The Year of Luminous Love (34 page)

Arie’s verbal revisit had brought on an emotional purging of her guilt over messing up the last few weeks of the trip for her friends and the scoldings of family. As she watched Dr.
Austin cross to the door, she said, “I’m not sorry I went, and if I could turn back time, I’d do the same thing again.”

Once she was alone, her memories turned to her birthday and to her time with Jon Mercer. She fell asleep remembering his hands and lips on her skin with moonlight coming through a window in his room, knowing that that first night was the real treasure of her heart.

Eric drove Ciana and Eden home to Windemere in his truck. Abbie peppered them with questions about Italy as he dropped off first Eden, then Ciana, before returning to Nashville and the hospital. Once Eric drove away, Eden stood on her front lawn surveying the home she’d fled months before. The yard was brown with winter dead grass, and the potted plants were dried and wilted. The carport held only her old car from Tony. She wondered if the battery was dead. And she wondered why he’d spared it.

She had no idea whether her mother was home or still on one of her escapes. It didn’t matter. Eden needed a place to regroup, somewhere free until she found a job and made a plan for the months ahead. She sighed, picked up her bags, and dragged them through the carport door and into the kitchen. Stepping inside, she could hardly believe her eyes. New flooring, cabinets, countertops, kitchen hardware, and appliances made the space shine. Eden left her bags and went to the living room, also redecorated with new carpeting and freshly painted walls and shelves. The sofa and chairs looked gently used, much nicer than the former pieces. Jon had said Arie’s family had spruced up the place, but she’d had no idea how perfectly they’d done their job.

Eden heard the kitchen door open and Gwen came inside. “Well, well, look who’s home.”

“I might say the same thing,” Eden said, turning toward her mother.

“Since October. Got my old job back at Piggly Wiggly.” Gwen set down her purse, lunch bag, and athletic shoes. “You look good.”

“You too.” It was more of a courtesy than the truth. Gwen’s hair needed coloring and her lined face sagged. She was calm and controlled, though, so Eden assumed she was taking her meds once more.

“You staying for a while?”

“I thought I would. That okay with you?”

“This is your home, Eden. You’re always welcome.”

Eden glanced around. “Place looks nice.”

“Arie’s folks. Tony really did a number on it, but Arie’s dad and brother and more helpers than I could count showed up and worked for five days fixing the place up. All family, they said.”

“I thought you left town the same night we did.”

“I did. But the shoot-out made the news all the way to Florida. Must have been some firefight,” she mused. “Anyway, I figured I’d need to make sure the house was still standing for you when came home.”

“For me?”

“And for me too. And Aunt Myrtle. Place looked pretty bad. Ugly things written on walls in red paint, not a piece of furniture that wasn’t broken or cushion that wasn’t slashed. Got the new stuff at the Goodwill store. Couldn’t have done it without all the help.”

Eden plopped onto the sofa and rubbed her eyes, stinging from lack of sleep.

Gwen asked, “Aren’t you home sooner than you said you’d be?”

“Arie got sick. We had to come back.”

“What kind of sick?”

“Cancer. She’s in the hospital in Nashville.”

Gwen eased into a lounge chair. “That’s too bad about Arie. Hers are good people. Shame she has to suffer.”

“Jon said you faced Tony down and gave us a head start.”

Gwen fished a cigarette from the pocket of her jacket. “That’s why he wrecked the place. To get even. Dirtbag.”

Eden peered at her mother, at the woman she’d lived with all her life but didn’t feel she really knew at all. “Did he … did Tony hurt you?”

Gwen sucked on the cigarette and blew out the smoke without meeting Eden’s eyes. “He got physical, but all he got in return was lies that sent him off in the wrong direction.” Her eyes glittered like hard marbles when she spoke. “I can take a few jabs.”

Eden went cold all over, hating Tony and wondering all the more about her mother’s murky past, which was also her own past. Without the anchor of family history or stories, Eden had been adrift all her life. “I’m sorry about all the trouble Tony caused. You were right about him all along.”

Gwen said nothing and Eden appreciated her mother not giving her an “I told you so” lecture. Gwen turned on a lamp, as the house was growing dark in the gathering gloom of the shorter daylight hours. “You want some dinner?”

Eden shook her head. “I’m still on Italy time, so all I want right now is to go to bed.” She stood and started for the stairs.

Just as she made the first step, Gwen said, “I’m glad you’re home, baby.”

Eden couldn’t recall the last time her mother had called
her “baby.” The endearment caused a lump in her throat. In these last few minutes, Gwen had sounded and acted like a sane, well-grounded person, the mother Eden had always coveted. But she knew better than to count on Gwen’s lucidity. Eden had hoped too many times before that Gwen would finally be well and remain on her meds and in therapy. But after so many years of watching the good tranquil times collapse, She knew better. “Happy to be here,” she said.

