in bed, that she’d reached for him. She remembered him reaching for her, time and time again. Just as she remembered turning away from him, time and time again.
She just couldn’t remember the last time. There’d been no drop of a gavel. No pause or pronouncement. No indication, no way of knowing that this touch would be the last.
The spotlight glared hotter, bringing dampness to the back of her neck. Woodenly she reached for the glass of punch a volunteer had brought over as Lori started to move. Maybe that’s what broke the moment. Or maybe it was the baby in the front row, in her mother’s arms, starting to cry. Or the older man coughing toward the back of the tent. Or the blur of movement to the side, almost like a woman running. In some vague corner of her mind Meg would have sworn she saw the flash of a trench coat.
But the moment broke as Lori arrived with a bright smile and laughter in her voice.
“Quit being so modest,” she teased, rushing to the rescue with the easy grace that was all her own. She swept onto the stage and took her place by Meg, reaching for the last sheet of paper. “We all know what you saved for last.” Grinning, she angled the microphone a little lower. “Just like we all know you don’t want to brag.”
Meg swallowed against the dryness of her throat, but could not stop looking toward the back of the tent, where Russell still stood, isolated somehow, despite the three or four hundred people crowded around him.
“We have one last auction item,” Lori said with a breeziness Meg had not heard from her friend in a long time. “And that item is—” her smile widened “—our very own Meg.”
Laughter erupted.
Russell didn’t move, didn’t smile. Didn’t laugh.
“We did this without her knowledge,” Lori added, “and, like everything else this evening, to honor her favorite charity, the March of Dimes. One evening with our favorite newspaper owner…” With great drama she let out a sharp whistle as she lifted the auction form to the crowd. “Can you say twelve…thousand…dollars?”
This time, it was applause from the entire crowd that thundered through the tent. Except for Russell. Who still didn’t move. Still just watched.
He almost looked…angry.
The urge to back away gripped Meg, but she made herself stand still, grateful that it was Lori who took the brunt of the spotlight.
“Will the winner,” she called, “100479A—” she paused, hesitated, looked to the back of the tent, directly at Russell, “—please come forward.”
Silence fell as everyone glanced around. And though she hated herself for it, Meg’s eyes found Russell, and the rhythm of her pulse echoed so hard in her blood it felt like a hammer in her temples, in every other pulse point of her body.
But Russell didn’t move. Didn’t step forward—didn’t look around.
And then the gasp came from the right side of the tent, as the crowd jostled around to let a lone figure move forward. A man Meg had seen an hour or so before, when Julia had breathlessly begged her friends not to blow her cover.
Noah Blackstone.
AROUND MEG, THE CROWD drained from the pavilion, commotion giving way to silence. Here and there folks lingered, friends chatting, parents tending to children, several teens busily texting, several more all wrapped up in one another.
But Russell was gone.
He’d walked out within seconds of Noah Blackstone stepping onto the platform. One moment Russell had been there, watching her through eyes harder than steel, as if she’d betrayed him somehow. Then he was just…gone.
After all this time, his ability to walk so quickly and easily away shouldn’t still hurt.
Even now, over fifteen minutes later, the urge to go after him lingered.
“Thirsty?”
Meg forced a smile as she looked up at the man who’d shelled out an inordinate sum of money to spend the evening with her.
She was so going to kill someone, probably Julia, who remained conspicuously absent.
“Yes, thank you,” she said, accepting another glass of punch. After more than an hour of nonstop talking, her throat was dry. She took a deep sip as she scrambled for something witty or intelligent to say—but came up blank. She’d never been a prize before. She’d never been bought and paid for.
Noah Blackstone was hardly a talker, either. He was taller than she’d first realized, well over six feet. She had to tilt her head to see his face, making it impossible to study him without being obvious. Definitely Native American. The wide, sharp cheekbones were a dead giveaway. And his eyes were as dark as his hair, deep set and…knowing. That was the first word that came to mind. The man looked as if he knew things.
Five minutes in his company, and Julia’s cover would be complete toast. They’d yet to share more than a few casual words, but already Meg knew her cousin would never get away with scamming this man. There was a vibration to him, she realized. Weird word, but she couldn’t shake the low buzz he seemed to emit.
“You, my friend, look tired,” he said, his voice neither warm nor seductive like Russell’s, but still rich, low, commanding in a way that made you want to hear what he had to say.
“And I suppose you have just the cure for that,” she quipped before she could stop herself. The warm flush was instinctive—rarely was Meg so forward or crass with someone, especially a stranger.
The renowned researcher’s mouth—hard and un-yielding moments before—twitched. “And if I said yes?”
Her eyes met his, and for the first time since this whole auction nightmare began, she smiled. “Then I’d say no.”
Julia’s target laughed. “Well, what do you know? An honest woman—and a journalist at that. I like that.”
Then he was going to love Julia.
Meg glanced away, discarding the ridiculous thought as quickly as it formed. If this man and Julia tangled, there would be serious hell to pay.
“I’ve always been a big fan of sleep myself,” she said. “Eight hours and I’m golden.”
“When was the last time that happened?”
She blinked. “Pardon?”
“Eight hours,” Blackstone said. “When was the last time you got eight uninterrupted hours of sleep?”
The question slipped in like a low blow. “Do I look that bad?” she tossed back, even as her mind spun for an answer. Not for him, but for her. How long had it been since she’d slept…really slept? Before Ainsley died and Charlotte came to live with her, there’d been little sleep, always work to do or some project, or…
She hated the or.
Even before Russell had left, before their baby died. Back before she was pregnant, before their desire to start a family had turned into a nightmare of medical tests and procedures…way back to those early days of their marriage, when they’d crawled into bed and made love, fallen asleep naked in each other’s arms…
