A Crazy Kind of Love (32 page)

Mike had been unpacked in about five minutes, then she’d spent the next hour trying to figure out why she was there—and not with Lucas. Oh God, she’d wanted to come back here, to him. And knowing she couldn’t—
shouldn’t
—had made her head hurt and her stomach spin.

Then Papa had arrived and bad got worse.

He’d come by her new apartment, demanding to know what was going on. Why she was moving out on her own. Why Jo and Sam wouldn’t tell him anything.

When she explained about the baby, he’d been torn between real pleasure for her sake and pure fatherly fury. He wanted to know when she was getting married, and when she’d told him she wasn’t, that had really set him off. Watching his face turn bloodred, she’d worried for a while that he was going to have another heart attack.

But true to his nature, she thought, his anger went white-hot, then fizzled out just as quickly.

“Michaela, I worry for you.” Papa looked into her eyes and shook his head slowly. “You know about Jack.
You know what a hard time Carol has had, raising him mostly alone.”

“I won’t be on my own, Papa. I’ll have you. And Sam. And Jo.”

“It is not the same as having the one you love beside you.”

“I know, but—”

“Don’t make my mistakes, Michaela,” he warned
.

“Papa, it’s not that simple.” She stepped away from him and wandered the gleaming wood floor of the apartment that felt too empty. Too new. Too unwelcoming
.

Oh, she wished it
were
simple. Wished she could tell Lucas that she loved him, and be sure that he would say those three words back to her. But how could she? They hadn’t made any promises to each other. There’d been no talk of a future
.

So instead of being with the man she loved, she was here. In an apartment she didn’t really want, preparing to be a single mother
.

And since she’d have to be tough to pull that off, she thought she might as well start working on it now
.

“You don’t have to worry, Papa,” she said again firmly, not sure if she was trying to convince
him
or
herself.

He walked to her. “It’s my job to worry. You’ll see. That doesn’t stop just because your child is grown. Your child will
always
be your child. And to see that child hurt or in pain is a hard thing.”

Mike wrapped her arms around him and held on, finding comfort in the familiar strength of him. Papa patted her back and dropped a kiss on top of her head
.

“You want me to talk to your Lucas?”

“God, no, Papa,” she said, snuggling closer, content for the moment to feel a little less alone. “This is for me to figure out.”

“But you love him?”

“Oh yes. I love him. Enough to know that telling him now would be the most wrong thing I could do.”

He leaned back and looked down into her eyes. “How is loving wrong?”

“There’s too much now,” she said. “Too much in his life. His twin brother is
dying.
He needs to take care of Justin. I can take care of myself.”

Her father held her and sighed. “Sometimes you can be
too
strong, Michaela. Sometimes it’s better to lean a little. To hold and be held. To give the one you love a chance to be strong
for
you.”

“I will,” Bree said softly, and her voice brought Mike out of her memories and back to the house beside the lake.

A little disoriented, she drew in a long breath to steady herself. Then Lucas, standing beside her, took her hand and gave it a squeeze.

Mike’s heart turned over in her chest, but she clung to the warmth of Lucas’s touch as Justin promised to love Bree until
death
did them part.

Lucas opened the front door a week later and found Mike standing on his front porch. She was wearing a dark green sweatshirt over her T-shirt and her jeans were still clean—too early in the morning for her to have come from work.

Just seeing her again was a gift.

She’d only been to the house twice in the week since the wedding and both times she’d been there to pick up Bree and get her out of the house for an hour or two. Mike had come and gone so quickly during those brief visits, he’d had no chance at all to talk to her—and a part of him wondered if she’d arranged it that way purposely.

To avoid him. His hand tightened on the edge of the door, in an attempt to keep from reaching for her. Looking into her eyes, soft and open, was like falling into a cool lake on a hot day.

“Lucas?”

“Mike.” God, he’d missed her. Missed being able to talk to her. Argue with her. Missed everything about her. “You here to take Bree out for coffee again?”

“No . . .”

“I phoned her. Asked her to come.” Bridget’s voice, soft and hurried, came from directly behind him.

