Unbreak My Heart (12 page)

"If you mean that..." Stephen stared down at her, hesitating. "If that's what you really want, I'm willing to buy the house from you."

"You want to live here?"

"I'm not sure. You said yourself, it's too big for one person. But I'd love to be able to restore it. It's one of the most beautiful houses in town."

She was tempted. It would be nice for just one little part of this to be easy. She could just sell it to him and be done with it. "I'll think about it."

"Take your time," he said easily. "You're planning to be here for a while?"

"A few weeks, maybe a month," she said.

"You don't have to be back in Connecticut?"

"I don't have to be anywhere." She was as rootless as a person could be.

Stephen squeezed her hand reassuringly, and she stared up at the house. Perhaps for the first time she thought about truly giving up this last link to her former life, to her family. There was truly nothing left except her and a few faint memories, the possessions of theirs still to be found within the walls and the house itself.

Just a house, she'd told herself. But it wasn't, of course. As uncomfortable as she felt here, it was hard to imagine it belonging to someone else. She could sell it to Stephen, and he'd turn it into an even more beautiful place, but in the process, he'd wipe the slate clean. She might not even recognize it anymore, once he was done restoring it to its original beauty.

It would no longer exist except in the faint traces of her memory. But she couldn't hang onto it. She didn't have to nm the numbers to know. This was simply beyond her means.

She was letting her emotions simply overwhelm her—to be even thinking of keeping it, trying to salvage something of her childhood, of her family, that was simply unsalvageable. Maybe she thought as long as the house was here, there was something of them all left. Maybe her sudden panic over the loss of the house was simply her inability to acknowledge that for all intents and purposes, her family had simply ceased to exist.

Which was foolish. They had lived and breathed within these walls. She would never forget them. Obviously she was having trouble letting go now because she was still trying to make sense of the losses they'd suffered.

It all seemed so wretchedly pointless. That they were born and lived, and died. All of them but her. Where was the logic in that? Had they merely been here to suffer? To have so many regrets? Or had they simply made all the wrong decisions? Taken all the wrong paths.

It seemed there had to be a lesson learned, a wrong to right. As if something had to come of all the tragedy. They talked about that at the runaway shelter in Connecticut. Allie happened to be there one day when a group-counseling session was starting, and she simply hadn't been able to pull herself away. They talked about refusing to give the things in the past the power to ruin the present. About mistakes, disappointments, and hurts making people stronger, smarter, more determined.

Allie had never thought of it like that. She'd tried to simply escape her mother and bury everything in her past, but she'd never thought there might have been some point to it all. That there might be something she should take away from the whole experience to make her a different person, a better one. She'd never imagined anything good coming of what happened to her family.

Until she looked up at her former home and had an idea.

To her, this would always be Megan's house. She'd believed mistakenly that it would always be the site of a tragedy—the place where her family fell apart.

But it didn't have to be that way. She had the power to make it something else, something good. Genuine excitement surged through her veins, for what seemed to be the first time in years.

"A runaway shelter," she said. "That's what this should be. Something in my sister's memory, something that might help girls like her."

Megan's House, she thought, smiling broadly up at the stately old home. Stephen was right. It was time to look to the future, and this was exactly what she wanted to do with the house and with her time and energy.

"It's perfect," she said, feeling like she could fly, like she could do anything at all.

"Perfect?" Stephen began.

"Of course. I can't live here, and I'd been thinking of donating the money from the sale of the house to the organization that helped my mother. But this would be so much better."

"Money, yes. But this house?"

"Why not?"

"I could make you a list," he said.

"I don't want a list of reasons it might not work. I want to make it happen. That's what you told me to do," she reminded him. "Think of what I want and figure out how to make it happen."

"Allie—"

"I don't want everyone to forget her, Stephen. Sometimes it's like she never lived at all, like someone wiped a slate clean and she was gone. But if her death and her story can help other kids... If it can give them a safe place to stay or maybe help them get back home again, I can't think of anything better I could do in her memory."

"Allie, it would cost a fortune to fix up this house."

"Which you were perfectly willing to do five minutes ago."

"I have the money. You don't."

"I'll find it."

"You said yourself, the group you worked with in Connecticut lived on the edge financially. There was never enough money. There won't be enough to renovate this house." He frowned. "I admire you for what you want to do. But this isn't the way. Not here. Not with this house."

"Why not?"

"If not money, let's start with zoning. Do you know anything about zoning ordinances?"

"No," she said.

"I do. And I bet this whole area's zoned for single-family housing. That means one family living in one freestanding house. Communities protect their residential areas, and you won't find anything like a shelter for runaways specifically permitted in any zoning district in any town. It's going to be subject to more rules and special reviews than most anything you could build. Which means the zoning board will have a lot of discretion in deciding where it can or cannot go."

"I'll convince them it's a good idea," she said, ready to ignore all logic for once in her life. Where had logic gotten her anyway? It had kept her quiet and following a bunch of rules made by her mother, which had been a huge mistake. She was tired of playing by the rules, of dispassionately running through a list of variables and doing what she thought was safe and sensible.

For every reason he could cite to make this a bad idea, her heart said it was a good one, maybe even the real reason she'd come back here in the first place.

She'd always wanted to live in an orderly world, wanted to believe that in the end, things worked out the way they were supposed to. That there was a grand plan for the universe. Someone directed it, understood it all, even if Allie didn't. If for some reason her sister had to die, maybe Allie had finally found a way to make something good come of it.

"I don't think it's going to work," Stephen said.

"I do," she insisted. "And I thought you were going to help me."

