Dark Masterpiece (Serendipity Series 3) (14 page)

After nearly two hours of searching, Traevyn
went into a coffee shop that was almost invisible it was so small.
He scanned the premises and spotted Evie in a corner with her
sketchpad. He suddenly felt like he could breathe easier. He strode
to her out of elation, but halfway there, remembered he was angry
at her and scowled. “What do you think you are doing?” he spat.

She looked up at him and gave him an icy
glare. “Drinking an iced mocha. What does it look like?”

“I have been looking for you for two
hours!”

“And I had to listen to you BS with that art
guy for two hours! We’re even now!” She looked back down at her
sketchpad.

“You could have at least
told me where you were going. Something could have happened to
you.”
I’m lecturing her. Why? She isn’t a
child. She is a grown woman. I’m not
her
keeper.
A tiny voice in his head told him
to stop being ridiculous. He’d been worried.
That was all there was to it.

She turned her eyes up to him in a lazy
movement. “What do you care? I mean nothing to you, remember?”

He sighed in exasperation. He really
couldn‘t argue with his own words hurled back at him. “Do you want
anything to eat?” For some dumb reason, that was all he could think
of to say.

“I already ate. Thanks.” Her words were laced
with venom. “But by all means, go find yourself something.”

He scowled. “Will you be here when I get
back?”

She rolled her eyes. “As your lordship
commands,” she mocked.

He let out another sigh and started to walk
away.

“Jerk,” she muttered.

Traevyn gave her a frigid glower over his
shoulder, but she just gave him a giant fake smile and fluttered
her eyelashes at him. He let out a growling sound and went on his
way.

* * * *

They left San Luis Obispo around seven in
the same state of silence as when they’d arrived. The fog was
rolling in, thick and unrelenting. By the time they were about an
hour away from Traevyn’s home, it was completely dark save the soup
they were driving through, and Evie was a nervous wreck. She
couldn’t see more than a foot in front of the car and had no idea
how Traevyn was managing to navigate. After several minutes of her
almost chewing her lip off out of sheer terror, Traevyn pulled the
car to the side of the road and shut off the engine.

“What are you doing?” Evie asked.

“I don’t really want to die tonight. I can’t
see anything. We’ll have to wait here until the fog lifts.”

“Great,” she muttered. She was happy they
weren’t continuing their suicide mission through the fog, but was
not thrilled that she was stuck with him for who knew how long.

“If you hadn’t disappeared, we could have
left when I wanted to and avoided this,” Traevyn grumbled.

“Oh cram it,” she shot back.

He sighed and stared out the window at the
all encompassing fog. For some reason, his mind returned to the
night he had told Evie about Leanna. He remembered how she had held
him, offered him comfort, a soft place to fall. He had felt such
warmth from her that night. And that had been after she had lured
him out with her and Seth, after they had made him laugh. He
remembered how good it felt to laugh.

She had told him she would never criticize
or condemn him, that she would give him space if that’s what he
needed. Evie had never pried. She had only ever been understanding…
She had never done anything to deserve the words he had shouted at
her the night before.

Returning to the past was not something
Traevyn liked doing. In fact, he avoided it at all costs, but he
couldn’t run from it forever. He actually couldn’t run from it at
all. Try as he might, his ghosts always caught up with him. Evie
didn’t deserve his venom. She had done nothing to him. She was not
the enemy. He shouldn’t take his anger at his wife and his anger at
life in general out on the one person who had offered him genuine,
unadulterated friendship.

He closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh.
“My wife was one of those women men would have done anything to be
with,” he began softly. “One of those blonde goddesses straight
from Mt. Olympus.”

Evie frowned and looked over at him in
bewilderment.

Traevyn didn’t meet her eyes. He couldn’t.
Keeping his eyes away from hers was the only way he was going to
make it through this. “When she showed an interest in me, the stoic
artist, I was dumbfounded. She was spectacular, so elegant and
sophisticated. The day she became my wife was the day I felt like
my life had started. The day she left me… Time stopped.

