Tempting Fate (39 page)

“So much so that you’d rather play it safe letting everyone believe you're involved with a man you don't love and is no longer in your life? You don't love Roger. Don’t bother trying to deny it because I won’t believe it if you tell me you love him now.”

She didn’t try. Devin had been right. Roger had been her safety net. The boat would never be rocked and her world would always remain intact, under her control, if she stayed with him. There'd be no changes, no surprises. The fact that her mother couldn’t stand him was just an added bonus in a game she and her mother had always played. That realization left a bitter taste in her mouth.

Too much of her world was coming apart at the seams. All her dreams and goals had taken on a new dimension. The very foundation of her life was shifting.

Devin touched her face and brushed his thumb along her cheek. The deep timbre of his voice made everything he said seem so simple. “Life’s not that cut and dry, Cara. You don’t take each step knowing where you’ll end up in advance. Sometimes life is just a crap shoot. Sometimes you have to risk losing everything to get what it is you really want.”

She gently pulled his hand away. “I’m not a gambler, Devin. I need something I can count on. I always thought I could count on you.”

“You still can.”

“I don’t want to lose that.”

The horn sounded and a flurry of people started advancing toward the exit. Cara sprinted until she fell into step with them. She knew Devin would be right behind her, but she couldn’t stay on the boat and cry in front of everyone. She needed Devin, but not here and not like this.

As soon as the ferry docked, she ran down the ramp, vaguely aware of how rudely she was pushing herself past the other people in line. When she reached the dock, she waited for Devin to catch up.

In his expression, she saw the hurt and fear of a dejected man. She didn’t want to see Devin as the man she was desperately in love with. She wanted him to be her friend. She wanted it to be the way it was, securely tucked away in a safe harbor called the past.

“I need my best friend, too, Cara. For the rest of my life, every day in my bed and in my heart.” He pressed his fist against his chest and squeezed his hand. “For always. That’s why we can’t let this go.”

She didn’t hide the willful tear that rolled down her cheek. Devin was right. She had been holding her own secrets tight to her chest.

“Roger asked me to marry him.”

The blood drained from his face right before her very eyes. He took one big step backward as if she'd just slapped him across the face. “What did you say?” he rasped, his jaw tight.

“He asked me to--”

“Dammit, I heard that part. What was your answer?”

“That I needed some space.”

He swallowed hard. His voice was weak when he spoke. “Why didn't you tell me all this yesterday? Last night!”

“I just wanted to be with you. I didn't want to think about anything else.”

He shook his head as if in disbelief. “You can't have it both ways, Cara. I won't share your love with him.”

“I'm not asking you to share,” she insisted.

“What do you call it then? We've already taken our relationship too far. There is no going back now.”

A hot tear trickled down her cheek. “I needed my best friend, Devin. I needed you.”

He took her hands and brought them to his lips, kissing them softly. Desire swirled through her body with the memory of just how those kisses affected her and she pulled her hands away.

“Well here I am in the flesh. The man you choose to marry should be your best friend. And that's me, Cara. Why can't you see that?”

“It's not that simple.”

“For me, it is. In my life, it's all or nothing. If you choose to be with him, then we lose. I won't stand by watching you love another man. I won't.”

The mid-morning sun beat down on her as if it were pounding her to the ground. Maybe because she felt like she just been beaten herself. By circumstance and by fear.

She could only watch as Devin charged through the crowd walking along the wharf. Inside she was raw like an open gash.

Devin was right. And she was being a coward. At that moment, feeling as low as she was, all she wanted was Devin’s arms to comfort her when she should have wanted Roger.

The man you choose to marry should be your best friend. Devin was her best friend. And she’d just done her damnedest to drive him away.

# # #

Chapter Thirteen

“Are you sure you won’t stay until after Labor Day?” Ruthie said, sitting on the bed next to Cara's half-filled suitcase. Her mother did nothing to hide her disappointment that Cara had decided to return to Boston earlier than she'd originally planned.

