The Goodbye Bride (11 page)

Lovett showed up yesterday at her Park Street home in the company of an unidentified man. “I never saw him before,” neighbor Dorinda Evans said. “Lucy's always coming and going, but her fiancé was the only man she ever brought around.”

Shortly after Lovett's return she left again to an undisclosed location.

“That fellow left for a while, and then he came back,” Evans said. “A few minutes later he and Lucy both left with luggage. I don't know where they came from or where they went off to. I don't think she's thinking straight.”

Lovett served as a project coordinator at Vacasa, where she's worked for the past six months. Her employer failed to comment on the circumstances, and Martin was also unavailable for further comment.

Zac's eyes flitted off Lucy. “Well, maybe they'll drop it now.”

“That's not the only article. There's a clip from the TV news with footage at the apartment. They know more about me than I do.” She sank back against the chair.

She was at least three feet away, but that familiar, fresh apple smell wafted by. He drew in a breath, letting it fill his lungs. Man, he'd missed that. He'd missed so much about her. He'd forgotten the delicate curve of her eyebrows, the gentle dip of her top lip.

He gave his head a shake. He needed to get her out of here. She was already messing with his head.

“Anything at all coming back to you?” he asked.

“Afraid not.”

“Did you look through all those papers from your apartment?”

“Sure did.”

“You were gone a long time today.”

He'd been worried that something had happened to her. What if she'd fallen again, or what if they'd missed some swelling and she'd dropped dead on the beach somewhere? Relief had poured through him when she walked through the door.

“I was out looking for a job.”

He gave her a long look. “A temporary one?”

Her eyes searched his as she rubbed her hands down her pant legs. “Zac . . . I've decided to stay in Summer Harbor for good.”

“Stay in . . .”
No. Just no. That was the last thing he needed. He hadn't been able to get over her when she was gone, much less if he was tripping over her every day. It was torture having her here. She still looked at him with love shining in those beautiful blue eyes. Still begged without words for him to take her into his arms.

As much as he longed to accommodate, it would all be gone the split second her memory returned.

His teeth locked together even as his breath caught in his lungs. “No, Lucy.”

She notched her little chin upward, resolve etched in the firmness of her features. “That's not for you to say.”

“The heck it isn't. You're staying at my place, eating my—”

“I'll get my own place.”

“You bet your sweet rear end you will.”

Hurt flickered in her eyes. Her full lips pressed into a straight line. Then her eyes began to fill, and once again he felt like a dog. She looked away, down to her lap where her fingers twisted in the fabric of her pajama pants.

A moment later she looked back up, nailing him with those liquid-blue eyes. “You want me gone. Message received. But where
I live is not your decision, Zac. I'm a grown adult, and I can live wherever I want, and I want to live here, so you'll just have to get over it.”

The phone rang, shattering the tension. Why had he brought her back? He should've just left her in Portland to fend for herself. She would've been fine. She always landed on her feet.

Zac wrenched his eyes away from Lucy's and answered the phone. “Hello,” he said gruffly. A slight pause ensued. He should just hang up. He didn't want to talk to anyone anyway.

“Who is this?” a male voice finally demanded.

Zac frowned at the caller's rudeness. “Who's calling?”

“This is Lucy's fiancé. Is this the same guy who—”

“
Ex
-fiancé.”

“—showed up with her in Portland? Put her on the phone.”

“Listen, pal—”

“No, you listen. I don't know who you think you are, but you can't just run off with Lucy. She has a brain injury, and this is tantamount to kidnapping. I'll see to it that . . .”

He kept talking, but Zac stopped listening when Lucy came over and stood in front of him. Resolve in her eyes, she extended her hand.

Fine. He was her problem. Let her deal with it.

Lucy took the phone and met Zac's eyes as she put it to her ear. The voice on the other end was rambling on about legal charges. She cut him off. “Brad—Brad, it's me.”

“Lucy! Why didn't you tell me you were coming home? I would've met you there, picked you up. What's going on? You're all
over the news. They're calling me, asking me where you are, and I don't know. I don't know where my own
fiancée
is, Lucy. Who's that man, and why are you with him?”

Her head spun until she was dizzy with all his questions. She steadied herself with a hand on Zac's desk. “I just need some time to think.”

“Where are you? Who's the guy?”

She had no idea how much she'd told him while they were together. “I'm—I'm up north a ways. He's an old friend.” Her eyes connected with Zac's, and she watched his jaw tick. He was staring intently at her, and she couldn't pull her eyes away from the hurt that lingered there.

“You're not thinking straight, Lucy,” Brad said. “I don't know what happened before the wedding, but I still love you, and you must love me too, deep down, whether you remember it or not. Let me come and pick you up. I'll take care of you.”

Her voice softened, not from his words, but from the sadness she saw in Zac's eyes. “I'm sorry. I need to stay here.” Maybe she could make Zac love her again. He'd fallen in love with her once before, hadn't he? He must still feel something for her.

Brad continued talking, cajoling, his voice fluttering like bats' wings through her head. She swayed.

Zac caught her arm and snatched the phone from her fingers. “Lucy's not feeling well. She'll call back another time.”

Brad's voice carried through the line. Zac shifted the phone away from his ear. A brow disappeared beneath the flop of hair that had fallen over his forehead. He pursed his lips before hanging up mid-rant.

Lucy blinked against the blurriness that had returned. Her head was hurting too. Would this ever go away?

