Fireflies and Magnolias (35 page)

Rare tears swam in her mama’s eyes. “Me either, sugar.”

Her arms seemed to reach out to her mama on their own accord, and they hugged each other for the first time. Well and truly hugged each other. There were tears. And there were soft kisses as they broke through the walls of hurt and anger and misunderstanding.

When they finally pulled away from each other, they both wiped their tear-streaked faces with tissues and blew their noses. Over tea, Amelia Ann told her mama about her law classes and her work at the clinic. Her mama listened the whole time, and by the end of it, Amelia Ann felt like a part of her that was missing had been returned.

When her mama rose to leave, Amelia Ann found she didn’t want her to go. “You’re welcome to stay, you know.”

“That’s mighty sweet of you, but I think I’m going to drive around a bit.” She smiled then. “I’m seeing your daddy after your Sunday dinner. I don’t want to keep you from going.”

Without hearing anything from Rye, she’d already decided not to go for the second week in a row. The decision had been painful, but she knew it was for the best. There would only be stony silences between them—an unhappiness which would spill over onto everyone else.

“Thank you for coming, Mama. Truly.”

They hugged again, and Amelia Ann realized how thin and somewhat frail her mama was, something she’d never noticed before. Though her mama had always seemed such an intimidating figure, she didn’t loom as largely as she once had. Now she simply looked like an older woman, carrying the sorrows of her past on her shoulders.

At the door, Mama turned to look at her. “You’re welcome to call me and tell me what you’re up to, but there’s no…pressure or anything.”

Calling her mama to catch up? That would be a monumental step for them both. “Feel free to call me too, Mama.”

A smile spread across her face before she walked down the sidewalk to her car.

After Amelia Ann closed the door, she sat on the couch and had another cry, but this time it was healing. And in that, there was all the difference in the world.

Odin’s coat was good and lathered by the time Clayton rode him back to the barn. His mama was brushing down April, preparing for a ride herself. She often came on Sundays to take one of the horses out.

“You should have called,” he said, dismounting. “I would have waited.”

She’d already donned a black helmet and looked tiny in her green riding outfit without her usual killer high heels. “Looks like you had some things to work out. I saw you flying across the meadow like the devil himself was chasing you.”

She wasn’t far off. Except it wasn’t the devil. It was Amelia Ann.

He only grunted in response.

“Is that all you plan on saying to me?” his mama asked him, setting aside the brush she’d been using on April.

He unsaddled Odin in brisk motions. “Why are you upset with me?”

“Lately you’ve been more brooding than I have ever seen you, and that’s saying something. You asked me to take over the women’s features and collage for the concert and walked out of my office without saying a word about what’s really going on. Clayton Chandler, you’re upset about Amelia Ann being the leak. We all are. Talk to me, son.”

Steam was billowing off Odin’s flesh, so Clayton led him into a side room to hose him down. Brooding was a weak word for what he’d been doing. He’d been wallowing in liquor each day after work, hoping it would help him sleep, and help him forget. It shamed him, having to use that as a crutch when he knew it was wrong. Nothing could dull the pain of her betrayal or drown out the sound of her voice inside his head saying she loved him.

“There’s nothing to say.”

Leaning in the doorway, his mama watched him sluice the water from Odin’s coat. “I was more than a little upset when I first heard about it, I’ll admit,” she said, “but then I got to thinking… I could understand why Amelia Ann felt she was doing the one thing that would make it impossible for Tammy to take those kids back to her abusive husband.”

He’d come to see that too, and the realization hadn’t sat well. “It doesn’t change the fact she’s capable of betrayal.”

“She’s not a thing like Amanda, Clay. When you first brought that bitch of a woman to my home, I knew she couldn’t be trusted. Amelia Ann can be.”

But not under every circumstance. She’d proved time and again how reckless and headstrong she could be. Now there had a hole inside him so big no amount of bourbon could fill it. He didn’t plan on giving her a shovel to make it any bigger.

“I might be able to understand her motives, Mama. Even forgive them. But once someone breaks my trust, it’s gone forever.”

