Marking Time (34 page)

“Are you okay to be missing all this work? I don’t care about when the house gets done. You know that. But between me being sick, and then your dad—”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay, I won’t,” Clare said, surprised by his curt tone.

Several moments of uncomfortable silence followed.

Aidan glanced over at her and appeared to be wrestling with something. “I don’t work because I have to,” he finally said.

“You don’t?”

“Remember when I said Sarah’s grandmother left her some money?”

She nodded.

“Did I mention it was five million dollars?”

Clare choked. “No, you didn’t say that.”

“We didn’t know what to do with that kind of money, so we used some to buy a place in Boston and the land in Vermont. Sarah’s dad invested the rest of it for us. After she died, I tried to give it back to her parents, but since they’d gotten plenty themselves from her grandmother, they wouldn’t take it.”

Clare cradled his hand between both of hers.

“Besides, her grandmother always liked me, and her parents insisted she’d want me to have the money. After everything happened, I didn’t care about anything, let alone money. I had all but forgotten about it until about a year later when her father came to see me. He said it had grown to more than seven million, and I needed to do something with it or lose a big chunk to taxes.”

“Is that when you built the house?”

“Yeah. I also paid off my parents’ mortgage and gave them and each of my siblings two hundred and fifty thousand. I paid off all the debt for my father’s business, which still left me with almost five million. So I gave two million to breast cancer research and invested the rest. It’s grown again to something like five and a half million, but I never touch it. I live on what I make with my business, but knowing it’s there gives me the freedom to do whatever I want.”

“You have all that money, and yet you still work twelve hours a day,” Clare said, amazed.

“What the hell else was I going to do? I couldn’t just sit around and think about how screwed up my life was. I had to find a purpose, and my business gave me that. It got a little out of hand in the last couple of years, and right around the time we met, I decided to scale back on the new construction part. It just wasn’t fun anymore. It was too hectic.”

She smiled. “I remember. Whenever I think of the first time we met, I’ll picture cell phones and a pager.”

“I do
not
miss them.”

“You helped me to see I don’t want that kind of life anymore, either. That’s why I’m not going back to real estate.”

“What’re you going to do?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I have a few things I’m considering.” She leaned over to kiss him.

“What was that for?”

“You’re a good man, Aidan O’Malley. You’ve made the best of the hand you were dealt. And even in the midst of your own pain, you thought of others. You made life easier for your family, you gave all that money to cancer research, and you work so hard even though you don’t have to.”

“I still feel guilty sometimes about how I came to have it.”

“It’s much more important to consider what you did with it.”

He took his eyes off the road long enough to glance over at her. “You’re very good for me. You somehow manage to always make me feel better.”

She smiled. “You do exactly the same thing for me. While we’re talking about your millions, I guess I should tell you the house wasn’t the only thing I got out of my divorce, even though it was the only thing I asked for.”

“What else did you get?”

“Three million. Jack made a fortune while we were married, and he made sure I’d never have to think about money again.”

“Which was only fair. You raised his children for him.”

Clare shrugged. “That was the very best time of my life, when my girls were small. I didn’t expect or even want that kind of money. He did it without telling me.”

Aidan sighed. “That guy is just too much. I can’t compete with him.”

She squeezed his hand. “There’s no competition, Aidan. He’s my past. You’re my present, and I hope my future.”

“I hope so, too.”

“Do you mind if we stop to stretch?” Clare asked when they reached the outskirts of Boston. “I’m getting stiff from sitting so long.”

“No problem. I’m a little hungry anyway.” A few minutes later, he took a rest stop exit and held her hand as they jogged through the frigid cold to a restaurant complex.

Aidan carried a tray with deli sandwiches and sodas to a table. While they were eating, Clare noticed him watching a boy sitting with his parents at the next table. He was about eight or nine, and his hands danced through the air as he talked with animation to parents who hung on his every word. The boy wore a Red Sox hat and jersey with high-top sneakers. A hand-held electronic game sat on the table next to a can of Dr. Pepper.

Only when Clare reached for his hand did Aidan seem to realize he was staring.

“I see boys that age, and I wonder about Colin,” he confessed.

“It’s only natural.”

“I wonder all the time what he’d be like. Would he be a Red Sox fan like I am? Like that boy over there? Would he play football? Would he have read all the Harry Potter books by now or loved Star Wars?”

“You know, you can make him into anything you want him to be. He can be a Red Sox fan who plays football and reads Harry Potter. And then whenever you want to, you can visit him in your mind.”

“I like that.”

“Good.”

He was quiet while they finished their lunch.

On the way back to the truck, he stopped her. “There’s something I need to do, something I’ve been putting off for a long time. I feel like I’m ready to do it now. Do you mind a detour into Boston?”

Clare shook her head. “I don’t mind.”

When Clare asked him how he knew where he was going, Aidan said Sarah and Colin were buried with her grandmother. His fingers gripped the wheel as he brought the truck to a stop in the cemetery.

Clare rested a hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”

He nodded. “Will you come with me?”

“Of course.”

They walked hand in hand to a hilltop grave, marked by a headstone with the name Sweeny in large block letters. Flowers and a teddy bear sat at the base of the well-tended grave.

The marker read, “Sarah Sweeny O’Malley, beloved daughter, wife, mother.” Under Sarah’s name, Colin was remembered: “Colin Sweeny O’Malley, beloved son, grandson.”

As he stared at the stone marker, Aidan’s face might have been made of granite. The slight tic of a muscle in his cheek was the only indication of the war he waged with his emotions.

“It’s a beautiful spot,” Clare said after several long moments of silence.

He squatted down to brush some dirt off the base of the stone. “Yes.”

When he finally stood up again, his face was wet with tears. She put her arms around him and held him close.

“I’m sorry,” he said after several minutes. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his coat.

