Chapter Four
Damian stood on the front porch and kicked at the boards, watching as his mom parked her car. Well, at least the deck seemed a little stronger than the one in back. Probably due to less direct sunlight, he thought absently, still a bit rattled from hearing Kendall scream and then holding her in his arms.
He took a deep breath.
Might as well get this over with.
His mother was standing next to her cream-colored luxury car clutching her medicine bag to her chest like a shield. It had been more a year since he’d seen her up close since he avoided both his parents as much as possible, often opting to stay on the farm and sending his employees on errands instead of going himself. The lines around her eyes seemed more prominent, but everything else was the same. Same dark hair in a clean bob, same polite smile, same tailored clothes. His mom, only perhaps a little older and carrying a little more sadness.
“Hey, Mom.” He tugged at his collar, suddenly restless and a little uncomfortable.
“Hello, son.” She turned to him with a watery smile as tears began to trail down her face. “Dammit. I told myself I wouldn’t do this,” she said wiping the dampness from her cheeks and feigning a laugh. “I’m just so glad you called.”
All these tears. God, he was such a dick. The women in his life seemed to cry an awful lot lately. All he’d ever wanted was to make them happy, his mother and his wife, and yet he only seemed to bring them such grief and despair.
“Thanks for coming,” Damian said flatly. He was glad she was here, but the whole situation was just so screwed up. His estranged wife had fallen through the rotting deck as he was getting ready for a date so he’d had to call his mother, whom he hadn’t exchanged more than a few dozen words with since Kendall had left, despite his mother’s efforts. Fucking great. As uncomplicated as a supercomputer.
“Of course,” she said quietly reaching for him. He dodged her hand and turned to lead her back up the steps and into the old farmhouse. “I’m so glad you called me.”
He stopped on the first step and turned back to her. Dr. Evelyn Sloane.
“Bullshit, Mom. You never liked her. Neither of you did. Kendall was never good enough for the great Sloane family.”
“Your father…” So now his mom was going to blame his dad for this mess. Typical. No one ever took responsibility for their behavior anymore.
“What, Mom? What about him?” Damian knew he was raising his voice, and probably shouldn’t be yelling at his mom when she should be helping Kendall, but he was so tired of all this drama. He was exhausted by the aching well of nothingness in the pit of his stomach. Goddamn Kendall for bringing it all back up to the surface again. And goddamn him for getting sucked into her vortex.
His mother grabbed his wrist and this time he let her. “I didn’t know what he did.”
“What are you talking about?” His dad certainly had been a dick about their relationship, so much so that he often wondered if his father had something against Kendall and her family other than being poor.
“Damian, she didn’t tell you?”
A chill slid through his veins. What? Had they done something to Kendall? When? “Tell me what?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“You don’t know.” Her grip on his wrist tightened and he saw lines around her eyes and mouth he’d never seen before.
“What the hell are you talking about, Mom? What did you do? What did you do?” The chill turned to ice and froze his chest, making it hard to breathe.
“Your dad, Damian. He had a conversation with her the night before she disappeared, but I didn’t know until recently. He said something when Kendall’s grandma died.”
“With Kendall?”
“Yes.” She held up her hand. “I don’t know what they discussed. He wouldn’t tell me. He just said she probably wouldn’t stick around.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this? Why are you telling me now?”
“I didn’t know until it was way too late. And I thought you knew. I thought she would have told you. You were so close. And then when she left I thought we could be there for you, but you just faded away. And then both my sons were gone. One off somewhere across the globe and the other one only miles away but still just as inaccessible,” his mother said, her voice cracking, sounding frail and old for the first time.
“Kendall never said anything. Other than a bullshit note about not being in love with me and needing to make it on her own. I don’t really know why she left. I just…I just thought…I don’t know. I thought that she had been biding her time until she could go pursue her music.” But had he really believed that? Or had there always been an unsettled niggling in the back of his mind that there had been something else that had chased her away?
“She loved you, Damian. I think she left because she loved you. I think…”
“Stop. I…please just stop.” He yanked his hand away and ran it over his face. Kendall was in pain and this was not the time to go unraveling the mystery of his wayward wife.
“Damian. Honey. I believe he drove her away. And that she left because he somehow convinced her that it would be better for you if she did.”
“I can’t do this right now,” he said a little too forcibly, he realized when his mom flinched. “We can talk about it later.”
“When, Damian? We’ve wasted so much time.” Her eyes were wide, pleading.
“Later. I promise. But not now. She’s hurt and let’s just focus on that for now.”
“I need you back in my life, son. I miss my children,” she cried and he heard the sadness and felt the years of pain in her voice. And, for once, he realized that he might not be the only one who had suffered through the several years. He heard so much regret; she was so desperate to make it right that Damian softened and patted her hand.
