Michael
Michael turned when he heard Lane coming down the back stairs, though he didn’t need to see her face to know he had some explaining to do. For instance, what had he been thinking when he decided to assume the role of doting boyfriend? The truth was he honestly didn’t know, unless it was the look of abject horror on her face when she turned to find her mother standing in her kitchen.
“Can I see you outside?” she said, not waiting for a response as she swept past him en route to the back door.
Sensing that it probably wasn’t a good time to remind her that it had been storming all day, or that it was likely to be freezing, he slid into his jacket and followed her out onto the deck.
For a long time she said nothing, just stood facing the sea, arms folded close to her body. “I can’t believe she did this,” she hissed at last. “Did she really think I wouldn’t see right through this little stunt?”
“She’s settled in?”
Lane nodded. “She’s on the second floor with you. I swear she brought enough clothes for . . . My God, she’s going to be here for six days.”
“How long since she visited?”
“Try never. She’s never visited. Until today.”
“Ah, I guess I see your point. Showing up out of the blue does seem rather suspect.”
“Actually, I should have seen it coming the minute Val called.”
“Val?”
“My sister,” Lane tossed over her shoulder as she pushed through the gate and out onto the boardwalk. “She called the other day on a fishing expedition for my mother. I didn’t give her what she wanted, so what does my mother do? Hops on a plane for the Outer Banks.”
“Lane, it’s freezing out here. Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. Hell, I don’t know.” She stopped, raking her fingers through her hair. “I just need to put some breathing room between her and me. You don’t have to come.”
“I know, but I am.” Michael shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to her. “Put this on. I won’t have your mother blaming me because you caught pneumonia.”
“Stop it,” Lane snapped, pushing the jacket away. “You don’t have to pretend out here.”
Michael shrugged, tossing the spurned jacket over his shoulder. “Fine, but anger isn’t going to keep you warm, Lane. Neither is being stubborn. I’m not the enemy here. In fact, I’m not sure who is.”
Lane said nothing as she moved farther down the rain-slick boards. In the wake of the day’s storms, the sky was moonless, the beach blanketed in darkness but for the blue-white sweep of Starry Point Light skimming the dunes at regular intervals. Beyond the stretch of darkened shore, the sea thrummed like a pulse, enduring, insistent.
“Why?” she asked finally, her voice almost lost on the chilly breeze.
“Why what?”
“Why did you do that? The sweetheart thing in front of my mother?”
Michael folded his arms and stared at her, though her face was hidden in the darkness. “Now, that’s a funny question coming from you. I did it because your mother thinks we’re lovers. And the reason she thinks that is that you told her we were. I remember it all very clearly. We were at the Blue Water when your mother called, and you said—”
“Yes! Yes!” Lane snapped, shooting an anxious glance back at the inn. “I know what I said. I was there.”
“Then what? Did we break up, and you forgot to tell me?”
“Look, I know you think this is enormously amusing, but it’s never going to work.”
“Why? We don’t despise each other.”
“That’s not what I meant. Sooner or later—” She broke off, shoving a handful of wind-tangled hair off her face. “Just tell me why you did it.”
Michael’s smile slipped away. “Why do you think?”
“Because you felt sorry for me?”
“Not sorry. No. Empathy, maybe.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“No,” he said, gravely. “It isn’t. Empathy’s what you feel when you’ve walked a mile in someone’s shoes. I know what it’s like to see disappointment on a parent’s face, to know the way you live your life isn’t enough for him. I saw the look on your face when you turned around and saw your mother standing there. You were dreading having to tell her the truth. So I decided you wouldn’t have to.”
Lane closed her eyes, groaning softly. “God, it’s so completely ridiculous. I suppose I should say thank you. She thinks we’re head over heels, by the way, so nice job there. Maybe you should try your luck on the stage.”
“It’s not a hard part to play,” he said quietly, surprised to find he meant it. He’d never been easy in relationships, a fact Becca would freely admit, but somehow this felt easy, good. Maybe because it wasn’t a real relationship. There was no chance of getting hurt—or of hurting someone else. He hoped.
He looked at her, so damn pretty with the wind lifting all that fire-colored hair out around her head, but fragile, too, pale and almost breakable. The instinct was there to touch her, but he held it in check.
“I do wonder why you feel the need for the charade in the first place,” he said instead. “I understand that she was under your skin the night she called, that you just wanted to get her off the phone, but it seems like there’s more to it than that. Earlier, in the kitchen, you looked like you were on the verge of a panic attack, so I’m just wondering what the deal is.”
Lane snorted softly. “How long have you got?”
“Actually, I’ve got all winter.”
He followed her gaze to the sky, beginning to clear now as the last vestiges of the storm blew out to sea, the clouds shredding to reveal a smattering of stars and a glimpse of three-quarter moon. He was surprised when she spoke.
“A lot of it has to do with Bruce. He was more her idea than mine.”
“Her . . . idea?”
