Wild Abandon (31 page)

“Elizabeth, you don’t know me, but I wish you did. I wish Nate’s heart didn’t hurt the way it does. I wish you could be happy again.”

And that’s when I realize that I love Nate more than I have ever loved anyone in my life. I can honestly say I’d rather Nate live forever in happiness with Elizabeth than the life of despair he is currently in. I would give anything for her to be able to love him again.

The door behind me opens, and the shadows of two people appear on the wall, the light from the hallway casting behind them into the darkened room.

“Your father is here,” the nurse says.

I freeze. My heart starts beating a million miles a minute, and my throat goes dry.

Elizabeth’s father is here.

How am I supposed to explain to this man who I am or why I’m here?

I turn around and am relieved that he’s not in the room. It’s just the nurse standing with a glass vase.

A glass vase filled with gorgeous burgundy roses that grow in the Napa sunshine.

Magic roses.

The nurse places the vase on the side table, and I stare at them, wondering if I’m imagining things.

They could be from a flower shop. They could be from someone’s garden.

They could be…

Rosemary’s roses.

chapter TWENTY-TWO

Rosemary’s roses.

Big Ed.

Ellie.

I gasp. My hands fly to my mouth.

The little girl in the painting. The daughter who lives in San Francisco. The daughter he lost years ago.

My world is spinning on its axis. I can’t control gravity. My mind is floating, wondering how I missed the signs that his daughter was this sick. I pegged her as ungrateful. I pegged her as a spoiled brat. I pegged her as troubled.

I was wrong. So very, very wrong.

“You’re right. You are a lot alike,” his deep grumble comes from behind me.

I stand and offer him my seat, but he refuses it. Leaning on his cane, he looks at Ellie, shaking his head, his face falling.

“I lost my wife to cancer, but this…” He motions to his daughter in the hospital bed. “No parent should have to watch their child suffer like this. It’s unnatural. Children bury their parents. Not the other way around.”

Ed walks over to Ellie and rubs her hair. He places a kiss on her forehead. He whispers against her head, “You have to stop scaring us like this.” A tear falls into his beard. “Papa can’t take too much more.”

He looks at me and grunts, “She always did keep us on our toes. Climbing out windows, getting arrested a time or two. Minor stuff. Silly stuff. Ellie stuff. Do you know she would go skydiving once a month? Throw herself out of a damn airplane for fun. Gave me a heart attack. She drove like a maniac, too. And I suppose you heard about her nuptials. Poor Nate had no idea what he was getting into. That kid never liked the adventurous stuff.”

At the mention of Nate, I feel awkward. “You knew.”

Ed saw Nate driving away from the ranch. And he listened as I poured my heart out, professing my love for Nate and the reason we couldn’t be together.

“I knew.”

“I was at the bar when he got a call. I couldn’t let him come alone.” I don’t want Ed to think I was spending the night with him.

Ed nods in understanding and leans down to Ellie. “I see you’ve met Crystal. She’s very special to us. She plays the cello. You should see her play on the veranda. Brings back memories of your mom. And she gives this old guy someone to talk to in the vineyard. Lets me impart my fatherly wisdom.”

Ed smiles and then turns to me. “You think you’re like Ellie? You are. In some ways. But there’s one difference. You still have fire in your eyes.”

He turns back to Ellie, stroking the dark silk of her hair.

“No, Crystal, you remind me of her mom. From the moment you stepped onto my veranda. You have something special, kid. You bring men back from the dead.”

The door opens again, and Nate walks in, a surprised expression on his face. “What are you doing—”

“Take her home, Nathaniel,” Ed says, looking down at Ellie.

“Ed,” Nate stammers. His hand runs to his head, his fingers through his hair. “I spoke to the doctors. They said —”

“It’s late, Nate,” Ed interrupts. “We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll sit with Ellie tonight. Take Crystal home.” He takes a seat in the chair and settles in.

Nate looks back and forth from Ellie to Ed and then to me. His eyes fall to the floor. “Yes, sir.” He walks out of the room.

I place my hand on Ed’s shoulder. “Do you need anything?”

Ed pats my hand with his. “I’m good. You get some rest.” He releases my hand and rests his on the top of his cane.

I turn to head out the door when his voice calls out again, “It’s not his fault.”