“Four years into our marriage she began to
act strange. Distant and cold. I tried everything in my power to
make her happy, but nothing seemed to work. We were living in San
Diego then. One day I came home and found her with another man…in
my bed. Actually, it wasn’t just any man. It was my best friend.
Someone I had trusted and relied on since high school. Naturally, I
was pretty upset. Amy and I started fighting. She told me she
didn’t love me anymore, that she hadn’t for the past year. She said
she wanted a divorce.” He winced as her stinging words reverberated
through his memory. “She told me she had been seeing Robert for the
whole last year of our marriage.” He shook his head. “For one whole
year she lied to me. While I was lying beside her at night,
whispering my undying words of devotion, she was sleeping with my
best friend.

“She told me that she
couldn’t be with someone who put his family second to his career.”
He looked at Evie then, out of necessity, as if to convince her.
“I
never
put my
family second, Evie. Never. I would have done anything for that
woman. If she’d told me that, in order to keep her, I had to stop
painting, I would have laid down my brush and become a… I don’t
know, a janitor, or an accountant. Anything!
Nothing
was more important to me
than that woman and that little girl.” He whispered the last part
as raw emotion gripped him and his eyes filled with familiar
tears.

Evie nodded, indicating that she believed
him.

“As we were fighting,” he choked, “Amy took
Leanna and started to leave with her. She told me that she was
going to live with Robert and get full custody of Leanna, that I
would never see her again. Leanna didn’t know what was happening.
She was only four years old.” A tear streaked down his cheek and he
closed his eyes, his chest feeling tight. “Amy took her out of the
house and across the street to Robert’s car. Leanna was upset; she
didn’t know why her mother was making her leave…” He drew in a
shaky breath. “Leanna was…Daddy’s girl, you see…” He shook his head
as waves and waves of agonizing grief washed over him. “She was
crying for me, reaching out for me. I was still on the other side
of the street, waiting until it was clear to cross. Amy set Leanna
down to open the car door and she bolted…straight across the street
without looking… Straight to me…”

Evie stared at Traevyn in horror, obviously
figuring out and dreading the next part of the story.

“…Straight into the path of a diesel pickup
truck… It snapped her spine and killed her instantly.”

A tear rolled down Evie’s cheek, and she put
her hand over her mouth.

Traevyn fought to maintain his composure,
but he was crying freely now. He was just trying not to go
hysterical. “After the funeral, I begged Amy to come back to me. I
humiliated myself in front of her. I didn’t want to lose her too. I
loved her so much… She looked me right in the eye with no emotion
except malice and said in the coldest voice I have ever heard, ‘you
deserve to be alone. It’s because of you Leanna is dead. I hope you
die miserable and alone.’ I didn’t hear from her after that except
on the anniversary of Leanna’s death when she called to remind me
it was my fault. She called me both years. This year, too, the
night we were painting. I wouldn’t have picked up the phone, but I
wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t look at the number.” He let out a
muffled sob and his heart twisted in agony as he remembered Amy‘s
cold, heartless tone and vicious words. He shook his head. “Why
would someone say that, Evie? How could someone be so cruel? It
wasn’t my fault… It was just an accident…” He repeated it over and
over like a mantra, trying to convince himself, trying to
believe.

Evie moved to Traevyn and caressed her hand
across his shoulders. “No, it wasn’t your fault. It was just a
terrible, tragic accident. Traevyn, I’m so sorry.” She understood
now why he didn’t want to let anyone close. He had lost the three
people he loved most all in the same day.

“So I moved here to Big Sur,” he said.
“Built my house and my barrier, shut out the world in an attempt to
shut out pain, but it always finds me. It lives in me.” He drew in
another shuddering breath and hung his head in exhaustion. “And
that’s my story.”

Evie’s heart bled for him, it wept. “I’m so
sorry,” she whispered. It was all she could say and it sounded so
inadequate.

Traevyn turned to her suddenly, meeting her
eyes with force. “I’m so sorry about what I said to you last
night,” he blurted. “I didn’t mean it. I was angry. I was
terrified.”

