Chapter Seventeen
“You’re a miracle worker, Julie. If Alec and I didn’t work weekends, I’d bid on this hotel-and-spa package in Cannon Beach.” Colby scanned the list of silent-auction items Alec’s mom had accumulated in a few weeks’ time. When Joe had been alive, Colby and Julie had routinely greeted each other with a hug. Now Julie kept her hands safely clasped together, warding off contact. “Come sit. Everyone else will be here soon.”
“Actually, I came early because I hoped we could talk.” Julie’s sober expression sent up a red flag.
Had Alec hidden something more from Colby? Had his father gotten drunk again? Or was it something related to another compromise Alec had made for her? The tea-braised double-fried chicken he’d added to the menu this past week had drawn positive reviews from a few customers, but she’d been suspecting Alec still hated the concept.
“Oh?” Colby braced herself.
“I want to apologize for my cool attitude toward you these past two years. I don’t hold you responsible for what happened to Joe.”
Colby held her breath, waiting for the flood of relief she expected from the absolution. She and Julie silently stared at each other while the harsh truth settled in. No pardon would bring Joe back or fill the void he’d left behind.
Colby swallowed the lump in her throat, steadying herself by clutching the back of a dining chair, her nails biting into the velvety fabric. “Please don’t apologize. I understand. I still blame myself sometimes. I loved Joe. I miss him. And I hate how rash he and Mark were that day.”
Through her own blurry vision, Colby saw ocean-deep pain in the pool of tears shining in Julie’s eyes.
The woman’s voice emerged hollow and cracked. “Every once in a while, I wake up and forget, for just a second, that Joe’s gone. When it hits me, the pain’s so fresh. I hate those mornings almost as much as I hate waking from dreams where Joe’s still with us. But I can’t live every day holding on to grief.” She dabbed the corner of her eye and cleared her throat. “Now Alec’s back, and I’ll do anything to keep him here. Thank you for giving him this job, and for giving him a special place in your life. He’s had a spring in his step these past few weeks.”
Colby’s chest filled with satisfaction. She couldn’t claim Alec struck her like a thunderbolt, considering how long she’d known him. But even though she’d been taking things slower so as not to repeat her past mistakes, she couldn’t deny being smitten.
“Thank you for raising such a considerate, loving man. Alec’s special.” It dawned on Colby that the second anniversary of Mark’s suicide was on the horizon. She hadn’t visited his grave in weeks—the longest stretch since he’d died. A twinge of guilt nipped at her conscience, but she resisted the urge to twist her wedding band in front of Alec’s mother.
“Is he in the kitchen?” Julie asked, having reclaimed her composure.
“No. He went to Oregon Blues for berries, and then maybe to the lavender farm, too. He had some idea for a special he wants to test-prep today.”
Before Julie replied, Colby’s mother breezed through the door, waving a sheet of paper. “I got Harrington’s to donate pavé diamond earrings!”
“That’s excellent, Leslie,” Julie praised.
Colby contrasted Julie’s refined bob and conservative navy dress to her mom’s unkempt wavy locks, flowing pants, and frenzied persona. They were a female Odd Couple, yet they worked well together.
“Fantastic, Mom,” Colby said just as Todd strolled in, briefcase in hand, and smiled at her. She’d grown accustomed to chef coats, so Todd’s pinstripe suit caught her unawares. What different life and work environments she now had.
“Three lovely ladies and more to come.” He shook hands with her mom and Julie before greeting Colby with a slight hug. “This will definitely be my favorite board appointment.”
“Thanks for squeezing us in today,” Colby said.
“I brought more paperwork for you to sign.” He raised his briefcase.
“Perfect.” She then informed her mother and Julie, “I’m kicking in five thousand dollars to get the fund started.”
“There goes my garden’s stone fence,” her mother sighed.
“Mom.”
“I’m kidding.” She sniffed.
