When Light Breaks (18 page)

He laughed, looking down at me. “You’ve got to be kidding. You were adorable. One minute you were talking and laughing, the next you were curled and—”

I grimaced. “I do that. When I’m done, I’m done. I didn’t disturb you, did I?”

“No. . . . I’d have let you sleep even longer, but we have to pack the bus and play in Jacksonville tonight.”

The blinking light of the clock across the room caught my eye. “It’s ten o’clock?”

Jack sat down next to me on the couch. He wore a pair of tattered jeans and a black T-shirt, looking like a young boy.

I stretched. “It felt great to sleep so long . . . .”

“Then you must’ve needed it.” He reached over to touch my arm, or maybe my face, but his hand wavered in the air, then fell in his lap.

“Not really . . . I’ve slept a lot lately. I was just so . . . comfortable.”

“You were on a couch.”

“No . . . comfortable in a different way.” Then I realized how I must have looked: wrinkled clothes, messy hair, morning breath. I jumped up. “I’ll be ready to go in a minute.”

“You had a bad dream in the middle of the night . . . you remember?”

I closed my eyes, opened them. “It wasn’t a
bad
dream. . . .”

“You were calling out like you were scared.”

“I wasn’t scared . . . I was—” I held up my hand. “Just a dream.”

I stood, stretched, and went to the bathroom to stare at my well-rested self. Where were the purplish-green bags under my eyes? The listless look of fatigue? I grabbed a cloth and washed my face, then used a corner of it to brush my teeth with toothpaste from a crushed tube. I tried to fix my hair, but I needed a shower. My car? Where was my car? The world came rushing on at me like a released thunderstorm.

I came out of the bathroom, attempting to pull some of the tangles out of my hair. “My car.”

“We’ll drop you off.” He grinned. “You are so damn cute.”

“I need to get home . . . .”

“I know. Your cell phone has been ringing off the hook, by the way.”

“Oh,” I groaned. “How could I not have heard it?”

“You were . . . in a coma.” He stretched. “I’m gonna take a quick shower and then we’ll get out of here.”

I lifted my cell from my purse, flipped open the cover. Eighteen missed calls. I glanced at Jack; my heart puffed up, then deflated. “They’ve probably sent out a search crew by now.”

“Call and let them know you’re okay—we’ll leave in fifteen minutes.”

I took the phone and walked out onto a miniature deck off the room, closed the French door behind me. I stared at the phone, trying to decide whom to call—and then dialed Charlotte’s number first.

“Where the hell are you?” Her voice came through the line without a hello.

“Savannah.”

“What?”

I laughed. “I’ll explain later . . . when I get home in a couple hours. Just relax. Will you tell everyone I’m okay? I’ll call you when I get home.”

“You know Peyton is looking for you.”

“I figured.”

“Listen, Kara. Call me when you’re in the car on the way home. I want to tell you something before you talk to Peyton.”

“What is it?”

“Just call me from the road, okay? And how is Jack?”

“Good, he asked about you. And it’s not what you think . . . I didn’t spend the night with him. Or I did, but not like that. And—”

“Yes?”

“I’ll call you when I get to my car.”

“Good idea, Kara.” She laughed. “I sure hope you had a great time . . . getting me all worried like that should most definitely have been worth it.”

“Absolutely,” I said, and glanced back into the room; Jack stood in front of his open suitcase with a towel wrapped around his waist. “I’ve got to go.”

“Call me.” Charlotte hung up without saying good-bye. I stood and stared out over the courtyard. Jasmine sprayed across the cobblestones and a gazebo across the back area; paving stones led through bushes and flowering plants I wished I could name. Jack came outside; his arms whispered around my waist. I started to turn.

“No,” he said. “Let me say something without you talking.”

I nodded and felt his chin atop my head. “I know you have to go home. I know you have an entirely full life with a wedding and family and a fantastic job. And I have a tour. But please know how much it meant to me that you found me, that you came here.”

I nodded, glad he’d asked me not to speak, because I couldn’t have anyway.

