CHRIS STARED AT her lap as the cart bumped over the path. Her hands cupped empty air. Tri had stayed back with Kota.
She’d never hold either of them again.
Em drove sanely, though her knuckles were white on the wheel. Chris tried again.
“I quit,” she said, striving to keep her voice calm while panic’s icy fingers clawed her throat. “I called Reed last night and told him I’m done. I won’t write the story. I won’t do that to Kota.”
“You called Reed,” Em said, “that much is true. But mixing the truth with lies is your specialty. So pardon me if I call bullshit on the rest of it.”
“Ask Reed. He’ll tell you. He tried to talk me out of it, but I don’t want to be a journalist anyway. I never did.”
“Boo hoo. Now shut the fuck up or I’ll push you out and you can walk the rest of the way.”
Chris would gladly take her up on that offer. Kota’s instant, unquestioning rejection had ripped her heart from her chest, and Em’s disgust was acid in the wound. But it was a thirty-minute walk even on two good ankles, so she shut the fuck up instead.
At the house, Chris limped slowly behind Em, who ate up the long hallway with her short, furious strides. Then she watched stoically as Em wadded her clothing and forced it into her bag. And she made not a peep when Em tucked the laptop under her arm.
“You’ll get it back when Mercer’s done with it,” Em said. “If you’ve got a problem with that, tough shit.”
Chris closed herself in the bathroom and threw up.
Kota was nowhere in sight when they got back to the plane. Mercer stuck out a hand, and Em passed him the laptop. Then both of them watched Chris hump her bag up the narrow steps.
The plane was smaller than Adam’s but every bit as lux. “Sit there.” Mercer pointed at a table. “Buckle up.” He sat down across from her.
Em took one of the leather recliners, strapped herself in, and they were wheels up in under a minute. They banked over the island, and Chris saw the horses in the meadow below, running flat out, necks extended, tails streaming. Sugar led the herd with Kota stretched out over her withers, his strong back rippling as he urged her on.
Anguish clenched a fist in Chris’s gut. She’d done this. To herself, to him.
Then the plane leveled out. Mercer opened the laptop. “Is it password protected?”
She nodded. He stared at her, unblinking. She gave up the password. Why not? Nothing on her computer could make this any worse.
Defenseless, she watched him scroll through her files. There were many. Every article she’d written for the Sentinel for the last two years, all her background information, data on certain society types, details on functions, impressions. Her notes on Emma’s biography. Her own recollections of traveling with both of her parents.
Nothing to be ashamed of, yet she squirmed as he read.
Eventually she laid her head on the table, hiding in the dark crook of her arms. There, she could wallow. Berate herself. Call down vengeance on Mercer’s head.
And she could grieve. For herself, because she’d lost the only thing she’d ever truly wanted, and for Kota, because he’d loved her, and she’d broken his heart. He might never open it to anyone again. And what a shame that would be, because what a heart it was. Huge and soft and loyal and true.
But even now, as she flew over the wide Pacific, that heart was turning to stone. She knew him well enough to know that. To know that, and so much more.
Eventually she dozed, and she dreamed, none of it good. When they bumped down at Burbank, she lifted her pounding head and stared out at Cali-fucking-fornia.
Nobody spoke to her as she lugged her bag down the stairs. On the tarmac, Em handed her the keys to the Eos, then walked away with Mercer without a backward glance.
CHRIS DROVE STRAIGHT to Seacrest, tears streaking her cheeks, regret burning a hole in her raw, empty stomach.
She was in despair, and she wanted her mother.
She found the afternoon activities in full swing. In the great room, a karaoke singer had residents clapping along to The Beatles. In a smaller room, a bored aide called out, “B eight, B eight. Check your cards, ladies.”
Chris found her mother sitting on the patio with a cup of tea, looking more like an employee than a resident. At seventy-two, she was one of the youngest, and one of the few without a walker.
But her disease was progressing. Before long Chris would be a stranger to her.
Today, though, Emma broke into a smile, squeezing Chris’s hand when she drew up a chair. “Where’ve you been?” she wanted to know. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too, Mom.” Every day, more than words can say. “I was on assignment.”
Emma perked up at the familiar phrase, and that was all the encouragement Chris needed to spill out the whole story: her screwup at the Sentinel, Reed’s bargain with Owen, the wedding, the island. Kota.
She rambled through to the end, sponging her eyes with a hanky Emma drew from her pocket. Drawing to a miserable close, Chris waited for her mother’s no-nonsense response.
It didn’t come.
Of course it didn’t. Emma had lost the thread early on, if she’d ever held it at all. Her attention was on the birds, darting in to peck seeds from the feeder, then darting back to the surrounding trees.
“See the red one?” She pointed.
“It’s a cardinal, Mom.”
“Oh really? I’ve never seen him before.”
Chris flopped back in her chair. The cardinal spent ten hours a day at the feeder. She saw him every time she visited. But to Emma, he was a fresh delight every day.
Chris let out a sigh that turned into a sob. Friction and resentment had been cornerstones of their relationship. But there’d been so much more. Love, compassion, intellectual curiosity. A shared appreciation for art and music. Stimulating conversation that Chris never appreciated until it slipped through her fingers like water.
What she wouldn’t give now to hear Emma cut through the bullshit, to blister Chris’s ear about trusting her reputation to rinky-dink editors, letting the brass bully her into an untenable assignment, and compounding her problems by—of all frivolous things—falling in love.
From the outset, Emma would have advised Chris to take her lumps rather than sneak into the wedding.
It seemed so obvious now.
And so trivial. Compared to all Emma had lost, Chris’s problems shrank to pinpricks. Chris still had her memory, her will, and full possession of her faculties. She could start again. Build a new career. If losing Kota’s love was the worst of the matter, she could deal with that too. She could outlast the pain and the loss.
But what she’d never overcome was knowing that she’d hurt him in the particular way that she had. She’d struck where he was most vulnerable. And she’d never forgive herself.
An aide approached. “They’re dancing in the great room, Emma. Stephen’s looking for you.” She smiled at Chris. “A new resident, and he’s already got his eye on your mother.”
Who could blame him? Emma was Seacrest’s hottest catch. Women outnumbered men ten to one, but Emma was always in demand. She went through boyfriends faster than a cheerleader did.
The truth was that while Emma was no longer the person she’d been—driven and involved and often stressed to distraction—the person she’d become was having a much better time.
For Chris, it took some of the sting out of it. “Come on, Mom, I’ll walk you over.”
She left Emma waltzing with a tall reed of a man, and went home alone to pick up the pieces.