Simple Perfection (20 page)

Bethy

My entire life I had loved the sound of the waves. The natural beauty of the gulf. I was proud to live in such a special place.

But that had all changed.

The crashing waves were cruel. It had been two weeks since the water had taken Jace from me. Two weeks since I cheated death and it had taken the man I loved instead.

"It should have been me," I screamed at the water. I wanted it to know it had messed up and taken the wrong life.

"He wouldn't have agreed with you."

I didn't want to hear that voice. Not now. Not now that Jace was gone. I wanted him to go away.

"No one should have died, Bethy. And Jace made sure it wasn't you. It wasn't the water who took the wrong person. Jace made that decision." I wanted to cover my ears like a child and scream at him to go away. I didn't want him here. Why was he still here? He knew it was my fault. He knew this was all my fault, yet he didn't look at me with hate in his eyes the way Woods did.

"Go away," I said without looking back at him.

"I'm not leaving again."

Those were not words I wanted to hear right now. Maybe five years ago I would have loved to have heard Tripp Newark tell me he was staying in Rosemary, but not now. Any and all feelings I had for Tripp had died the day I walked out of the abortion clinic Aunt Darla had taken me to, with an ache in my chest where my heart used to be.

"You can do what you want. Just stay away from me," I snapped, finally turning my angry glare on him. He was still just as beautiful as he had been when I was sixteen and stupid. He had said pretty words and I had believed him.

"I will for now. But I've been running for five years, Bethy."

It wasn't my fault he had been running. He had left me without an explanation or apology. He hadn't answered my phone calls. Nothing. Not even the message I'd left him after I had killed our baby. I had been devastated. He hadn't even called me back then.

"I loved him!" I yelled, and pointed my finger at Tripp. "I loved Jace! It was real! Damn you! It was real. Don't come to me and tell me you're coming back. Don't tell me you're tired of running. I don't give a motherfucking shit! I loved him." My angry screams had turned to sobs, but I didn't care. He'd asked for this. He should have stayed away from me.

"I loved him," I said one more time before turning to walk away.

"I loved him, too. He was like my brother. He was everything I wasn't. He was good. He was honest. He was strong. He deserved you."

I stopped and let the pain slice through me. He's gone. How could he be gone?

"I'm sorry, Bethy. I'm sorry that I just left you that summer. I was young and stupid. My parents wanted things for me I didn't want and I was scared of becoming my dad. So I ran like hell. I wanted to tell you. Dammit, I wanted to take you with me, but you were sixteen years old. You were an even bigger kid than I was. What was an eighteen-year-old trust fund brat going to do taking care of a sixteen-year-old?"

It was the past. Nothing he said made up for what he'd done. It was over. I had let it go and buried it and moved on.

"I was in love with you, Bethy. You were the first girl I ever loved. You've been the only girl I've ever loved. I never wanted to hurt you. When Jace was smart enough to fall in love with you I knew you'd be okay. He would give you everything you deserved."

"Shut up!" I snapped, spinning around and glaring at him "Just shut up! He didn't know! He loved me and he trusted me and he didn't know. I never told him. I wasn't worthy of him. I was never worthy of him. I was a liar. I'm tainted. I'm dirty."

Tripp took a step toward me. "No, you're not. Just because you trusted me with your love and then gave me your virginity . . . Bethy, that doesn't make you tainted or dirty. What we had wasn't wrong. It was real. I was too young to deal with it but it was very fucking real. It never left me."

Giving him my virginity was stupid. I had been a good girl then. Sex had equaled love to me. But Tripp had changed all that. He had turned me into something that Jace saved me from. The girl Tripp had destroyed, Jace had salvaged and cherished.

"No. Loving you was stupid, not wrong. Trusting you with my virginity was a mistake, not dirty. But killing the baby that we created because you didn't care enough to return my calls . . . that's what made me unworthy of someone like Jace."

I turned and walked away. This time he didn't try to stop me.

Della

I sat in the window of Woods's office and watched him read over some new contracts he needed to sign with a distributor that I had found for the clothing line in the clubhouse. What we had was for an older crowd. The members of the Kerrington Club weren't all fifty and above.

He hadn't wanted me out of his sight for longer than a few minutes. It had been two weeks since the funeral and he was still clingy. It was easing up each day, but he still needed me close by. We were also having sex more often than normal, and that was a whole lot of sex.

