Ex on the Beach (42 page)

Finally, his mother reached out a hand to him. He ignored it.

Her eyes clouded in pain. “This is what you’ve always believed?” she asked.

“It’s what I’ve always known.” No need to tiptoe around it. “I got drunk, and I put her in a car on wet roads in a place she didn’t know. Of course it was my fault. Who else’s could it have been?”

She shook her head at him. “It was an accident.”

“That shouldn’t have happened.”

“No accident should happen, yet you see them every day. You go to bat for people on a regular basis, fighting that they weren’t the cause of them.”

That statement gave him pause. He did do that. And he believed it.

But this was different.

He shook his head and stood. “Not the same.”

Mark walked out the door, ignoring her plea for him to return, and headed to his car. When he got behind the wheel, instead of pulling out and heading to the pub, he went the opposite direction. He didn’t know where he was going, but after that exchange all he wanted to do was drive.

He’d been surprised, actually, to learn that his mother didn’t believe Tiffany’s death was his fault. He’d always assumed everyone thought it was.

He knew that if asked, Tiffany’s father would say Mark was to blame.

His foot pressed harder on the accelerator, taking the busy streets faster than he should. He didn’t slow, sliding back and forth between other cars, as the ache inside him grew.

If only he could go back fourteen years, he’d do it differently. Then, maybe, he could marry Andie. He could make her proud.

And he could make her happy forever.

It occurred to him that he hadn’t just thought he wanted to take care of her forever. He did, but only in the way that he wanted her to take care of him. By nurturing what they had. Each of them being there when the other needed someone.

Not protect, as if to keep alive. Which was exactly how he’d always thought of it.

Something had changed. He just wanted to make her happy. He wanted to love her, and see her love for him shining back.

And he wanted babies.

Little redheads. He’d seen pictures of Andie when she’d been younger. Her hair had been as red as Ginny’s. He could imagine a miniature Andie, with wild red curls, running around.

Maybe a boy, too. Love swelled inside him at the thought of them as a family. He could make her proud. He knew he could. And she would be a wonderful mother.

He glanced around, realizing he’d driven out of the city and had turned into a neighborhood. And then his breath caught as it occurred to him where he was. He was about three blocks from where Tiffany had died.

At one point, he’d come by here every year on the anniversary of her death.

Oh shit. He pulled out his phone and looked at the date. Today was fourteen years since the wreck.

He gulped. His mouth had gone dry.

His pulse sped up and he took the next left. Then another left.

In the distance he could see the tree standing just outside the curve of the road. The car had damaged the bark but hadn’t hurt the tree long-term.

That had always struck him as odd. She’d been wiped out in an instant, but the tree just kept growing.

As he neared the spot, he noticed a red pickup pulled over about twenty yards before the curve. He had the thought that it could be Tiffany’s parents, but he didn’t see anyone around. He pulled in behind the truck and got out. After he stepped across the guardrail and crossed the ditch, he saw him.

Tiffany’s dad was stooped against the tree as if in prayer. He clutched a single pink flower in one hand and rested the other against the misshapen bark where Mark’s car had once been wedged into the wood.

Mark turned back. He didn’t need to be there.

He didn’t need Tiffany’s dad to see him.

“Mark,” Mr. Avery said behind him.

Mark stopped. He didn’t move, terrified to look at the man.

He remembered seeing Tiffany’s family at the funeral but had been in no shape to talk to them, and neither had they. Plus, what was he supposed to say? Sorry I killed your daughter?

But he was a grown man now. A civil conversation was possible, surely. And if the man threw a punch, well then, Mark deserved it. He turned back around and headed to the tree.

“Mr. Avery,” he said as he approached. He nodded politely.

The man was nearing sixty but looked a good fifteen years older.

“It’s good to see you,” Mr. Avery said. He held out a hand, motioning for Mark to come closer.

Mark hesitantly headed his way.

“I want to show you something,” Mr. Avery said. The man sounded excited.

What could he possibly be excited about?

When Mark stepped beside him, he noticed several bushes of pink flowers matching the one in Mr. Avery’s hand. They circled the base of the tree on one side. He remembered seeing them there before.

