Unforgiven (21 page)

He’d somehow been able to see what she couldn’t, that in order to make the pieces fit, she had to take down the rest of the wall and envision something entirely new, yet true to the house.

Moving as quietly as she could, she set the cups of coffee down next to Adam, then sat down cross-legged beside him and sipped her coffee. Day spread through the room, the dull streaky light less illuminating the wood and the room than grudgingly sharing space with it.

Either her presence or the aroma of coffee penetrated Adam’s brain, because his breathing shallowed, and he lifted his head.

“You could have come to bed,” she said.

With a grunt, he rolled over and bent his legs at the knees. “Easier to just lie down.”

In other words, he’d worked until he dropped. “How long have you been asleep?”

He glanced at his watch, rubbed his eyes, looked again, then said, “Twenty minutes. Plenty of sleep. Sleep’s for pussies.” He looked at the now-blank wall, then at her. “I had to take the rest of the paneling off to make it work in my head. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said softly. He’d needed this, perhaps as badly as she’d feared it. Like her standing at the entrance to the yacht club, he stood just hours away from making right what he’d torn apart so long ago. The dove gray light lay on them as they finished the coffee, sitting in a companionable silence.

His eyes were bloodshot but calm as his gaze skimmed her face. “Got your nail gun?” he asked.

“Ready when you are.”

He’d left the shoe pieces on. Marissa picked up the first rail and walked over to the wall. Adam hunkered down beside her and held the flat piece flush and steady.
Thunk, thunk, thunk.
Broad panels interspersed with stiles made for quick work, and before long, they were on their feet, working with small, detailed pieces. They stopped for a quick lunch of soup and sandwiches, then Adam hauled her ladders up from the barn.

“I’m almost done with my to do list for
the wedding
,” she said, poised above him as she sent nails into the wood. “What about you?”

“What about me?” He eyeballed the top of the mantel and reached for the level.

She gave him a lifted brow. “How’s the speech coming?”

“Fine,” he said shortly.

“Want to run it by me?”

It was his turn to raise eyebrows. “You want to hear what I have to say about the sacrament of marriage and lifelong fidelity?”

“Sure,” she said.

He tapped the paneling, indicating she should do her part with the nail gun. “You can wait until the reception, like everyone else,” he said. “Unless you won’t be around at all.”

“I need to be available for the wedding planner, in case anything goes wrong.”

“What is it with you and Keith?”

“He said something he shouldn’t have . . .” She paused, then went on. “I lost my temper and took a swing at him.”

He nodded at her shoulders and upper arms, flexed with the effort of holding a piece of paneling over her head. “He’s lucky you missed.”

She cut him a glance. “I didn’t miss. Asshole had a nice shiner for a week.”

“What did he say?”

“I ignored most of it. He always was good with words, just funny enough that you didn’t notice the sting until afterwards, but when he got drunk he got really nasty. I hit him when he asked what he could trade for a fuck, or even a blow job.”

A muscle flexed in his jaw, but his hands held the bottom of a mid-sized panel while she held the level to the top. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because this was six years ago, and we hadn’t talked for six years. Because it happened just after you got engaged to Delaney. Because you’re his best man.” A muscle flexed in his jaw at this list of reasons why she hadn’t turned to him. “What do you see in him?”

“Back then I thought he was funny. Up for anything. He was one of the few people who stuck around after what happened.”

“You weren’t a threat anymore. Of course he hung around. You had something he’ll never have. You had . . .” She searched for the right word. “Presence. Even coming from nothing and going nowhere, you were the guy everyone wanted to be with. Including Keith. You were lit up inside in a way he wasn’t, and he was jealous, but too smart to let on. He’s a master manipulator.”

“He didn’t manipulate you. Not then. Not now.”

“He scares me. Still does. I avoid him.”

“Why don’t I scare you?”

“You’re not that scary, Collins.”

“Back then at any given point in time I was ten seconds away from a total flameout. As I proved that night. But you wanted to be with me.”