“Later, Mom. Later. Not that it matters now anyway,” he mumbled. The past was the past. And just because Kendall was in town for a couple weeks didn’t change anything.
She nodded and he led her up the steps and into the old farmhouse where Kendall lay curled into a ball with her head on the arm of the couch. Her eyes were closed but her fingers tapped on her wrist. She was awake and she was clearly agitated, but fighting it. Kendall Kelly was beautiful even now after she’d hurt him so mercilessly, even now that she so casually insisted he go on his date with another woman. Even now after she wafted her perfect little ass back into town to stir up a bunch of dead and buried ashes.
“Kendall, you remember my mom.” Kendall’s eyes snapped open and it was hard to miss the tightness of her jaw as her finger stopped tapping and she pushed herself to a sitting position. He lunged forward to help her, and didn’t miss her wince when she pushed upright.
“Dr. Sloane.” Kendall held herself rigid and gave his mom an awkward smile. “You didn’t have to come.”
“Hello, Kendall. Oh, honey, don’t jostle around.” His mother crouched down near the end of the couch and nodded at Kendall for permission to lift the blanket. “I know I’m probably the last person you wanted to see today, but let’s take a look at that ankle, shall we?” His mom lifted the blanket and tenderly felt around Kendall’s swelling ankle. “It looks like a sprain. I’d like to get it x-rayed just to make sure you don’t have a hairline fracture.”
Damian stood next to the couch, resisting the urge to reach down and hold Kendall’s hand, pushing down his instinct to comfort her. Strange that after so many seething, bitter years his desire to protect her overrode his need to make her suffer, to punish her for turning him into the shell of a man he was now. But her confident, almost sanguine, stare at his mom and the way she swallowed down her discomfort reminded him of the old Kendall. The Kendall he’d known before. The one he’d fallen madly in love with was so strong, an oak in a family full of wilted lettuce. Not the cowardly girl who had run away from him, or the brazenly phony woman he’d seen on TV. This was who he’d always thought she was. But was she really? What kind of woman left without any word? One day they’d been married and so in love they shared everything and the next day she was gone.
He choked down the anger surging up. It could wait. Making her pay for her betrayal could wait until he knew she would be okay. And, yes, he fully realized what a hypocritical asshole he was.
His mother tenderly wrapped Kendall’s ankle and wrote something on her prescription pad and handed it to him. “Can you bring her by the hospital after you pick up this prescription for pain?” She looked down at Kendall with an odd look on her face. A look that seemed a lot like sympathy, almost motherly. A look that made his chest ache so hard he yanked the small note from his mother’s hand before he got lost in it.
All this warm-and-fuzzy-feelings shit was starting to get on his nerves. Yeah, great his mom was finally being kind to his wife…his soon-to-be ex-wife. So what. Too little too late.
“Sure,” he said and shoved the note in his pocket. What was he supposed to do? What did they expect from him? Forgiveness? Love? Forget it. Too much water under that bridge. “Thanks for coming by.”
His mother stood and brushed her hands down her tailored pants. “Thank you for calling me. I’ll meet you at the hospital. I’m sure we can get her in for a quick scan.” She swallowed before looking up at him again. “Damian, we really do need to talk about this.”
Kendall’s head jerked up to meet his gaze before looking between him and his mother and back at him again. “About what?”
Evelyn Sloane leaned down and gently smoothed down Kendall’s hair, so sweetly it reminded him of when he and Duncan had been young. That ache in his chest cracked and he could feel the fissures of it running along that hard shell he’d so carefully built up over the last four years.
“About everything, Kendall. The past and the present.”
Damian held up his hand as if that would somehow get his mother to stop talking. As if he somehow could stop any of the women in his life from doing anything. “Mom, we’re not doing this now. Kendall’s hurt and exhausted. We’ll meet you at the hospital in an hour.”
His mother’s shoulders slumped slightly. Now that he’d called her she was going to see this as an opportunity to fix what was broken in their family. Problem was, there wasn’t any way to fix it.
Kendall took a deep breath and did her best to smile. “Thank you for your help, Dr. Sloane. Really. But there’s nothing to talk about.”
Damian’s mom took Kendall’s small hand in hers and patted it. “Evelyn. Please call me Evelyn. And there is so much to talk about. But we’ll leave it until later.”
Again, Damian reminded himself that all these feelings were bullshit. He was looking for closure, sure, but another kind altogether. The kind that ended in divorce and never having to see Kendall again. Not the kind with fixed relationships and mended fences. Fairy tales weren’t his thing anymore.
It was time for these tattered fences to be torn down and replaced completely.
*
After an hour of driving and waiting and more time getting an X-ray that concluded Kendall did not have anything other than some superficial scrapes and a slight sprain, Kendall found herself on familiar ground—arguing with her husband.
“No, Damian. Absolutely not.” The ball in her chest that had made itself comfortable since she stepped back in town grew, stealing her breath, leaving her unsettled.
