Hand-Me-Down Love (24 page)

“
You don’t
know?” Marla said, unbelieving. She hated to hear that sound in her
voice. She needed to get steady.

Sean’s mind
was whirling and it was hard to think. How did Crystal’s number get
in his phone? Was it some kind of joke? Then he remembered that he
always left his phone on the counter of the bar, even if he got up
for any reason. Crystal must’ve put it in there while he was in the
restroom or something. That’s the only thing that made sense.

“
Were you
with her?” Marla blurted out. She really did hate the way she was
sounding. She’d like to be a little cooler about this.

“
We were
friends,” he said coming to sit on the couch beside Marla. He tried
to take her hand but she jerked it back.

“
What kind of
friends? Friends with benefits?” She glared at him.

“
I guess
you’d call it that. But it’s not what you think. I didn’t love
her just like you didn’t love Michael.”

“
You let me
sit here and bare my soul about Michael,” she said, her voice
getting higher. She wished she didn’t sound like such a shrew, but
there it was.

“
Marla, I
didn’t have a chance to tell you about it. You were still talking
about Michael when he called and then you went to deal with that. I
didn’t have the opportunity to tell you, but I was totally going to
tell you after I got out of the shower.”

She got up from
the couch. “You should have told me before you took a shower. Now,
I’m going to take a shower myself. I’d like for you and Cody to
be gone when I get out.”

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

Marla went into the
bathroom and turned the shower on. When she got in she started
crying. How could everything have been so perfect yesterday and so
horrible today?

Sean sat on the
couch with Cody at his feet and Lucy in his lap. He waited. It seemed
like a long time before Marla came out of the bathroom.

“
I thought
you were leaving,” she said when she saw Sean in the living room.

“
I’m not
going anywhere,” Sean said. If he had learned anything on the
trail, in the mountains, it was to face life head-on. He was through
running away. He was going to fight for Marla.

“
I’m not
going anywhere until we talk this all out. We love each other and I’m
not going to throw that away.”

Marla went into
the bedroom and came back a few minutes later dressed in jeans and a
blue halter top that tied around her neck. She was beautiful, Sean
thought. He loved her.

She sat in a
chair facing the couch. “Okay, talk,” she said.

“
You can be
as mad as you want to be, say anything you want to, but when you get
all of that out, I hope you’ll listen to me.”

She sat staring
at him.

“
I’m sorry
I was so out of touch with you while I was gone. I wanted to hear
your voice every day. I wanted to see you every minute. I missed you
so bad. And that’s why I was out of touch.”

“
That doesn’t
make any sense,” she said.

“
It doesn’t
sound like it makes any sense, but it does. To me, anyway. Every time
I heard your voice or got a text from you it made me want to run back
to you. But I knew I couldn’t do that. Not if there was going to be
any hope for us. I had to work through a lot of feelings. I wanted to
be sure of what I was doing. That I wasn’t mixing things up in my
mind about you.”

She still
stared at him, but it seemed like she was getting more relaxed. She
sat back in the chair she was sitting in, still looking at him,
unsmiling.

“
When I left,
I thought it would be good for both of us to work through our grief
and not confuse our feelings for each other. Be sure. Unencumbered.”

Marla nodded.
“I understand that. I had to work through a lot of stuff too. The
same kind of stuff.”

“
I know. I
think we needed to do that separately.”

“
Maybe,”
she said. “But it left the door open for other people to come into
our lives.”

“
Maybe they
needed to come into our lives,” Sean said gently. “To show us
that we couldn’t love anyone else.”

“
If you loved
me, then why did you sleep with her?”

“
When that
happened, I had been gone for a while. I had texted you and you never
texted me back. I thought you were through with me.”

“
You hadn’t
contacted me for weeks when you sent that text!” Marla said
indignantly. “Weeks!”

“
That was
wrong. I should have told you I might be out of contact for a while.”

“
You sure as
hell should have,” she said. “Do you have any idea how much I
worried about you? Out in the woods cutting down trees? I envisioned
trees falling on you and killing you!”

“
I’m sorry
for that. I thought you knew why I was out of touch, but I should
never have assumed that. I should have known.”

“
Damn right
you should have.”

She got up and
went to the kitchen. When she came back, she had two cups of coffee.
Maybe she was beginning to soften up, Sean thought. Hoped. Prayed.
His happiness now depended on if Marla was able to forgive him. If
they were able to work through this.

“
Thanks,”
he said, taking the cup from her.

“
Did you ask
her out?” Marla asked, afraid of the answer. If he had asked her
out, it was going to kill her.

“
No, it
wasn’t like that. I went to the bar like I always did on Saturday.
She was new and we talked for weeks. She had a good listening ear.”

“
Did you tell
her about me in those talks?”

“
No, not
then. It was too personal. I never even told Pete.”

“
Who’s
Pete?” Sean had lived a whole new life in a world Marla knew
nothing about while she had stayed in Bay Point, living her regular
life.