Rivulets of rain coursed down curves of red and yellow glass in the floor-to-ceiling windows stretching from corner to corner of the house’s west wall, reminding her of the people crossing Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Timing was everything. “I loved that about you,” she said quietly. “You were going nowhere at a hundred miles an hour, but I loved you.”

He went still, then looked up at her. “I didn’t know how to love anyone then.”

Not even himself, she’d bet. “You learn by doing.”

The last panel and stile went on in silence, snugging between the next panel, cap, and wall like it was all made to fit the house. Marissa climbed down off the ladder and joined Adam in the middle of the room. He cleared his throat and put his hands on his hips to look at the wall. The walnut wood gleaming around the fireplace, setting off the painted white tiles that had somehow survived decades of use and neglect. “Done,” he said with the air of a man who’d tied off a loose end.

“And done well,” she replied. “Look.” She picked up the photo album and stood beside him. The page she’d chosen held photos of house parties from the twenties, women in white simple dresses sitting on furniture clustered around the fireplace. A man in white trousers and jacket leaned against the mantel, a cigarette clasped loosely between two fingers. “That’s my great-grandfather, Reginald Brooks. I’m not sure who the ladies are.”

He studied the picture, comparing the image to the wall in front of him, then tapped the picture. “Look at the tables,” he said.

“What?” Then she peered more closely at the other details in the picture and saw what he meant. Reginald Brooks held his father’s box compass, and the other instruments lay on the tops of the tables on either side of the fire. She’d been too focused on the wall to notice that detail. “Oh.”

“Someone packed them away in the trunk in the barn,” he said, “but it wasn’t Josiah, or even Reginald. I’d say your dream’s not as far-fetched as you think.”

“I’ll dream another dream if you let yourself off the hook for what happened twelve years ago.”

He shot her a look, thick lashes narrowing around those changeable hazel eyes. “I don’t get to let myself off the hook, Ris. That’s not for me to do.” He made a big show of looking around. “So, what’s next?”

“The wedding’s next.”

“After that.”

She shrugged, then began collecting movers’ blankets and tarps and sheets from the floor. “Clean the first floor from top to bottom.”

“That’s a task, not a plan.”

She just looked at him. “My only goal now is to get through today. I’ll deal with the rest of my life Sunday morning.”

“Fine. Let’s go down to the barn and finish what we started twelve years ago.”

“It’s forty-two degrees out. The barn’s not heated.”

He stepped close and slid his hand under her hair to cup her nape. For a moment she thought they’d end up right where it all began, on the loft floor, but this time with nothing stopping them. His hand flexed at her nape as his lips brushed hers, both touches hot and possessive. Lightning cracked deep in her belly, and in her heart. Her hands curled into his sweatshirt even as she gave him a little push.

“I can’t. I’ve got things to do.”

Another devastating kiss, then his hand dropped and he stepped back. “Me, too. I’ve got to run to Brookings to get the tuxes. Rain check?”

She glanced over his shoulder and smiled with lips still tingling from his touch. He followed her gaze, and gave a little huff of a laugh. “It’s going to rain on Delaney’s wedding day.”

“As long as she’s marrying the man she loves, then the weather doesn’t matter.”

Adam’s face closed off. “Do you think she is?”

“I’m the wrong person to ask,” Marissa said wryly. “I wouldn’t marry Keith if he was the last man standing.”

“Seriously, Ris. Do you think he’s the right man for her?”

Something she didn’t recognize lay behind the question. “Even with his many faults, I actually do think he’ll make her happy, because he wants to give her what she wants. Sometimes that’s enough.”

“Is that enough for you? Someone who can give you what you want?”

It took her a long time to find the right words. “It’s more complicated than that,” she said.

She wanted him, the boy she’d known and the man he’d become, for better or worse; not the defenses he wore like armor, protecting him from feeling anything at all. But while the words trembled on the tip of her tongue, she knew better than to speak from exhaustion, or from the high emotions Delaney’s wedding seemed to inspire in everyone it touched.

“See you after the wedding,” he said, then bent and kissed her.