Spinning around, he faced his brother’s wife. Something cold and dark opened inside him as he registered the pain in her eyes. “What’s going on, Bree?”

She wiped away a single stray tear that rolled along her stark white cheek. “I called Mike because she should be here. With us.”

“What?” He cleared his throat, but it didn’t help.

“It’s time, Lucas,” Bree said. “Justin will want his family near.”

His family.

That’s what they’d become, the four of them. Family. And since Mike had left, that family had been broken. He hadn’t been able to touch her, hold her, and God, he’d missed that. Missed having her close. Missed turning around to find her blue eyes fixed on him.

Suddenly, something else Bree’d said hit him hard, like a punch to the stomach, exploding his breath.

“Time?”
His throat closed up tight. He felt it shut down and wondered how he was still able to breathe. “Now? Already?” He swallowed hard enough to push a tangled knot of emotion down his throat. Glancing at the staircase and the guest room above, Lucas felt a clawing instinct to run. To just bolt out of the house and sprint into the trees. To somehow escape the helplessness that had him in its grip. How could he stand by and watch his brother die?

Why couldn’t he do . . .
something
?

As if she could read his mind, Mike whispered,
“Sometimes the only thing we can do is be there.”

“Not enough,” he muttered, blindly reaching for her hand and holding on as he looked at her. “How can that be enough?” Then desperate, he shifted his gaze to Bree. “How do you know? How can you be sure?”

A tired, wistful smile brushed her lips, then faded. “I love him,” she said simply, her voice a sad shadow, flavored by Irish music. “How could I
not
know?”

“You’re wrong.” He pushed the words past his throat, shaking his head, fighting the inevitable even as he knew he couldn’t win.

“I’m not, no,” she said sorrowfully. “Wish to heaven I were.”

Tears pumped inside him, but he couldn’t let them through. Couldn’t let loose the howling grief that wanted to rattle the windows and rage at the sky. Couldn’t do a damn thing but let Justin go.

“Ah, God . . .” Lucas’s head dropped, banging into the door behind him. Eyes closed, he stood perfectly still for a moment, concentrating on the small ache in his head, because otherwise he’d have to focus on the enormous pain in his heart.

And he wasn’t sure he’d survive it.

Mike stepped closer, laid her free hand on his forearm and left it there, as if she knew how much he needed that connection. That warmth, streaming in to ease the tremendous cold filtering through him. He pulled in a long breath, steadied himself and nodded, as if to reassure himself that they would get through this. Somehow.

“Come now,” Bree said, stepping back and turning for the stairs. “Quickly.”

“Lucas . . .” Mike whispered his name and then stopped, as if she didn’t know what to say. But she didn’t have to try. Because there was nothing she
could
say. Nothing any of them could say to stop the pain. To hold back time. To change the past.

“I’m so glad you’re here.” He squeezed her hand and held on. Pulling her inside, he swung the door closed and took off after Bridget, Mike keeping pace with him, their heels on the tiles clattering loudly in the still, silent house.

His heartbeat raced, his blood rushed, and the roaring in his ears was deafening. Fear chased him up the stairs, reaching for him with grasping, greedy fingers, and he didn’t know how to fight it. Didn’t know that he
could
.

When they reached the guest room, Bree was already inside, sitting beside Justin on the bed. She held one of his hands in hers, stroking his skin in long, smooth caresses.

Early morning light sifted into the room as gently as a promise. One of the windows was partially opened and a breeze ruffled the pale green sheers, making them dance lazily. Outside, the ducks on the lake quacked and squabbled, bringing life into the room where death hovered.

One look at Justin’s face and Lucas knew the truth. He felt it, just as surely as Bree must have. She was right. When you loved someone, you just
knew
.

Mike’s hand in his felt warm, strong. He held on tighter, using her to anchor himself.

The connection was
that
strong.

And he thanked God for it.

Moving to the bed, Lucas stood beside Bridget, laid one hand on her shoulder, wrapping his other arm around Mike’s shoulder, unconsciously drawing her tightly into the circle they’d formed around Justin. Lucas watched, unable to look away, as his brother’s chest moved in a faltering rhythm.

