Beneath the Patchwork Moon (Hope Springs, #2) (18 page)

“Worried? I dunno.” Oliver shrugged, as if responding was a bother. “Since your family was the one to leave town, they must be the ones with something to worry about.”

“You mean more harassment from your mother? More undercutting and sabotaging their work? It wasn’t enough to see them deplete their savings? To make sure they had no choice but to go?”

“Yeah. Choice. They’re the ones who made it.”

Angelo was fuming, afraid that if the other man didn’t leave, his fury would turn physical. He’d tamped all of this down for so long, all this bitterness and blame for what was nothing but an accident. An accident that could so easily be laid at Oscar Gatlin’s feet.

“You need to go,” he said to Oliver, before he did something he would regret. He was that close to striking out, and this wasn’t the time or the place, what with the audience of volunteers and Luna watching. “You need to go.”

Oliver cast one last look over Angelo’s shoulder, then backed a step away, another, another. He was shaking his head when he turned, frowning, as if he was more unsettled by what Angelo had said than being unable to talk to Luna.

Still holding Frank, she walked up beside Angelo. “Thank you for getting rid of him.”

He would rather have used his fists. And his emotions running hot had him turning on Luna. “What did you think seeing Oscar Gatlin was going to accomplish?”

“I wasn’t trying to
accomplish
anything,” she said, flinching. “I wanted to talk to him.”

“He can’t hear you, Luna.”

“You don’t know that,” she said, holding Frank tighter. “The doctors don’t know that.”

“He’s in a permanent vegetative state. You told me that yourself.”

“I don’t care. I needed to talk to him. I needed to tell him…”

“What? What could you possibly have to tell him?”

“That I was sorry,” she yelled, her eyes growing damp.

“Sorry for what?”

“That I hadn’t been to see him before.”

Angelo scrubbed both hands back through his hair. “Luna—” It was all he got out before stopping, because he had nothing else to say. He didn’t know what she’d gone through the last ten years. What she’d suffered as a survivor. Blame, certainly, from the Gatlins, from herself. At least two years’ worth from his parents.

Had his siblings pitched in? Giving her the cold shoulder? Or, since they’d just been kids when Sierra had died, calling Luna names, or egging her car?

“I’m sorry,” was what he finally told her because it was the most honest thing he could say.

“What do you have to be sorry for?” she asked, swiping a finger beneath both of her eyes.

He’d hurt her again; what was wrong with him? “Everything you’ve gone through. The way my family treated you.” He paused. “The way I treated you.”

She shrugged as if it were nothing, when he knew better. “I don’t blame you or your family for any of it. If the shoe had been on the other foot—”

“No. You wouldn’t have done the same thing. You don’t have it in you to be cruel.”

She shook her head, gave a humorless laugh. “Oh, I can conjure up all sorts of cruelties, but you’re probably right that I wouldn’t be able to pull them off. Unlike Oliver.”

Oliver Gatlin was a piece of work. “He accused me of forgetting about Sierra.”

“What?”

“Said having you warm my bed had turned my mind to mush, or some such,” he said, glancing over in time to see color bloom on her cheeks.

Her throat worked as if she was trying to swallow something she didn’t like. “Did you tell him we’re not sleeping together? Why would he think we were sleeping together?”

“I doubt he’s the only one,” he said, and when her eyes widened, he added, “Your car’s been in the driveway every day since I showed up. Your very identifiable car with personalized
PWMoon
plates. And by now, most of the town knows I’m staying here.”

“That doesn’t mean we’re sleeping together.”

“It’s an easy jump to make.”

“I don’t know why. Until today, the only time we’ve been seen together is the night we ate at Malina’s. And no one who saw us there would ever think we were intimate.”

“Because lovers don’t quarrel?” Did she really believe that? After their past?

“That was an argument. A real argument. Not a… lovers’ spat.” She stopped, as if realizing the ridiculousness of her logic. She also moved a long step away.

That made him laugh. “A little too late for that, don’t you think?”

“I should probably go home. If you need me to take Frank home with me, I will, but I think he’d be a lot happier with you.”

Well, crap. If he’d known she was going to run, he would’ve kept his mouth shut. “Considering he slept on my bed last night, yeah. I’d say so.”

“You don’t have to sound so smug. You’re the one who doesn’t like dogs, remember.”

