Love By Accident (5 page)

"Yeah, your actions really spoke of devotion."

She wanted to reach for him, but stayed well back. It had been her choice to leave; it was up to Matt if he wanted her back in his life or not.

"I didn't know how to go on. I knew it was a matter of hours until your parents showed up, until--" she struggled to find enough saliva to swallow. "Until..."

His gaze narrowed and grabbed onto her.

"His name was Gil, Lauren.
Gil
."

She nodded in acknowledgement, yet she couldn't say the name. She hadn't said it aloud in four years.

"I didn't know how I'd face his parents." She held out her hands. "How do you apologize for killing someone's son, Matt? Or how do you tell your best friend's parents that you've left their son crippled? I couldn't! I'm sorry you don't understand, and I hope you never do, but I couldn't face them."

"Or me!"

"Or you!" she yelled back, tears filling her eyes as the feelings of that night pressed hard against her heart.

His gaze battled hers until he broke contact. When he turned for the kitchen, Lauren felt like a popped balloon. Sagging, she dropped into her rocking chair, wiped her wet cheeks.

From the other room she heard the fridge open, then the door slam shut. She heard him pace, heard him breathe. Not long after, he came back, settled himself on the couch. His hands hung between his bent knees.

"They kept me sedated for a few days. By then it was too late; I'd missed the funeral."

Regret and, if possible, more guilt twisted in her stomach. "I'm sorry. That must have broken your heart."

His eyes whipped to hers. "The chance to say goodbye was stolen from me, but
you
had the chance. You could have gone, yet nobody saw you there."

Since she'd already tried to explain how impossible it had been for her to stay around, she simply acknowledged his words with a nod.

"I was surprised when Gil's parents never filed a civil suit toward you."

Lauren couldn't have been more shocked. "Because you would have in their shoes?"

"It would have been hard not to."

If there had been any doubt about how he truly felt about her, there wasn't any longer. She'd expected as much given their recent meetings, but the truth of it left her reeling.

"I pled guilty. I accepted the responsibility."

"Yeah," he guffawed. "Takes a lot of guts to pay a small fine and skip town. I don't know how you managed it."

"What do you want from me?" Lauren demanded, once again coming to her feet.

"Everything! I want to know what happened that night. I want the chance to say goodbye to Gil. I want my friends back!"

She wanted her friends back too, with every breath she took she wished she could go back in time and change history.

"If I could change it..."

His nostrils flared and his eyes flashed. "Then how about you tell me what happened? You haven't talked about the accident at all and I don't remember any of it. What the hell happened? How did you lose control of the damn car? What don't I know?"

She stepped around the chair, dug her fingers into the back of it. "N-nothing!" God, he couldn't know, Gil had said Matt hadn't known. But she'd hesitated too long.

"Bullshit."

Visions of that night bulleted through her brain. She shook her head to send them back where they belong.

"It's not bullshit. I hit some ice, the car skidded off the road, hit a tree on the passenger side." Her voice caught as sharp images cut into her head. Releasing the chair she turned and looked out the window into the night. It was dark tonight, just like it had been the night of the accident. She hugged herself, rocked back onto her heels. Only when she knew she could continue without breaking did she speak.

"I came to on the side of the road. The paramedics had already taken me out of the car. They were loading you into the ambulance." Her heart ripped open, bled. "I never saw him either."

She heard Matt move, through the reflection in the glass she saw him come to her side. All too soon his hand closed over her arm and he turned her so once again she had to face him.

"There's more you're not saying."

This time, she didn't hesitate. Matt was already hurting, what good would it do to tell him the rest? "No, there isn't."

His gaze hardened. The look of disgust he threw at her left her feeling soiled.

"The fucking least you could do to honor Gil's memory is to be goddamn honest about what happened. He deserves that much, don't you think?"

The tears wanted to come. They burned her eyes. The pressure of them strained against her chest. She choked them back, along with the truth. She
was
honoring Gil, though she couldn't tell Matt that. She was honoring Matt's memory of the best friend he'd had by not telling him the secrets Gil had been keeping.

"I can't give him what he deserves," she said instead. "He deserves to be here, but he's not. Nothing can change that." Just as nothing could change her last hateful words. It was a stark reality she was still learning to accept four years later.

Matt gaped at her, then drove his fingers through his hair. "Fuck me," he muttered, his eyes going to the ceiling. Then he dropped his arms, drilled his gaze into hers. "No," he amended, "fuck you."

He stomped from the room, slammed the front door. Lauren waited until she heard the squeal of his tires, heard the car shift from first to third by the end of the block before she sagged back into her rocker and let the pain engulf her.

***

Holy shit
, Gil thought as Matt barreled out of Lauren's house and roared away in his fancy car. When Lauren had finally found her way back to the mountains and Matt had gotten the job in Jasper, Gil had figured his interference would be unnecessary. Which would have been a shame considering how long it had taken him to get control of his spirit so he wasn't vanishing and popping up at whim.

Of course, he couldn't control everything. Destiny was a stubborn bitch and he couldn't force her hand no matter how hard he tried. So it hadn't been up to him that it had taken four years to finally get Matt and Lauren in the same town. Now that they were, however, he could see he'd have his work cut out for him. Especially since, despite his efforts, he couldn't get close to Lauren. Well,
physically
he could, but he couldn't get into her house for whatever reason and she couldn't see him.

He'd tried, many times since the accident. Even tonight, as he'd looked at her through the living room window, as he'd watched her try to hold herself together, she hadn't seen him. It hurt knowing she'd so completely blocked him out of her head, even if he did deserve it. Just when the door opened a crack and he raced to squeeze in the door, she slammed it on him.

