Tattooed Hearts (11 page)

“Are you singing the
love song too?”

Adam laughe
d. “I’m in love with my wife, but I know it’s not for
everyone. I’m saying I don’t want you to get all fucking depressed and
internalize everything like I did.”

“And Claire somehow is
the answer to my pain.”

“You’ll always have
the memories of your
father.” Adam exhaled. “Mine
still haunts me. Bad or good, they stay with you.”

Adam had come a long
way facing his past, but Forrest knew the road to get there had not been easy.
He nodded, understanding his friend’s reference. In his heart of hearts, he
knew memories never die, but right now the thought failed
to bring him comfort.

“Life doesn’t stop,”
Adam continued. “From where I’m looking, looks like she’s here for you.”

“She’s here because
she’s tired and needs a break.”

“That may be partially
true.”
Adam shrugged. “But you’re the reason she’s
back on the island.” He paused, glanced at Claire then back at Forrest. “Look,
it’s obvious something is still there between you two lovebirds. See what
happens. I have to get back to my pregnant wife. We’re gonn
a head out before the snow gets too heavy. See you at the
potluck.”

The actual event was
called a musical potluck. Music performed by local singers, lots of food, and
mulled wine. It all started the Sunday before Thanksgiving for those who dared
to stay be
hind on the island during the winter
months. They danced, ate too much, drank, and laughed. With the exception of
when Forrest was away for school, he’d never missed the get-together held at
Chilmark Community Center. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

Adam nodded. “R
emember, we’re family. Whatever you need, we got your
back.”

He watched Adam walk
over to Lily. His friend placed a kiss on his wife’s lips and led her to where
Blake and Jason were engaged in a conversation. The men shook hands, then
hugged Lily goodbye.

Forrest examined the
men who had become an extension of his family. His friendship with Jason came
first, they grew up together. Their parents had been inseparable. Even after
the death of Victoria, his parents still stayed close to Charles.

Somewhere alo
ng the way, he and Jason befriended Blake, later Adam.
Expanding their
circle,
or wolf pack as Adam affectionately
referred to them. Since Claire grew up in the same house with Jason, she’d
always been around, whether they wanted her there or not. They oft
en teased her because, well, she
’d
been a pain in the ass, always tagging along. Even when
they just wanted to do boys things, such as sneaking beer, getting drunk, or
playing a random sport shirtless on those lazy hot summer days, Claire had
always wanted
to play with the boys. The worst was
when they played
basketball
,
she couldn’t make a basket to save her life.

Once in a while they
did let her play football, because she’d been a good distraction. The opposing
team would jump at the opportunity to end up
on top
or under her after a strategic tackle. Jason used to complain the most for
being stuck with her. Not only she followed him around, she also lived with
him. In a way, she became the surrogate sister to them all.

Except
for him.
He never viewed her a
s a sister. As a scraggly little
girl, she’d been a burden, a party pooper who eventually became a friend. Other
than that, she
’d
always been a girl, and through the
years she became a woman.
A
gorgeous one at that.

As hard as he tried to
resist her, he b
roke the
Do-Not-Touch
Claire
rule. The first time, he’d been twenty, she seventeen. Underage drinking with a
sexy teenager had trouble written all over it. He’d known better. He did it
anyway. On the night of her eighteenth birthday he eventually gave in t
o the sweet temptation that was Claire. Those incidents
ignited the tension that still existed between them today.

Forrest took in a deep
breath. Needing a diversion from thoughts of the one woman who continued to
haunt him, he slipped out of the room and
headed down
the hall, toward the door. From there he’d escaped without being noticed. He
needed air.

He walked by Jason’s
office, Charles’ voice caught his attention. There was something in the older
man’s tone,
an urgency
. Forrest slowed his steps and edg
ed a little closer.

“You need to tell him,
Marjorie.”

“Charles…” his
mother’s voice trailed. “Not today.”

Forrest noted pain in
his mother’s voice. He frowned, debating if he should walk in there and rescue
his mother from whatever Charles was demanding. A
s
much as he respected and loved Jason’s father, he knew Charles could be a
slayer when necessary.

“Soon.
Promise me that.” Charles persisted.

Silence.

“Marjorie.”

“I don’t know.”

“There is no reason to
lie anymore. Forrest needs to know. If you don’t tell
him, I will.”

“You can’t do that.”
His mother’s voice rose with a determination he didn’t know she possessed.

Okay, so he was the
reason for this conversation. Forrest grabbed the doorknob and pushed it open.
“Tell me what?”

Chapter Nine

“The human
heart
has hidden treasures, in secret kept, in silence sealed.”