She touched his cheek and shook her head.
“Traevyn, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay. I was
horrid. You were right. I
am
a coward.”

She continued to caress his face in an effort
to get him to stop. She couldn’t stand to see him groveling. “No,
you’re not.”

“Yes, I am,” he insisted.
“I
am
a coward
and I
am
pathetic.”

She shook her head. “Traevyn, no. Shhh.”

“It’s just that—”

She acted without thinking. All she knew was
that she couldn’t listen to one more word out of his mouth. She
couldn’t take his unbearable sorrow for one more second. She lunged
forward and planted her lips boldly to his.

Traevyn froze and his eyes drifted closed as
the warmth of her lips touched his. It seemed to make some sort of
difference, like her touch stayed with him even after she pulled
away. It stopped his tirade and seemed to bring him back to the
present.

Realization at her own actions slammed Evie.
“Oh!” she cried in horror. She sat back and put her hands over her
mouth. “I’m so sorry!”

He opened his eyes and let his breath out in
a slow sigh. “It’s all right,” he whispered.

“No it’s not! I’m humiliated!”

He gave a small smile. “Don’t be
humiliated.”

“I am!” she cried. “I am humiliated! I took
advantage of you in a weakened state! I should be shot!” He closed
his eyes and laughed softly, as if he was unable to contain it. She
stared at him, stunned. “Have you lost it completely?”

He took her face in his hands and stared
into her eyes. “Evie.” His voice was a sinful whisper. “You are so
beautiful.”

She blinked. “Wh—What?” she squeaked.
Beautiful? That was not something she was used to hearing.

“You’re killing me,” he breathed. “Killing
me slowly with your gentleness. How is it that you are always
bringing me laughter and light?” He shook his head. “What I just
told you no one else knows aside from my parents and my
brothers.”

“And why did you tell me?”

“Because you
are
my friend,” he said.
“And you
do
mean
something to me even though I tried to tell myself otherwise. For
some reason, you can see straight through me and I don’t like it.
It terrifies me, but it’s true all the same.”

She sighed. “It doesn’t hurt to confide in
someone. We all need someone. No one should have to be so
alone.”

He stared into her eyes for a long moment,
then gave her a soft smile. There was something in his eyes… When
she had first seen him, she’d noticed the sorrow and loneliness
reflected in them, but now, it looked as if some small part of him
felt relief, at peace.

He leaned back against the seat. “The fog
isn’t letting up.”

Evie looked out at the milky whiteness. “No,
it isn’t.”

“There are some blankets in the back seat,”
he said. “I use them sometimes to sit on when I go down to the
beach to draw. Let’s just stay here until morning when we can see
again.”

She nodded and grabbed the blankets from the
back. She handed one to Traevyn and spread the other one across
herself. She reclined her seat and stared up at the roof for a long
time, re-hashing all of what Traevyn had just told her. She looked
out the window and sighed. Everything was so silent. It felt like
she was floating in a cloud, surreal and eerie. She glanced at
Traevyn, who was also reclined and staring out the driver’s side
window. Her heart ached in her chest as she thought of the horrible
pain he had endured. His left arm was draped across his stomach and
she turned on her side, reaching her right hand over to touch his
fingers lightly.

He turned his head and looked down at her.
She blushed, but didn’t pull away. After a moment, he raised his
fingers to hers, brushing across them with a soft caress. He
pressed his palm to hers and grinned when his hand dwarfed her
small one and his long fingers stuck up about an inch more than
hers. Evie smiled as well.

He slowly curled his fingers to twine with
hers and closed his eyes as if he was savoring something. “Thank
you, Evie,” he whispered.

“For what?”

“For listening. For being here. For being
you.”

She gave him a small smile. “I’ll always be
here, Traevyn. That’s what friends do.” She frowned. “And…I’m sorry
about the kiss.”

He grinned. “That’s all right. I needed it. I
couldn’t seem to shut myself up.”