There was absolutely no way—no freaking way—Kendall was sleeping in Damian’s cottage when she had a perfectly decent house just across the yard. Plus, she didn’t need him babysitting her. Plus plus, she didn’t want him that close, messing with her resolve, and her hormones. She’d been back in Blackberry Cove all of one full day and she’d attended a funeral, been tortured against her grandmother’s hall wall by her not-quite-ex-husband, shoveled goat poop, showered in goat milk—which had left hair super soft, but that wasn’t the point—and nearly broken her damn ankle. It was late and she was too exhausted to deal with anyone or anything. Especially one very hot and very bossy cowboy who had refused to leave her side at the hospital and was now carting her from his truck into the cottage.
As he pushed open the door and carried her into the refurbished cabin she sucked in a breath and closed her eyes.
This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. Dammit, this is happening.
Kendall’s heart tilted sideways and threatened to jump from her chest. Leaning her head against Damian’s rock-like chest, she burrowed further into his arms. She didn’t want to be there, in the place that used to be their home together. She didn’t want to see how it had changed, how it was no longer hers and how perhaps other women—he had to have had girlfriends over the years—had made their imprint on what was supposed to have been her life, her love, her home.
“Kendall, open your eyes.”
She squeezed them tighter, wanting to keep it all out, everything—her mother leaving her, Nana’s and Sabre’s deaths, running away from life, broken promises. All of it. Though her grandmother had never shown her traditional love she had given her a home. The only real one she’d ever known. And she was feeling wrapped in a thick blanket of sadness as she mourned the cranky old woman. As she mourned the sister she barely knew. As she mourned the life she’d never have—not the music business, but the business of the farm and being a farmer’s wife. And she knew the second she opened her eyes it would all come rushing at her double speed, a rubber band full of memories snapping back and hitting her straight in the chest. And she wouldn’t be able to keep in the tears she’d been holding on to. Not the silly little waterfall she’d let go the night before. No, those tears had been a mere pressure release. The real ones were just waiting for her control to slip…because once she let them go she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to stop.
“Kendall,” he commanded and she snuggled in more, crushing her face to his warm body. She knew she had no right to cling to him. Of course not. She’d abdicated that throne long ago. But she was selfish and she wanted to curl into him for just another moment until she was forced back into the real world again. The shitty world she was solely responsible for creating for herself.
“It’s just a house, Kendall,” Damian said flatly.
Taking a deep breath she nodded against him, letting the soft flannel of his shirt caress her cheek. When his breath mirrored hers with a sigh, slowly she lifted her head and opened her eyes.
It wasn’t exactly what she had expected, or what she’d been so afraid of, but their cute little rustic cabin looked just like an updated cute, but much bigger and more modern rustic cabin. The kitchen, which opened into a beamed great room, was all new and sparkling, but still had that country vintage feel. It was all the same but very much different. Like they’d planned together so many years ago.
Patiently Damian held her, not saying anything, only turning slowly as she took everything in. The black and white marble counter and the small, but sturdy wood block island, the retro-styled refrigerator and stove in mint the only splashes of color in the diminutive, but well-appointed kitchen. A small counter divided the open living area from the kitchen. The oversized sectional couch was warm dark brown leather with a few throw pillows in mint and beige. A large barn door coffee table dominated the room, but gave it a comfortable feel. The old dusty cabin was now a lived-in and lovely home.
Damian’s home.
“It’s beautiful,” she said quietly as he set her on the couch and pulled a large blanket over her. Before he pulled away she gripped his flannel shirt and held him close. “Your…” She stumbled over that first word and swallowed hard. “Your home is beautiful, Damian.” Her words were colored by their past. Tainted by their present. And dark with knowing that they had no future together. The ball in her chest grew bigger, making it harder to breathe, making it harder to think.
For the first time since she’d been back to town, which seemed like weeks instead of hours, he looked down at her with something a little less than resentment and a little more like compassion. For one single tiny second she wanted to grab on to that look and bury herself there forever. Never run, never leave, never move on. Maybe it was the fall that was making her weak, maybe it was the medication Evelyn had given her. Either way she felt herself letting go of the rigid hold on her resolve and felt herself leaning in to the tiny sliver of hope she glimpsed in Damian’s eyes.
His large hand smoothed down her side and though her clothes and the blanket separated her skin from his and the pills had numbed her senses, she responded as if he caressed her directly, sucking in a sharp breath and letting her eyes drift shut.
“We’ll talk later, sweetheart. Sleep now.” Kendall wanted to talk now. She wanted to tell him the truth. The reasons why she’d left. He’d understand now, wouldn’t he? And maybe he would tell her it was okay and that they could live in this little cottage for the rest of their lives. Like they’d always planned.
She drifted off to the soft sounds of her husband moving around in the kitchen and a quiet memory of them riding horses together down on the beach.