Love to Believe: Fireflies ~ Book 2 (36 page)

Sean stared at her. “You heard my conversation with Rebecca and that’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”

The dark skin of her face rippled into a fond smile and she raised a brow. “Don’t be ridiculous. I always have more. Are you in love with her, Sean?”

Numb, he considered the scenario, all of it surreal, and nodded. “Yes.”

“Do you think she’s a liar? An idiot? A slut?”

“No, of course not.”

“Of course not.” Her dark eyes, warm and caring, stared into his. “
Of course not
. So if she’s not a liar, an idiot, or a slut, then it follows that she must be telling the truth.” She shrugged. “So believe her.”

“It’s not that simple, Myra.”

“Oh, but it is. Doctors are wrong sometimes, you know. And miracles happen every day, Sean. Believe
that
.” She nodded and smiled and walked from the room.

Weary, Sean turned his attention to the desk drawer. He opened it as far as it would go and shoved his arm inside and to the back, feeling around for whatever lodged item caused the problem.

There. Not a pen. Something hard and oval. Wedged. He had to work it loose, but at last it came free.

He opened his hand and gaped at the item. The fine hairs on his arms and at the back of his neck stood on end. The eerie tingling spread over him like wildfire, and he swiveled the chair to face the credenza. He grabbed the photo of himself with Brenna and Jack.

He stared at his brother’s smiling face, allowed the familiar mournful ache to rear up and, instead of tamping it down as usual, he embraced it. Pain and joy rivaled inside him--pain for his loss, joy for the strength of their bond.

After a few minutes he stood, set the photo back in its place, and slipped the item from the desk into his pocket. He snapped Belle’s leash onto her collar and paused at the doorway to turn out the light. His fingers hovered over the switch and he glanced back at the credenza, smiled at the photo with Jack’s image, and, as he blanketed the room in darkness, said, “Wish me luck, Jack. And thanks.”

***

Rebecca fled Sean’s office and walked, her only thought and destination being “away, away, away,” and found herself back at the cemetery standing in front of Jack Kinkaid’s peaceful grave. The flyers that sent her to Sean’s office earlier still littered the ground, and she berated herself for being such an idiot.

“Not your fault, Jack,” she told him and kept going, this time all the way to Gwen’s burial place. Where better to weep undisturbed than at the grave of a friend? She sat on the cold ground with Gwen’s unyielding stone against her back, drew her knees tight to her chest, buried her head in her arms, and sobbed herself dry.

“I’m an idiot,” she hiccupped to Gwen, and imagined her dead sister-in-law sitting beside her, nodding in agreement.

By the time her tears faded so had the sun, and now, in the gloaming, all vestiges of warmth fled, and the North Georgia mountains plunged Bright Hills into nighttime shadows. The soft breeze surrendered to a brisk wind, and Rebecca began her trek home with her arms hugging her abdomen, hands pushed deep inside the sleeves of her sweatshirt to keep them warm. She stayed alert to her surroundings, because you never knew when a serial killer might jump from the bushes, especially in the twilight hours.

Under other circumstances, she might have laughed at herself for having an overactive imagination, but not tonight. Her misery allowed for no humor.

She slowed as she neared the Lump & Grind and glanced through the window to look inside. Brenna stood behind the counter laughing with a customer while one of her after-school baristas, a pimple-faced string-bean of a boy, worked the register. Rebecca’s stomach rumbled and she deliberated going in for another bowl of Brenna’s kick-ass chicken soup--that stuff would taste like heaven right now and warm her up in a hurry--but the notion fled when she considered the conversation her swollen eyes and splotchy skin would elicit. She had no illusions about her appearance after a bout of uncontrolled weeping, and needed no mirror to know she looked like she’d just gone two rounds with an MMA champion and lost.

No. This was not a conversation she was ready to have with Brenna.

The wind kicked up and her hair, already hanging half loose from the messy bun, blew free, the elastic band lost in the night.
Right
, she thought.
Because I don’t already look enough like Night of the Living Dead. Let’s add Medusa hair to the mix
. She paused again at Bubba-Jo’s Café, but bypassed it for the same reason she had avoided the Lump & Grind, and picked up her pace as she moved down the block, jaywalking at a quick jog before she reached the corner because Sean’s office lay around the other side, and though business hours were past, she didn’t want to risk running into him.

