Pucker Up (24 page)

Trevor
beamed at her.  “Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for us today. 
And the whole week.”

“You
going to dawdle on my doorstep the next time you come over for a visit?”

“Absolutely
not,” he said.  “I’m just going to walk right in like I own the place.”

“There
you go,” Faith said with a smile.  She blew them all kisses before walking out
the door.

Faith
left the hospital and sat in her car, in no hurry to leave, too full of the
laughter and love and affection of the last eighteen hours.  She didn’t have a
guitar, but she didn’t need one.  She pulled a scrap of paper out of her purse
and let the emotions wash over her. 

Didn’t think I’d
make it

For sure I’d fall
apart

Just too
monumental

And no clue where
to start

But the tide keeps
on rising

No matter where
the sand falls

And the world
keeps on turning

The night comes
out when called

She
kept scrawling, words of baby girls and fairytales, finding happily ever afters
in the looks between parents and children.  She’d never written a love letter
to a child before, but her night with Dustin had washed away all the fear and
taboo of such an idea.  Words poured out of her at lightning speed – enough for
dozens of songs.

“Faith,”
Trevor said with a smile as he spotted her reentering the hospital.  “I thought
you left half an hour ago.  My girls are sleeping.”

“I
only made it as far as the car,” she admitted with a smile.  “This is for
you.”  She handed a piece of paper over, her messy handwriting scrawled across
the page and frequently crossed out in places.

“It’s
a song for Ella.  An Andy Peters song.  And one, if you’ll let me, I’d like to
record for my next album.”

Tears
formed in Trevor’s eyes as he read the lyrics on the page.  He looked up at her
with his heart in his throat.  “This is a big deal,” he said.

“I
know,” she replied, a little choked up.

“It
would be an honor to have you sing it,” he said.  “Thank you.”

“What
are you going to say?” Peter asked. 

Dustin
just shrugged, staring out into the countryside.

“I
thought you’d planned for this?  Wasn’t that what we talked about, why I
dragged your ass back home?”

“That’s
why you did it,” Dustin said, shifting against the hood of his truck.  “I
realized I needed home court advantage.  And a defense.”

Peter
rolled his eyes.  “Sports metaphors, wonderful.”

“I
needed help.  And since you wouldn’t tell me what the girls were up to…”

“Nope.”

Dustin
turned annoyed eyes on his twin before continuing, “I needed to call in bigger
guns.  And a place with meaning.”

“You’re
hanging a lot of hope on the fact that she visited here once in the last ten
years.”

“But
that once was just last week.  She’ll come again.  This time, when Bea asks
her, she’ll come.”

“Bea
doesn’t look nearly as sure as you do.”

Dustin
smiled.  “I have faith.”

“The
emotion or the girl?” Peter asked.

Dustin
kicked off of the front of his truck and made his way across the dusty ranch. 
“Hopefully both.”

She
was putting the past behind her.  That’s what she was doing.  So visiting Bea
at Sorrento Ranch shouldn’t be a big deal at all.  Because the past didn’t
matter.  Because she’d put it behind her.

That
was the commentary running on continuous loop in the back of Faith’s mind as
she drove south, feeling slight déjà vu at the process.  She’d made a similar
drive a little over a week ago, and here she was deciding to spend another
weekend in the country.  But Bea had asked her to come and talk about putting
on a charity concert at the ranch.  She’d spent ten years turning down that
simple request; she owed it to the woman not to do it any longer.

As
she approached the turn-off, Dustin’s teenage face smiled down at her.  She
couldn’t help but be reminded of the first time she’d seen it from the back of
a tour bus.  Attitunes had been traveling cross country, playing shows in
theaters big and small, and the boy on the billboard had called to her. 
Standing in front of a horse and a relaxing countryside, it had felt like the
exact opposite of the life she’d been living then.  Being in a girl group was
fun, but she’d craved the ease she’d seen there, the slow pace of the country. 
She’d made reservations the next day.

It
had been at least a week before she realized the annoying waiter and stable hand
was the boy on the billboard; he’d been too aggravating to smile at her before then. 
That first smile had been around a pot with a lemon tree, both of them there
against their will and then neither of them wanting to leave.  Bea had “threatened”
to expose her true identity, but that had just been a ruse to get her in the
same room as Dustin.  It was something she’d have to start teasing the old
woman about again, now that the past was the past and Dustin’s name was no
longer taboo.  Because she’d put it behind her.

