All of You (11 page)

My heart was pounding fast. I wanted to
believe him, but there were too many reasons to doubt him. What if
Mackenzie put him up to this to harass me even more?

“Is that the truth?” I heard Rebecca ask
Lincoln.

“Yes!” Lincoln exclaimed.

There was another pause before Rebecca spoke.
“Mackenzie wasn’t calling you a freak show. She was calling Jillian
a freak show.”

“Why would she call Jillian that? Do they
know each other?” Lincoln asked, confused and I held my breath. I
silently implored Rebecca not to say anything.

Rebecca sighed. “It’s not my story to tell,
Lincoln. You’ll have to ask Jillian.”

I heard Lincoln’s frustrated sigh. “I would
if I could, but you WON’T LET ME TALK TO HER!”

“Lincoln! Calm down! I’ll go talk to her,
okay? I’ll see if she’ll talk to you.” Rebecca relented.

“Tell her—tell her I’m sorry. Please just ask
her to talk to me,” Lincoln begged and I heard Rebecca’s footsteps
on the stairs. I closed my bedroom door quietly and backed into my
room with my arms crossed over my chest in a self-protective
manner. Rebecca knocked on the door.

“Jillian? Are you awake?” Rebecca asked. Her
voice was muffled through the door.

“Yeah. Come in.”

“Oh, you’re up,” Rebecca said as she turned
on the light and saw me standing. I nodded in reply. “Lincoln’s
here.”

“I know.” I admitted. “I was listening.”

“You were?” Rebecca asked, and I nodded
again. “Well?”

“What do you think?”

Rebecca sighed. “I don’t think he’s dating
Mackenzie.”

“But what if… what if she sent him here to
hurt me even more?” I finally voiced my main concern. I hadn’t seen
Mackenzie in years, but I feared she could still hurt me.

“Jillian, the chances of that happening are
very unlikely.”

“It’s Mackenzie, Rebecca. She’s evil. She’ll
do anything.”

“I know, Jilly Bean. But what if Lincoln is
telling the truth? Think of how hurt you were after freshman year.
What if Lincoln is feeling that way right now? He’s been hurt too,
Jillian.”

“Dammit, Becca.” I sat down on the edge of my
bed. After freshman year, not only was I hurt and lonely, but I had
lost faith in my fellow humans. No one except my family had shown
me any kindness, and while I tried to be a caring, loving person to
everyone, I knew the chances of that concern being paid back were
slim. It was just the way things were.

Rebecca picked up my purse and fished out my
cell phone. She turned it back on and sat down on the bed next to
me. “He seems really upset,” Rebecca said and handed me my phone. I
looked and saw ten texts and eighteen missed calls from Lincoln
along with four calls from a number I didn’t know. I sighed. “Don’t
let evil Mackenzie ruin something that might have been great. If
you do, then she’s already won,” Rebecca said wisely.

We sat in silence for a long moment while I
thought through things. I knew if I ended up being hurt again, it
would hurt even worse than it did last time. It already hurt worse,
and I wasn’t even as emotionally invested in Lincoln as I could
easily be.

I swiped my thumb over Lincoln’s contact
info. He was so sweet and charming. Not just today, but during our
walk at the pond and even in the tent when we first met. Surely if
he was acting, he wouldn’t have been able to keep up the façade
that long. Plus his niece and nephew absolutely adored him. If he
truly were a miserable evil person like Mackenzie, certainly a
child would be able to tell and would shy away from him. Kids can
always tell, right?

Ugh! Why did this man have me tied in such
knots? I thought about it and realized I already knew the answer. I
was all twisted up over this man because he was too good to be
true. He really was sweet and charming and drop-dead gorgeous and a
truly good decent man, and I would never deserve him. “I don’t
deserve him, Rebecca,” I whispered and curled into my sister’s
shoulder, hiding my face from the world. The tears began to flow
again, and I couldn’t find the strength to stop them. Rebecca let
me cry on her shoulder for a short while, rocking me and rubbing
small circles into my back. When it seemed like my sobs had
subsided, Rebecca pulled me to sit up straight and looked me in the
eye.

“Better?” Rebecca asked me.

“No, not really,” I said, rubbing my
eyes.

