With This Kiss (36 page)

“Bill. No. Please.”

His feet moved toward her despite knowing better than to go to her. To let himself touch her.

To let himself hope.

Barely a foot from her, he pulled from what was left of his anger and stopped where he was. She was still standing there, her arm outstretched.

“I thought I could look the other way when you came back to me. But it was always between us.” He looked down at her hand, her diamond ring still gone from where she’d taken it off when they were sanding the floor. Watching her take that ring off three weeks ago had been a prophecy of doom. “Even though I forgave you a long time ago for cheating, I kept waiting for you to tell me the truth. To let go of that secret.”

“I wanted to tell you so many times, but I couldn’t risk telling you. I didn’t want to lose you.”

“I know why you cheated, Elizabeth. I even told myself I understood. But I’ll never understand how you could ask a fourteen-year-old boy to keep a secret like that.” He took a step closer to her. “I’m his father, for God’s sake! You forced him to lie to me! You made it so he couldn’t look me in the eye.”

Incapable of holding anything back, his voice boomed at her, his breath blowing her hair back from her face. Strands that were damp with tears clung to her cheekbones.

He’d always thought she was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to see her beauty again.

“The affair was forgivable. What you did to our son isn’t.”

“Sweet girl, come here.”

For hours, she’d been on autopilot, running the festival. Now, Rebecca knew her grief, her exhaustion, was making her hear things.

But the arms pulling her close were warm. And real.

“Mom.”

She breathed in her mother’s familiar scent and closed her eyes as she let herself be held by someone she knew would never desert her.

She looked up from her mother’s shoulder and saw, through her tears, her father and four sisters and their husbands and kids.

Her family had come, after all. They’d waited weeks for her to clean up her messes just like she’d asked them to.

And yet, here she was, even more of a mess than she’d ever been.

She knew what they were going to say. That they were going to tell her to come home with them to let them all take care of her the way she’d always taken care of them.

And this time, the temptation to give up every stride she’d taken to become a strong person over the past months was big.

No.

She forced herself to pull out of her mother’s arms, to dry her eyes as best she could.

“I’m so glad you’re all here,” she said to her family. “Come, I’ll show you around and introduce you to my friends.”

Her sisters and their husbands looked at each other in surprise. Her father came to kiss her on the forehead.

“We’re proud of you. We always have been.”

And that was when she knew: she wasn’t going anywhere. Emerald Lake was her home. She’d never stop loving Sean, but this time she wasn’t going to be the one running.

Ruffling the soft hair on one of her nephew’s heads, she said, “You guys are going to love tapping a maple. Come with me and I’ll show you how.”

S
ean had left his brother standing on the dock, obviously reeling from what he’d told him about their mother. Sean was glad his little brother was finally back home, even more glad that everything was finally out in the open between them. He hoped neither of them would see the need for secrets in the future. If they got confused and started to fall back on their old ways, he hoped with every last piece of his heart that Rebecca would be there to set them straight.

And to love them both despite their failings.

“Man the inn,” he’d told his brother. “I need to take care of Rebecca.”

He thought he saw his brother smile, but he was already heading down the dock toward the forest.

Toward the woman he loved.

He’d quickly spotted her, working steadily to help families with small children get situated behind the maple syrup tapping equipment. A young child fell and she knelt beside him, brushing the dirt off his pants, talking animatedly to him until he’d stopped crying.

The child’s parents looked at her gratefully, but she wasn’t at all aware of them. She was wholly focused on the little boy’s welfare and happiness.

Just as she’d been wholly focused on Sean’s.

God how he loved her. Since that first moment he’d seen her standing at Andi and Nate’s wedding with tears streaming down her face and her hand over her heart.

Loving someone means breaking a promise if you know keeping the promise is going to hurt them.

His beautiful Rebecca. So sweet. So wise. And so much stronger than anyone ever gave her credit for being. Especially him.

He’d give anything to share her life, to be strong for her and let her be strong right back. With their children. With his family, even the mother he wasn’t sure he could forgive.

Here he’d thought he wasn’t afraid of anything, when all along, she was the truly brave one. The dragon slayer who would face down the hottest flames, the sharpest teeth, to protect the people she loved.

He wanted to call out her name, wanted to beg her to forgive him, to take him back, right then and there. But she needed his help more than she needed his pleas.

As he attended to various issues that cropped up throughout the rest of the afternoon, at first she gave no outward sign that she saw him. But he could feel her warmth wrap around him, just as it was wrapping around everyone else she came in contact with.

Still, for the rest of the day she made sure that they were on opposite sides of the festival, moving away from him whenever he came too close.

At one point, he saw her with a large group of people and quickly realized they must be her family. He wanted
so badly to meet them, to thank her mother and father for raising such an incredible woman. But he knew better than to do it today.

Rebecca was hurt. Angry. And she had every right to be.

He’d been a complete asshole.

He’d gotten everything wrong.

Everything.

As night began to fall, Sean made sure every last festivalgoer got back to their car all right in the dark. Just in case it rained, he wanted to make sure the tapping equipment was put away and covered for the rental company to come pick up Monday morning.

But Rebecca was already there, kneeling down beside one of the tappers, wiping it down with a wet rag.