Blaire had called and invited me over for lunch today at one. That was Nate's nap time, so she was hoping we could meet at her house. Bethy was also invited. She wasn't working or showing up anywhere anymore. Blaire was worried about her and I was, too. Woods still wouldn't talk about her.

"Blaire has invited me to lunch today at her house at one. Are you okay with me going?" Normally I wouldn't have felt like I had to ask Woods's permission to eat lunch, but with his need for me to be close to him at all times, I wanted to check and make sure.

He looked up from his contract and frowned. I could see the sadness in his eyes and I almost wished I hadn't asked him and had just told Blaire no.

"I'm sorry, Della."

I stood up. "For what?"

"For making you think you have to ask me to go somewhere. These past couple of weeks I've been needy, and I'm sorry I've done that to you."

I pulled his chair back and straddled his lap, then grabbed both of his shoulders. "Do not apologize to me. Not for that. You needed me and I was able to be what you needed. I was the strong one this time. Not you. Me. I got to be the one to hold your hand. It was my turn to show you how much I love you. So, don't apologize for that."

Woods grinned. He hadn't grinned since before the accident. He lifted his hand and traced my jaw. "You're straddling my lap in a skirt. I want you to go but I'm also thinking about your panties and wondering if they're wet, or if I can get them wet. Hurry and stand up and get away from me before I do something that changes your plans."

Laughing, I jumped out of his lap. "Not that I wouldn't enjoy you checking to see if you could get my panties wet, because I assure you that you could, but Blaire seemed to really want to do lunch."

Woods nodded. "Go eat lunch with her. I'll be fine."

I blew him a kiss that he caught and pressed to his lips. Then I stepped through the door and closed it behind me.

"I heard laughter. It was nice," Vince said from his desk.

I nodded. "He's better," I told him.

"Because of you," he replied.

I just smiled because I knew he was right. I had helped Woods. It had been me.

Blaire opened the door with Nate on her hip. His small hand was fisted in her long platinum hair and he was tugging pretty hard on it.

"Come in," she said with her head tilted in his direction. "Let me detangle myself and get this one in bed and I'll be right back. There's glasses and tea on the table in the kitchen. Oh! Nate, that hurts Mommy."

I tried not to laugh but a giggle leaked out.

She grinned and rolled her eyes. "He likes my hair. I'm going to end up bald because he's pulled it all out."

"Go save yourself. I'll get a drink," I told her, and she flashed me an appreciative smile and headed for the staircase. It was a grand, elaborate set of stairs. The whole house was pretty fabulous. It had been Rush's before Blaire. His dad had bought it for him when he was a kid. His mother used to live there when she was in town, but he wasn't on speaking terms with her at the moment.

I walked through the house and stopped to look at the life-sized portrait of Nate above the fireplace in the drawing room. His hair was going to be as pale as his mother's, or at least it looked like it now. The longer it got, the blonder it was.

The kitchen was at the other end of a long hallway with really high ceilings. There were framed photos of the three of them covering the walls. They weren't professional pictures but casual family photos of them playing at the beach or opening gifts at Christmas. There was even one with Rush on a slide with Nate in his lap. He so didn't look like the kind of guy to go down a slide.

Once I got to the kitchen, I fixed myself a glass of tea. The pantry door stood open and I walked over and peeked inside. I had heard about the hidden room under the stairs that you got to through the pantry. It had been where Rush had stuck Blaire when she first came to Rosemary looking for her dad.

Smiling, I wondered if they ever went in that room . . . to remember.

The doorbell rang again and Blaire's footsteps echoed as she came down the stairs. I had wondered if Bethy would come. I hadn't seen her anywhere else so I wasn't sure she would show up, even though Blaire was her best friend.

Both women walked into the room and Bethy's sad, empty eyes met mine. I set my glass down and went over to hug her. She looked like she needed a hug.

"I've missed you," I told her.

She wrapped her arms weakly around me. "Thanks," she sniffled.

"No crying. We're going to eat the cookies I made and not think about calories, and we're going to talk," Blaire announced as she picked up a covered tray, walked over to the table, and set it down.

I wasn't sure if this was going to work, but Blaire looked pretty determined. I watched Bethy as she tried to gather herself and took a seat across from me.

"Okay, so maybe we need to cry first," Blaire said as she saw Bethy's face crumple. "Talk to us. We're here to listen."