Before they were seated, Sara walked in with Alec, surprising Colby. She’d been waiting to tell Todd about Alec in person—and in private. Now he’d get blindsided.
Her pulse skipped. She tried signaling Alec with her eyes, but he was too busy kissing his mom hello to notice. He eventually sidled over to her and kissed her hello—a kiss intended to send Todd a message. To his credit, Todd’s wide grin barely faltered.
“I thought you were busy,” she muttered to Alec.
“Finished up early.” He grinned.
“Where’s Gentry?” Sara glanced around anxiously, tossing her purse on the table. “I have an appointment at three.”
Another vague “appointment” reference. Colby replayed her recent conversation with Hunter and wondered, for the first time, if Sara’s appointments had nothing to do with fertility. “Never fear. We’re starting on time, with or without my sister. Todd needs to get back to work, too.”
“Don’t rush me off so quickly,” Todd joked, his face full of good humor as they all took seats. “I know I missed the earlier meetings, but I’ve been thinking about the broad mission and urge you to reconsider. While it’s laudable to try to help everyone, it might end up creating more problems than it solves.”
“I like Colby’s idea. It gives us flexibility,” Alec challenged. His spine was straight as a ruler, and his right leg bounced beneath the table.
“In my experience, most people support pet causes. A diverse mission could hinder your ability to retain loyal donors,” Todd replied.
“Or we might attract more donors because we’ll be helping a wide range of causes,” Alec countered, his strained grin barely masking his tension.
Colby jumped in before Alec lapsed into the kind of meltdown she’d seen when anyone on the staff challenged his opinion. “Todd, is there a compromise that would work? Perhaps we could pick a theme, like “helping families” or something, that would allow us some flexibility while giving donors a clearer picture.”
“That might work,” Todd conceded.
“But then we’d be eliminating environmental issues, which are what Mark and Joe loved most.” Alec tilted forward, his gaze locked on Todd. “We already drafted a mission statement, which my mom and Leslie have been promoting to get the donations we’ve already received. We can’t change course now.”
“I’m not suggesting a wholesale change, Alec. Just a refinement.” Todd smiled politely, like Colby had seen him do many times with belligerent clients. She resisted the urge to sneak a peek to see if his legs were also jostling under the table.
She set her hand on Alec’s thigh, hoping to uncoil whatever had him ready to pounce. “We’ll give it more thought. For now, let’s focus on what needs to be completed before the party.”
“Fair enough,” Todd conceded with his usual pleasantness and slouched deeper into the dining chair.
Colby opened her notebook. “By the way, thank you for writing off your fees for preparing the organizational documents.”
“Anything for you.” Todd winked.
Beside her, Colby saw Alec’s jaw clench.
“How generous,” her mother added, which did nothing to wipe the sour look off Alec’s face.
“A great friend.” Colby hoped her words eased Alec’s ridiculous jealousy.
The group discussed the nitty-gritty planning details for the next thirty minutes, when Gentry finally showed up. She sat beside Todd and adjusted her skimpy skirt with a smirk. “Sorry.”
“Just in time for the last item.” Colby refused to give Gentry the satisfaction of having annoyed her by being so late. “Sara, I assume you’ve been keeping track of the donations and sending out tax letters?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Hunter was planning on contacting some friends. Has he mentioned anything to you?”
“No. He’s been preoccupied.”
Looking at Sara now—serene and collected—one would have no idea that she and Hunter were struggling. Like Colby had done, Sara hid her marital problems from the family. Having learned the hard way what a mistake that had been, Colby wanted to reach out. Then again, Hunter and Sara weren’t Colby and Mark. Whatever rough patch they’d recently hit, they’d work it out.
She had to believe that, because if Hunter and Sara couldn’t make love last, no one could.
“If that’s it, how about we get the photos out of the way,” Gentry said. “I’ll take some of the whole group, then the board. Lastly, I’ll shoot Alec and Colby, the proud parents.”
Sara’s head snapped toward Colby, as did everyone else’s, in a tense moment of silence. If a pin dropped ten blocks away, it would’ve been audible in the room.