“No? Sobbing on my shoulder didn’t help? What
a surprise,” she said sarcastically.

“Hey, I couldn’t help it,” I said, defending
my breakdown. A person can only take so much.

“I know, Jilly Bean. And that’s why I didn’t
stop you. Sometimes we all need a good cry. God knows, with the
shit you’ve been given in life, you deserve a good cry more than
most. But you know better than anyone that a good cry never
actually solves anything,” Rebecca said, repeating the words our
mother used to say to us after our father died. One of us would
inevitably find something of our father’s, or someone would mention
a favorite story about our father, and before we knew it the whole
family was in tears. Our mother used to tell us to feel free to
have good cry, but to keep in mind that crying never solved
anything; it only allowed you to dwell in your grief.

Kind of a harsh lesson for a kid, I realized
now that I was older, but our mother had a lot of grief lumped on
her all at once, and she could only handle so much. I suspected our
mother used this mantra to get through her own life without our
father. She had lost the love of her life, and while she had spent
a sufficient amount of time publicly mourning his death, I
suspected she would grieve for her husband until the day she was
reunited with him in heaven. But she did not allow herself to cry
over him anymore. At least never in front of me or my siblings.
Crying never actually solved anything; it only allowed you to dwell
in your grief.

“Dammit, Becca. You just had to say that,
didn’t you? Now I feel even more guilty.”

“Well, you are allowing yourself to dwell in
your grief.”

“I am not,” I said stubbornly.

“You are too, you miserable liar,” she said
teasingly. “You have a man downstairs that wants you. I think he
can make you happy, and you can make him happy. But you’re not even
giving him a chance. You’d rather be up here crying on my
shoulder.”

“I don’t WANT to cry on your shoulder, Becca.
I’m just—”

“You’re terrified. I know,” she said clasping
my hand. “But at least you’re moving forward. That’s always
terrifying. But at least, I think, you’re moving forward with
someone that honestly cares for you.”

“I hope so, Rebecca.” I stood up and wiped my
cheeks dry. “Or I’m going to be right back crying on your
shoulder.”

Rebecca laughed and followed me out of my
room. We went downstairs and found Lincoln sitting at the kitchen
island, coloring with Tabitha in one of her coloring books. As soon
as he saw me enter the room, he dropped his crayon and stood
up.

“Jillian… I’m so sorry, baby,” he said as he
walked over to me and pulled me into his arms. He held me tight for
a moment, and when I didn’t struggle away, he pulled back slightly
to look at my face. He wiped away the tears that had started
falling again with his fingertips. “I hate that I made you cry.” He
looked distressed.

I reached up and cupped his hand against my
cheek. “Can we go somewhere to talk?”

Lincoln nodded and entwined our fingers.
“That would be best.”

He held my hand as we walked to his FJ
Cruiser, and once we were both settled in the vehicle he reached
over and grabbed my hand again as the vehicle pulled away from the
house. We rode in silence for a while, and I replayed in my mind
what had happened at the festival. I thought of how angry he and
Kennedy had sounded toward Mackenzie.

“What happened to Kennedy and the kids?” I
asked, realizing that if Lincoln was here with me, he wasn’t
helping his sister with the kids like he said he would.

“They went home.”

“Oh,” I said as guilt blossomed in my chest.
“I’ll have to apologize to her for ruining their outing.”

“Hey,” Lincoln said, calling me out of my
pool of guilt. “You didn’t ruin anything, okay? Mackenzie ruined
it. Even if you hadn’t run off, we would have left.”

“Why?” I asked dumbfounded. We had been
having a lovely day.

“The press. Before coming up to us, Mackenzie
tipped them off that we were there. They probably wouldn’t have
done anything, but they would have been waiting. Salivating for
some drama,” Lincoln said, disgusted.

“Oh,” I said. I couldn’t imagine that life.
Having your daily activities monitored by someone just hoping you
screw up big enough to have a story for the evening news? Yuck.

“Hey, it’s not all bad. They usually don’t
know where we are unless someone tips them off,” Lincoln said. I
think he was trying to ease my growing worry.

“Where are we going?” I asked when I realized
we had left the city and were now driving on a secluded road that
followed the shore of Lake Michigan.