Bethy lifted her eyes and shook her head. "No, I'm tired of crying. I'm tired of being sad. I just want to be able to smile again."

"We haven't lost the man we love but we both have lost people we love. I've lost my mother and my sister. Della lost her mother. We know it hurts and we want you to scream and yell, whatever you have to do to get it out. Then you need to eat cookies and think of funny stories that make you laugh. Think about things that Jace did to make you laugh. Remember him in the good ways. They will overcome the bad memory of that night. I promise you, they will."

Woods

Jimmy had called to tell me I needed to get Grant from the bar. He had drunk too much and was now calling my new golf pro a douchebag. Not a good thing. He'd regret that tomorrow.

I walked past Jimmy, who was shaking his head with an amused grin on his face. Grant was leaning on the bar, trying to convince the new bartender that he was a congressman and demanding another drink.

"I got this," I told the new guy, who looked very relieved.

Grant spun around and almost fell over a stool. "Hey, Woods! It's you. Get me another shot, buddy," he slurred. Grant only called people buddy when he was drinking.

"Not a chance in hell," I replied. "Come on, you're going home. You're done for the night."

Grant jerked his arm out of my grasp. "I don't wanna go home. I wanna stay here. I like it here. It's better here. If I go back to my place"---he lowered his voice, although he was still talking really loudly---"she will come."

"Who is she?" I asked, grabbing his arm and jerking him up. I started pushing him toward the door before he could protest this time.

"She is she," he said, whispering loudly again.

"She is she? Really? Man, how much have you had to drink?"

Once we were outside, Grant looked around and realized we had been walking. "Aww, damn. You tricked me. We left."

"Why don't you want to go to your place? You need to sleep this off."

Grant looked around us like he was looking for someone who might be hiding and waiting for him to tell a highly important secret.

"She's Nan. Always Nan. And she's pissed. When she gets pissed she gets possessive, then naughty, then she does things and I end up letting her, but now I don't want to let her 'cause I don't even like her. So I can't go home."

Nothing he had said made sense except that he didn't like Nan. Neither did the rest of the world. I was pretty damn sure there was a Twitter hashtag that said #NanHater.

"You want to crash in one of the rooms here?" I asked him as he stumbled and sat down on a bench.

"Can I? She can't find me here. Can she?"

I was pretty sure I hadn't seen him this drunk since boarding school. Nan had done a number on him. "You would think by now you would have learned your lesson about messing around with Nan. She's poison. Why even go near her?"

Grant let out a loud sigh and leaned forward.

"Do not puke on the damn brick. It's a country club, dickhead, not a bar."

He lifted his head and his eyes were glassy. "It ain't Nan that's making me drink. It's her. She's so damn . . . so damn . . . hell, I don't know what she is. She messed up my head. She fucked me over, literally. She won't see me. Won't talk to me. Nothing. She's guarded like the damn queen. Bunch of damn rock stars act like I'm a problem. I'm not a problem. I just want to see her. I need to explain."

What the hell was he talking about? "I'm lost, dude. You're not making sense anymore. Come on, let's get you a room."

"She's got these legs that go on forever. Lots of legs . . . lots of 'em. They're soft. So fucking soft," he muttered as I jerked him up and walked him over to my truck.

"Nan?"

Grant spit. "Fuck no. I told you this ain't about Nan. She's the evil bitch that fucked it up. She fucks up everything."

I put him in and closed the door, then got in on my side and rolled down the windows. "If you need to hurl do it outside of my truck," I told him before cranking the engine.

"She's got these legs," he said again.

"Yeah, you told me."

"You don't understand, they're like legs from fucking heaven."

Someone had done a number on him. I was thankful it wasn't Nan. That was the only thing I was thankful for at the moment. If I could get him out of my truck without his puking, I'd be thankful for that, too.

"She was a virgin," he whispered.

Wait . . . what? "Now I know we aren't talking about Nan."

Grant leaned his head back on the leather seat. "A virgin. She didn't tell me, either. Now she won't talk to me. I need her to talk to me."

So Grant took a virgin and some rock stars are holding her captive. That doesn't make any . . . oh shit.

"Grant, are you talking about Harlow?"

"Yeah, who the fuck did you think I was talking about?"

That might just be worse than Nan.

Yeah . . . it's definitely worse than Nan.

He was in deep shit. Nan would never let that happen. Ever.