I stop. I’m not entirely sure what he means by that, and I don’t want to have that conversation in front of Ellie.

I walk out to the hallway, but Nate isn’t there. Turning back toward the elevator bank, I exit the double doors and see Nate waiting by the elevator.

When he sees me, he looks relieved. “Ready to go?”

I nod, and we take the elevator down to the lobby. We climb into his truck, and before turning the ignition, he rubs his hands over his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Are you okay to drive?” I ask.

His eyes are heavy with the pain of a long night.

Nate shakes his head, rubbing the side of his face. “Not really,” he offers as he blinks a few times. “It’s too late for a hotel. Do…” He pauses, considering what he’s about to say. “Do you want to crash at my place? Just for a few hours?”

“Your place?” My brows shoot up. His place is above a bar in Downtown Napa.

“My home is here. Just a few blocks away,” he says.

I am too confused by the entire evening to try to understand why Nate has a place in San Francisco. And if he does, why did we stay in a hotel last weekend?

“Yeah, fine. Let’s go there,” I agree.

I watch the streetlights pass as we wind through the streets, up and down hills, and we are quickly in front of a three-story apartment structure with white eaves and bay windows. It looks like the quintessential San Francisco apartment.

He parks the car on the street and pulls the emergency brake. We get out and I follow him into his building and climb up to the third floor.

The first thing I see when I enter is a great round window with a view of San Francisco. The lights of the city, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Coit Tower are in the distance. The apartment is dark, but the light from the streetlamp pours through the glass. Dark woodwork encases the windows, doorways, and archways. A lone brown leather sofa faces a television. The air is stuffy. I try to take a deep breath, but everything feels stale.

Nate takes his jacket off and hangs it on a hook near the door. A pink track jacket hangs on the other hook with a teal scarf on top of it. Straight ahead, the kitchen is clean, aside from a pair of pink Nike running shoes on a chair and a purple Fitbit and iPod lying on the table. An empty bottle of wine is on the counter with two wine glasses in the sink.

Nate holds his hand out, and it takes me a moment to realize he’s waiting for my jacket. I shrug it off and hand it to him. He goes to hang it up next to his, and then he pauses before placing it over his.

“I have to use the bathroom,” I use as a deflection.

“Down the hall, first door on the right,” he says.

I quickly make my way away from him.

Closing the door, I rest my back against the door and take a few deep breaths before I realize I’m standing in a dark room. So much for pretending I needed to use the bathroom. I flick the light switch on, and my eyes instantly focus on the pink toothbrush in the holder. Sitting there, alone, like an artifact in a museum. The shower curtain is half open. A woman’s razor sits next to a bottle of Pantene. Men’s shampoo to the side.

I walk out of the bathroom and look to the right. A bedroom. The bed made. A flowery bedspread with an espresso headboard. A tall hutch with a men’s watch box, receipts and change carelessly thrown on the top. A wide dresser with women’s jewelry hanging from a mini bust, makeup strewed about from a morning of getting ready. A laundry basket in the corner. Pinks, blues, blacks piled high. A navy dress hanging from a hanger on the closet door. Never worn. The tag still on it.

“We had dinner plans with friends. She waited three weeks to wear that dress,” Nate says from the doorway behind me.

“It’s a nice dress,” I offer, unsure of what the appropriate thing to say is.

“They were good friends.” He jerks his head toward the hallway, clearly not wanting me in here.

I walk into the living room.

Nate’s face is highlighted when he opens the refrigerator and quickly closes it. “I don’t have anything to offer you. Water?”

I nod, and he takes two glasses and fills them with tap water.

“When was the last time you were here?”

The place doesn’t look dirty. Neglected but not unkempt.

Nate places the glasses on the counter and thinks. “About a year? That’s when I started working at Henley’s. After the accident, I picked up some odd jobs here in the city, but I couldn’t keep anything. I needed to be with Ellie. That was the deal. I sit with her three days a week, and Ed takes the other four. Her friends were coming around, but life got in the way for them, and they stopped showing up. So, now, it’s just me and Ed.” He lightly shakes his head and walks the waters into the living room.

I down mine, just realizing how thirsty I am.

He takes my glass and puts it on the table. I have a familiar feeling with Nate. The one where he’s so close yet so far away. I want to touch him, but I can’t.