“Let's get you to bed,” he said gruffly as he led her from the room.

“What—what did Brad say?”

Zac's gaze bounced off her. “Nothing fit for a lady's ears.”

Chapter 13

L
ucy's feet pounded the boardwalk, and her breaths came in rhythmic puffs. The morning was brisk, the temperature not having yet reached sixty. She was glad she'd chosen sweatpants and a long-sleeved tee. A cool breeze blew in off the harbor, sending chills up her arms, but the sun, well over the horizon, soon chased them away. She drew in the salty tang of sea air blended with the faint smell of decaying kelp. It smelled like home.

Beside her Eden breathed easily, her arms swinging in time with her legs. “Am I going too fast? Let me know if you want to slow down.”

“No, it's good. I'm feeling better today.”

After walking together Wednesday, they'd agreed to meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Time really did fly by as they shot the breeze.

She'd already learned heaps about Eden. She had a six-year-old son, Micah, who always had breakfast at her dad's house while she jogged. She'd started a home-based web design business that must be faring pretty well since she lived in a nice bungalow
right outside of town. She and her dad originally hailed from Mississippi, though Eden sounded more like a Yankee. She'd hinted about a trying past but hadn't gotten into it yet. Though Lucy was curious, she could appreciate her discretion.

“How's the job search going?” Eden asked. “Any leads yet?”

“Not a solitary thing.” She'd scanned the help-wanted ads again yesterday and made a few calls. It seemed Summer Harbor had very few employment opportunities.

“I wish I could hire you as an assistant. But what am I saying? You're way overqualified for that.”

“Listen, at this point I'd be tickled pink to work a drive-through.”

Eden smiled. “Well, you won't find any of those around here.” She suggested a few places, but Lucy had already tried them. She was running out of ideas—and cash. Her bank account was not what she'd hoped.

“I've got to get some money flowing in.” As much as she loved being near Zac all the time, his obvious desire to have her gone took the shine right off of being there. She was underfoot and unwanted.

They passed a small subdivision that was set back from the shore. The thumping of a basketball carried across the distance, and Lucy followed the sound to a girl of about eleven or twelve. She put up a shot, missed, then dribbled the ball around the driveway court. Lucy had noticed her on their last walk. There was something lonely about the set of her shoulders, the slowness of her motions, and she felt an immediate affinity for the child.

“Who is that?” she asked.

Eden followed her gaze. “Brittany Conley. She was in my vacation Bible school group. Sweet girl. Her mom works over at the co-op.”

“What about her dad?”

“I don't know. He's not around, I don't think. I see her over there a lot, shooting hoops. She must love basketball.”

Or she had nothing to do, and no one to do it with. Lucy watched the girl put up another shot, her heart squeezing. She knew what it was like to be a lonely kid.

“Is she left home alone? She looks kind of young.”

“I don't know, probably. There's a lot of that here. Beau said when he was deputy a lot of his calls were for teens. With single parents or both parents working, they're at loose ends a lot. Especially during the summer. Even good kids can make trouble when they're bored.”

Lucy's eyes cut to Brittany again, her sociologist mind hard at work. She wondered about the girl's relationship with her mom, with her dad. Had her dad ever been in her life? Had her mom stayed home with her until a divorce forced her to get a job? Lucy was only speculating. But it was unfortunate how many children suffered because of their parents' decisions.

“So how'd you end up at Harvard?” Eden asked.

Lucy shifted her thoughts back. “It's a long story.”

“Well, we're only fifteen minutes into our walk.”

“I grew up in Savannah. I was an only child, and Mama passed away when I was young.”

“Wow, me too. So your dad raised you?”

“Well, for a bit. Then he—my great-aunt became my guardian. She was pretty old, and she'd never had children of her own. I was only seven, and she didn't quite know what to do with me. She sent me off to boarding school in Alabama as soon as I hit seventh grade.”

“Boarding school, huh? Must've been hard to be away from home.”

“It wasn't much of a home, really. My aunt had the means to see to my needs, but she wasn't exactly a mother figure.”

“You must've missed your parents.”

Lucy shrugged. “I made good friends at school. And the teachers kind of became our surrogate parents. We were all in the same boat, you know?”

“Did you go home for summers?”

“Sure enough. But I was always ready to head back in the fall. I came from a long line of Harvard graduates—my dad being the exception. He flaunted his independence by refusing to go to college at all. Apparently that caused a big upheaval in the family. Anyway, I got good grades at school, and I always scored high on those aptitude tests, so I applied at Harvard and got in.”

“Your aunt must've been very proud.”

“Proud is stretching it, since she expected no less. So that's how I ended up at Harvard.”

“If you don't mind my asking, why aren't you the head of human resources at some Fortune 500 company?”

Lucy laughed. “I can't think of anything more dreary. I like to help people, and I can do that just about anywhere. When I graduated, though, I decided I wanted to do some traveling, see a bit of the country while I figured out what was what. There was only my great-aunt in Savannah, and we weren't close. I just found out she passed away while I was in Portland. I don't even remember getting word.”

“Aw, I'm sorry. That must be hard.” Eden lifted the hair off her neck. “Were you her heir? I'm sorry. That's really nosy.”

Lucy grinned. “Not at all. She was always a big believer in making your own way; she was on the board of a ton of charities, and it was always understood that's where her money would go. But
that's okay. I believe in earning my own keep. I've done a lot of things, met some interesting people along the way.”

“What brought you to Summer Harbor originally?”