“My house,” Lincoln said. I whipped my head
around to look at him. He had taken his eyes off the road and was
looking back at me. “If that’s okay?” he asked with uncertainty.
And I nodded in reply. I didn’t know what I was going to do about
telling him about my past, but I wanted to be with him. He squeezed
my hand again and focused his attention back to the road.

We drove for a while longer in silence.
Lincoln had made a few more turns on secluded roads surrounded by
trees, and I doubted I’d ever find his place on my own. It wasn’t
quite dark out yet, but I hadn’t seen any landmarks other than the
shoreline, nor had I seen any houses. I had always heard homes
surrounding Lake Michigan were expensive and extravagant, but I had
never been in one.

When I was in high school, my senior class
voted on what to do for our class trip. I had voted for a trip to a
museum, but inevitably was overruled in favor of a boat cruise of
Lake Michigan. I couldn’t prance around the boat in a bikini like
the pretty popular girls, so I spent most of the day sitting at the
back of the boat watching the scenery. I remembered being
enthralled by the massive houses I could occasionally see through
the trees on the shoreline, and I wondered who lived there. Well,
now I know—rich, handsome, professional hockey players live there.
I felt a twinge of anxiety and hoped that his house wasn’t too
over-the-top.

Lincoln finally turned the car down a
driveway and hit a button on what looked like a garage opener. He
edged the vehicle forward slowly and I saw a black metal gate that
had been across the road opening slowly. We drove for a short
distance with trees on either side of the road until they
eventually lessened and we arrived at a large, open meadow with a
log cabin nestled into the woods at the far end. I could see water
surrounding us on all sides except for behind us. I realized we
were on a point that jutted out into the lake. I gasped and leaned
forward to get a better view.

“Like it?” Lincoln asked, capturing my
attention.

“This is your house?” I watched, astonished
as we got closer and the house rose up in front of me.

“Yeah,” Lincoln said smiling. He pulled the
car around and parked it in front of the log cabin. I got out of
the vehicle and stared up at his house. It was built into the side
of the hill, which made its size deceiving, at least from the
front. It had a wraparound porch that extended to the back of the
house, and I guessed from the outside it probably had five to six
bedrooms. Dark green shingles topped the house, which made the
beautiful honey-colored, knotted logs on the exterior stand out
even more. It was a gorgeous house that was clearly elegant and
expensive, yet it was understated and simple at the same time. I
loved it.

I bit my lip to contain my smile. “Your name
is Lincoln, and you live in a log cabin?”

Lincoln laughed loudly and grabbed my hand to
guide me up the steps. “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

Chapter Eight

Lincoln took me on a partial tour of the
house, ending in the backyard that ran down to the snow-covered
beach. He showed me the main floor and the top floor, but we had
yet to go through the bottom floor. I suspected that’s where his
bedroom was; he had called the other four bedrooms in the house
‘guest rooms.’ I turned to look back at the house from the shore,
and I admired the back wall. Glass panels ran all the way from the
roof down to the ground, including the walk-out basement.

The porch from the front of the house had, in
fact, wrapped around to the back like I suspected and opened up
into a giant deck with a hot tub, fire pit, wet bar, and the nicest
all-weather patio furniture I had ever seen.

The inside of the house was just as gorgeous
as the outside. The living room on the main level was the center
focus of the house. It was open and inviting with vaulted ceilings
and a huge fireplace. It would be good for entertaining guests. I
suspected at the right time of year sunsets would look amazing from
that room.

The kitchen was off to the right of the main
room. It was a good-size kitchen, but it wasn’t anything incredibly
fancy. It fit in well with the cabin-style motif, and I loved the
little green curtains with moose, bear, and wolf silhouettes that
hung on the windows over the sink and the stove. It made it seem
cozy while not pushing the affluence of the house down your throat.
It was perfect.

To the left of the living room was a
staircase that went upstairs. The second level had an open loft for
the main room from which you could look down on everything that was
happening on the main level. A hallway with four bedrooms jutted
out from this main loft area. Two bedrooms faced the front of the
house and had views of the woods, and two bedrooms faced the back
of the house had incredible views of the lake and overlooked the
deck area.