Then he turned me around. “And if we can possibly play for your charity event, we will.” He handed me a card with various numbers written on it.

“It’s in a few weeks—second weekend in April.”

He gave me a thumbs-up. “I think that’s a free weekend, but let me check with the guys.” He motioned toward the door with his head. “Let’s go.”

“Jack?”

“Yes?” He looked over his shoulder as he opened the door into the room.

“Thank you. That was the most fun I’ve had in as long as I can remember.”

“Any time, Kara. Any time.”

I wanted to grab that promise and hide it until I needed it.

 

The car thrummed with all my thoughts, everything I’d seen and done and said and heard over the last few hours. Not even a full day had passed and yet so much had happened. I reached for the phone to call Peyton; he’d be on his way home from Miami this morning. Then I remembered I’d promised Charlotte I’d call her first.

She beat me to the dialing; my cell phone rang. I yanked it from the console. “I’m here. I’m on my way home,” I told her.

“Okay....”

“This’ll be fun—explaining where I was.”

“Business, Kara. Business.”

I blew out a long breath. Change of subject would be good. I couldn’t speak of my last hours with Jack until I’d absorbed them in some way. “How was your date with that Tom guy? You’ve been out with him a few times now.”

“Good, nice guy. Really. Hey, I want to ask you a question—and don’t . . .”

“Go ahead, Charlotte. Don’t preamble your question. I hate that.”

“Did you know Peyton was engaged twice before?”

“No . . . ,” I whispered, air rushing from my lungs. “No, I didn’t. I don’t think that is true.”

“It is.”

“How do you know?” My gut felt as though someone were squeezing me around my middle. I pulled over to the side of I-95, parked in the emergency lane. “How in the hell do you know this and I don’t?”

“Well, when I was out with Tom, he mentioned how much better the guys on the tour like you than his other fiancées.”

“That’s it? Some offhand comment made by another golfer?”

“It wasn’t an offhand comment. I asked him about them.”

“And?” Now my head lay on top of the steering wheel; my heart fluttered like it wanted to stop completely.

“Just come on home and we’ll talk . . . I don’t want you driving into the Savannah River. I know how you drive when you’re preoccupied.”

“I’ve pulled over, and if you don’t finish telling me what you know . . .”

“Okay, it’s not that big a deal, I guess.”

“Two other fiancées. That seems like a sort of big deal, Charlotte.”

“Okay—I guess they didn’t last long, which is probably why he hasn’t said anything.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’m sure Tom doesn’t know Peyton very well.”

“Finish, Charlotte.”

“Tom said Peyton likes to have someone . . . there during his tournaments. It has always worked out well for him.”

“Okay, who were they?”

“I have no idea. Really.”

I shifted the car into drive and pulled back onto the highway. “Don’t you think this is something he should’ve told me?”

“Of course I do.”

“What else did Tom say?”

“That I am gorgeous and funny and warm and intelligent.”

I laughed. “Liquor?”

“No, he’s just an extremely intelligent and intuitive man. But, of course, I’m just not that into him.”

“Of course not, because he’s just so into you.”

“The curse, I know.” Charlotte made a clucking noise. “Drive carefully. Call me when you get home. I want to hear every detail of your trip.”

I hung up and focused on the road. Two other fiancées. How could I not know this? My mind twisted around trying to figure out who they could’ve been, and I realized I didn’t know much about Peyton’s life . . . before me.

When I pulled up into my driveway, he was pacing back and forth, his Jaguar in the driveway. I parked and took a deep breath, wishing there’d been time for a hot shower and a sustaining cup of coffee before I had to face him.

I parked my car and faced him in the driveway. “Where the hell have you been, Kara?”

“Savannah.” I squinted at him in the sunlight. “I thought you were in Miami or I would’ve called.”

“What were you doing in Savannah?”

“Well, I went to check out that band—Unknown Souls—and it ends up that the singer and songwriter are old friends of mine. I hung out with them for a while, and then it was too late to drive home, so I stayed at the Courtyard Savannah.”

His face turned red, blotched. “Who are these guys?”

