His Darling Bride (Echoes of the Heart #3) (27 page)

Chapter Eighteen

“How are you?” Mike asked the second Bethany answered her cell. “I’m sorry I haven’t called.”

God, he was sorry.

He needed to see her, feel her, hear her voice in person. He needed to breathe. And he couldn’t anymore, not deeply enough, not while Bethany was so far away. He hadn’t slept since he’d been home. He’d barely had time to think beyond the next minute, the next conversation with his parents, the next decision that had to be made.

“What’s going on, Mike?” Bethany’s voice was steady, but the control was costing her. He could hear the same defiant fragility in her voice as when she’d faced down Benjie at McC’s.

“It’s a long story.”

“It’s a two-day story that George says I should hear from you. Why haven’t you called?” She was angry, and she had every right to be. “You got your mother to back off whatever she was doing. Nothing else has been posted on the Internet about you and me. But you’re not back here. It doesn’t sound like you’re coming back. Tell me what’s happening.”

He sat in a plush leather chair in one of JHTF’s four conference rooms. He rubbed a hand over his eyes, forcing the words out, knowing they’d hurt—both Bethany and him.

“I told my parents I’d stay in New York until my mother dies.”

The cell line crackled, a full thirty seconds passing.

“What?” Bethany finally asked, her temper gone. “Your mother’s sick?”

“Cancer. And it’s . . . She’s . . .”

He’d been able to tell George. He’d talked the grim details through with his dad, when Livy had done nothing more than blurt out her prognosis and then refuse to discuss it further. But saying it to Bethany made it real.

“It’s end-stage,” he said. “My mother’s dying. That’s why she’s been pushing so hard to have me come back for the holidays. She couldn’t come right out and say why, of course, or that she needed me home so we could deal with this like a family. She’ll be demanding to have everything her way till the end, just because that’s the way things should be. Meanwhile . . .”

Mike closed his eyes, seeing Jeremy wasting away in a hospital bed, while he’d dreamed of exploring the world with Mike. And then Mike pictured their mother facing the same fate soon, only she’d want Mike chained to her side like one of her priceless handbags, or a piece of jewelry that only mattered when she could show it off to someone else.

“I’m so sorry,” Bethany whispered into the chasm that had opened inside of him.

“She’s known for a while, evidently. She didn’t tell anyone, not even my dad. And now there’s nothing anyone can do.”

“Except be there for her.”

“I’ve been gone for ten years.” And he regretted that now, no matter his reasons.

“Which was more her doing than yours.”

Bethany’s understanding was the hug Mike had needed for two days, only there’d been no one in New York for him to turn to.

“I’m glad you’re staying,” she said. “Really. I could come up there, if—”

“No,” Mike said too quickly, too harshly. “Livy’s still off-the-charts pissed at me. Though she’s changed her tactics now that I’m here, and she and my father are working on me together.”

“About what?”

“It doesn’t matter.” None of his and his parents’ differences mattered now. Why couldn’t Livy see that? “But I’m not giving her another crack at you.”

“Me? I’m worried about you. You’re giving your mother another crack at
you
, because you love her, and she knows it. I admire you for being there for your family, even after what they’ve put you through. But let me—”

“Jesus, I can’t, Bethany!”

He heard himself barking at the woman he loved. He heard the worst of who he could be coming out—parts of himself that he’d never wanted Bethany to see.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I can barely stand being here as it is. My parents are relentless, the both of them coming at me about how long I’ve been gone, and what they want from me now that I’m back. And all the while, all I can think about is—”

“Jeremy.” Bethany sounded like she was crying. “I get it.”

“No, you don’t.”

Mike winced, blocking out the image of his brother’s bedroom in their parents’ penthouse apartment, with every single one of Jeremy’s things still there. Livy hadn’t changed an inch of the space in ten years. It was the last of her firstborn’s life that she could cling to and say was hers.

“This is a toxic place for me,” Mike said. “I’m a different person when I’m here. That’s why I hardly ever come. And now . . .”

“You can’t leave.”

“And I can’t have you in the middle of it.”

He couldn’t watch any of this touch Bethany. He couldn’t watch her turn away from him because of the things he couldn’t keep from changing in himself. In what he’d wanted for them.