“They bloomed again,” Mr. Avery said. “Every year they’ve bloomed.”

Seemed an odd place for bushes like this to be. Mark nodded. “I noticed them years ago. I’m surprised…” He stopped. Why would he bring up the wreck right off the bat? If felt as if his rib cage was trying to crush his organs.

“What?”

Mark shrugged, not wanting to say it but seeing the man was going to push. “I’m surprised the wreck didn’t kill them,” he said. “I seem to recall there being a lot of dirt disturbed.”

“Oh, Mark.” Mr. Avery reached out a hand and patted his shoulder. Mark could feel his own muscles bunching under the touch. “We planted these here the year after Tiffany died. Her mother and I. On the first anniversary. They were her favorite flowers — peonies — and they’ve bloomed every year.”

Ah, geez. He’d never known these flowers were here for her.

“That’s pretty amazing,” Mark said. Especially considering hers hadn’t been the only wreck that had happened in this curve. No one else had been killed that he knew about, but he’d heard of several wrecks over the years.

Finally, the city had installed the guardrail.

Mr. Avery turned back to the tree, and a calmness grew inside Mark as he stood there studying the blooms. They were lovely. He could see these being Tiff’s favorite flower. They were big and bushy, and they seemed to be too heavy for their stems. They flopped around in all directions, doing their own thing instead of standing up straight as flowers in a vase would.

They were a little wild. And a lot of fun.

“They remind me of her,” Mark said.

“Yeah?” Mr. Avery looked at him. He nodded. “I know. Out of control. They were her mother’s favorite, too.”

He chuckled and Mark couldn’t help doing the same. “She was so fun to be around,” Mark said.

Mr. Avery nodded. A weathered sadness colored his features, but he smiled. “So full of life. Just like her mom.” He glanced at Mark. “I lost her last year, you know? Her mother. She was a good woman.”

“Oh, sir. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

He nodded. “We had a lot of years together. And we managed to hold on after we lost Tiffany. A lot of couples couldn’t have done that. But we had a lot of love.”

Mark understood. Losing a child had to be the worst thing in the world.

The calmness he’d felt only moments earlier disappeared, replaced by the weight of his guilt. He’d taken this man’s daughter from him. After all these years, the least he could do was offer an apology.

Bracing himself for backlash, he cleared his throat. “Sir?” he said. “I’d like to, uhm…” Hell. Sound like a child?

Mr. Avery put a hand on Mark’s shoulder again. It felt heavy. “What is it?” Mr. Avery asked.

Mark looked at the grass for a moment and blew out a breath. He then raised his gaze to the older man’s. He looked him straight in the eye and could hear Andie telling him to grow a pair. He almost smiled.

“I’d like to apologize, sir. I should never have put Tiff in the position of needing to drive herself home that night. I should have gotten her there myself.” He swallowed then pushed ahead. “I apologize for taking your daughter from you. I know it changes nothing, and I should have said it years ago, but…” He shook his head; it wasn’t enough. “I’m sorry.”

Tears filled the man’s eyes and Mark couldn’t help it, but tears filled his, too.

“It wasn’t your fault, son. Is that what you’ve always believed?”

Mark stared. What? He nodded. “Of course it was my fault. It had been raining, she didn’t know the streets. I should have been driving.”

“You had been drinking, had you not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then no, you should not have been driving.”

Mark tilted his head in acknowledgment. “I
shouldn’t
have been drinking.”

“That’s true. But your drinking isn’t what killed my daughter.”

Mark didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to argue with the man about it.

“If you knew anything about Tiffany, you’d know she was a bit impulsive.”

Mark did smile then. “That was one of the things I liked so much about her. You never knew what she would do next.”

“Right. And that included when she was behind the wheel.” Mr. Avery stepped away from the tree, and together to two of them walked side by side toward their vehicles. “She hit this tree doing eighty. Did you know that?”

Mark blinked. He looked down the road the way he’d come. He wouldn’t think it was long enough to get a car up to eighty.

Her father let out a dry laugh. “Guess you missed that. She liked to go fast. Just like her mother. I have no idea how she got it up to eighty on this stretch, but the reports show she did. It was all her.”