He had better luck with Matt. Though he hadn't been allowed to appear to Matt, he'd nonetheless slipped a few ideas into his head. The car for one, Gil thought as the red taillights sped away. Gil had been in the passenger seat when Matt had rolled it off the lot. He'd have let Matt know, but the Bitch wouldn't let him.

Still, she'd allowed him certain things. Besides materializing when he wanted to, he could touch things now, feel things. Move things. And since the white light hadn't called on him yet, he knew he'd been given these skills for a reason.

Looking into the window again, seeing Lauren's tears cascade down her face, knowing the pain hadn't lifted for her in four long years, he knew the reason.

She needed peace. Matt needed closure.

And he was just the ghost to give them both what they needed.

***

She had the morning shift at the café. Six a.m. and she hadn't needed the alarm to wake her. Because she hadn't fallen asleep. Truth be told, she hadn't tried; it would have been an effort in futility when every time she shut her eyes she saw Matt's, burning with anger.

So she'd put in a random DVD and half-listened to it while she'd knitted. As a kid Lauren had scoffed at knitting, it was something women did in their retirement years, not in their early thirties. But in those first lonely months after the accident when she was scared to go to sleep, she'd needed something to do in the darkness of night.

Though she'd tried it with no expectations, she'd found she actually liked it, even if she still hadn't honed her skills beyond anything other than scarves. She had a drawer full of those. Red, blue, green and every color combination imaginable. It kept her hands busy and forced her to concentrate. Which was the whole reason she'd picked up the needles in the first place.

Lauren checked her watch, poured her cold, untouched cup of coffee down the sink and slipped on her jacket. Locking up behind her, she headed for the Mountainview, a quick three block walk made even faster by the absence of any traffic and pedestrians. The sun had yet to poke its head over the Rockies and the only thing moving in town seemed to be her. Even the elk had slept in.

Using her key, Lauren let herself in the front door. Carlos, the cook, was already in the kitchen cutting and preparing food for the day. Betty, the owner, didn't usually arrive until they were open for business. With an hour before the doors actually opened, Lauren turned on the coffee pots that Juliet had prepared before she'd left last night. On the bottom shelf of the industrial stainless steel fridge was a fresh supply of dough chilling. Cold pastry now, but in less than an hour, they would be the signature confection that kept the Mountainview in business year round: hot, crusty, melt-in-your-mouth cinnamon buns.

Forty-five minutes later movement at the door caught Lauren's eye and she smiled when she saw Jack "Cougar" Denton. He was always first in, and loved nothing more than bending anyone's ear about his many, many, hunting exploits, his specialty being cougars.

She knew for a fact the regulars had all heard his stories, at least a half-dozen times each, including Lauren, who'd been in town less than a year. Still, he was spunky for eighty-two and nobody had the heart to tell him they were sick of his narratives.

Of course Lauren had long since suspected it wasn't telling stories Cougar was really interested in, it was the group of older ladies that converged on the Mountainview every morning. Though Cougar had yet to summon the nerve to join them.

Lauren turned the sign to
Open
, unlocked the door. "Hey, Cougar," she greeted him with a smile and hug. "Just in time for cinnamon buns."

The bells tinkled as the door shut behind him.

"You know I like extra icing on mine," he reminded her, as he did every morning.

It was a wonder there was blood in his arteries with the amount of cream cheese he consumed. She set a small plate and hot coffee before him. His arthritic fingers pulled the dough apart and he promptly popped a piece beneath his slim, grey moustache.

The bells tinkled again and in strolled the "coffee gang". Five women, all over sixty, in varying stages of acceptance of their age, took their seats next to the window.

Lauren sighed. Normally she looked forward to their arrival, since she never knew what these spirited women would say next. But with a lack of sleep weighing on her shoulders and Matt's hurtful parting ringing in her ears, Lauren wasn't up to their liveliness.

Still, it was her job, and it wasn't their fault Lauren wasn't at her best. Sighing, Lauren trudged heavily through the otherwise still empty restaurant, coffee pot in hand.

"Morning, sweetie," Lois smiled. "Haven't met a nice young man to take you away from all this yet?"

Lois was a grandma of three and great-grandma of five. She was four feet eleven inches and all of it cute, from her bluish-grey hair to her sparkling blue eyes to the neon pink knitted beret she wore every day. Happily married for the past fifty-five years, Lois had a heart of gold. Lauren knew the reason Lois questioned her at least once a week; she wanted Lauren to be as happy as she was.

The accident had ruined any chance of that happening.

"Not yet," she answered.

"Well, don't give up hope," Elsie said. "Pretty little thing like you needs to have some regular sex. Of course once I got myself married the regular sex mostly stopped."

"Speaking of sex," Donna said. "My granddaughter, Kimberly, invited me to one of her sex toy parties the other night. You should have seen the stuff she had! I'm telling you, if those things had been around when I was young, I might've never married Edward, rest his soul," Donna said.

"Lauren, you ever go to those sex parties before?" Donna asked.

She felt her cheeks burn. "No."

"Well, I'll bring you a catalogue. I'm not sure when Kimberly will be having another party, but at least this way you can see what they have to offer."

"Bring me one too," Elsie said. "I want to see what the fuss is about."

"And me. But tell her I'd like to book a party," Alice added. "Sometimes these things are better explained in person."

After taking their food orders, Lauren gladly left the ladies to discuss sex parties, of all things. She retreated behind the counter. Suddenly one of Cougar's stories didn't seem so bad.