Here in My Heart: A Novella (Echoes of the Heart) (15 page)

Brad chuckled. He and Dru had listened to Vivian’s stories over and over the last few weeks. She’d repeated this one more than once.

Horace was there, too, in that tiny room full of shadows and honesty and a long, full life drawing to a well-earned end. These last days, the lawyer was always at Vi’s side. The hospice nurses said he left each morning for about an hour, to change clothes and shower and return. Whenever Vivian’s meds took her away, he’d catch a little sleep on the couch in the corner.

Standing at the end of the bed, he patted her foot. “Butler was a good man.”

“He was a scoundrel.” Vi winked at Dru. “And a good, hardworking, unshakable scoundrel is a tough thing to come by in this world. I highly recommend you pick one up.”

Vivian started coughing. They waited for her oxygen feed to help her regain her breath. Talking became more taxing by the day, as the progression of her disease and the increasing dosage of her pain meds accelerated her body’s decline. She smiled fiercely, composing herself. She took Dru’s hand.

“My dear,” she said, “the secret to gambling on people is not to worry if you’re right, or what will happen if you’re wrong. It’s to go all in, no matter what happens. Figure out what
you
think. What you want. Then go for broke as often as you can. Just like you did with my Bradley and the Dream Whip tonight. Like I did, when I bet on the two of you being able to mend fences once you decided to work at it. Is it really so bad, everyone throwing money at Willie while we waited for you to come to your senses?”

“You’re a troublemaker,” Dru said. “Have you and your henchman here been angling from the start for Brad and me to become more than business partners?”

Vivian gave Horace a wistful smile that became something more, something desperate, as if she were free-falling and Horace was her Superman, there to catch her and make everything okay.

Horace patted her foot again, waiting for Vi to compose herself.

“Well, I’m a bit of a scoundrel, too,” she finally admitted. “I tend to think that’s what Butler liked best about me.”

“I know it’s what I like best,” Brad said, his gaze locking with Dru’s.

He stood, bizarrely jealous of Vivian and Horace. Their love for each other was obvious, as deeply rooted as it was unexpected. It was the kind of connection he’d been missing all these years, since he’d left Dru behind in Chandlerville. She might have been the love of his life. She still could be. Working together since he’d returned, kissing her tonight, had only brought that home more clearly.

But only if she was willing to go all in with him, too.

He kissed his grandmother’s cheek. Straightening, he brushed his lips across Dru’s temple, needing the comfort of it. When he curled his arm around her shoulder, she leaned against him, accepting having him near, the way she’d relaxed into him at the Whip. It was a simple moment, only a flicker of trust. But she’d turned to him twice now.

Dru had claimed him tonight, admitted to wanting him in front of the packed restaurant. What that meant, he had no idea. Where they went from here was an even bigger mystery. But it felt like a beginning that he could hold tight to, on this suffocating night full of too much letting go.

“You got my winnings?” Vivian asked.

“Yes, ma’am.” He pulled out the wad of cash Willie had sent along.

“Keep it.” Vivian closed her eyes, time passing, drifting, a peaceful smile spreading across her thin face.

Brad laid the money beside her pillow and took her hand again.

His grandmother’s touch seemed barely there. “You and Dru use it for the restaurant. The house.”

She glanced at Horace in another moment of naked understanding. The mild-mannered Southern gentleman looked as if he wanted to fly his damsel away, so no harm could reach her.

“Thanks to your help,” Vivian said to Horace, “I know that my Butler’s pride and joy is in good hands.” She refocused on Brad and Dru. “I know the business and the house mean as much to you as they always have to me. Or the two of you wouldn’t have put up with each other and me and the gossip and nonsense long enough to make tonight happen.”

Dru scooted to the edge of her chair. She covered Brad’s hand, where he still held Vivian’s.

“
You
mean that much to us,” she said.

Vivian closed her eyes again, nodding.