19

N
OTHING CHANGED HIS
morning run routine, not even a wedding. Adam sprinted down Main Street, past the Heirloom; past Herndon and Son, Attorneys at Law; past the library and the gas station and the mini-mart; breathing in desperate, hard huffs, pushing his endurance to the limit. Getting four hours of sleep in the last forty-eight was no reason to slack up on physical conditioning, so he avoided Oak Street entirely. No tripping today. No falling. Today something ended, some element of his past gone terribly wrong, and he wasn’t taking any chances that he’d miss it.

Brookhaven was done. Finished. Restored to as good as new, if not better. He’d left Marissa sitting on the floor in the great room, her arms wrapped around her knees, studying the gleaming wall of walnut. Every seam was perfect, every line true. In the peculiar light of a cloudy day, the color in the room glowed as if lit from within. The stained glass. Marissa’s red jacket. Her eyes, the dark chocolate pools at once bitter and sweet with the weight of over a hundred years of history and reputation.

As good as new. If not better. So why did she look like she was arming for battle? Why did he feel so old and used up, like all he’d done was put a bandage on a gaping wound?

When he came through the kitchen door his mother was finishing her coffee and watching the morning news. “Morning, sweetie,” she said.

“How’d it go yesterday?” he asked.

“Good. She loved the curtains, and asked for cards to give her friends. We’ll see. What about you?”

“Brookhaven’s done.” He bent to unlace his running shoes. “We finished polishing the mantel and wall at four this morning. Marissa’s cleaning the main floor before the wedding planner and her team arrive at nine.”

“That girl knows how to work,” his mother said when he straightened. She switched off the TV. “I’m glad. It’s time to close that book, and move on.”

He stared at his mother, sitting so calmly in the tiny kitchen. “I’ve been telling her that,” Adam said. “She doesn’t seem to think there’s anywhere to go.”

“Give it time,” his mother said. “Some people need more time to let go of what was, and see what could be.”

An uncomfortable feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. He got to his feet. “Pictures start at ten,” he said. “I’m going to be late.”

She just smiled at him with those sad, sad eyes. “Sure, sweetie.”

He shaved and showered, then dressed in jeans and a shirt. According to the timeline Keith emailed him, everyone would dress at the church. The photographer would take pictures of the individual groupings prior to the wedding, with the bride and groom carefully segregated to preserve the appearance of Keith not seeing Delaney before she walked down the aisle. He was due at the church at nine with the tuxedoes still hanging from the hooks in the backseat of his Charger, but what occupied his thoughts when he walked into the kitchen was Marissa.

“You said you were bartering sewing for the bathroom with Marissa, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Did she give you an invoice? I’ll pay her. She needs cash if she’s going to pay back the bank.”

“She didn’t give me a bill,” his mother said.

“What about an estimate? You paid for the materials, but—”

“Adam, this is none of your business.”

He looked at her. “It is my business, Mom. She’s dying here. Dying inside. She’s got a dream, and she needs money to make it come true. Curtains and throw pillows won’t get her there.”

His mother returned his look for a long moment, then set her coffee on the table and went into her sewing room. She returned with a picture and handed it to Adam. He looked at it and his heart stopped.

Caribbean ocean and white sand. The background was a white cotton canopy bedecked with flowers, fluttering in the breeze. The blond model wore a wedding dress, or maybe a slip. The relatively demure neckline was supported by two thin shoulder straps. The lines were deceptively simple, perfectly cut to the model’s slim curves. The hem ended at her ankles, just the right height to keep the dress pristine as she walked the beach, bouquet of white roses in hand, and smiled up at her new groom.

“It looks simple, but it’s not,” his mother said. “That kind of tailoring, fitting her body and her body only. It’s a fair trade for her work. We both know that.”

That was Marissa. So simple on the surface, working construction, fixing up her house, sleeping with men she liked, and all the while as complex as the ocean’s depths. “I know,” he said. You didn’t grow up with a seamstress without gaining some understanding of sewing basics. “When does she want you to make this?”

“She said she’d let me know.”

So she had plans and dreams she’d kept hidden from him, even now. Dreams of a beach wedding. A wedding, period.