Charlotte Brontë

His mother flinched
and quickly met Forrest’s gaze before looking away. In the split second that
they made eye contact, a pained expression crossed her face. She looked over
at Charles, his crystal blue eyes glued to her. The air
was thick with tension. No one moved. No one spoke. A sacred, deathlike silence
fell upon the room.

“Tell me what?” he
repeated. The question lingered in the silence. He glanced at his mother, then
C
harles then back at his mother.

Charles walked over to
Jason’s weathered black desk and picked up a silver framed picture. Forrest’s
gaze followed the older man as he studied the photograph for a bit before
placing it back then walked over to the window an
d
buried his hands in his pockets. His strong, prominent jaw tight, his broad
shoulders stiff.

As Jason’s friend,
Forrest knew the frame contained one of the last pictures Jason took with his
parents before Victoria
passed away
. Jason’s mother, while in a
frail
mental state, had discovered her husband’s infidelity. That had been the icing
on the cake and drove her over the edge.

Forrest swallowed the
bitter taste of the memory, closed the door behind him and stepped further into
the room. “What is so urgent
that I need to know?”

His mother tugged on
her brown hair and walked across the room to where Forrest stood. He watched
her moving with extreme uneasiness, as if she was defenseless and powerless to
deal with a danger that seemed vague but imminent.

“Forr
est.” She took his hand in hers. “Your father just died.
Whatever it is can wait.” She glanced at Charles. “Right, Charles?”

Dead, cold silence
filled the room.

His mother sighed at
Charles’ lack of cooperation. Her eyes drooped down and appeared to have n
o focus, staring at nothing specific. “I’m sorry,” she said
in a flat voice. “I’m so sorry, Forrest.”

His gut clenched, but
Forrest shook it off. Unable to watch his mother in so much distress, he
wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She turned and buried h
er face in his chest. “I think that’s enough for today,
Charles,” he said over his mother’s shoulder.

“I made a…m-mistake.”
His mother choked on the words.

Forrest glanced down,
her head still buried in his chest. He looked over at Charles, the other man’s
expression grim.
“Mom.”
He stroked her arm, silently urging her to stop. The last
few days had been tough on her. Whatever her mistake was, it could wait.

But she straightened
herself and stepped out of his grip. She swiped her cheeks with the back of her
hands and sucked in a breath. “Over thirty years ago, from
a momentary lapse, I made a mistake.” She smiled and touched his face. “It was
the best mistake I’ve ever made.”

His mind went blank.
Forrest shook his head in confusion. “I’m not following.” But
inside, the beat of his heart hammered erratically.

“And Charles is right.
He deserves to be a part of his son’s life.”

Time slowed. His gaze
darted between the two conspirators. Like an unsteady Jenga tower with someone
tugging at a crucial brick, Forrest
could feel his
foundation crumbling. “Am I hearing this right?”

A low sigh escaped his
mother’s lips. Charles’ jaw bunched.

“I can’t ask him to
keep our secret anymore.”

Time stood still.
Suddenly reality was an endless nightmare and Forrest was trying to
claw his way out. The image of the coffin being lowered
into the cold, hard earth, replayed itself over and over in his mind.

“For thirty-one years
Luc and I were pretty selfish and kept you to ourselves.”

Shock froze Forrest’s
limbs.

“Forrest,” she plea
ded.

Delicate hands brushed
over his arm, without a word he gripped his mother’s wrist and freed himself of
her touch. “What are you saying?”

His mother’s chin
quivered. A thundering silence echoed far and wide in the room. Every still
second that passed,
the more his expanding lungs
burned for air and even though he knew he wouldn’t get any, he still took a
breath.

“Say it,” he pushed in
a low voice. The edges of reason blurred, angry waves crashed against each
other, as if fighting over which would drown
him.

“That’s enough.”
Charles ran a hand through flecks of gray hair.

“Say it,” Forrest
demanded again, ignoring Charles’ command.

“Luc isn’t.” She shook
her head, her gray eyes blurred with tears. “Wasn’t,” she corrected, “your
father. Charles is. I’m s
orry.”

Forrest’s heart caved
in and crumbled away. Pain surged through his body as if he’d been stabbed with
a branding iron. Even though he saw it coming, the words hit him like a metal
baseball bat slamming into his muscles. His blood vessels burst and h
is diaphragm collapsed under the force of his mother’s
words. Disgust rippled through every fiber of his muscles and he tasted bile.

“Forrest.” She reached
for him again but he put his palms up, closing his mother off and her arms fell
limp at her sides.

H
e waved one arm toward where Charles stood. “You fucked
him.”

“Watch your mouth,”
Charles ordered.

“Stay out of this,”
Forrest spat without looking at Charles.

“I’m afraid I can’t.”
Charles’ gaze swept over him. “You’ve always been my business and you can’
t speak to your mother that way.”