He couldn’t stop himself from watching her. And from wishing he’d realized what love was really all about before he went and threw it all away.

Rebecca’s hand stilled on the equipment as she realized he was standing behind her. The moon was bright enough that he could watch her slowly pull air into her lungs and then let it back out.

“Thank you for your help today.”

He’d gone and stomped on her heart and she was the one thanking him for helping with the festival? He didn’t even come close to deserving her.

“You don’t need to thank me for anything, sweet—”

The endearment was halfway out when Rebecca’s flinch came ricocheting out to him, piercing straight through his heart.

He knew she wanted him to leave her alone. But how could he bring himself to leave her? And how could he
ever let her go, if that’s what she really wanted from him now?

He tried again, saying, “Your family came.”

Her mouth almost tipped up into a smile. “They wanted to surprise me.”

“I’m glad they were here for you, Rebecca.”

For the first time in their conversation, she met his gaze. Her chin was lifted, her shoulders were back. This was the strong woman who had fought the preservation council, who had believed in herself and her festival. This was the woman who had always been such a big part of his brother’s life. This was the woman who so many people in town cared for and wanted to see happy.

This was the woman he would never stop loving.

“I am too. I’ve missed them.”

She looked pale. And tired. But still so beautiful he could hardly believe his eyes.

“Have you eaten today?”

She covered the tapper, then stood up and wiped her hands off on her jeans. “You don’t have to take care of me,” she said softly. “I already know how to take care of myself. I’ve always known, but I haven’t wanted to make the hard decisions about when to stay. And when to go.”

It killed Sean to stand there and let her walk away. He couldn’t do it.

“Rebecca, I—”

She stopped, looked at him over her shoulder. “Nothing has changed. Not between you and your parents. And not between you and me.” She paused before saying, “Stu is going to cover for me for a few days. I’ve got some things to take care of.”

All he wanted was to run to her, to beg for her forgiveness.

But he knew now that wasn’t enough.

Rebecca wasn’t leaving because their broken relationship was beyond repair. She was leaving because of problems that had nothing to with her and him… and everything to do with the way he had dealt with his family for so long.

He was surprised to realize that she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t wanted to make the hard decisions about when to stay and when to go.

He’d done exactly the same thing.

And in that instant he understood that there was only one way he could possibly prove his love to Rebecca, only one path to having a solid, loving relationship: he needed to deal with the demons that had been eating away at him for nearly twenty years.

His gut clenched, tightened even further, at the thought of seeking out his mother.

Soon. He knew he’d have to speak with her soon.

But first, he’d go make his apologies to a man who had only ever wanted to love his son.

Sean found his father in his workshop, surrounded by saws and hammers but not using any of them.

“I’m sorry I pushed you away. I didn’t know what else to do. I thought if I was around you too much, one day her secret would slip out. You loved her. Stu and I both saw how much. I didn’t want to be responsible for anything happening to your marriage.”

His father looked crushed. Shaken.

Bill walked across the workshop and pulled Sean into a hug. And Sean, rather than fighting it, found that he didn’t want to pull away. Not when he and his father had twenty years of lost hugs to make up for.

Finally, his father said, “I wish you hadn’t felt like you needed to protect me. But you’ve always been so honest. Such a good person, even when you were a little boy you were helping the other kids at school, protecting your little brother from bullies.” He grimaced. “I always knew, Sean. If only I had confronted her right away then it would have all come to light and you wouldn’t have had to live with her secret for so long. Will you ever forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive. You’re the best father I could have ever asked for.”

“No, I’m afraid I wasn’t. But I’d like to be if you will let me try again. Very, very much.”

“What is going to happen with you and Elizabeth?”

His father’s face, which had been so open, shuttered. “I don’t know.” He sighed, deep and long. “I don’t know. But the one thing I do know is that no matter what happens, I don’t want you to feel responsible in any way for my marriage. All I want is for you to be happy, son.”

“I’m going to talk to her.”

Both of them knew he wasn’t talking about Rebecca, that he was finally going to have a long-overdue discussion with his mother about what had happened twenty years ago.

“I don’t know that I deserve to,” his father said, “but can I give you a piece of advice?”

“Please. I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”

“Every time I build a new house, somewhere in the middle of it all, I look around me, at the mess and disarray. But do you know what I see? I see the potential for what’s coming. The new building that will soon stand tall. Proud. This is when clients worry that everything’s going wrong, that we’ll never be able to turn the piles of wood and shingles and cement and tile into a home. I soon
learned there was no use in trying to placate them. It was better to be honest. To tell them, yes, things were messy, bordering on being out of control. But that I was sticking to my vision anyway… along with my hope that with focus and determination, all was going to go well.

“You’re focused, Sean. And you’re determined. Let yourself be honest, too. Getting things out in the open won’t necessarily make them any less of a mess. But at least everything will finally be laid out on the table.”

His mother was in the house, standing at the kitchen counter, staring out the window above the sink into the darkness. When Sean walked in, she turned to him and he could see she was crying, the tear tracks fresh on her cheeks.

Black. White. That was the way he’d seen the world since he was fourteen. He’d never been a person who looked for the shades of gray. Even as a child, he’d liked what he liked, and disliked what he didn’t. Stu had been his exact opposite. Happy with whatever came, willing to find a way to like things.