“She married Chris at the courthouse in her high school graduation dress,” his mother said. “When she brought me that picture, she said the next time she did it, she’d have a destination wedding on the beach and she wanted to wear that dress. It costs nearly three thousand dollars in a boutique. I can make it for the cost of my renovated bathroom.”

Ris would carry red roses, not white. Red for passion. Red for love. Red for life. With her dark hair and vibrant eyes, she’d make the model look like a pale shadow. “Does she have anyone in mind?” he said through his tight throat.

His mother just smiled at him, soft and sad. “Maybe you should ask her.”

Tomorrow. He’d ask her tomorrow, after he got through this hellish day. He kissed the top of his mother’s head and headed out.

Everything ran on schedule: pictures, the lunch Delaney’s parents hosted, more pictures, signing the wedding license with the pastor prior to the service. But at ten minutes past two the string quartet was still playing prelude music, muted but audible in the vestry. Keith’s groomsmen were still half-tanked and had chosen to sit down in the first pew and breathe very carefully. Adam stood, feet braced apart, back to the wall beside the door to the sanctuary with the minister, who adjusted his clerical collar for the sixth time while Keith looked at his watch.

“Weddings always begin late,” the minister offered Keith. “Perhaps the rain is causing a delay. The dresses have to be arranged just so.”

The wedding was scheduled down to the minute according to the timeline Delaney put together, but it wasn’t the late start that had sweat breaking out at Keith’s hairline. It was the close quarters. Ever since Adam got home, Keith had been careful not to get caught alone with his best man. “Why don’t you go check and see what’s holding things up?” Adam suggested.

“Of course,” the minister said. “I’ll do that.” He opened the door and slipped out.

Position was everything. The only way out of the room was through the door Adam stood beside, into a sanctuary full of their friends, neighbors, and colleagues forming the network of relationships that stretched across eastern South Dakota. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and they were having this conversation now.

Adam folded his arms across his chest, and met Keith’s gaze.

“You look like shit,” Keith said. “Rough night?”

“I spent the last four days with Ris, installing the paneling and the mantel.”

“She finished it? Good for her.” Keith shoved his hands into his pants pockets and rocked onto the balls of his feet, then back down. He seemed to look everywhere except Adam’s face. “Look, man, I know you’re not happy about what I’ve been saying about her, but you haven’t been here the last twelve years. You don’t know what she’s really like.”

The sharp cessation of sound that signaled a combination of adrenaline and single-minded focus necessary to stay alive in combat shut out everything except his breathing, and Keith’s.
This ends, now. Right now.

“You’re right. I haven’t been around for the last twelve years. I may not know what a lot of people are really like. Let’s see how I do,” he said casually. “So Marissa’s an opportunistic whore, trading sex for training.”

“I wouldn’t go that—”

“Anyone else you want to bring me up to speed on? Like, for example, you? Or Delaney?”

Keith had a good courtroom face. He didn’t even blink. “What are you insinuating?”

“You guys were always friends. High school first, then you went to SDSU together, and you were in grad school down there at the same time,” Adam said. “It would make sense that she turned to you after I broke up with her.”

“Yeah,” Keith said casually. “She was pretty upset when you . . . ended it with her. I didn’t mean for it to happen, man.”

“That’s what happened?”

“That’s what happened,” Keith repeated. “Why bring it up now? I thought we were cool.”

“I’d be cool with friends turned to lovers. That’s romantic.” A shift in the music pinged in his awareness and he paused, but it wasn’t
Canon in D
, Delaney’s wedding march. “What I wouldn’t be okay with is you fucking her behind my back while I was deployed. That would not be
cool
.”

Keith still wasn’t blinking, but he stared at Adam like a mouse stared at a snake.

