Lessons Learned (32 page)

I was exhausted, but I wasn’t tired.

    It was the strangest feeling, but truthfully, it wasn’t the first time in my life I’d felt this way. Just painfully fatigued, and yet, unable to close my eyes because my nerves were absolute live wires.

To say Lucas was pissed was an understatement. I’d never seen him so angry, but he wasn’t upset with me. After my confession, he’d immediately called his lawyer who was ready to take the first flight out of New York. He was now on the phone with his parents, and while I had no idea what that conversation consisted of, I wondered what they thought of me.  After all, I’d had the power to protect their son. Would they despise me if he lost his job?

Without his arms around me, it was so easy to doubt myself. Principal Mullins could ruin our careers, and not only in Sycamore Falls. I didn’t care so much about mine, but to know Lucas’s troubles could haunt him, and I had the power to keep that from happening . . .

Correction—I’d
had
the power.

“Well, my parents are livid,” Lucas announced as he walked into the kitchen. I was standing at the counter, angrily chopping vegetables for a salad we were much too upset to eat. “They want us to resign immediately and move to Manhattan.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad to me.”

Lucas’s eyes snapped to mine. “Really? Because I can book us a flight tonight. We’ll go anywhere you want and we’ll never look back.”

The determined look on his face assured me he was serious.

“Maybe you should go without me,” I whispered softly.

His face darkened as he dropped his cell phone onto the table. Slowly, he made his way over to me, and I dropped the knife against the cutting board.

“Why would you say something like that?”

His voice was soft and sad, and it only broke my heart even more. I blinked back my tears and he whispered my name, gently lifting my face toward his.

“He could ruin you, Lucas.”

“I don’t care.”

His inability to see just how much Mullins could destroy him infuriated me. “You should care! You need to listen to your parents and go back to Manhattan.”

“Without you?”

“Yes.”

“Not a chance.”

His eyes flashed with anger. Exhaling a shaky breath, I leaned on the counter for support as he stepped closer. The only sound in the room was our labored breaths and the chime of the grandfather clock.

“Stop this,” he whispered, smoothing my hair out of my face and gently stroking my tear-stained cheek. “Don’t you dare do this. Don’t even think about trying to push me away because it won’t work. You will never convince me I’d be better off without you, so don’t waste your energy.”

“I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“You think it would have been better if you’d just kept this to yourself? Dealt with it alone?”

“Yes.”

His fingertips stroked my cheek. “Aren’t you tired of dealing with everything without someone by your side? Haven’t you done that long enough?”

I bowed my head.

“And now you’re trying to push me away. But that’s how you deal with every crisis, isn’t it? You push away the people you love.”

I gasped. “That’s not fair, Lucas.”

“You’re right. It’s not fair at all,” he agreed quietly. “But you did it to Aubrey when your parents died. And in some twisted way, you did it to Monica by leaving her in Memphis and moving back home. Life gets rough, and you push away anyone who has ever meant anything to you.”

I couldn’t deny it. Ending my friendship with Aubrey had been completely selfish on my part. I’d been a sixteen-year-old girl who’d just buried her parents. In my mind, if I closed myself off to everyone, then maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much if they left me. I’d grown up, but my philosophy hadn’t changed.

But this time, it was different. I wasn’t trying to protect myself.

“I just want to take care of you.” Tears finally trickled down my cheeks. For the first time in my life, I was trying to be selfless, and he wouldn’t let me.

Lucas’s face softened.

“And I want to take care of you.” His hands gently framed my face. “That’s how it’s supposed to work, Sarah. We’re supposed to protect each other. I don’t need you playing the martyr. I just need
you
.”

I closed my eyes as his lips brushed across my wet cheeks.

“I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” he whispered forcefully. “You’re not alone anymore, and I will not let you push me away.”

As he lifted me into his arms, I encircled his waist with my legs and buried my face against his neck while he carried me upstairs.

Kicking the bedroom door shut and lifting me against it, Lucas pressed his body into mine. His lips blazed a trail along my throat, causing me to moan and tense my legs, pulling him tighter against me. With a groan, his mouth crashed against mine, and I could do nothing but cling to him when he lifted me away from the door and carried me toward the bed, laying me gently against the mattress. Crawling over my body, Lucas slid his hand up my leg and along my thigh before finding the buttons of my blouse. His eyes never left my face while he gradually unfastened each one. I reached for the zipper of his jeans, and we undressed each other slowly, our earlier frenzy settling into something familiar and real . . . and just as passionate as being pinned against the door.

“I love you, baby.”

Whimpering, I repeated his words and drew him closer. All of the fear and desperation mingled with the absolute certainty of the words we were whispering to each other came crashing over me.

He wouldn’t leave me.

I wouldn’t leave him.

Simple promises made with adoring whispers and quiet passion, and just as binding as if we were reciting them at the altar.

From that day on, there was no more talk of leaving.

There was, however, much talk about Christmas vacation, which was only two weeks away. It was the favorite topic of conversation at both home and school.