“I’m willing to have my mind changed. I just needed a reason to change it.”

“And Frank’s that reason?” she asked, even though they both knew they’d stopped talking about dogs.

“I’ve been too hard on you. About your keeping Sierra’s secrets. And I’ve been thinking I’m as much to blame for everything that happened as anyone. If anyone is to blame,” he hurried to add before she interrupted. “If it all wasn’t just a big series of events gone wrong. It started with two kids who knew well enough what they were doing. Who should’ve used protection.” His chest grew tight. His throat swelled. He rubbed at his eyes to keep them from watering. “Why couldn’t they have just used protection?”

Before she could reach for him, he walked away and into the middle of the street to make sure Gatlin’s car was gone. Then he headed across the road to see Hiram Glass. Because if a spoonful of honey could make the medicine go down, he figured a whole jar could do magic.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A
re you sure about this?” Kaylie asked Luna later that night, holding Luna’s hand and squeezing as she met her reflected gaze in the salon station’s mirror. Luna could only nod. She’d never thought of her hair as a penance, a weight she carried, a connection to the past. She and Sierra had been too close for her to need a physical reminder of the three years—was that really all?—they’d had.

But at separate times during the last six months, both Will Bowman and now Angelo had asked her what she was trying to prove, or hoping to accomplish, or what statement she was making by wearing it long. She’d certainly not done it for ease or convenience. It took forever to wash and even longer to dry, and managing the tangles and knots often felt like a full-time job.

Maybe there was something to their observations. She hadn’t consciously made the decision to keep it long, to carry the weight, to bind herself to the past with the strands, but perhaps that was exactly what she’d done, keeping it the same length since the accident. And even the fact that she was hesitating seemed less an uncertainty about a new style than an attachment she was pretty sure couldn’t be healthy.

“Because if you’re not sure,” Kaylie continued, “don’t do it.”

“Kaylie’s right,” Caldwell said, standing behind Luna and lifting her hair with both hands. He held it for a long moment, then let it go. All three of them watched in the mirror as the strands fell around Luna’s shoulders like a long black cape. “But if you do cut it, I’d love to take it off in a tail to donate.”

Luna thought about Skye, wondered whether her little sister would share her coloring, the black hair she’d inherited from both her parents, her mother’s Hispanic ethnicity giving her skin its tone. Then she thought of another child somewhere, one who’d lost her hair to chemotherapy, or an illness, growing confident, feeling pretty again. Normal. Drawing compliments instead of stares.

Oh, good grief. It was only hair. She was tired of looking like her senior portrait. And it was getting in the way. “Yes. Cut it. I want it gone.”

Caldwell studied her in the mirror, his hands on either side of her head, pulling her hair one way, then another, as if trying on different styles with the shape of her cheekbones and chin. “Do you have an idea of what you want?”

“Not a single one,” she said, causing Kaylie to groan. “But I’m going to guess by that gleam in your eye that you do.”

“Free rein?”

“Anything you want.”

“Luna—” Kaylie said, groaning again.

“I trust him. But,” she said, meeting Caldwell’s gaze in the mirror, “I don’t want to watch. I don’t want to see anything till you’re done.”

He nodded. “I’ll keep you turned away as much as I can. But it’ll be up to you not to peek.”

Kaylie groaned a third time, but she settled into the empty chair in the adjoining station for the show.

“No more groaning from you, miss,” Luna said with a laugh. “Hold your commentary for the end.”

“I’ll just be over here with my phone taking pictures for your scrapbook,” Kaylie said, raising said phone and taking one.

“As long as you’re not over there posting them to Facebook before Luna can.” Caldwell swiveled her chair, and Luna closed her eyes as he gathered her hair into a tail and bound it.

“No Facebook,” Kaylie said. “But I was thinking if I had Angelo’s cell number, I could send them to him.”

Luna’s eyes flew open. “Don’t you dare.”

Kaylie grinned. “Lucky for you, I don’t have his number.”

“Lucky for
you
, you mean. I would have to hurt you. Badly.”

“Angelo?” Caldwell asked, lifting Luna’s hair away from her neck. “Is this someone new?”

