Here in My Heart: A Novella (Echoes of the Heart) (22 page)

“Remember, we’re having meat loaf for dinner,” Belinda said in place of a thank-you. “I wanted to remind you to run by the market on the way home.”

If Selena’s mother ever stopped reminding her about every single detail of the life Selena was rebuilding, she’d have to check Belinda for a pulse.

“I’ve got your list,” Selena said, reminding herself to be grateful. Nurturing would never be her mother’s gift. But Belinda was trying as hard as she was capable to make their second chance at being a family work.

“Lock up when you leave.” The line went dead, presumably so Belinda could micromanage her Chandlerville post office coworkers into a fugue state.

Selena wouldn’t hear from her again until her mother’s midday check-in call, when Belinda would couch her concern for the deplorable state of her daughter’s life in even more unwanted reminders about nonsense things that couldn’t possibly matter now. As a child, Selena had thought her single mother too busy for soft gestures like comforting hugs and encouraging pep talks, or that Belinda had been too disappointed by the way her own life had turned out to even try. At twenty-five, Selena could finally appreciate her mother’s hands-off, distant way of caring, even if it would never become the unconditional love Selena had craved since she was five and her father left them.

She dropped her cell into the tote bag her mother had lent her for work. Selena’s anemic budget had been able to afford only a secondhand backpack that Belinda deemed unsuitable. But there’d been no help for it. Before leaving Manhattan, Selena had sold her designer purses and most of her Upper East Side wardrobe to a resale shop. So her mother had moved her own belongings to an older bag and handed Selena her favorite, waving away any attempt at a thank-you.

“I found it by the begonias,” Camille chirped. She held up her watering can like a prize.

The outrageous names of flowering plants rolled off Camille’s tongue the way other little girls chattered nursery rhymes. She loved her grandmother’s blooming, ever-changing garden world. The delicate, bonfire red of the annuals Camille had discovered last week were her latest favorites.

Selena secured the front door and the screen. She hugged her child, enchanted all over again with Camille’s tender heart and how freely she embraced life’s adventures.

“Pamper your forget-me-nots.” She steered her daughter toward the perky blue flowers. “I’ll give Grammy’s hedge its morning drink while there’s still shade.” And while Selena pulled herself together enough to drive them to Chandler Elementary School.

She peeled off her linen jacket and draped it and her tote over the white porch rail. Her mother would have described what coated Selena’s skin as a genteel misting of dampness. What it was, though, was good old American sweat. There was nothing gentle about the humidity that owned this part of the world ten months out of the year. Selena gave the maxi skirt of her sundress a hike and grabbed both sets of hoses. She dragged the lot across the freshly mown lawn, the ancient sprinkler attachments thumping behind her. Memories nipped at her heels, each step she took closer to the Dixons’ property.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Oliver had finally returned. When word reached Selena yesterday that an ambulance had whisked Joe Dixon to the hospital, she should have realized Marsha and Joe’s eclectic tribe of grown foster children would rush to his side as quickly as they could. Even Oliver. Like Selena, mostly
because
of her, he hadn’t made Chandlerville a real home. Most everyone in their small neighborhood on the other side of town from places like winding, affluent Mimosa Lane had assumed he’d never return. But this was Joe Dixon. The thought of losing such a fine, loving man had hit Selena and a lot of their neighbors hard, as it must have Oliver, no matter how long he’d been away.

Of course the Dixons’ prodigal son was rushing to Joe’s side—a son who’d deserved to spend his entire life here, with his foster family supporting him. Oliver had lost so much when he’d left. Selena would never forgive herself for the role she’d played in hurting him and his foster parents.

She positioned the oscillating sprinkler first. She placed the revolving one closer to the Dixons’ yard.

“Catch, Mommy,” Camille said.

Selena didn’t stand fast enough. The neon green Frisbee that always lurked somewhere in the front yard sailed over her head . . . and landed at Oliver’s feet, where he’d walked back outside.

Selena was still achingly beautiful.

Beautiful . . . and stunned to see Oliver. What was she doing there, a few feet away, looking like a paragon of motherhood while he remembered every dark and messed-up and surprisingly sweet thing they’d shared?

He should have stayed inside, but he hadn’t been able to. Just as he couldn’t look away now from the dark, curling hair that cascaded halfway to the waist of her rose-colored dress. She was as striking a woman as she’d been a teenager. Willowy and fragile, she exuded the same vulnerability that had devastated him when they’d first met, first kissed, and eventually had became each other’s first lover. Even after all this time, his memories of them from before everything fell apart remained as out-of-control as that first kiss.

Selena was the only person he’d ever talked with about his life before Chandlerville—about the night when he’d been thirteen and home alone and had answered the phone to hear a stranger telling him that the world as he knew it was over. A thug had shot his single mother while she worked her midnight-’til-dawn, minimum-wage convenience store shift. Oliver had become a ward of the state. And Selena had understood how a part of him would forever be numb after that night, no matter how hard she or Marsha and Joe Dixon tried to break through the distance that got him through each day.

When he’d discovered Selena living next door, she’d seemed as lost as he’d felt. She, too, hadn’t belonged on quaint, picturesque Belleview Drive. And with one look into her impossibly brown eyes, Oliver had begun to believe that he wouldn’t feel alone forever. Together, they’d dreamed that they could finally have more. They’d learn how to love. Then, their senior year in high school, they’d let it all slip away.