Cara dropped her cosmetic case into her suitcase. Much as she hated all the lies and manipulation, Cara had always found it difficult to stay angry with her mother. No matter what, she loved her unconditionally.

“Louise has been having false labor. Her baby is going to be here any day now and I need to get back to work to get a clear head about what is going on before she leaves.”

“You need to be back here for the wedding.”

What she needed was to get back to Boston and plant herself firmly in her old life. She hadn’t talked to Devin since their argument and he'd run off. For all she knew, he probably thought she’d gone back to Boston to marry Roger.

Of course, nothing could have been further from the truth. No matter what happened from this point on in her relationship with Devin, she knew she couldn’t stay with Roger. She wasn’t in love with him. Plain and simple. And it had taken all the heartache and crying she’d done over Devin to come to that realization.

She'd come back here, locked herself in her room, half hoping Devin would come after her, half knowing he wouldn't. Now she didn't know how she was going to undo the mess she'd made.

One thing she did know for sure, this charade she'd been playing with her mother had gone too far.

“Mom, I know the wedding isn't for you and Daddy.”

To her credit, Ruthie gave up the charade as well. “Devin told you?”

Cara nodded, all the anger she'd had pent up over her mother's deception was long gone. “I know your intentions were good. But I can't marry Devin just because you want me to give you grandchildren.”

Ruthie sighed heavily. “The only thing I really want is for my daughter to be happy. And judging by the way you've been moping around for the last few days, you're far from it.”

Cara closed her eyes, trying her best to keep the tears that threatened her from falling. Lord knows she'd shed enough trying to figure out why she was being so stubborn. Even after all the heartache and tears, she still couldn't bring herself to gamble her friendship with Devin away. They'd been there and done that seventeen years ago. And they'd lost. She didn't want to lose again.

She drew in a fortifying breath. Time and distance is what she needed to put things back into perspective. She needed to plant herself firmly in her old routine and decide which direction to turn.

Except clarity was the last thing she got when she returned to her Back Bay condo later that afternoon. Every time the phone rang, she ran to answer it, expecting it to be Devin. But it never was. It left her lots of idle time to sift through paperwork and check on orders she'd already checked and to think...

How could her mother have actually thought she’d go through with an arranged marriage? It was completely archaic and, well, stupid. She was not the marrying kind of woman. She’d said that all along and that was all there was to it.

Her stomach ached from the greasy potato chips she’d eaten for breakfast and she clutched her stomach to ease the pain.

Devin. As angry as she was with him for playing along with her mother’s game, damn, she loved him. Could it really be like he said? Could they really have it all and a family, too?

We’d make an awesome team. She’d replayed the words over and over again until her head hurt. She rubbed the soft aching spot at her temple and slouched back on her sofa. She and Devin, they would make an incredible team.

Sometimes life is just a crap shoot. Sometimes you have to risk losing everything to get what it is you really want.

Distance had not given her the answers she wanted. It had only forced her to look at the questions she'd been running away from. She needed to talk to Devin. Only then would the answers come clearly.

But first, she needed to straighten out things with Roger. What she needed to say wasn’t going to be easy, and she wasn’t sure how either one of them would handle it, but she had a two-carat reason for trying. With her decision made, her stomach suddenly felt a little better and her head a little lighter.

She didn’t bother to reach Roger until well into the evening. That’s the way things had always been. Except before, she’d always been working, too. She’d had the whole afternoon to sit and think about exactly what she was going to say. She’d sat in her studio, staring at the bolts of fabric and odds and ends, rehearsing out loud her speech about why things just weren’t going to work between them.

Standing outside his apartment later that evening, she felt confident, and almost herself again. Until the door swung open and she saw Roger’s face.

“We need to talk,” she said.

In the end, Roger’s reaction to their breakup was surprisingly good. He’d admitted the changes in her mood had frightened him, but he thought that marriage was all it would take to change things back to the smooth existence they’d always had. He was adamant that children were not part of his future. When she left an hour later, he gave her a long hug at the door and she was glad that it was over.