“I could live with the two of you falling in love while I was gone,” Adam continued. “It happens. I wasn’t here. But sending me a picture of her in a hotel room, naked and freshly fucked, that is not cool at all. Not for me. Not for her.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

He was talking about deception, cheating, a backstabbing betrayal he’d never, ever anticipated, covered up by a bold-as-brass-balls whirlwind romance. “Keep your voice down, man,” he said easily. “The quartet’s not loud enough to cover you lying at the top of your lungs. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Ten months ago you took a picture of Delaney after you had sex with her. Maybe more than one, but you only sent me one. Based on her expression in the photo, she knew you were taking it, which is really bold for her. Then you downloaded it to your computer and sent it to me. You used an anonymous e-mail address, but they’re still linked to IP addresses. My buddies in intelligence had the location in ten minutes.”

At that, all color drained from Keith’s tanned skin. “You sent that picture to your Marine friends?” he hissed. “Jesus fucking Christ!”

“No,” Adam said precisely. “What Marines do with pictures of cheating girlfriends is print them out nice and big and post them on a wall of shame. Every time a new picture goes up guys gather around and trash the latest addition. The conversation gets sexual and explicit faster than you went down when Marissa hit you.”

Keith’s eyes were enormous, his shoulders tensed under the gray tuxedo jacket.

“I didn’t do that, either. I did forward the e-mail without the attachment. Had a response back in twenty minutes. There’s no privacy anymore,
man
.” He’d never forget opening the e-mail and seeing a screen-filling image of Delaney, her hair tumbled around her face, on her belly on the bed, her ankles crossed behind her. She was smiling at the camera, gaze soft and languid and utterly at peace. Happy. Not a hint of regret at the cheating.

That’s what destroyed him. Not the evidence, not the tawdry picture. She had no regrets. He breathed them, swam in them, ate them for breakfast, and she’d just walked away from them.

“It wasn’t enough that you stole her, or that you fucked her while I was deployed. You had to make sure I knew. Does she know you sent it?” When Keith didn’t reply, Adam said, “Answer me, motherfucker.”

The words, spoken in a tone as thin and soft as a coiled whip, cracked into the air, and Keith startled. “I didn’t send you any fucking picture,” he bluffed.

“They traced the e-mail to your office IP address.” Adam rattled it off, then widened his eyes mockingly. “So your dad sent it? Wow. Awkward. Sorry, man. I’ll ask him at the reception.”

Keith didn’t look pale, or red anymore. He wore a greenish tinge that signaled near vomiting. “You wouldn’t fucking dare.”

He didn’t even have to think about it, just let twelve years in the Corps, five deployments, let the dragon inside push against his skin. “And then you asked me to be your best man.”

It was the perfect cover. No one would ever consider the possibility of Delaney and Keith cheating behind Adam’s back if Keith asked him to be his best man. They’d fucked around on him, and then used him to cover up the infidelity.

“You fucking said yes! I thought you never got it!”

Laughter barked from Adam’s chest. “You knew I got it.”

“It took you a month to break up with her.”

“I was trying to figure out if I could forgive her. When I decided I couldn’t, I broke it off.”

“She was planning your wedding!”

“And fucking you at the same time.”

Keith colored. “Stop saying that.”

“Were you
making love with her
in that hotel room? Is that what you whispered when you took off her clothes and spread her legs, that it wasn’t screwing around, but
making love
?”

The mockingly snarled words put Keith on the offensive. “You weren’t right for her. You were never right for her, not before you joined the Corps, not even after you came home wearing glory and honor like a suit of armor. You never knew what she wanted, what she dreamed about. All she wanted was to have a family. A quiet life. You promised for years and years that you’d come home, marry her, settle down. You broke your promise again and again.”

“I was serving my country,” Adam bit off.

“That’s an excuse. Delaney was one, too, and eventually she figured that out. You didn’t love her. You needed her and you used her, but you didn’t love her.”

“Don’t you fucking tell me how I felt about Delaney.”

They spat words at each other like bullets, Keith carefully staying out of arm’s reach but using his best weapon, twisting words and arguments to his advantage. “If you loved her you would have given her what she wanted. Fought for her. That’s what I did. I fought for her,” he snarled, color high on his cheekbones. “I’ve loved her since high school. When she looked unhappy, I went after her.”

“Why didn’t you fight for her when I was sending packages and calling and writing her in college?”

Keith broke eye contact at that. “Like I could compete with the uniform,” he said.