Faith
parked next to the stables and made her way towards the entrance.  Bea was
waiting for her in the office, but Faith wanted to see if Maya happened to be
around.  She wanted to see her in person, see if she’d finally been able to let
that anger go once and for all, in the past and behind her.  She hoped
desperately that she had – she could only think of one time she’d needed her
friend more. 

“Hello. 
Anybody here…”  Faith let her voice fade out to silence when she saw who was
actually there.  At least he looked as shocked as she did, his mouth gaping
open as he jumped up from the bale of hay he’d been sitting on.

“Faith,”
he murmured.

“What
are you doing here?” she squeaked, taking a step back before letting out a bark
of laughter.  “Of course, I should have known.  That woman will just never let
this go.”

“Don’t
blame her,” Dustin said quickly.  “I made her do it.  Threatened to withhold
all future apple tarts and lemon meringue pies.  Don’t deny an old woman her
tarts and pies.”

Faith
rolled her eyes at that comment and the halfhearted smile that accompanied it. 
He was trying to lighten the mood, but she wasn’t about to let him.  The past
might be behind her, but she was a songwriter, accessing the emotions was
merely a blink away.  “What more could you possibly have to say, Dustin?”

“I
want to try and explain—”

“Explain?”
she said, a sneer on her face.  “Oh this should be good, please explain. 
Explain why it’s okay that you broke my heart.  Explain why I should forgive
you for breaking my heart.  Explain what the hell you hope to gain from all of
this.”

He
opened his mouth to answer, but she didn’t let him.  “I never got to explain. 
Every time I made a decision that you didn’t like, every time you accused me of
putting my career first and you last, every time you decided that I wasn’t all
in and was going to get tired of us and our life and just flitter away, you
didn’t listen or hear me or let me explain.  But yeah, explain, please.”

He
didn’t say anything, just stared at her.  She could see him grasping for
words.  “Here’s your chance, Dustin.  For once just show up for it.”

“I
didn’t want it to go down like this,” he murmured, running a hand down his face
in distraction.  “In the office, with Bea and…”

“Oh,
the old lady was supposed to butter me up, was she?  Tell me more stories of
all the adversity she overcame for love?  Well, I’m not buying into that
anymore, Dustin, you hear me?  I’m over it. 
Over
it.  Over feeling hurt
and betrayed and wondering why.”  She looked down at her feet and muttered as
an afterthought, “So tired of wondering the fuck why.”

 “I
didn’t mean it,” he said, imploring her to believe him.  “What you overheard
that night.  I didn’t mean it.”

“Oh
well, awesome,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her lips.  “That just fixes
everything. 
You
didn’t mean it so, poof, all of my hurt feelings,
they’re just gone.  Problem solved.  History rewritten.”

“Faith
– ”

“No,”
she said, cutting him off.  “You said it; I heard it.  I don’t care if you
didn’t mean it; I am still allowed to feel the way I feel.  And you want to
know how that is?  Broken.  Battered.  Betrayed.”

Dustin
looked away, running his hands through his hair in aggravation.  She closed her
eyes against it and the vivid reminder of a boy on a horse asking her to trust
him.  “Fine, I said it.  And it’s something that I have regretted every day
since, but it’s not what you think.

“You
know what I regret?  That we rushed through everything because you were
pregnant.  That you didn’t get to wear the big white dress and have yellow
flowers in your hair.  That your band wasn’t there to sing you down the aisle. 
That there wasn’t a toast with pink champagne and a four-tiered chocolate
raspberry cake, one layer lemon poppy seed.  That all I was able to give you
was a simple gold band as the sun rose when you deserved so much more than
that.”

“I
didn’t – ”

“Don’t
tell me you didn’t want them – I know you did.”

“Of
course I wanted them,” she said in exasperation, her voice rising.  “I also
wanted a flying car and house that would clean itself.  But all I
needed
,
Dustin, was you.  Because the point wasn’t to have an enviable wedding; it was
to have an enviable life.”

Faith
turned away, couldn’t manage to look at him and the earnestness she saw there. 
She believed that he was sorry, but it didn’t change anything.  Not one damn
thing.

“I
screwed up,” he whispered, a heartfelt admission.  “I know I screwed up.” 

“Yeah,
you did.”

Silence
descended before he asked in a small voice, “Can you ever forgive me?”

“Yeah,
I can forgive you.” She sighed, finally knowing it was true. “I just don’t know
if I can trust you.”  