“Is there news?” Julie’s face filled with so much hope it broke Colby’s heart to disappoint her.
“No!” Colby perspired even as Gentry laughed.
“Parents of this idea, people. Jeez, why does everyone always have babies on the brain?” Gentry shook her head, pulled out her Nikon, and pointed toward the wall where the ironwork artwork had been hung. For a split second, Colby fantasized that Gentry was somehow trapped behind that metal, until she learned better manners. “Everyone, over there.”
Gentry arranged them in a variety of positions. When it came time for the board photograph, she sandwiched Colby between Alec and Todd. Alec possessively linked his arm around her waist. If Todd had any feelings about that, he didn’t show them.
After the photography session, people gathered their things and left for the day. When Alec started to follow her and Todd outside, she shot him a do-not-follow-me look. Thankfully, he stayed behind, allowing her a few minutes to speak with Todd.
Once alone in the parking lot, Todd said, “Looks like you decided to dip your toe back in the dating pool.”
“Todd,” she started, but he cut her off with a quick wave of his hand.
“No need, Colby. I’ll survive.” He set his briefcase on his back seat and closed the door. “We’ve always been friends. Nothing will change that. If Alec makes you happy, that’s what matters.”
“Thank you.” She hugged him goodbye. “For everything.”
“See you at the event!” He got into his car and returned to Portland. To the office where they’d become friends. To the life she’d mostly left behind.
She turned and studied A CertainTea. The flower beds were in full bloom. The grass between the pavers was neatly trimmed, and the lake twinkled in the sunlight. Tomorrow evening the restaurant would be bustling again, having a full slate of reservations on the books. She’d even received her first inquiry for a private party—a golden wedding anniversary in October. Little by little all her plans and hopes were coming to fruition. “If Alec makes you happy, that’s what matters.” He did make her happy . . . when he wasn’t acting jealous.
She found him sprawled out in a chair in some kind of power pose. He’d appear relaxed if she didn’t notice his white knuckles fisted on the arms of the chair, or the tilt of his chin.
“What was that?”
“What?” He sat up now, alert and ready to battle. Well, if he thought to intimidate her into silence, he’d thought wrong.
“You were supposed to be at those farms, not here staking your territory.”
“Isn’t my presence welcome at the foundation I suggested?” His cool tone slid right through her, coating her bones in ice.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I told you I’m not interested in Todd, so you had no reason to rub his nose in our relationship or pick an argument over his perfectly reasonable advice.”
Alec narrowed his gaze, head tipped to the side. “Would you be comfortable if I hired Colette?”
“That’s completely different.” A vision of the sex siren flashed, making her imagine Alec’s body intertwined with Colette’s. Had he looked at her the way he looked at Colby? Had he held her close at night and whispered in her ear? Had he brought her flowers at work? “I’ve never had sex with Todd.”
“So what? I had sex with Colette, but there were no real feelings.”
His admission filled Colby’s heart with something resembling helium but didn’t stop his chaotic emotions from rolling off him.
“You care about Todd. You trust him, you confide in him. You have a real connection with that man. Sex is nothing compared with those things.”
“You’re being irrational.”
He winced, then grew thoughtful, tapping his palm against the table a few times. At the moment, she didn’t know which scared her more, explosive Alec or quiet Alec. In a soft voice, he muttered, “Well, maybe I wish you’d be a little less rational.”
“Meaning what?” she ventured.
“Meaning I’ve risked a lot, compromised, and pretty much laid my heart bare to you, yet you keep a part of yourself closed up.” He shot out of the chair, raised her right hand, and pinched her wedding band. “I’m sorry to bring up Mark, but he’s the ghost between us I don’t know how to fight. It’s easier to pick on Todd, because he’s here, and it hurts to see you so carefree and chummy with him when you never share how you feel about me.” Following that outburst, he stepped back and raked his hands through his hair. Like an accordion, he folded up on himself. “Sorry. I need a minute.”