He did a quick
calculation between his birthday and Jason’s. About three months apart. From
what he knew, Charles had been engaged to Jason’s mother and his parents had
been newlyweds. “You slept with him while he was enga
ged.”

“It was…”

“You’re still sleeping
with him.” The accusation made his mother flinch. Forrest took a deep breath,
but it hurt his ribcage. He exhaled, inhaled again. No relief. Instead his head
felt as though it would split in two.

Charles stepped away
from the window and came to stand next to Marjorie.
Everything about the older man told Forrest whatever happened between them took
two and had been mutual.

The hinges of the door
squeaked open, Jason shoved into the room with Minka by his side. He turned
to his father, his eyes alight with fury. “Tell me what I
thought I heard isn’t true.”

Father and son’s gazes
clashed across the room. Minka grabbed onto Jason’s arm.

“Looks
like we’re brothers in every sense of the word.”
Forrest turned to Charles. “Go ah
ead.” His voice boomed across the room. “Tell him about you
and my mother. How you
fucked
your
best friend’s wife.”

“Tell me it’s not
true.” Jason said, his tone calm and patient, completely unfazed by his
surroundings.

“I can’t do that,”
Charles replied,
looking Jason directly in the eye.

“Jesus, Dad,” Jason
said after a beat. He released Minka’s hand and took another step forward. “Do
you have any limits?” He shook his head. “I didn’t think you could sink any
lower.”

“We were together
once,” Charles respo
nded, his voice indicating he was
in full control. “It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. I don’t regret that
Marjorie and I made a son out of it.”

“You betrayed your
best friend by sleeping with his wife,” Jason said, his voice echoed his
disbelief, his
disappointment. “I thought you said
you only cheated on Mom once.”

“It’s true.”

Jason raked a hand
through his blond hair. “Either I’m terrible at math or your version of once
doesn’t add up.”

“Marjorie and I
happened before I married your mother.”
Charles
let
out a breath. “Three months before.”

“You were engaged,”
Jason said with disgust. He glanced over at Marjorie. “She was married to your
friend.”

“I went to Charles,”
his mother said, and slouched slowly in a chair.

Forrest
hissed. “Dad wasn’t g
ood enough?
”

“Enough, Forrest,”
Charles shouted.

“Why now?” Jason
asked. “After thirty-one years. Why now?”

Charles’ blue eyes
swept over Jason. “Because he’s my son just like you are.”

“My father is dead.”
Revulsion burned Forrest’s gut. Unable to withsta
nd
any more of the madness and desperately needing to relieve the pressure
building inside his chest, he opened the door and almost slammed into Claire.
The horrid look on her face told him she’d heard everything.

He hurtled past her,
brushing her shoulder
in the process.

“Forrest.” He heard
her call after him, but didn’t look back. He struck the door open and stepped
into the snowstorm. He shook. Not from the cold, but rather the thrashing
inside him and the feeling he’d lost not just his father but himsel
f today.

* * * *

Claire bolted toward
Forrest’s front door.
Gut-wrenching.
Heart pumping.
A swirling storm of screaming silver
continued to fall from the sky. The soft crystals she would have found so
bewitching from the other side of a pane glass, found
their way into her jacket in every possible way. She slogged through the snow.
The leather soles of her heels had terrible traction in the snow, causing her
to stumble and almost fall.

She looked downward
and kicked some of the powder off her black pumps.
Had she given herself a moment to think things through, she would have changed
into her Adirondack boots before running out of Martha’s Way. But after Forrest
charged past her, she’d only had one thing in mind–go to him and be the friend
he desperately ne
eded right now.

She knocked on the
door, blew into her bare hands, and pulled tight on her coat. She waited, her
mind whirring. Flashes of the conversation between Marjorie, Charles, and
Forrest whipped through her mind.

She had to help
Forrest.

She needed
to be here for him.

They were connected,
no matter what time had done.

She knocked again,
this time her hand formed into a fist,
then
turned her attention to the night. Flakes pelted against
her frozen cheeks, clinging to eyelashes and hair. A marked hush pervaded the
earth and the sky. Her gaze stayed on Forrest’s orange crush Jeep. It stood
alone in the driveway, rugged and impressive
under
the storm, just like its owner.

She
turned,
ready to knock again, when the door opened. Forrest stood
before her, without his signature glasses and still dressed in the custom fit
black wool gabardine suit. The solid white shirt was unbuttoned, givi
ng her a glimpse of the finely sculpted muscles of his
chest.

S
he dragged her gaze to his face—
clouded brow, pained mouth. Intense rage
stared back at her. Hurt and anger etched across his face. His vibe screamed
I’m
really pissed off.
 

There was
something frighteningly sexy about the way he looked.