Stupid. He was probably already long gone, pumping iron at the gym or sharing dinner at Chez Eloise with a client, or some woman with whom he’d made a new arrangement--Emma maybe, or the pretty DA, Cassidy Marsh--looking forward to a night of no-strings sex.

The bastard.

She focused on hating him with every step, speeding up when she rounded the corner onto Magnolia Street. Her long legs ate up the sidewalk, bathed in the jaundiced glow of aging streetlamps. She marched with purpose toward home, annoyed that she hadn’t turned on the porch light before she left, but she had anticipated being home well before sundown.

The house sat in gray darkness. She stopped beneath the streetlight near her driveway to draw her keys from her purse, and then curtailed her motion again halfway up the drive when a shape materialized on the porch. Her heart jumped into her throat for the moment it took to recognize the dark wraith as Sean’s monster dog, Belle. The animal trotted down the stairs to greet her and dropped to her back at Rebecca’s feet, belly exposed, tail swooshing, paws up.

Rebecca looked from Belle to the porch. Sean stood on the deck, hands in his pockets, leaning against the rail and watching her. His face lay in shadow, but she caught the motion of his hair ruffling in the wind. The cool rush sent a shiver through her and she wondered how long he’d been waiting, and if he was as cold as she.

She hoped he was freezing his ass off.

Belle changed tactics and stood up, her tail swooping and swirling in sign language that said, “Pet me! I’m adorable!”

Rebecca obliged the dog and used those moments to steel herself. She stole another glance at Sean and, even with hurt and anger tearing her up, he still shot her blood pressure and lust level into the stratosphere. Even her boobs tingled.
Damn the man.

She blamed the Little Booger for upping her hormone production.

Rebecca stared at Sean for a second, reminded herself she didn’t have to talk to him if she didn’t want to, and then engaged her forward motion with the unstoppable power of a tank. Sean stepped aside when she stomped up the stairs and said nothing as she slid the key into the lock. She pushed the door open enough for herself to step through, turned around, and said, “Go away.”

“Rebecca--”

“Go away.” Her voice ground from her aching throat like gravel.

She pushed the door closed, but Sean slapped his hand against it, holding it ajar. Their eyes met and Rebecca’s narrowed, lit with a dangerous gleam.

“Give me five minutes.” His eyes, his tone, pleaded with her. “Please. After that, I’ll leave, and I’ll respect whatever decisions you make. Just five minutes.”

Rebecca regarded him with stoic intent, her emotions tamped beneath the weight of her heartache, which at this point had become a mixture of hurt, anger, and desperate
, aching need. The seconds ticked by. The tension rolled off Sean in waves, and Rebecca had no qualms about forcing him to suffer before allowing him into her house.

“Your dog can’t come in if she’s going to chase my kitten.”

“She won’t. Maddie’s cats have her trained.”

She made him wait another few seconds, just because she could, and stepped back to allow him entry.

“Thank you.” His tone bore palpable relief.

Rebecca ignored him. She tossed her purse on the kitchen counter and never broke stride as she walked to the microwave and tapped numbers on the keypad.

“Five minutes.” She pressed the start button on the timer and faced him with her arms crossed over her chest and her lips drawn in an uncompromising line. Gorgeous he might be, and damned if he didn’t smell freaking awesome, but she reminded herself that he’d called her stupid, and a slut, and probably thought her a liar, too. She drew on every ounce of willpower to hold more tears at bay.

Man freaking up.

In the living room Amelia hissed at Belle, and Belle whined, appearing in the kitchen a moment later to lean against Sean with her ears back and her tail between her legs. Sean dropped his hand for Belle to nuzzle and looked past Rebecca to the timer display on the microwave where the seconds counted down.

God, they looked adorable, Sean and that ridiculous dog.

Man up, man up, man up.
She needed to hold onto her righteous anger or she’d never get through this. And maybe she didn’t need to
man
up. Maybe she needed to freaking
woman up
for a change. The personal revelation straightened her shoulders and stiffened her backbone.

Woman up, Rebecca.

She stared at Sean, dry-eyed, with her dignity intact. Sean kept his gaze locked with hers and cleared his throat. “The most important things I need you to know are that I love you, Rebecca, and I believe you. Completely and unconditionally to both.”

Praise God the man couldn’t hear the deafening drum of blood pounding in her ears or know the way the beating of her heart competed with her ability to breathe. She swallowed hard, firmed her stance, and held onto her resolve by slippery fingertips.