He stormed across the room and out the glass doors, heading toward the gazebo.
Colby stood in the middle of the empty restaurant, her body vibrating from shock. An array of images and memories sparkled to life—tulips and silly videos, the reporter’s interrogation, the space Alec had given her after their second “first” kiss, the time he spent with her mother, his confiding in her about Joe, his compromises here at the restaurant. He had laid his heart bare, every day and in every way. All the while, she’d been holding back.
Alec didn’t understand her reticence, because she’d never been honest with him about her marriage.
Without another thought, she trotted through the dining room, spotting him in the gazebo staring out across the lake, like he’d done that first day. Stoic, assessing, hurting. If he heard her coming, he didn’t turn around.
She rested her hand on his back, causing his muscles to flinch. “Alec.”
He turned, his face flushed, eyes downcast. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head and brushed his cowlick with her fingers. Her heart pounded in her chest from how much she had to say and how scared she was to say it. “I’m sorry I’ve hurt you. I promise, my reserve has nothing to do with you. It’s self-preservation. Todd’s safe because I’m not invested in him. But the closer we get, the more afraid I am that something will go wrong, so I withdraw. I don’t mean to, but after everything I’ve been through, I can’t promise I’ll ever be able to give my whole heart to anyone again.”
She let her hand drop and then eased away, shaken by her own admission.
Alec didn’t stir. He didn’t make the moment easier for her by quickly accepting her confession or offering the warmth of his embrace. If anything, he seemed to withdraw further, gazing back out across the lake. Finally, he uttered, “Because of how Mark left you.”
“Not the way you mean.” How could she explain that her reservations were more than a response to Mark’s suicide? That they had to do with not trusting herself. And maybe no longer trusting in love.
When she closed her eyes, Mark’s face surfaced—his young face. “I met him in the quad outside the law school one April afternoon. He was only there to meet a friend—pure happenstance. If I’d lingered an extra five minutes in the lounge that day, my life would be entirely different today.”
A shiver ran through her. She opened her eyes and gripped the wood railing. Staring at a kayak on the lake, she continued. “Our attraction was instantaneous and blazing hot. You know we eloped three months later despite my parents’ objections. Nothing else mattered to me. I’d just known we were meant to be together. How ridiculous, now, to think that, at twenty-four, I’d been so confident—and careless—with such a life-altering decision.”
Alec looked at her expectantly, waiting for the rest of her story. To some, this might have been easy, but her breathing strained as if she were climbing a wall. She’d never spoken of Mark’s illness to anyone. Truthfully, it hadn’t been just because he’d pleaded for secrecy. Ultimately, she’d been ashamed, too, of how poorly they’d managed it. Of how she’d withdrawn and given up. She stared at Alec now, knowing she had to trust him. Mark hadn’t kept his promises to her, so maybe she wasn’t awful for finally breaking her silence. “I loved Mark, but . . .” She paused, her body heavy with a new doubt. “Honestly, you might think less of me when I tell you everything.”
“That could never happen.” His decisive response came swiftly, even as he kept some distance between them. “You can trust me.”
She eyed him from the side without facing him directly. Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, she said, “I have so many regrets. Things I wish I would’ve done differently.”
“So do I, Colby.”
She hadn’t meant to make him think of Joe. “Mine often make me question my judgment, because most of my marriage was a lie.”
He blinked, slack-jawed. Apparently, she’d struck Alec dumb.
She leaned her butt against the railing and cleared her throat, hoping to keep her voice from cracking. “Mark knew I was thinking about divorce.”
Alec’s eyes widened. “Because of the dare?”
“No. Before that.” She pressed her palms to her forehead and sensed Alec step closer, as if at war with himself about whether to press her for details or pull her close and hush her. “Life with Mark was difficult. He . . . he was bipolar.”