“No, he’s not new. He’s very, very old. Someone I knew years ago,” she said, cringing at the sound of the scissors sawing through her hair. Cringing again as Kaylie’s face paled. Then feeling as if she’d lost ten pounds when her head fell forward, freed of all that weight.

As Caldwell said, “Ta-da!” no doubt holding up the tail for all to see, gasps and cheers rising from the salon’s other clients and stylists, she resisted reaching up to touch her nape and the newly shorn ends. “Wow. That’s frightening. I wonder if I’ve done permanent damage to my neck.”

“Nothing a massage won’t fix,” Caldwell said as he walked away, she assumed with her hair, and then he was back, saying, “So, this Angelo. Does he have good hands? Could he take care of your neck? Or should I book you a session with Wendy?”

Luna would’ve shaken her head if Caldwell wasn’t holding it still. “Old friend. Very old friend. Not a masseur.”

“When did a little thing like the lack of a license ever stop a man?” Kaylie put in, and this time it was Luna who wanted to groan.

“C’mon, Ms. Meadows,” Caldwell said, urging her to her feet. She opened her eyes, staring at the floor as she got out of the chair, refusing to spare even a glance at Kaylie and risk catching sight of her reflection. “Let’s get you washed so I can start in on my masterpiece.”

She felt as if she could fly. That she could take off any moment and soar. And it took Caldwell what seemed like seconds to shampoo and condition her hair. There was no heavy towel wrapped around her head and threatening to fall down her back. There were only short, choppy ends dripping over the drape as she settled back into her chair.

Caldwell squeezed the water from her hair, then picked up a comb. “Let’s do this.”

Luna held Kaylie’s gaze for a long moment, the other woman snapping another photo before Luna closed her eyes and stopped thinking about what was happening. She worried about it instead. Not that changing her mind was an option with her hair already gone, but would her parents like it? Would
she
like it? Would Angelo like it…? And why did it matter what Angelo Caffey liked or did not?

More important, had he really changed his mind about her? Was he ready to listen to the whole story? To hear the truth of all Sierra had entrusted her with? He’d known about the pregnancy. Sierra had turned to him for help. She’d obviously expected support and guidance, but she had received such the opposite that Luna ached for her friend. To be discounted so thoroughly…

And Luna had thought Oliver Gatlin cruel. Then again, she doubted Oliver had the capacity to recognize the flaw in himself. Angelo saw it, regretted it. Had lived with such incredible guilt for a decade, while all she’d lived with was fear. Fear that her lies would be discovered. That she’d be unable to honor her friend’s wishes. That she’d hate herself when all was said and done for failing everyone around her.

For failing herself. That most of all.

Ten years. She’d given ten years of her life to something that had passed in the blink of an eye. When she closed her eyes, and even now keeping them shut against the movement of Caldwell’s snipping scissors, she could see only pieces of that night at the ravine. Flashes of blue sky and white clouds and the Kool-Aid sunset. Oak and mesquite and juniper in a spectrum of green. The red of the car. The red of her blood, darker, splattered. The red of the fire engine and the emergency lights spinning…

She wondered whether she could get all of that into a scarf, if she was ready to. If she could bear seeing it wrapped around the wearer’s neck, or if she would unravel it thread by thread once done and let it go as she was doing with her hair.

“Luna?” Kaylie asked once Caldwell clicked off the blow-dryer and started in with his fingers, spraying the short strands and working product through. “Are you okay?”

She opened her eyes and looked at her friend, Caldwell brushing off her neck and shoulders before pulling her cape away. “I’m fine, why?”

“You’re crying.”

She was? Reaching up to swipe at her cheeks, she realized Kaylie was right. And that Caldwell was standing next to the
other woman, both smiling. Both staring. Did that mean…? Oh. He was finished? “That’s it?”

They both nodded, both of their expressions expectant, Caldwell’s smug with success, Kaylie’s full of amazement. She laughed. Still crying, but this time with joy, Luna laughed. “I guess I should look now?”

Kaylie nodded fiercely, her eyes misting. “You should look now.”

Caldwell stepped forward and swiveled her chair, and she looked at the woman in the mirror. At herself. At no one she recognized. Where once had flowed a waterfall, layers and angles and wedges fought over real estate, settling over her ears and her forehead, one extra long and pointed chunk sweeping against her chin. It was a mess. It was a gorgeous mess. It was art.