Faith
heard him shuffle towards her and looked up to see him approaching her like she
was a horse about to spook.  His voice was soft and calm when he spoke.  “When
you came to my house, there was a moment…”

“When
you thought everything would be right again?” she finished, knowing exactly
when he meant.  That morning before Jackson arrived had been perfect.

He
nodded his head.  “Yeah.”

“I
thought so, too,” she murmured, raising her eyes to his and letting him see all
of the hurt in them.  “But you let me leave.  Once again, you didn’t fight for
me.  I can’t do this again, worry that at the first sign of trouble you’re just
going to let go like you did ten years ago.”  She turned away, tears
threatening to fall.

“I
didn’t,” he whispered.

“What?”

“I
didn’t,” he said, louder, his tone making her turn.  “I didn’t let you go.”

“Yes,
you did.”

“No,
I didn’t.”  His raised his voice louder, no longer calm.  “You think after
everything we’d been through I was just going to let you go without a fight?”

She
huffed in annoyance.  “What are you playing at, Dustin?  We both know that’s
exactly
what you did.”

“It’s
not that I didn’t chase you – I didn’t catch you.  I hopped in my truck and
peeled out of there like a bat out of hell right behind you.  But I got in a
car accident and ended up in the hospital.”

“The
broken bones…,” she murmured, remembering Harmony’s inquisition.

“When
I woke up, I was still grieving, and I was so mad that you’d left me.  By the
time I was better, I’d decided that if you could live without me, fine, I’d
live without you.  But it wasn’t any kind of life I was having.  Not until the
girls showed up and reminded me that I wasn’t dead, even if it felt that way.”

“You
came after me?”  Her voice was hollow.  She felt like the world had tilted on
its axis, turning everything upside down.  Everything she thought she’d known
was wrong?  If she didn’t sit down soon, she’d be sprawled out on the floor.

“Damn
straight, I did.  And not because of some damn piece of paper saying you were
my wife.  Because you were my whole damn heart.”  Tears started falling at
those words, tears she wouldn’t have been able to stop if she tried.

Dustin
closed the space between them and grabbed her hands, drawing her close.  “The
hospital, that was the night Peter met Darcy.  I can’t imagine how different our
lives would be if I hadn’t ended up there.  I try to regret it, but I can’t,
even if it was the worst time in my life.  Even though it led to the most
stupid, childish decision of my life – not fighting hard enough for you.”

He
cupped her face, rubbing his thumb over the apple of her wet cheek. “But I
don’t have to live there anymore. 
We
don’t have to live there anymore
with this huge misunderstanding between us.”

He
leaned his forehead against hers, and she struggled to draw breath, shaken down
to the very core of the person she was.  “We can do it; I know we can.  I felt
it.  Can’t we start again?  Ally, please?”

Faith
shuddered at her name on his lips, wanting to believe him, believe everything
he was saying.  But ten years of heartache demanded she take a step back, let
his touch fall away from her.  “I need some time.  To take all of this in.”

Dustin
nodded, but she read the sadness in his gaze.  She’d put that there, and her
heart was breaking all over again.  She turned, retreating as quick as she
could but not before hearing his parting words.  “I’ll be here when you’re
ready.”

“I
can’t believe Dustin convinced me to do this,” Bea said to Peter as she grabbed
herself a glass of sweet tea.

“Don’t
pretend you needed a lot of convincing.” He laughed.

“It
wasn’t the convincing I’m surprised about.  It was that Dustin was doing it.”

He
smiled at her, knowing exactly how she felt.  He’d been pushing Dustin towards
this place for ten years; it was still startling that he’d arrived. 

The
sun was shining through the bright windows, giving the office a cheery,
comfortable feeling.  And Bea’s smile could light up any room.  But Peter felt
an uneasy sense of foreboding.  The same one he’d felt the night he got a call
from a hospital during a rainstorm.  “Dustin.” He frowned, putting his glass
down on the desk and rushing out of the room.

He
saw Faith running out of the stable and quickened his pace, reaching the doors
just as her car peeled down the dirt road.  “What happened?” he asked, afraid he
already knew.

“Didn’t
exactly go as expected,” Dustin murmured, dropping down to his knees in the middle
of the stable.  “Why did you never tell me?”

Peter
looked at him with concern and dropped down beside him.  “Tell you what?”

“That
she was Andy Peters.”

Peter
sat back on his haunches, shocked.  “How do you even know who Andy Peters is?”

“Andy
Peters, the songwriter on every single song you’ve handed me in the last six
years.  Every. Single. One.”