“Old friends who used to live next door.”

“What? How come you never told me about them? When you were looking at that Web site, you could have told me you knew them.”

“Like telling me about your two other fiancées?”

His lips formed a straight line; he closed, then opened his eyes and shook his head. “They weren’t important to us in any way.”

“Useful information, maybe? Useful so that I didn’t have to feel like a fool when my best friend told me?”

“Charlotte?” He punched a fist into the other palm. “She’s so freaking nosy, acts like she’s your mother half the time.”

“That’s not fair, Peyton.” My heart slowed, tears threatened. “You absolutely can’t be mad at Charlotte for telling me something you should’ve told me at least a year ago. I can’t believe no one else ever let me know . . . from the tour or anything.”

“Because it’s not important.”

I attempted to push my hair back from my eyes. Our voices were raised now, too loud for a quiet Saturday. I glanced up at the house. Deirdre stood at the front door, Daddy behind her, and they could easily hear us. I waved at them, then looked back to Peyton and lowered my voice. “Would you like to tell me now who they were?”

“You don’t know either of them. And it doesn’t have anything to do with us.” His facial features softened into those of the calm, beautiful man I knew and had promised to marry; the man with the hardened mouth and clenched teeth dissolved into the morning. He placed his arms around me and pulled me to him. My head fell against him where his shoulders curved to his chest. Something small and mean in me noticed that this was a completely different place than where my head rested on Jack, against the cleft below his throat.

“I love you, Kara. Those women were just the mistakes I had to make to get to you. Huge mistakes.”

My heart softened. What woman wouldn’t want to hear these words? I looked up at him, but something small had shifted. Maybe I was too tired, too frazzled to know. I hugged him back and kissed him. “I need a shower. Why don’t you come over for dinner—family dinner tonight, okay?”

He stepped back from me. “Okay. But please don’t ever disappear like that again.”

I nodded toward the house. “We’ll talk about it later. We appear to have an audience right now.”

He kissed me again and walked toward his car, then turned to me. “I love you, Kara,” he mouthed as he clicked the remote on his keys to unlock his car.

“You too,” I whispered, and turned to the house. “You too.”

When I reached the bottom step, Deirdre looked at me. “He’s been engaged before?”

I looked behind her for Daddy; he was walking away down the front hall.

“Be careful, Kara,” she said.

Anger rose in me like a tunnel of wind. “What do you mean, Deirdre? I am careful.”

She shook her head and turned away from me. “You can lose his love just as easily as it came to you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what I said.”

I walked past her and up to my room.
You can lose his love
.

I sat on my bed, dropped my head into my hands, and covered my ears to shut out the one word that had followed me: “lose.”

 

Deirdre set the table with the Wedgwood and Waterford. I lit candles set inside hurricane glasses, which served as centerpieces. Two of Brian’s paintings hung on the far wall of the dining room: a palmetto backlit against the sunset and the tip of a sailboat rounding the bend of a tidal creek. The hummocks were pock-marked with fiddler crabs. Soft sweeps of sand showed where the water danced in its tidal retreat. Each brushstroke created a brilliant detail, capturing the furious beauty of the Lowcountry. I had seen lesser paintings in the galleries around South Carolina. I shook my head; Brian needed to paint more often, not sit in a law office with Daddy.

Deirdre entered the dining room. “Why are you standing there staring at the wall?”

“I’m looking at Brian’s paintings.”

She rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t paint anymore.”

I touched the edge of the frame. “How do you know?”

“Have you seen a new painting any time in the last six or seven years?” she asked.

“Have you been to his house?” I motioned toward the front door. “Have you bothered to visit him or see him or—”

“Don’t you dare lecture me.” Deirdre’s teeth clamped down on each other; her jaw twitched.

I held up my hands. “I’m not lecturing you. I promise. . . . Thanks for cooking tonight.”

Deirdre made a noise that sounded vaguely like the snort of a white-tailed deer startled in the woods, and walked back into the kitchen. It was her turn to cook, and I wandered gratefully through the dining room; I couldn’t have focused on a menu tonight.