“I’d like to hear all about Italy and your trip.”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

In her room, she saw that the walls had been repainted and the furniture repaired or replaced, and that all her bed linen was different. Her book collection was gone, her stuffed animals from childhood missing. She shook with anger, realizing that Tony had paid special attention to the destruction of her personal belongings. Eden undressed quickly, peeled back the covers, and crawled between the clean sheets. Once there, she quietly cried—for Arie, for her mother, for herself, for all the past that was now destroyed and gone. And she cried for Garret, wondering where under the skies of Europe he was sleeping this night, and if he was longing for her the way she was longing for him.

Eric’s truck pulled away and Ciana sucked in the scent of home, of ground and trees and horses, of pastureland and old house. This was Bellmeade, and all that she loved. Tuscany was beautiful, but this was home. She was glad to be here.

Instead of going into the house, she heaped her suitcases onto the wraparound veranda of the house and walked to the barn, excited about seeing her horses. She entered the barn and stopped cold. The place was immaculate. Ciana hadn’t
known what to expect after leaving her mother in charge for over two months, but cleanliness and order hadn’t been on her radar.

She heard Firecracker neigh as the horse caught her scent. Ciana hurried over to the stall and stroked the bay’s soft nose. “Hey, girl. Miss me?” Firecracker shook her head up and down just as if she’d understood the words. Ciana laughed and hugged the horse’s neck over the stall door. The stall was stacked with fresh straw and looked as cushy as a bed. Sonata stuck her head out of the next stall and whinnied, so Ciana gave her nose a rub too. “Wow, look at you.” Both horses had been brushed until their shaggy winter coats shone.

From the next stall down, another horse snorted. “Who are you?” Ciana asked. This one was a buckskin. “Caramel?” Ciana asked, recognizing Arie’s horse. “How’d you get here?” How could Alice Faye have managed such a pleasant homecoming for Ciana? Especially when her mother didn’t yet know she was home.

“Welcome home, Ciana,” a man said from behind her.

She whipped around and saw Jon Mercer standing in the tack room doorway, holding bridles in one hand. Shocked, she blurted, “What are you doing here?”

“Working,” he said. “Your mother hired me weeks ago.”

Fresh hurt and anger stormed Ciana’s heart. She didn’t want to see Jon, not after what had happened in Italy. “Why?”

“To keep this place running while you were away.”

“No one told me.”

His eyes held a wary look. “Now you know.”

“Well, I’m home. We have no further need of your services.” She glared at him and heard the horses stir behind her, seeming to sense the tension in the air between their caretakers.

“Your mother hired me. She’ll have to fire me.”

Ciana realized she was too tired, too off-balance from his physical presence to face this dogfight right now. “We’ll talk about it later.” She stalked toward the outside door, but he intercepted her.

“Let’s talk now,” he said. “Let’s start with why you’ve come home three weeks early.”

She thought about how to best hurl the truth at him for maximum impact but couldn’t do it at Arie’s expense. “Arie’s sick,” she simply said.

Jon frowned. “Tell me.”

She did, ending with, “She’s in the hospital. If you’re not too busy, maybe you could check in on her.” The last came out more hatefully than Ciana intended. “She’s pretty sick,” she added, less angrily. “She told us you knew she had relapsed before we even left for Italy.”

Jon tossed the bridles toward the tack room. “True.”

Ciana’s anger mushroomed. “And you didn’t think it was important to tell me and Eden?” Although Arie had explained her reasons, Ciana couldn’t stop herself from striking out at Jon, because it was Jon she wanted to wound.

“She asked me not to.”

“And you went along with her? You should have said something. If not before we left, at least when we were all together in Italy. After you left, she went straight downhill—”

Jon grabbed Ciana’s shoulders, startling her. “She told me she would tell you. She promised me.”

“Well, she didn’t!” Ciana twisted to break his grasp. “Let go of me.”

Jon dropped his hands, but his gaze went hot. “I kept her confidence just like I kept yours when you asked me not to tell her about us.”

Ciana felt as if he’d knocked the breath out of her with his well-chosen words. She straightened and with all the frostiness she could muster said, “My mother and I are co-owners of this farm, and that means you work for
me
, mister. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

His eyes blazed, but he kept his temper in, nodding in a gentlemanly way. “Good evening, Miss Beauchamp. I’ll just keep to my chores.”

Her bottom lip quivered, and she shoved past him. Outside, darkness had fallen, and so had the temperature. She
shivered uncontrollably as she jogged to the house and up onto the veranda, forcing back tears.
I won’t cry
. She pushed open the front door, tumbling into the warmth.

“Mama?” she called.

No answer.

Still upset about Jon, Ciana went upstairs, pausing at her mother’s bedroom door, struggling to calm herself. “Mom? You in there? Surprise. I’m home.”

No answer.

Ciana touched the doorknob, then hesitated, remembering the last time she’d gone into a closed room, when she’d seen Arie’s body and blood on the floor. She pushed her mother’s door open and, surprised, saw that the room was freshly decorated—paint, bedding, pillows—all new, and unexpected.

Ciana closed the door. Her mother must have been out for the evening.
A good thing
, she decided. One shouting match for the day had been enough. She really wasn’t up to butting heads with Alice Faye tonight about selling off Bellmeade.