It snowed a little every day, blanketing the mountains and adding to the excitement of the season. I couldn’t deny I was excited, even though Lucas was becoming more secretive as the holiday crept closer. I’d catch him on his laptop or on his phone at the weirdest times, and he’d just shrug it off and distract me with Christmas trees, sugar cookies, and hot kisses under the forest of mistletoe he’d hung throughout the house. There was really no rhyme or reason to it. Sprigs hung in the usual places—like the archway leading into the living room, and to my amusement, above the bed—but it was when he hung mistletoe from the ceiling above the shower that I’d finally drawn the line.

As if he needed an excuse to kiss me.

Thanks to a weeklong bout with the flu, Principal Mullins had been blissfully absent from school, postponing the inevitable conversation. He’d want to know what I’d decided, and Lucas had already demanded to stand by my side when the day arrived.

We were united, and there was no more talk of leaving.

“Miss Bray, are you listening?”

I smiled apologetically at Matt, and he laughed.

“Thinking about Mr. Miller, aren’t you.”

I flipped through the pages of his textbook and pretended to play dumb.

“Why would you assume that?”

“Because I catch him daydreaming, too,” Matt replied with a grin. “It’s cool, though. I get it.”

Lucas and I were tutoring Matt twice a week. He didn’t really need our help; Matt was an intelligent young man. What he did need, however, was motivation and some positive influences. He was surrounded by thugs at the alternative school, which made his mom understandably nervous, but the isolation from his friends had sent Matt spiraling into a depression that kept him locked in his room all day long. His father had been less than supportive, which only added to Matt’s stress. Debbie admitted he was happiest when Lucas or I were there, which made the fact that I wasn’t paying attention to him an absolute shame.

“I’m sorry, Matt. So what do you think of Poe?”

“So much better than Shakespeare.”

I couldn’t agree more.

“He
is
a little morbid,” Matt continued, “but life is morbid sometimes, so I think it’s pretty realistic. Death is a part of life, right?”

“It is. Do you have a favorite?”

“
It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea
 . . .”

Closing his eyes, he quietly recited the first stanza of “Annabel Lee.”

I smiled. “That’s my favorite, too. How are you, Matt? Really?”

It was a stupid question, really. I could tell by the dark circles under his eyes he wasn’t doing well at all.

He shrugged. “I’m just trying to get to graduation, Miss Bray. No matter how much I love this town, I’ve seen enough in the past few weeks to know I’ll never truly be happy here. I want to live in a place where I can get lost in the crowd and still live my life.”

“Are you still thinking about college?”

“Florida State is still interested in me,” he said excitedly, and it was the first time today he’d shown any enthusiasm about anything. “Not for football, obviously, but if I can keep my grades up and stay out of trouble . . .”

I wondered if the university knew about his fight with Patrick, but I decided not to ask. Matt was a smart kid, and I was sure it was something he’d already considered. We discussed possible majors, and he surprised me by admitting he was considering teaching.

“I’ve had some good teachers,” Matt said, “but you’re the first one who made me realize there could be more to life than just what Sycamore Falls has to offer. You left this place—”

“But I also came back,” I reminded him.

“Doesn’t matter. You’re happy here, right?”

While driving home, I was still pondering the answer to Matt’s question.

Am I happy here?

In so many ways, I was happier than I’d ever been, but did my happiness have anything to do with Sycamore Falls?

Pulling into my driveway, I turned off the ignition and took a long look at my grandma’s beautiful house. After Josh’s death, I’d needed the quiet refuge of home. I’d needed the security and familiarity that came from the faded wallpaper in her kitchen and the chime of the grandfather clock. I’d needed this time to refocus. Regroup. Recharge.

I’d never planned on falling in love.

Never even dreamed it was a possibility.

Suddenly, the screen door flew open, and out he walked, carrying a string of lights. Lucas had been hanging Christmas lights for days. He hadn’t spotted me, so I watched closely while he carefully wound the lights around the wooden beams.

Lucas loved this house, which had been obvious this summer when he’d spent every spare moment renovating it. I could never sell it—the house was far too important to me—but if we moved, we’d have to find someone to take care of it.

I shook my head and took a long, cleansing breath. I couldn’t worry about these things. Not right now. I wanted to enjoy our first Christmas together.

For the first time in my life, I was willing to let the future take care of itself, and I knew that was because of the handsome man who was painstakingly stringing lights around my porch.

Chapter 24

It was Christmas Eve, and Lucas and I were spending the evening with Aubrey and her family. Her little boy was curled up in my lap, watching Rudolph on the plasma screen, while the grown boys were sprawled across the living room floor, carefully assembling the train set we’d bought Daniel for Christmas.

    “It was the perfect gift for Tommy,” Aubrey said with a grin.

I smirked. “For Lucas, too.”

The two men had been arguing over the directions for nearly an hour now, but the tracks were finally beginning to take shape as they wound around the Christmas tree.

The night had been full of presents, food, and classic Christmas cartoons. It was as if the adults had secretly decided to ignore our unresolved tension and focus on the little boy’s happiness. We hadn’t even had to force smiles while we baked cookies and played with the presents Daniel had been allowed to open early. There were still plenty of gifts, and I had a feeling Santa would bring more before morning arrived. We’d made a big production of putting milk and cookies under the tree and hanging stockings along the fireplace, happily putting aside our differences to make sure one little boy had a wonderful Christmas Eve.