"I am. I'm trying to talk some sense into you," he said. "Sell me the house, Allie. I'll pay you a good price for it. Take the money, then give it to the organization that helped your mother. With the kind of money we're talking about, they can build a new shelter. I'm sure they'd be happy to dedicate it to your sister's memory."

"It wouldn't be the same," she said. "This is where she lived."

"It doesn't matter," he argued. "This won't work."

Allie crossed her arms in front of her and glared at him. "Why are you so set against this?"

"I'm not. I'm being practical."

She paused. She was normally a very practical woman. She found she wasn't in this. "I can make it work."

"You'll never get the zoning approval."

"Never?" she asked, taking it as a personal challenge.

"Look around you," he said, annoyingly calm. "What do you see?"

"Rich people's houses," she guessed, seeing where he was going. Was he a snob after all? "And they shouldn't have to put up with something like a shelter for runaway teenagers in their neighborhood."

"I'm not going to argue the right or wrong in that. I'm telling you that your neighbors are some of the wealthiest and most influential people in this town, and they will not react favorably to having a shelter for troubled kids in their midst. They'll protest long and loud in front of the zoning board, most of whom are probably their friends, and you'll be dead in the water before you ever make it to the first meeting."

Allie looked back up at the house and thought of her sister. She pictured the house with a sign across the front that said Megan's House, thought of other families escaping from the devastation that had rained down upon hers at her sister's death. She thought about the amazing potential within each and every person, the unimaginable losses to the world when life was cut cruelly short because young people lost themselves at times and felt like there was nowhere they could go, no one who would understand.

Allie could do something about that.

She thought about all the compromises she'd made in her life to date, all the seemingly safe paths she'd taken. The paths of least resistance, she realized, ashamed of what she'd always been.

But not anymore. She was through compromising, through running away from things because they were hard and they might seem impossible at first. She was here, she owned this house, and she knew exactly what she was meant to do with it.

"It's going to be a runaway shelter," she vowed. "I'm going to make it work."

* * *

Stephen's cell phone rang as he pulled out of Allie's driveway. It was his father, and Stephen knew what his father wanted.

"I made her an offer, Dad."

"And?"

"She's thinking it over."

"What else?"

"There's nothing else to tell. Unless you want to tell me something for a change?"

Like what was his father so afraid Allie was going to find out? Or remember? Bruises on her sister's arm, maybe? What else might still be locked in her memory after all this time?

"I just want her gone," his father said. "You checked the records, right? The newspapers? The police reports?"

"Yes. I had someone check."

"There's nothing for her to find?"

"Not much." But someone had gotten there before him. More than one person, in fact. He didn't like the sound of that at all. And he'd already heard Allie had been there herself.

"We should have pulled the records before she ever came back here."

Stephen was sure his father could have made that happen. Newspaper records disappearing, police reports. Still, he couldn't see how that would have helped.

"Having them disappear would have looked even more suspicious than what little she could find from the records," he argued.

"All right. I'll leave it to you," his father said reluctantly. "Is that it?"

"That's it," Stephen lied.

There was no way he was going to tell his father about Allie's newest idea. A shelter in her sister's name.

That's just what they needed. Something to get everyone in town talking about her sister's disappearance all over again. He didn't see how Allie would ever trust him once his part in Megan's disappearance came out, didn't see how he could keep his position—firmly between her and his father—once she knew.

He had to talk her out of the shelter. It was a bad idea all around.

So was the fact that he genuinely liked her, that he hated seeing her hurt, that he truly enjoyed having her in his arms.

He could lie to his father with hardly a twinge of conscience, but he was finding it hard as hell to keep the truth from her.

He wasn't capable of lying to himself, either. He'd called her this morning because he had to find out what she was doing, but he could have done that anywhere. Taking her to the farm had been a purely emotional choice. It
was
one of his most favorite places, one of the most beautiful he knew, and he'd wanted her to see it exactly as he did. As a special place, one where he could breathe, where he could forget all the little stresses of everyday life and be reminded that in most ways he was a very lucky man.

He could have sworn she'd seen all the things in it that he did. He'd felt a connection with her, felt a need to dig deeper into who she truly was. He was afraid the more he knew about her, the more he'd like her.

Which was impossible.

Stephen closed his eyes and swore softly. The whole situation was getting more complicated by the minute, and she'd only been here for a day and a half.

"Call me," his father grumbled. "Call me as soon as you know anything."

"I will," Stephen said, which was yet another lie.

* * *

Allie refused to let Stephen's skepticism bring her down. She was determined to make the shelter work. She hadn't felt this energetic, this enthusiastic about a project in a long, long time.

She spent an hour on the phone with Holly Rowe, the director of the runaway shelter in Connecticut. Holly promised to send her all kinds of information on organizing and funding a shelter. Holly was cautious, too, particularly about zoning troubles. She'd helped organize three shelters and discovered people were picky about where they'd allow a bunch of troubled teenagers to live.

Allie put that thought to the back of her mind and concentrated on the positive. Holly had gotten three shelters up and running. Surely Allie could do one.

She felt more energetic than she ever had in her life, felt a sense of purpose that had always been missing. She was ashamed to say she'd never found anything truly important she'd wanted to accomplish with her life. She'd drifted along, trying to take care of herself, trying not to get hurt, always looking inward—at herself—and never outward at what she might have to give to the world.

Her past was her past. She still wanted answers. But Stephen was right that in the end, there would be nothing gained by knowing what had happened, except she hoped peace of mind for herself.

This was different. This was real. A tribute to her sister's life that would help kids like Megan.