Mama moved aside so he could lead Odin into his stall. “I expect you got that quality from me, and I don’t much like it in either you or myself. Besides, Clayton, have you forgotten that sign your daddy sent you?”

He wished he’d never breathed a word about it. “I was stupid to ever believe that. There are fireflies around this place all the time. I was seeing what I wanted to see.”

The sound of Mama’s boots scuffing the floor had his head pounding.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but your daddy knows more than we do, and even in the tough moments, we have to trust that.” She put her hands on his shoulder. “That’s why I’m going to give Amelia Ann another chance. I hope you’re man enough to do the same because I think she suits you just fine, honey.”

After kissing his cheek, she saddled up April and rode out of the barn.

He sank onto a bale of hay and scrubbed his face.

It hadn’t been a sign.

Her eyes were blurred from crying, but she only rubbed them and leaned in closer to her laptop. Work was her only solace right now. A knock sounded on the door, and she rose with some unease. Usually, her visitors called before coming over, especially on a Sunday.

Unless it was family.

She looked through the peephole. A grim Rye stood on the other side. Part of her wanted to ignore him. But she couldn’t ignore her brother, not even if he wanted to hurt her. Reaching for any remaining strength, she opened the door.

Even in the twilight, she could see the new lines on his face. “You didn’t come to Sunday dinner again.” Considering the time, he must have left the others to come talk to her.

“No,” she said, not sure if he planned to come inside. “I thought it best.”

“Because of me?” he asked, pointing to his chest. “Dammit, Amelia Ann, just because I’m mad at you doesn’t make you any less a part of our family.”

She had to bite down to keep from crying again then and there. “I didn’t want anyone else to be affected by what’s going on between us.”

“Well, they are,” he said with a snort. “Are you going to let me in?”

Leaning against the door, she made room for him to cross the threshold. She realized it was much colder today than it had been lately. She hadn’t gone outside once. There had been no reason for it.

“I heard you saw Mama today,” he said, striding into the middle of her living room.

“Yes, I felt I owed her an apology.”

The chair he finally sat in looked almost too small to hold him. “How did she take it?”

Part of her still couldn’t believe how things had gone between them. “She knew it was me all along.”

His head jerked up. “She did? Why didn’t she say anything to save her own…you know?”

“She said she was protecting me,” she managed to say in a hoarse voice. “She told me it was the least she could do after treating me so poorly growing up. She asked me to forgive her.”

“Well, I’ll be,” her brother said, kicking back in the chair, which squeaked under his weight. “So what are you and I going to do? I can’t handle one more question from Rory and Annabelle about why I’m mad at you. Somehow those little tykes have figured it out—either that, or Tammy told them out of loyalty to you—and I feel like shit.”

Tears popped into her eyes, hearing that. She missed seeing her niece and nephew so badly it hurt.

“Then there’s my wife, who actually put me in the doghouse for the first time in our marriage. And I won’t even go into what Daddy and Tammy have said to me.”

It touched her heart to hear so many of her loved ones had stood up for her, but it didn’t tell her how her brother felt.

“None of their opinions matter, Rye. When it all comes down to it, the real question is whether you can forgive me and…love me again.”

“Oh, sugar,” he said in a ragged tone, rising from the chair. “I never stopped loving you. Never!”

When she met his eyes, she saw the regret shining in them.

“That’s why this hurts so much,” he whispered.

It took her a moment to speak. “I’m sorry for what I did. I don’t know what else to say to you. But if I could do it over again, I don’t know that I would choose differently. Rye, I was so scared for Tammy and Rory and Annabelle.”

He kicked at the floor with his boots. “I realize that. You’re right when you said I wasn’t there to see what Tammy was going through. She and I had…well, a difficult conversation about all that today. She’s decided to tell her story at the concert after all, but not in a video spot. Live.”

Amelia Ann pressed her hand to her throat as emotion rose up inside her so swift and powerful it threatened to blow her over. “I’m…glad.”