“
He was this
old guy I met at the bar the second day I was in McGinley’s Gap. He
got me the job. I used to talk to him a lot. I told him everything
about my life, except for you.”

“
That doesn’t
make me feel very important.”

“
That’s
just it. It was because you were—are—too important to discuss in
a bar.”

She laughed
softly then. Were things turning around here, Sean wondered.

“
So if you
didn’t ask her out then how did you get to be with her?”

Sean really
didn’t want to tell Marla about it but he supposed he was going to
have to. Truth was the only way to go by that point.

“
She asked me
to go for a ride with her after she got off work one night.”

“
Where did
you go?”

“
We went out
in the middle of nowhere, out in the woods to this spot she used to
go to with her old boyfriend. Their initials were carved in a tree
out there.”

“
Now that I
think about it,” he continued. “She may have been working through
some stuff about that boyfriend. I don’t know.”

“
So, then
what?” Marla asked.

“
Do you
really want to hear about this?”

“
Yes. Keep
talking.”

Against Sean’s
better judgment, he kept talking.

“
So, she said
she knew I was sad or something like that and that she wanted to ease
my pain.”

“
You’re
kidding? That’s a good line.”

Sean laughed.
“Yeah, I was a real sucker, I guess.”

“
At that
point, I thought I had probably lost you forever. And I was lonely
and hurting. So I let it happen. I’m sorry about it now.”

“
How many
times did you “let” it happen?”

“
A few.”

“
How many?”

“
I guess
about six.” His life was an open book now.

Marla frowned
and she looked like she was going to cry.

“
But then
everything came together for me. And I think being with Crystal
helped it come together. Because I realized that I didn’t love
her—never thought I did—but I knew for certain that I loved you.
I loved you from a clear place in my heart. A place only for you,
Marla.”

Marla was
crying now, softly. “I feel so jealous,” she said.

“
I know. I
had hoped to spare you from this, but I see now that was wrong. I
feel jealous too, about Michael.”

Marla got up
from the chair and moved to the couch. Sean took her in his arms and
held her. “So did we have to be with other people before we could
be with each other again?” she asked in a muffled tone against his
chest.

“
It sounds
crazy, but maybe so. Maybe it was all part of the knowing for sure
how we feel about each other.”

“
Then I guess
I’ll have to accept it.”

They started
kissing, and like the first time on that couch, they undressed each
other. She climbed onto his lap, straddling him and they moved
together rhythmically. She arched her back and rolled her head back
as he thrust into her. She ground her hips against him as he gently
rolled her nipples between his thumbs and fingers. Then she moved
forward, close to him as they climaxed. “I love you,” she said.

Chapter
Thirty

“
We’re going to
have to tell my parents,” Marla said later that night over a supper
of grilled cheese and soup. “If Michael’s reaction is any
indication, it’s not going to go well.”

“
We’ll do
it together,” Sean said. “If you want to.” Sean was strong. He
could face Marla’s parents. Meredith’s parents. They were, after
all, still his in-laws.

“
I guess that
would be best.”

“
We’re in
this together now. I don’t plan to ever be without you again, so
everybody’s just going to have to get used to it.” He grabbed her
hand across the table.

“
Before we do
that, there’s something that I need to show you.”

He lifted his
eyebrow. “What?”

Marla got up
and went to the hall closet where she had put Meredith’s diary. As
she was picking it up, she noticed the urn with Meredith’s ashes
inside. They would need to do that, she thought. Scatter her ashes as
she requested. But for now, she needed to show the diary to Sean.

She carried the
green book to the kitchen and sat back down.

“
What’s
that?”

“
It’s
Meredith’s diary. I found it in the storeroom.”

Sean didn’t
know Meredith had a diary. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to read what
was in there right now, but he would read whatever Marla wanted him
to read.

“
I’m not
suggesting you sit here and read the whole thing right now,” she
said. “It will make you sad. But that’s your choice. What I
really want you to read is this entry,” she said, handing him the
diary, open to the last entry.

Sean took the
book from her and started reading. When he was finished, he looked at
Marla. “She knew us better than we knew ourselves,” he said. “I
had already made peace with the fact that I loved you, outside of our
connection to Meredith, but this makes it better.”

“
I know. When
I read that I was so blown away that I had to go see Diane.”

“
Diane?”

“
The grief
counselor. I told her everything about us and then I let her read
this part of the diary.”

“
What did she
think?”

“
She was so
moved by it that she started crying. We talked about it and that was
when I said out loud to her that I love you. She brought me to that.
And that’s when I knew I had to break it off with Michael, whether
you ever came back or not.”

“
I’m
grateful to Meredith for putting this in her diary,” Sean said. “It
gives us a clear go-ahead, not that we don’t already have that. I
think we need to take this with us when we talk to your parents.”

“
I think I’ll
copy that page. For now, at least. I’m not sure if they really want
to read the rest.”