Brad hadn’t let himself dwell on it yet—a world without his grandmother in it. He’d kept himself too exhausted, working hard for Vivian and Dru, to really face this moment.

His grandmother eased her touch free, leaving Brad and Dru’s hands together. And then suddenly he could feel Dru needing him, clinging to his fingers, instead of pulling away.

“The rest is up to you now,” his grandmother said. “Don’t—”

“Don’t talk like that,” Dru whispered. “Like—”

“I’m ready.”

Vivian gazed around: at photos of Brad’s mother and grandfather on the table beside the bed; at a small circle of table clocks perkily ticking away on the ledge beneath the garden window; at fresh-cut flowers arranged on every flat surface, half the town keeping the Hearts in Bloom florist in business making sure Vivian knew she was loved and remembered.

Brad had even lugged in a Christmas tree last week. Dru had made the time to decorate it, using vintage ornaments she’d dug from Vivian’s attic, treasures Brad remembered from his childhood. An ancient elf on the shelf had made an appearance, too, most of its felt suit rubbed away. Vivian had enjoyed ferreting him out from the creative hiding places visitors stashed him while she napped.

Giving Vi an early holiday had been the only Christmas plans Brad and Dru had discussed. There was an attic full of decorations to do something else with at the house. But Vivian’s dining room was still set for Thanksgiving, time standing still since she’d left.

“I might be a scoundrel,” she said to Dru. “But a good gambler always knows when to leave the table.”

She took several shallow breaths. Oxygen flowed through the thin tubing beneath her nose, helping very little. Horace, fiercely calm and collected, stroked her blanket-covered foot, his eyes betraying him.

“But you two . . .” Vivian pointed a shaking finger at Dru and Brad. “There’s so much more waiting for you. More than you’ve let yourself want. It burns my hide.” She focused on Dru. “I’ve lived my life. I did what I did for my own reasons. Nothing got in my way, even after my husband and daughter were gone. I faced things head-on, win or lose. I don’t have a single regret. If the rest of Chandlerville woke up tomorrow without you here, my dear, what would you leave undone?”

Brad inhaled to defend Dru and say the broken years between them were entirely his doing.

But he couldn’t. He was through making excuses for her. At some point since he’d been home, he’d stopped fighting to make the past up to the innocent girl he’d left behind. He’d started wanting to build a future with the intriguing woman she’d become. A future he couldn’t have if Dru wouldn’t put even half the care she showered on everyone else into figuring out what she needed for her own life.

She covered her mouth with her hand. Tears streamed softly down her cheeks. When Brad curled her close again, she pushed out of her chair.

“I’m . . .”

She backed toward the door.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered toward Brad and Vivian. “I love you.” Her hand still covered her mouth, as if she could keep the truth inside. “I love you so much. I . . . I’m so sorry.”

She fled. In the silence she left behind, they could hear the rhythm of her sneakers running down the hallway.

“Go after her.” Horace took one of the seats beside Vivian. She seemed to be sleeping again. The man’s expression was shredded. “For God’s sake, son, don’t waste as many years as I have letting the woman you love keep so much distance between you, she doesn’t let you tell her how you feel about her until it’s too late. Go after her. Don’t stop until she lets you love her, every way you want to love her, for the rest of her life.”

Dru had made it to her bedroom. She didn’t remember exactly how she’d gotten there.

At some point she’d undressed and slipped into her nightgown. It was almost one o’clock. She should be in bed already, tucked beneath the quilt Vivian had given her when she’d first moved into “this drafty old place,” as Vi had called the wackiest home Dru had ever seen.

She smoothed her hand over the soft, hand-sewn squares of the spread she’d slept beneath, summer and winter, every night since that first night, when Vi had made her feel so surprisingly welcomed.