“For what, love?”

“I thought I was ready to see this.”

“Is anyone ever ready to see this?”

After another long look at the gravestone, he put an arm around Clare to walk back to the truck. “Let’s go.”

Aidan was subdued during the ride through the mountains, and Clare left him alone with his thoughts while she tried a few more times—unsuccessfully—to reach Kate. They arrived in Stowe just after five.

“Do you mind if I go get in a couple of hours at your brother’s house?”

“Of course not.” Clare sensed he needed to work through some things by himself. “I’ll make us some dinner and do the laundry.”

“Don’t worry about mine. I’ll do it later.”

“Don’t be silly. I don’t mind.”

Lingering over the good-bye kiss, he caressed her face. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Take your time.”

He couldn’t seem to end the kiss, and when he finally tore himself away, his gaze was fixed on hers. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She gave him a gentle push. “Now go to work.”

He smiled and was out the door a minute later.

Clare kept herself busy for the next few hours doing laundry and making a beef stew for dinner. While she worked, her thoughts were never far from Aidan. She remembered back to the day she met him and pondered all the discoveries she’d made about him since then.

Clare had to admit that part of his initial appeal had been that he seemed to be nothing like Jack. But the more she got to know him, the more she realized he was a lot more like Jack than she could’ve imagined. Despite her first impressions, he was no simple carpenter. He was a Yale-educated doctor who happened to also be a gifted carpenter and, from what she’d been told, an equally gifted musician. Her eyes drifted to the baby grand piano in the living room and understood in that moment that the room had been built around the piano in silent tribute to the wife he’d loved and lost. When this man loved, he loved big, and Clare knew how very lucky she was that he loved her.

All at once, she wanted to tell him everything. She wanted to let him into her private world the way he’d taken her all the way into his.
Tonight
, she promised herself.
Tonight I’ll tell him
.

T
he day after the terrible confrontation with her father Kate sat on the back veranda at Reid’s house. She tilted her face into the unusually warm winter sun.

The door opened, and Reid came out to join her. “Your cell phone’s been ringing,” he said, handing it to her.

She checked the caller ID. “It’s my mom.”

“Why don’t you call her back?”

“She’s probably going to jump all over me, too.”

“Maybe not.”

“Do you honestly think he hasn’t reported everything to her by now?”

“She might not feel the same way about it that he does.”

Kate snorted. “Yeah, right. They’re the ultimate tag team on something like this. They always have been.”

Reid leaned back against the railing that framed the big porch. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Yesterday you told your dad you’re going on tour with Buddy and Taylor. Does that mean you’ve made up your mind?”

Kate looked at him, filled with sadness over everything that had happened in the last few days. “I didn’t realize I’d made a decision until I said it. I needed to show him that I’ve done what I came here to do.”

“I just hope you’re doing it for yourself and not to prove something to him.”

“Would I be wrong to do it for both reasons?”

“I guess not.”

She reached out to him. “I’m really hoping you meant it when you said you’d be here waiting for me if I go. I’m counting on it.”

He took her hand. “I meant it.” But his eyes were filled with sadness that hadn’t been there a few days ago.

Kate drove into Nashville the following afternoon, on her way to the old warehouse where the Rafters practiced. Her heart was heavy when she thought of the conversation she needed to have with her band.

Reid had stayed by her side all weekend, and judging from the phone calls he’d been fielding, Kate suspected he had a lot of cleanup work to do after missing the important meeting on Saturday.

She was full of mixed feelings. Instead of celebrating her big break, she was gripped with pain whenever she thought of her father. It was also hard to watch Reid struggling to figure out how to mend the rift with Ashton. Everything was suddenly a huge mess, which made celebrating a low priority.

She’d left a message at Buddy and Taylor’s house that morning. They were in New York but were due back tomorrow.
Once I say yes to their offer, there’s no going back
, Kate thought as she parked at the warehouse. All that was left to do now was tell the band she was leaving them. Since she would be rehearsing and recording for the next few months before the tour, she was also going to have to drop the classes she’d barely begun at Belmont University.

Kate walked into the big building through a side door. The guys were already there and greeted her warmly as they tuned guitars, adjusted drums, and plugged in keyboards.

They got down to business a short time later, but the practice was a disaster from the get-go. Kate kept missing her cues, and after the third time, she held up a hand to stop the music.

“What’s with you today, Kate?” Billy asked, clearly aggravated.

“Can we take a break? I need to talk to y’all.” The word was out before she realized she was beginning to sound like a native Tennessean.

They put down their instruments and sat on the stairs that led to the platform where they practiced.

“What’s going on?” asked Mike, the drummer.

Kate got teary eyed when she tried to find the words to tell them she was leaving them for bigger and better things.

The others exchanged worried glances.

“Remember the other night when Buddy and Taylor asked to see me after the show?”

They nodded.

“Well, they made me an amazing offer. They asked me to open for them on their tour next summer and to record ‘I Thought I Knew’ on their label.”

Kenny, the keyboard player, whistled.

“Holy smokes,” Mike said.

“Yeah,” Kate said.

“Just you?” Randy, the bass player, asked.

Kate nodded. “I tried to tell them you guys are my band, but they want just me.” In that moment, the emotional roller coaster of the last few days caught up to her, and she began to cry.
Why does this have to be so hard?

Billy stepped away from the others and hugged her. “We always knew you wouldn’t be with us for long, honey.”

Kate looked up at him with surprise. “You did?”

He nodded. “We talked about it the day you first auditioned for us. You have star written all over you, and we agreed when we hired you that we’d never hold you back when you got your break. We hoped it would take a little longer, but you can’t say no to Buddy and Taylor, Kate. Chances like this don’t come along every day.”

The other band members chimed in their agreement, and each of them hugged Kate and offered congratulations.