“It’s going to be tough, hearing it. I won’t lie.” He paused for a long moment. “When it comes to my family, I’m pretty protective. Perhaps some of that’s because of how we grew up, not wanting anyone to know our business. Tory used to joke that I didn’t care about people knowing about things that didn’t matter to me, and she was more than a little right about that. When I went home after Daddy’s heart attack and helped Tammy…it mattered. And to see those details show up in a tabloid…there aren’t enough bad words to express how I felt.”

She nodded.

“But you were thinking two steps ahead of the rest of us,” he told her. “You’d seen Tammy put up with Sterling for years. Make excuses for him. I hadn’t. Tammy says she completely understands why you’d believe she might go back to him. I…didn’t want to believe that of her.”

Her head felt heavy, so she looked down at her feet in shame.

“But I still don’t understand why you waited so long to tell us. You knew I was looking for the leak. Hell, I was going to some pretty extreme measures to find the culprit.”

It took effort to meet his eyes. “I was afraid of losing my family.”

His eyes turned wet, and he knuckled away tears. He finally reached out to her and grabbed her shoulders. “You’re my sister. And you’re not going to lose me or anyone else in our family over this, okay? I won’t let that happen.” His voice broke and he yanked her to his chest. “You stood by me after Mama and Daddy threw me out, and I’ve…never told you what that meant to me.”

She wrapped her arms around him and held on tight as their combined pain sluiced through them.

“I was a prize ass, okay. And I’m sorry. Now will you please come to Sunday dinner with me where you belong? I asked if they could hold supper until we arrived. I…couldn’t eat a bite without you there.”

Nodding against his chest, all she could do was cry—again. God help her.

“All right now,” he whispered. “You just cry it all out. Everything’s going to be okay, sugar.”

But however much she wanted that to be true, she knew it wasn’t. While she might have her brother back, Clayton would never return to her, and the hurt clawed her chest afresh.

When she needed air, she pressed back and reached for the box of tissues on the coffee table. She’d gone through several boxes of them lately. Rye had to grab a few too, she noted.

“Amelia Ann,” Rye said. “I know Clayton didn’t take it well. There’s a history there, with an old girlfriend.”

She cleared her throat. “He told me.”

“I’ll talk to him. I don’t want to see you like this. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look…like life has sucked the life out of you.”

While she appreciated her brother’s help, she knew it would do no good. Clayton was not a man to be persuaded. Not even by his friend. “He won’t come around, Rye. That’s who he is. Please leave it be.”

“People used to think I was a lot of things, but I managed to grow out of my old ways. I can’t say what Clayton will choose, but I’ve known him long enough to believe the best in him. You should too.”

Until this moment, she realized she’d forgotten what the best looked like in Clayton. All she saw when she closed her eyes was his harsh face.

“Speaking of seeing the best in people, I think we should invite Mama to Thanksgiving. And the concert.”

He sighed. “So, I’m the final holdout. Fine. Let her come. I figure if she can convince you and Tammy and Daddy she’s changed, maybe there’s something I’m not seeing. But I reserve the right to take my own time about it.”

She would be taking her time too as she and Mama moved forward into unchartered territory. “You can’t heal what you won’t talk about.”

“Thank you, Dr. Freud. Now you sound like my wife.”

And that was as much as she planned to push for the day. “We should go.”

“I love you, Amelia Ann,” Rye said, his ears red with emotion.

“I love you too, Rye,” she whispered back.

His mouth curved up. “Just don’t call another tabloid on me if I ever tick you off.”

His attempt at a joke was pretty lame, but so was Rye sometimes. “I won’t.”

And as they left to join the rest of their family for Sunday dinner, she gave thanks that at least part of her heart was mending.

The other half…well, she’d just have to do without it.

Clayton’s friends started swinging by when his brooding only worsened, and he expected they were coordinating their efforts.

John Parker came over and mucked the stalls out next to him in silence when he said there wasn’t anything to say. Then, he coaxed Clayton out for a ten-mile bike ride along the river.

His buddy Rhett Butler Blaylock, a professional gambler, flew in from Dare Valley, Colorado for a couple of days the next weekend. Rhett fussed over him like a mother hen, and they played countless rounds of blackjack. His friend even surprised a laugh out of him by chasing a flock of geese in Clayton’s meadow and yelling bloody murder when a few of them shit on him.