The Wonder of You (16 page)

Now he just smiled. “I’m glad I was there.”

“That’s the thing. You were always there. You never let me feel afraid or alone.”

“Of course
 
—”

“But see, that’s why I left Prague. It wasn’t because you broke my heart, but because, without you, I was stuck in my apartment. I was afraid to leave, to go to school on the bus or even take pictures for my assignments. Without you, Prague turned into a dark, terrifying place, and . . .” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “And that’s why I left.”

“Because I wasn’t there.”

“Because I was a coward.”

“Oh, Amelia.” He reached up to touch her cheek, but she caught his hand.

“Roark, I’m telling you this so you don’t have to feel guilty. I will probably never leave Deep Haven again. And you don’t belong here; I know this. You’re a world traveler, a guy who lives to explore, and I can’t give you that. I just . . . I’m not that brave.”

She let go of his hand. Looked away. “You should find someone who isn’t pretending.”

So she could, what? Stay here and marry Seth?

The thought roared up inside him, and he might have even spoken it aloud because she turned to him, eyes wide. “What?”

Oh. “You’re not a coward. The first day I saw you, you were hiking through Prague alone, taking pictures. You had a light about you, as if when you saw the world, it took on new shades, new depth. Seeing Prague through your eyes made it come alive, reborn. You dared to live beyond your expectations
 
—”

“Then I failed myself, Roark. And I don’t know how to get back to where I was.”

He saw her then, not through the lens of Prague or the memories of her laughter as they shivered at the top of the Eiffel Tower, or even hiking along the river Seine, but huddled now in a sweatshirt and jeans, her hands tucked into her sleeves, her hair long and free, the red caught by the sun.

A hot cord of realization ran through him. This was the woman he’d crossed the ocean to find. Not the girl whose heart he’d charmed and broken, the girl who’d kissed a near stranger on New Year’s Eve, the girl who made him believe that he could be a hero, but the woman who might understand what it felt like to carry failure, cowardice, in your heart and not know how to forgive yourself.

The one person who might not despise him for his mistakes.

He reached out his hand, holding it open. Amelia considered him a long moment before she took it, weaving her fingers through his.

He stood, pulling her up with him. “Let’s take a walk. I have to tell you something.”

“I never told you that I really grew up in Russia.”

Amelia nodded, waiting for him to go on. Roark walked beside her, spilling out stones with his footsteps, pressing indentations into the beach. Seagulls rode the waves that lapped the shore, and a chill hung in the air as the sun bundled up for the night, leaving only a tufted gathering of brilliant clouds, like the jet stream blaze of a rocket.

“I thought you lived in Brussels.”

“I did, but only after we came home from Russia. See, my parents were missionaries.”

He smelled sweet, fresh, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower, and she could admit that his still-wet hair made her want to ring one of the curls at the nape of his neck around her finger. He wore thick stubble
 
—very rugged European
 
—a pair of track pants, and a hoodie that clung to the frame of his body. He looked impossibly young and as he kicked stones out in front of him, if she didn’t know better, a little afraid.

Most of all, he held her hand like he couldn’t bear to let it go.

“We moved to Brussels when I was twelve so my dad could work for my grandfather. But all my childhood memories up to that point were of Russia
 
—far east Russia. We lived in a tiny village, in a tiny three-room house, with a water pump out in the yard, gas lighting, a coal furnace, and an old four-door Lada my father had to hand crank. My brother and I ran the dirt streets with the other kids, attended a
detski-sod
, then a grammar school, and spent the summers helping our parents run children’s camps.”

She could see him even as he talked, young, wiry, and strong,
his dark hair short for summer, running barefoot, causing mischief and wearing a smile that could charm all the girls in the village.

“My father was a church planter and later on helped raise money for orphanages in the region. I loved helping him visit the orphanages. We’d show up with a shipment of medicines or clothing, and for that day, that moment, we were heroes. My brother and I would go out to the yard with a football
 
—a real football, not the eggball you play here. We’d teach them how to play, or if they had a basketball court, we might shoot some hoops. Everyone loved my father. He played the guitar, and sometimes when he’d sit at the edge of our yard playing, people would wander down the road just to hear him. He spoke Russian so well, one of the town officials asked him how he’d managed to snag a British wife. I thought for a long time that I was actually Russian and that the family we had back in London might be distant relatives.”

He stopped at a boulder, settled on it. She slid up beside him.

“I was so angry when we left the field. They sent me to boarding school, where I managed to fight my way into the headmaster’s office more than once. Thankfully they’d outlawed caning before I arrived, but my father gave me a decent birching when he came to visit. Not a happy memory for me. Especially since he seemed deeply shaken afterward, even though I’d deserved it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I sorted it after that, managed A’s, and that summer, begged my parents to take us back to Russia. They took us to Spain instead, a vacation by the sea. My brother, who’d attended a different school, seemed changed. He hadn’t loved Russia or the mission field like I did, and suddenly I realized that I was the only one who missed it. Back in Brussels, Mum had fixed up our new flat, and they were laying plans for me to change schools, maybe get a
fresh start. The family seemed to be embracing our new life, while I mourned the one we’d abandoned. We were staying at a cabana on the beach, and I snuck out for a swim, furious that they could so easily turn away from our life. Our good, happy life.”

He closed his eyes, his breath tremoring out. Amelia gave in to the urge to take his hand in both of hers, not sure why.

“I heard Mum’s scream as I was walking back to the cabana. It was late, stars were out, and at first I thought it might be someone having fun on the beach. But when I came up to the house, I heard fighting, whimpering, and then another scream.”