How many times had he thought of discovering her all over again, just this way? Of stepping through the gap in the hedge that separated their childhood homes so he could see her up close and touch her and know for certain she was really beside him. Now, more than a little afraid of breaking whatever spell had brought them to this moment, he couldn’t move.

They’d been over ever since his last attempt to save her from herself and the dangerous influence he’d become in her life. Her reckless response had been to break up with him and, only weeks later, sleep with his best friend, Brad. After that, Oliver had figured they were as over as two people could be.

An adorable child—her daughter?—ran to Selena’s side.

“Hey, mister,” the kid said with a soft lisp, pointing to the Frisbee at his feet. “Can you throw it back?”

He bent and grabbed the toy. When he stood, an insomnia hangover dug claws into his skull.

He spent most nights tracking each shadow’s progress between sunset and sunrise. The earliest hours of the day were when he did his best work, while clients slept and he could bring their systems down and test new coding solutions. He was supposed to be forming better sleeping habits, but he’d already told his sponsor that plan was a nonstarter. He’d never been much for down time. And last night, he’d been warring with the impulse to drive the half hour between midtown Atlanta and Chandlerville. He’d needed to be home for the first time since he was eighteen, and possibly at the worst time for his recovery. And that was
before
he’d realized he’d once more find Selena waiting for him next door.

He’d assured himself that there was nothing more he could do for his foster family, and that his return at such a stressful time was the last thing his parents needed. But every half hour, he’d checked in with his brother, tracking Joe’s condition. By sunup, it had become increasingly clear to Oliver and Travis that their foster family’s house on Belleview Drive was where Oliver needed to be.

Joe Dixon might be dying.

Oliver threw the Frisbee over the hedge. Its curving arc sent the little girl scampering away, giggling. Then he and Selena were standing there, time and bushes and the past stretching between them. Selena made eye contact again, looking more than a little afraid of him. He mentally kicked himself for not waiting for her to leave before coming out to grab his bag from his truck. This was pointless. Painful. And avoidable. And he’d grown into the sort of man who steered clear of needless confrontation that could only end bloody.

Nodding, making up his mind, he jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, walked to the truck to snatch his bag, and then headed inside. He was being rude. But it was for the best. Inside the Dixon home, the quiet simplicity of the place further frayed his calm, rather than improving it. He closed the front door and leaned against it. The back of his head thudded on the worn wood.

Memories of more than just his mistakes with Selena jumbled together. Pictures of the Dixon brood stared back at him from the wall across the entryway: his own foster brothers and sisters, as well as the new passel Marsha and Joe were raising. Everyone who’d lived there when he’d moved in at thirteen had done their best to make him feel welcome. Even Travis, the eldest of his foster siblings. Those first few months, he and Travis had fought like mongrel pups protecting their turf. But their bond had ultimately become the strongest.

Oliver’s house key bit into his clenched palm. Marsha and Joe had presented it to him, his first day there. Just like that, everything that was theirs had become his. He’d meant to get rid of it when he’d left town, but some things even he couldn’t let go of.

He’d left the well-meaning couple as a pain-in-the-ass teenager, pissed at the world and ready for whatever fight he could pick next. Eventually, he’d sobered up for good, and it had sunk in: how much he’d thrown away. The Dixons would always be superheroes to him, regardless, and he’d spent the bulk of his adult life making things up to them. He’d promised himself never to cause them another moment of trouble.

Shoving the key into his jeans pocket, he carried his duffel up the stairs of the sleepy house where, thanks to Marsha and Joe’s superpowers, a new batch of castaway boys and girls were about to greet their normal day. Travis had said to make himself at home in their parents’ bedroom. Oliver had been chugging coffee all night and hadn’t bothered to clean himself up when he’d headed out. He’d been half afraid that if he stopped for something as simple as a shower, he’d talk himself out of seeing Joe, possibly for the last time.

Now he needed that shower and a few minutes to regroup, while a part of him was still outside, wanting the answers he’d never gotten from Selena. But he’d come home to say good-bye, not to haunt the past as if looking back would do anything but create more problems.

Travis had said their newly engaged little sister, Dru, would arrive soon to cover breakfast and bus call for the youngest of the kids. Oliver wanted to be gone to the hospital by then. He would check on their father, thank his foster parents for everything they’d sacrificed for him, and see what, if anything, more he could do financially from Atlanta. Maybe his simply being here today would give them closure. Maybe not. Nevertheless, he was headed back to his own life soon. Very soon.

He had a make-or-break, face-to-face meeting in Atlanta on Monday with a potential new account. And his lingering in Chandlerville, especially with Selena back in town, guaranteeing that rumors about them would be flying once locals caught sight of him, too, would be the kind of wrinkle Marsha and Joe shouldn’t have to deal with.

Like a zombie, Selena had watched Oliver disappear inside the Dixons’ house. Minutes later, still unable to move, her heart was still doing pirouettes in her throat. He hadn’t spoken a word. And she’d been too self-conscious, too mortified, to string two syllables together.

You need help, Selena
, Oliver had said to her forever ago on the Dixons’ front porch. She’d been drunk again. For once he hadn’t. And he’d been determined to help her straighten up.
This is my fault. I should have seen that you were out of control. Let me help you now—let me make this right.