According to Vi, the quilt had been Brad’s favorite. He’d played on it as a baby, used it as a bedspread as a little boy, but it had remained in Chandlerville when he’d left. It was a double wedding ring. Curled beneath its fraying, patchwork perfection, Dru had dreamed dreams of a boy she’d once loved. Fantasies she’d never shared with anyone.

She fingered a swatch with a corner that was coming unstitched—a red gingham checked square, surrounded by a flourish of white ones, covered in tiny blue and yellow flowers. She’d decorated her bedroom in yellow and blue to match the quilt’s overall palette. Her favorite color was pink. But her bedding . . . as soon as she could afford to buy her own sheets, she’d chosen a soft burgundy to match the quilt’s faded red squares.

She’d filled her private world, she’d realized now that he was back, with hues that reminded her of Brad.

Her bedroom door opened. She didn’t hear it as much as she sensed him there. He’d always been there, a part of the house and the half-life in Chandlerville she’d made without him. Before tonight, until she’d kissed him again and he’d kissed her back, she hadn’t let the dream of having him home get this close.

She looked into his handsome, rugged face and felt Bradley Douglas ease into her soul, where he’d always belonged.

“You love
who
so much?” he asked.

She knew he’d ask, after the scene she’d made at Harmony Grove. But it was more than that. This moment seemed like a forever thing that had been defying their better judgment for weeks. Years.

She looked down at the quilt’s bits of mismatched fabric, sewn into a tapestry of hope and enduring love. It was easier to accept now: that a part of her had come to live with Vivian and stayed on at the Dream Whip, when she’d been offered better jobs over the years for more money, because she’d hoped Brad would one day be right where he was.

He hadn’t returned to town for her. She hadn’t really wanted him to—not if he could leave her all over again, which he still might. But tonight she needed to feel cared for, comforted, and loved as fiercely as she had in Brad’s arms at the restaurant. Tonight she needed her dreams of him back, no matter the risks.

She stood and began unbuttoning the soft pink flannel at her neck, continuing all the way down until there was nothing left to undo. Watching him watch her, want her, his gaze consuming her, she let her gown fall away. Swallowing, she felt a little like this was her first time, though she’d had several relationships since her teenage crush on Brad. She eased back onto the priceless quilt, baring her body and heart to him.

“Are you sure?” He stepped closer. “Be sure about this, Dru.”

“All these years you’ve been coming back and leaving, seeing your grandmother, seeing Travis, avoiding me. And I’ve told myself that’s what I wanted. I was never going to chase you again. I wasn’t going to give myself another chance to be wrong. But watching you go this time, without this”—she shivered when he moved to the edge of her bed—“without knowing if you could be as good for me as you have been for the Whip and Vivian, I . . .”

He leaned over the bed, over her body, braced on his elbows, eye to eye. His hips pressed hers to the mattress, his legs holding her still for him.

“I could be very good for you, Dru Hampton. I’ve been waiting seven long years to prove that to you.”

She nodded.

She ran her insteps up his calves. Lifting her knees, she applied heavenly pressure along his thighs, filling up and wanting, his hard, muscled body a perfect fit against her softer one. The roughness of his jeans and T-shirt felt divine against her skin.

“Don’t run this time.” He kissed away the emotion trickling from her eyes. “You’re so beautiful. So incredible. Let me make this better than your dreams. Let yourself want me tonight.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and brought his lips to hers. He took control of the kiss, hungry and greedy, chuckling wickedly, his tongue sweeping in. It was reckless abandon, hearing him want her, feeling his body tense and release, craving her, as she rolled them over until she was on top and working the fastening of his belt.

“Dru?” He held her still until she made eye contact.

She kissed his lips, nipped his neck, his ear, homed in on his mouth again. She wasn’t talking about love or leaving. She wasn’t answering questions. Not tonight. Not about their feelings for each other or Vivian or what happened next. It was all too confusing, like fraying snippets of fabric that only needed to come together to make something breathtakingly beautiful. But she couldn’t see clearly enough what they were meant to become.