I raise a hand to my head and scratch my scalp, awakening me from my daydream. “I’ll crash here. Come get me when you wake up.” I look down at the brown leather sofa, eager to settle in.

Nate’s eyes dart down the hall as he places his hands in his pockets. “I, uh…I sleep out here.” He looks back at me. Those olive-green eyes defeated. “I didn’t think this through.”

“How long has it been since you slept in your bed, Nate?” I ask, knowing the answer.

“Four years,” he breathes.

I close my eyes at the realization that the man has been living in a time capsule. The last day of Ellie Teller’s life as a fully functioning woman is captured in a third-floor apartment on Bay Street.

“That’s fine. We’ll just sit here for a while.” I plop down on the sofa and rest my head against the back. It definitely has the feel of a well-worn couch. One that has been slept on a lot.

Nate takes a seat next to me. Closer than he needs to yet, as with everything Nate, way too far away. When his back hits the cushions, he groans, and it reminds me of heaven.

It’s eerily quiet. Not a clock is ticking, nor is there a sound coming from a neighboring apartment. It’s four in the morning, and the world is asleep.

Except for us.

In a darkened room in an apartment in San Francisco are two people shouting in silence. My lungs are killing me.

Nate’s breaths are loud, not from breathing. From thinking. My knee is hovering a little too close to his. I move it away and reposition myself on the couch. His right hand is resting on the seat. The heat from it is searing into my hip. And it’s inches away.

In the veil of night, I feel like I’m in a confessional, my sins needing to be atoned for.

“I feel like a fool.” My voice is raspier than I expected, the hurt breaking through.

Nate doesn’t answer. He just breathes.

So, I continue, “When you came to Russet Ranch, it wasn’t to see me, was it?”

“No.”

My heart falls. What a fool I am, thinking he was there to apologize for pushing me away that night at the pool table.

“I heard Ed opened up for tours. I had to see it for myself,” he says.

“Russet Ranch was your ranch. The one you lost. Ed was the man who took you in.” Yes, a fool is who I am.

“We were at the ranch, the day of her stroke,” he speaks into the darkness. “It was harvest season. Ed and I were in the vineyard all day. Ellie didn’t want to come up. She loved living in the city. I wanted to be at the vineyard. Drove an hour and a half each way every day to be there. It was a fight we always had, but the ranch had become a part of me.

“When I got home that night, she was on the floor in the bedroom. I called an ambulance, and they did what they could. When Ed got there, he blamed me for not being with her. For always leaving her alone. If someone had been with her, she would’ve had a chance at a normal life.”

The story is a revelation. That is why Ed closed the doors, leased the land, and shut out the world. He didn’t just blame Nate. He blamed himself.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Nate’s chin rises in the air as he studies the shadows on the ceiling being cast from a passing car. “I enjoyed just being Nate. Not Ellie’s husband. I know how that sounds, like I resent my life, resent Ellie. I don’t. And I do. Being her caregiver has become the one thing that defines me.”

“You’re right. It sounds awful.”

Awful he’d think this way. Awful he feels this way. Awful he lives this way.

“My friends haven’t been the same since it happened. Her friends are too afraid of reality. I lost the only family I ever knew. Eventually, I just stopped picking up the phone. I punished myself. I’ve
been
punishing myself. And then I met you.”

Nate’s head turns toward me, but I keep my eyes trained on the slowly changing numbers on the oven clock.

“Every time you walked through that door, a little piece of me came back. I tried to stay away. God knows I tried, but I couldn’t.”

I can’t deny that these words make my heart stop. I close my eyes and take a shivering breath.

“You had so many opportunities to tell me you were married, about Ellie, about Ed. I was lied to time and again. It’s embarrassing.”

“I wanted to tell you. I was going to tell you. I just wanted one more day, one more moment. I didn’t want you to look at me differently.”

What kind of person does he take me for? My head swerves to him. “How did you think I’d look at you?”

“Like this.” His voice is shaky, and the olive-green eyes I’ve come to love are looking at me with sorrow. They’re pleading with me for forgiveness. His face is cast in a halo of light, accentuating the curve of his mouth and the scruff that lines his sculpted jaw. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, and he certainly hasn’t had a haircut in weeks. His hair is messy and has a slight curl to it, dipping low on his forehead. He is a mess, and he is the most beautiful man I have ever seen.