His face glistened now, but he didn’t wipe it.

“I . . . saw my father wrestling with someone. He was big and wore a ski mask. My only coherent thought was of the kitchen knives. So I ran around the side of the cabana and went in through the kitchen.”

He swallowed. “I found my brother in a pool of blood on the floor. It slowed me down long enough to see my father fall in the next room, to see the intruder climb on top of him, a knife in his hand.”

She sat perfectly still, her breath cold inside her. No
 
—

“I was terrified. And I did nothing. Just . . .
nothing
. Just stood there and watched as he stabbed Dad a couple times. Or more; I don’t want to remember. But he finished and got up, and I knew . . . My father had stopped moving. And Mum had stopped whimpering. I . . . I knew I was next. But still, I couldn’t move.”

She held her breath.

“Then he looked up and saw me.”

Oh
 
—

“I fled. Just lost my mind and ran out into the night, crying, as far down the beach as I could until I threw myself into the woods. Then I curled into a ball, choking back my sobs, praying
he wouldn’t find me. But by this time, others had heard the noises and the police were arriving.”

She couldn’t speak. Just held his hand, letting his fingers tighten around hers as he released a long breath.

Finally, softly, she scraped up words, shaky, broken. “I’m so sorry, Roark. Did they ever find the man?”

“No.”

Tears brimmed her eyes. Then she got up, stepped in front of him, and pulled him into her embrace.

He closed his eyes, leaned against her, wrapped his arms around her waist, his shoulders rising and falling.

After a moment, he looked up, and the pain in his gaze could steal her breath. “So you see, Amelia, I understand what it means to fail yourself. To loathe your own cowardice.”

Oh, Roark. He’d always been the Eiffel Tower at night, glittery and mysterious, captivating and exotic, but in his story he’d become real. Vulnerable.

A man who needed her as much as she needed him.

“You weren’t a coward.”

She didn’t understand the face he made. Half confusion, half disagreement. “Yeah, I was. I never told the police what I saw. I was . . . I was too afraid he’d find me.”

“You were a kid.”

“I was the only witness. And I ran
 
—frankly, I kept running. I went to live with my uncle and escaped into a new life, not looking back.”

He took her face in his hands. “But it wasn’t until I met you that I stood still and felt it all drop away
 
—the failure, the haunting regret. You made me feel like I wasn’t a coward. With you,
I could be . . . your hero. Brave. The person who doesn’t hide in the woods.”

She pressed her hands to his. “You were my hero, Roark. Every day.”

His thumbs caressed her face. “And you were mine.”

Words were written in his eyes, a question that formed in his tender expression, and it brought her back to that moment in Paris on New Year’s Eve, when he’d caught her eyes with his, the fireworks popping behind them from the balcony like a hallelujah to the moment when he saw her as more than a student.

With everyone cheering, celebrating around them, the night had dropped away, and he’d moved toward her, where she stood against the wall, each step stirring through her an electricity she’d tempered since meeting him on the bridge.

He’d braced his hand over her shoulder, touched her forehead with his. “Happy New Year,” he whispered.

“Happy New Year,”
she mouthed back.

When his gaze dropped to her lips, her heart jumped in her chest. “Kiss me,” she said before her courage failed her.

He met her eyes one last moment before he obeyed. Leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, achingly tender, nudging them to respond.

She dug her hands into his lapels and brought him closer as his kiss deepened, becoming urgent with a fire that suggested he’d wanted to do that for weeks.

Even now, seeing his hungry expression, with the waves cheering behind him, Amelia could taste the memory, the added passion as he’d wound his arms around her, pulled her against himself. Could hear the little noise in the back of his throat, something that sounded like an ache set free.

He might have seen the memory play in her eyes because he swallowed. Released a shaky breath. “Wow, I want to kiss you right now.” He dropped his hands from her face. “But I’m afraid you’ll only think it’s a fling. So I’m willing to wait until you
know
I mean it.”

Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how her accusation
 
—and her leaving
 
—had wounded him.

She reached out and wiped his cheeks. Smiled. “How would you like another shot at meeting my family? We have a campfire tomorrow night, and I’d love for you to join us.”

“Will I need armor?”

“You’ll have me.”

His smile was eclipsed by a piercing light cascading over them and out into the dark, inky lake.

Amelia held up her hand to block the light, squinting as she heard a car door slam, then, “I can’t believe this!

The voice yanked her out of Roark’s hold, made her scramble up the rocky shore. “Seth! What are you doing here?”

That
didn’t sound guilty. She felt Roark sidle up behind her as Seth charged down the beach.

“I’m driving home, and what do I see but you two cozying up like long-lost lovers. Nice, real nice, Amelia.”

He stood in the stream of his car’s headlights, like a grizzly in a black sweatshirt, more hurt than angry, judging from his eyes. “I thought . . . I mean, I sent you flowers and told you I love you and . . . I don’t get it. What’s going on?” He stared at Roark, so much venom in his gaze that Amelia went to intercept, standing between them.

“Nothing, Seth. Nothing’s going on.” Except the words tasted like poison. Ten more seconds and yes, she would have responded to the question in Roark’s eyes.
Kiss me.

But
 
—really? She’d come to town to tell Roark to go home, that she’d made her decision. That she knew he didn’t belong here
 
—and that she wasn’t leaving. It only made sense.

Until it didn’t. Until he let her into his life, finally unlocked the door to the secrets that she’d known lurked right below the surface.

For the first time the pieces fit. Every second Roark spent with her silenced his demons, and something about the way she depended on him
 
—in what she thought was weakness
 
—only made him stronger.