Each breath following the last just a little slower than the one before.

Seconds ticked past, marked by the heartbeats of those who watched and waited.

Justin opened his eyes, and for the first time in days, his dark eyes looked clear, almost overbright. As if he were already seeing something none of them could imagine and couldn’t quite focus on the vision. He looked at each of them and managed a smile.

His voice, when it came, was hardly more than a breath.

“I don’t know why I was so afraid of this.” Another brief smile as he looked at his brother. “Thanks for . . .” He paused. “Hell. You know.”

Lucas nodded, tightened his grip on both women, and blinked back the moisture clouding his eyes. He forced a smile that he feared was more of a grimace, but damned if he’d cry when the man dying was being so brave.

“Bree . . .” Justin looked up at her. Smiled. “I know. About the baby.”

“Aw, love . . .” Her voice broke, and tears streamed down her face.

“I’m so glad,” he whispered, still smiling as he closed his eyes and sighed his last breath.

As Bridget wept and Mike turned her face into his
shoulder, Lucas felt . . .
humbled
. He’d always thought that no matter what, everyone died alone. But it wasn’t true.

The lucky ones died with family.

With love.

He bent his head to Mike’s and quietly mourned his twin and all the tomorrows he had lost.

A few hours later, while Lucas was on the phone, making . . . arrangements for Justin’s cremation, Mike spotted Bree, standing alone at the edge of the lake. The ever-present wind lifted the woman’s long, red curls into a tangle around her, but she seemed oblivious. Staring out at the ducks on the lake, Bree might have been a statue, carved by an empathetic sculptor to represent sorrow.

Every curve and line of her body wept.

And Mike’s tender heart fisted in her chest.

Slipping out the French doors, she quietly crossed the deck, and took the stairs to the grass below. She felt as though she were intruding, but she simply couldn’t stay away. Bree was alone, now. Horribly alone, and the pain was so new, so fresh, that Mike couldn’t turn her back.

“Bree?”

The woman slowly turned her head to look at her and smiled. Though her green eyes were filled with anguish and the shimmer of tears unshed, her smile was steady—surprising the hell out of Mike.

“Are you okay?” she asked, even knowing how stupid it sounded. People always asked that:
Are you okay with the way your world just ended?

Idiot.

“I’m sorry,” Mike said softly. “Ridiculous question.”

But Bree reached out one hand to her, and when Mike took it, she said, “No it isn’t. And I’m fine, really.”

“I wish there was . . .
something
I could do,” Mike said, waving one hand helplessly.

A long moment ticked past before Bree smiled again, even as a solitary tear trickled down her cheek. “There’s no need for you to feel sorry for me, Mike.”

“Bree . . .”

She shook her head, drew in a short breath and let it go again on a sigh as her gaze shifted back to the lake. The wind danced across the water, ruffling the reeds at the bank and rippling the surface until it looked as though each ripple moved into the next and the next and the next, moving into eternity.

“I’ve lost Justin,” she said and her voice broke on the words.

Mike squeezed her hand a little tighter and let her own tears flow.

“But at least I
had
him,” Bree added. “Some people live their whole lives never knowing what it is to really
love
. To feel it, as I did, bone deep inside me. To hold it in my heart, my soul. To be so filled with the light of it that no matter how dark things may get, the shadows will never reach me.”

Mike’s throat closed and her heart pounded in an achingly slow rhythm that seemed to echo over and over inside her. She felt the same way about Lucas. The difference was, for however briefly, Bree had known her love was returned.

And everything in Mike longed to feel that herself. To know that Lucas loved her as she did him. She didn’t want him to want her just for the baby—the miracle of the child they’d created. She wanted the soul stirring, down to the bone love that Bree had found with Justin.

She’d never thought to find this chance at the Fairy Tale. And now that it was here, she wanted it
all
.

Bree spoke again and Mike focused on her. How could she not, as Bree stared intently into her eyes as if wanting to share the secrets of the universe.