She recognized Alec’s preternaturally impassive expression as his intent way of listening. Oddly, that calmed her. She recited the facts of Mark’s first manic episode, of how they eventually got a diagnosis, and of how they’d hidden it from everyone—even when he’d failed to control it—as dispassionately as if she were reading a teleprompter.
Inside, however, retelling the sordid details of her marriage and first love ravaged her. Colby hung her head. “He wanted a family, but I wouldn’t bring kids into that chaos unless he completed eighteen consecutive months of therapy. He couldn’t do it. Over time, the cycles and lies broke me down. Made me wary and suspicious. Exhausted. Angry.” She looked up at Alec. “I envied other couples I’d read about who managed that illness and made the relationship work. But I didn’t know what else to do or how to be a better wife. When Mark couldn’t be loyal or promise to be a stable father, I looked into divorce.
“My doubts took away the one stable thing in his life.” Her nose tingled. “I think it made it easier for him give up after Joe died. I failed him when he was sick. Sometimes I think I don’t deserve to find love again after being willing to walk away from it before. And then I worry that even if I take that leap, it will all turn to ash, just like before.” She looked at him now. “I want to love again, Alec, but I’m afraid.”
Listening to Colby’s story chilled Alec more than if he’d just been thrown into the frigid lake. Her gorgeous eyes, swollen with misery and shame, pricked his heart and conscience.
She deserved the truth about Mark’s suicide. God help him, he didn’t know how to dive in. “I understand how keeping secrets can drive you crazy and make you feel unworthy of anything.”
“I know you do.”
“Not just with Joe, Colby.” For a few short weeks he’d had her in his arms at night. Tasted her kisses. Seen her passion-weary. Savored the weight of her leg across his in the middle of the night. The scent of her skin and hair. Now, he worried he’d have to miss those things for the rest of his life. Maybe that was twisted justice, seeing that Mark never got to live the rest of his life thanks to him.
“Secrets and lies. A habit I don’t want to repeat again.” She swiped a stray tear before wrapping her arms around his waist and tucking her head against his chest. “No matter what mistakes you’ve made before, or how we disagree about stupid things like the menu, you’ve brought joy back into my life. You’ve reawakened the part of me that wants to love and trust. I can never, ever repay you for that, Alec. I want to give you what you need. Tell you what you want to hear. Believe that this happiness I feel again won’t scatter like dandelion fluff. Please be patient. And don’t be jealous of Todd or any other man, because there isn’t anyone more important to me than you.”
“Colby, I—”
“Shh. Just kiss me.” She rose onto her toes and kissed him.
If only a kiss would erase his guilty conscience. But how could he confess now, after she just expressed her fears about this fragile trust and joy vanishing. If she lost faith in her judgment again, she might retreat so deeply into herself she’d never find happiness with anyone. Neither solution to this puzzle had a good outcome. He didn’t like not knowing how to complete the picture . . . or even what the picture would look like when finished. Uncertainty convinced him to keep quiet. “I wish I had known about Mark’s illness before. I’m sorry you were so alone.”
“Not as alone as Mark.”
“I should’ve been a better friend. I’m sorry you’ve suffered for so long.” He hugged her so tight she coughed. He loosened his hold just enough to make her comfortable, but couldn’t quite let go.
When she sighed, the weight of her solemnity resonated in his chest. “Mark and I had started out planning for our lives to be a grand adventure. When I think about my future now, I just crave peace. I’ve done love the hard way. Now I want simple. Dependable. And no more looking back.”
He raised her chin and kissed her. No matter how perfect his kisses, they alone couldn’t offer her an uncomplicated life and an effortless relationship. Given his situation, he didn’t know how to manage that, but he sure as hell would try. No more wasting time on bullshit like jealousy and menus.
“You deserve love you can count on, Colby. Let me give that to you. I swear, I’ll do everything I can to make your life simple.” Even cheat, steal, and lie, which was pretty much what his continued silence amounted to. Hopefully karma would give him a pass for his good intentions. Then again, that road to hell . . .