If only she’d taken Devin’s advice earlier and talked to Roger about her feelings, things wouldn’t have gotten so fouled up.

She’d chosen to follow her heart and talk to her best friend instead.

* * *

Devin yanked at the collar of his stiffly starched tuxedo shirt and fiddled with the black tie choking him. He couldn't believe he let Ruthie convince him this little plan to go through with the wedding was going to work.

He hadn’t seen or heard from Cara since that day on the ferry. At first he thought she'd need some time and he was going to give it to her for however long it took for her to see that they belonged together.

He’d wrapped himself around the Palmer case, putting together the necessary paperwork for appeal so he could prove the so called evidence the state had against Wendell Palmer was bogus. After much haggling, the judge agreed to an appeal. The cloud of doubt hanging over him about his career seemed a little clearer and he actually felt good about what he did for a living for the first time in a long time.

Now if he could only get Cara to see things a little clearer. He had to be the biggest fool to think Cara would actually show up here today and marry him today after the way she'd raced off. So what was he doing dressed in a tuxedo on the hottest Labor Day in history, waiting for a bride that was never going to show?

Yeah, he was a fool all right. And he was in love. That pretty much summed it up.

“She’s not coming,” he ground out nervously, pacing back and forth like an expecting father.

Ruthie stilled him and fiddled with his tie, her usual jovial smile planted on her face. She was dressed in a cream colored chiffon dress. Her hair looked stiff from too much hairspray meant to combat the humidity.

Her voice was confident when she spoke. “Don’t you worry. You don’t know my Cara the way I do.”

“She’s too damn stubborn,” Devin sputtered, darting a glance to the double doors at the back of the church, willing Cara to appear there.

“Hmmm. You’re right about that.”

“She’s headstrong.”

“Right again.”

“She can be impossibly irrational.”

Ruthie chuckled and patted his shoulder. “And she’s completely in love with you. She’s always been.”

Devin’s breath caught in his throat. Was she? After that glorious night they’d made love in Nantucket, he would have bet his last nickel Cara loved him as deeply as he loved her. But she’d never uttered the words.

“Don’t worry yourself so much,” Ruthie said. “You’ll sweat in your tux and you look much too handsome for that. I know my Cara. She’ll be here.”

* * *

Cara’s heart fell through the sand when she saw the “For Rent” sign hanging in the window of Devin’s cottage. Except, it wasn’t really Devin’s cottage. He’d only rented it to come here for her birthday and decide what he wanted to do with his life. Apparently he’d made his decision and she wasn’t part of it.

The headlines in the Boston Globe that morning buzzed about how Devin Michaels had scored another legal victory. The appeals judge had decided to listen to Devin's case. Cara had no doubt he'd score yet another legal victory. With so much work to do on the case, he’d probably gone back to Manhattan.

How could she have been so stupid? Cara chided herself as she ran down the beach toward her parents’ home. Maybe they hadn’t left yet. Maybe the movers were still putting the furniture on the truck and she still had time to find out where Devin had gone.

As she approached the house, she paused and leaned over, resting her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. The movers were there. But instead of loading furniture on, they were unloading. The new owners were nowhere in sight. But neither was her family. They had already left town without her having a chance to say good-bye.

Cara did nothing to hold back the tears rolling down her burning cheeks. She’d been so pigheaded; trying to prove everyone wrong she couldn’t see that she was the one who’d been wrong.

So wrong.

She loved Devin. She always had and always would. But she’d gone ahead and pushed him away one too many times.

She forced air into her lungs to help stop her sobbing. As she walked through the white picket gate, sidestepping the strange men unloading boxes and chairs, she felt lonely. The only signs that she and her family had called this house home were the names etched in the cement walkway leading up to the front porch. She and Manny had “helped” their father build the walk when they were kids. They’d put their hand print in the cement before it dried. Her mother scribbled the names.