Woman up
.

If he expected her to jump into his arms at the simple, albeit shocking, declaration--and make no mistake, she held her throbbing body on a tight leash--he was destined for disappointment. She continued her unwavering, stoic silence.

“Until you, I only dated women I knew I wouldn’t fall in love with. You scared the hell out of me. I knew from the first second I saw you that you were the only one for me. And you are.”

He emitted a shaky sigh, passed another glance at the timer, pushed his hand through his hair, drew a breath, and plunged in. “When I graduated from law school I was career driven. Bright Hills was so far in my rearview mirror, it wasn’t even a speck. I came home once, maybe twice a year, for a few days at best. I had no intention of ever returning to this little bastion of redneck glory. The truth is, I had my head stuck so far up my ass it’s a wonder I ever saw daylight. I cared about one thing. Winning. Nothing else mattered. I took the toughest clients, the hardest cases, and did whatever it took to bring home the win. It didn’t matter if my clients were guilty or innocent, you understand? I didn’t care. I didn’t care,” he repeated.

He eyed the clock again and his jaw tensed. “I assuaged my guilt by convincing myself that they were entitled to due process of law and, if not me, then some other lawyer would get them off. That’s what I told myself.

“There was a guy, Georgio Manetti, nephew of a huge client of the firm. Georgio was a drug addict, an alcoholic. He’d been picked up a few times for DUI and his uncle had always managed to smooth things over for him. Well, this one time, he couldn’t, and they called me in to fix it. And I did. The cop who stopped Manetti was green as grass, tromped all over his civil rights. I got Manetti off. He should’ve been rotting in jail, but thanks to me, he wasn’t, and six weeks later he was DUI again, only this time he killed a father driving his daughter to her dance recital. Stanley Boyd.” Sean’s voice hitched and he cleared his throat. “The father’s name was Stanley Boyd. He died and his daughter, Hayley, was severely injured.

“Still, I took no blame. Not my fault, right? It was the cop who screwed up.” Sean shrugged and looked away. “That’s how I slept at night. And I did sleep. Like a baby.”

He looked back at Rebecca. “A few weeks later, out to dinner with a client, my cell phone kept going off. It was Brenna. She must have called a hundred times that night. I blew her off, shut my phone off, ignored her messages. I didn’t bother calling her back until the next morning.” He closed his eyes for a moment before meeting her gaze again.

“She was calling to tell me about Jack, that he’d been killed by a drunk driver. A guy who should’ve been in jail, just like Manetti, but he got out of his previous DUI because of a goddamned lawyer just like me. Same fucking scenario. I might as well have killed Jack myself.” He blew out a slow breath and wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. “That’s how it feels.”

The muscle in his jaw tensed. He looked away from her again and blinked hard, his emotions so blatant and raw she dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands to keep from going to him. She’d be damned if she’d stop him from talking now. The floodgates had opened and she wanted to hear it all, believed he needed to say it.

He took a deep breath and moved his eyes back to hers. “Coming home for the funeral was like walking into an emotional tsunami.” He paused again, memories darkening his eyes and lowering his tone. “Brenna was a complete mess. My parents--” He swallowed, blinked hard, and started over. “My parents were totally wrecked. And sweet Maddie. It was like she died with Jack, only her heart didn’t know to stop beating. When I went back to New York, I had already made the decision to move back to Bright Hills. They needed me here, not a thousand miles away. Lindsay and I were already engaged by then, and she thought I’d lost my mind.” He puffed out a harsh laugh. “She cheated on me with the guy she’s divorcing now, and I didn’t care. She could’ve banged every New York Yankees fan in a hundred-mile radius and it wouldn’t have fazed me. She was easy to let go, partly because I knew we didn’t love each other the way we should, and partly because I didn’t feel I had the right to be a husband and father, not after taking that gift away from Stanley Boyd.

“I quit my job and came home to be here for my family. About two weeks in, I suffered a groin injury playing a pick-up game of basketball with some friends, severe enough to warrant surgery. The doctor said scar tissue would probably make it next to impossible for me to father a child. Clearly, that’s not the case, but at the time it felt like karma. Or the hand of God passing down a sentence. It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud, but I guess I’m Catholic enough to believe in supreme retribution. So, no kids, no wife. No life. Not that life, anyway.