“She was mad at me that night,” Mark threw out. “That had to be why she was going so fast.”

“You’re not hearing me. She already had two speeding tickets in the three months she’d had her license. I helped her get out of them so she didn’t lose her right to drive. It made it easier on us if we didn’t have to take her back and forth to her job.” He wiped a tear from his eye. “I shouldn’t have done that. Then she wouldn’t have gotten behind a wheel. She needed to learn from her mistakes, and I didn’t see to it that she did.”

“It wasn’t
your
fault,” Mark stressed.

“No,” Mr. Avery said. “But I didn’t help. It was an accident. A bad one. But it was nobody’s fault but hers.”

“No,” Mark began.

“I’m so sorry you’ve carried this guilt all these years. I didn’t realize. Her mother and I were too distraught to think of anything but ourselves or I might have noticed.”

Mark chuckled wearily. “Sir, my own mother didn’t realize. I doubt you would have.”

Mr. Avery looked at him then, from head to toe, and gave him a nod. “You might be right. But I wish I’d paid attention anyway. It wasn’t your fault, son. Let it go. No one has ever blamed you.”

Except me.

He kept his gaze on Mark as if waiting for a response. Mark had no words to give him. Finally, he simply nodded and Tiffany’s father patted him gently on the cheek. He gave Mark a lonely smile and turned to his truck.

After Mr. Avery drove off, Mark stood there on the side of the road, watching the peonies sway in the wind. Then that calmness he’d felt earlier came back. It had never occurred to him Tiffany’s death might not have been his fault.

He closed his eyes as he stood there and pictured Tiffany back then. She’d been blonde and beautiful, and she’d liked to paint her fingernails in the brightest colors she could find. She’d laughed as if never concerned of what others would think. And she’d always moved fast, no matter what she was doing.

Whether she was walking down the halls at school or being the one to kiss him before he got up the nerve to kiss her first. Or driving well above the speed limit. She’d done everything fast.

How had he not realized she’d gotten his car up to eighty on this road?

She smiled at him in his mind, and then she was gone.

He opened his eyes. He had to go to Andie before she gave up on him for good.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

C
ome
on
, Kayla,” Andie said, pounding her hand on the kitchen counter. “I need to go.”

“Just one day more, I swear.”

Andie dropped her suitcase to the floor. Frustration had her breathing hard. She’d already waited four days since she’d figured out she should be by Mark’s side. She wanted to go now. He needed her.

She hadn’t called because she’d wanted to surprise him. Thought it might mean more if she just showed up. But that was when she’d intended to go up on Tuesday.

She’d wrapped up everything she could on Monday; made sure her mother, aunt, and Kayla would be fine on their own; and made arrangements for Ginger to handle her class at the senior center this week. Ginger wasn’t the ideal substitute in that she was unable to actually construct a usable basket, but until Andie knew for certain that she would be staying in Boston, she didn’t want to look for a permanent replacement.

Then Ginny had gotten sick and spent a full day laid up in bed, and Kayla had had one crisis after another with the week’s weddings. Maybe her mother wasn’t going to work out if they couldn’t get through a couple of days without Andie.

The last straw had been Ginger calling at the last minute that morning to cancel at the center. Andie couldn’t just skip the class. Too many people looked forward to it each week.

She ground her teeth together and paced the floor.

“What is it that can’t possibly wait?” She’d already moved her flight once that day so she could have the class. She needed to leave for the airport soon or she would miss her flight altogether. And now Kayla wanted her to stay another day?

“There's a last-minute wedding at the bar tonight.” Kayla used her pleading voice.

“And what’s so important about it that my mother can’t help?”

“There’s just a lot of people. Some of them are older, and they’re going to be on the beach. We need all hands on deck.” Kayla twisted her hands in front of her and chewed on her bottom lip. She really seemed distraught.

Andie stared at her normally freakishly well-controlled event director, unable to understand what had her in such a state.

“And if I stay, what’s it going to be tomorrow? Because I’ll tell you, it’s starting to feel as if you’re making up excuses to keep me here.”