“We met at a party. Bruce was interning, and I was in my third year of undergrad. Eight months later he proposed, if you want to call it that. I don’t think the words will you marry me ever crossed his lips. Maybe because he was too busy detailing his fifteen-year plan. My mother was ecstatic. She lobbied hard for a yes. The next thing I knew I was walking down the aisle. It was a disaster almost from the beginning. I guess part of me blames her.”
“How long were you married?”
“Ten years, but it felt longer.”
“No children?”
The question seemed to catch her off guard. She turned away, but not before he caught the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “Almost,” she said, barely above a whisper.
Almost. The single word said so much. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t. It’s not the kind of thing you assume, is it? I mean, most women pop out a baby without blinking. I couldn’t manage it.”
Michael blinked at her in the moonlight. “Lane . . .”
“I was five and a half months. Nothing happened. I just . . . lost it. Afterward, the doctors said I needed to wait before we tried again, but that wasn’t part of Bruce’s plan. He moved his things out of our room. It was pretty much over after that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was never going to work. My mother was the only one who couldn’t see it, because she didn’t want to. She wanted so badly for me to finally get something right that it didn’t matter what I wanted.”
“She told you that?”
“Not in so many words, no. But I knew it. My sister knew it. Even Bruce knew it. Nothing I did was ever good enough. The miscarriage was just the last straw, a shortcoming he simply couldn’t forgive.”
“I’m sorry,” Michael murmured again, knowing the words were inadequate but unable to find others.
Lane shrugged. “Don’t be. In the end, my mother was the only one disappointed that I left, and I got used to her disappointment a long time ago.”
“Your mother loves you, Lane. If she didn’t she wouldn’t have taken three planes and then driven over an hour in the rain to come see you.”
“That’s just it. She didn’t come to see me. She came to see you.”
“You know better than that.”
Lane sighed. “I wish I did. But the truth is we’ve always gotten along better when there was a little distance between us. My sister was the perfect one, cheerleader, prom queen, married to a blue-chip accountant, and gave him two perfect children. Me, I liked books. It drove her crazy. I think I still drive her crazy. I know she does me.”
Michael struggled to hold his tongue. She didn’t get it. But then, neither had he until it was too late. In the end, none of the petty stuff mattered. What mattered was holding on to family, even if that meant pretending not to see the flaws. Blood mattered. Being there mattered.
“You should try to work it out, Lane,” he said finally, sounding gruffer than he meant to. “You’ll only ever have one mother, and I can promise that you’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t fix it and something happens.”
Lane cocked her head. “Nothing’s going to happen, Michael.”
“No. Nothing’s ever going to happen—until it does.”
“You’re being melodramatic.”
Uncomfortable beneath her scrutiny, he turned to stare out over the sea, silver now beneath the freshly revealed moon. For a long moment he simply stood there, listening to the pound and pull of the waves. She had no idea what he was talking about. How could she? At any rate, he’d said too much. Her relationship with her mother was none of his business, and even if it was, he was the last person who should be handing out family advice.
“You’re right. Forget it.”
Her eyes were wide and luminous when he finally faced her again, a mix of confusion and concern. She looked almost ethereal standing there, vulnerable and soft, and shivering just a little, her hair turned gold by the moonlight.
“You’re cold,” he said, a statement of fact rather than a question.
And yet somehow it never occurred to him to offer the jacket again. Instead, almost before he realized what he was doing, he was pulling her into his arms. She was trembling in earnest now, soft and startlingly yielding as their breaths mingled and his lips closed over hers. She tasted like wine and smelled like the sea. And she felt like heaven.
How long?
The words thundered in his head. How long had he wanted her like this, in his arms, against his body? He had no idea. He only knew, as they drew apart, that whatever had arisen between them hadn’t just blown up out of nowhere. At least not for him.
She looked faintly dazed when he released her. “Why did you do that?”
Why seemed to be her favorite word tonight. “I did it for your mother, in case she was looking down at us from her window.”
“Her rooms face the street.”
“Okay, then, I did it because I wanted to.”
Her fingers fluttered to her throat, then to her mouth, still moist and full from their kiss. Something like a smile played there. “Oh. Well, that’s all right, then.”
“I should get you back,” he said, hearing the reluctance in his own voice. “Before you catch your death and your mother decides not to like me anymore.”
“Oh, I don’t think there’s any danger of that. She’s pretty well smitten.”
“And what about you?” he said, closing the distance between them with a single step. “Are you at all . . . smitten?”
She reached up and touched his face, the back of her fingers icy and featherlight along the stubbled line of his jaw. Her eyes brimmed with uncertainty. “I think I could be . . . if I let myself. I just don’t know if I can let myself.”
“It’s only six days,” he murmured, pulling her back for another kiss.
“Six days,” she whispered, as her mouth opened to his.
Later, as they drifted back up the boardwalk, fingers loosely linked, Michael couldn’t help thinking that if Lane’s mother were to peer out the window at that moment she would have no trouble believing that he was head over heels for her daughter.