“I’m not Cowboy Bob when I’m in New York, Bethany. I’m not Mike Taylor or HMT. I’m Harrison and Olivia Taylor’s son, which comes with a shit ton of baggage that’s going to weigh me down for God knows how long.”

“The son who’s going to run far and wide as soon as he’s free of his parents’ world?”

Bethany’s anger was back as she jumped to the obvious conclusion. She felt suddenly like a dream that had been slipping away since the moment Mike had first taken her into his arms.

“Is that why you haven’t called?” she asked. “Is that what you’re trying to protect me from, while you tell me your family is the problem? When it’s
you
who thinks I shouldn’t be with you while you go through something this unimaginable. When it’s you who’s talking yourself into not being with me anymore—because it’s easier for you with me hundreds of miles away.”

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He knew it wasn’t what she needed to hear, but he hoped she could understand. “I want you with me every second of every day.”

“Just not while you’re hurting. I’m so good for you that for two days you’ve shut me out. And now I’m supposed to do what? Wait and see if you’ll want me back a few months from now?”

Mike rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hand. “Six months, her doctors are saying.”

“And after that? With me out of the picture, that clears the decks nicely for you to wander off somewhere else and lick your wounds. Anywhere you can tend bar or take pictures or help another stranger like Joe, and no one will expect you to stick around.”

Bethany’s voice was a whisper, her fear sucking away the last of the denial that had protected Mike since he’d lost his brother.

He’d been a coward for ten years, not hunkering down and making some kind of peace with his parents. With his own mistakes. With the shreds of his heart that he’d wanted to give to Bethany, and with her find a way to love again. He’d wanted to make her his home. Now he could feel the pressure building inside him—to break free and get as far away from everything as he could.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “I don’t want to ruin us. I swear I don’t. But I need time to work some things out.”

“By yourself.”

He tried to believe he wasn’t slamming the door shut on them completely. But he
wasn’t
certain where he’d wind up on the other side of his mother’s illness. And Bethany deserved better than that. Better than him—one more man promising to love her and then letting her down.

“I have to be here for my family,” he said. “And you need to be there, reconnecting with yours. But George will make sure you have everything you need at the loft.”

“Everything but you.”

And Mike wouldn’t have anything without Bethany.

“I’ll think about you every day,” he promised, when he knew he had no right to say something like that to her now. “I’ll wish I could see you with your family at your sister’s wedding. Or watch you paint. Or have you in my arms, smiling and making me feel more loved than I ever have. I really am sorry about this.”

“So sorry that you’re putting us on hold,” she said, “while you work out, all by yourself, whether there’s even going to be an
us
anymore.”

Bethany ended the call before he could tell her that he loved her.

Thursday afternoon, Bethany watched her dad’s new physical therapist work with Joe on the backyard patio.

“MedCare made it clear he’s just a substitute.” Marsha was watching, too, gazing through the kitchen window.

“An
indefinite
substitute,” Bethany corrected, her hand covering her heart as if she could hold back the hurt. “Because Mike hasn’t given them a return date.”

“This must be very hard for him.” Her mother rinsed the last of the dishes from the kids’ after-school snacks. The brood was in the living room or the dining room or upstairs now, doing homework. “Going through losing his mother, after what his family endured with his brother’s illness.”

“It is.”

And Bethany’s heart hurt for him, even though she hadn’t tried to reach him since Monday, and Mike hadn’t called her again.

“That man loves you.” Marsha started the dishwasher and dried her hands on an ancient dish towel. “I understand how the way he’s handling things is hard for you both. But—”

“I should hang in there?” Bethany shook her head. She snorted, furious with him. Scared for him. “He’s been talking to George about business practically every day.”

“The co-op’s manager?”

“She’s been great about me working in the studio. But I don’t think I can keep going down there, knowing she’s still in touch with him.”

“But you could be in touch with him, right? Call him, Bethany, if talking to Mike is what you really want.”

“So he can tell me again that staying away from me is in everyone’s best interest?” While all the things he’d promised they could be for each other disappeared, like so many other promises she’d let herself believe.

“You’ve spent a lot of time away from this family the last five years,” Marsha reminded her. “No one here believed that being on your own was what you really wanted.”

Bethany turned to the foster mother who’d never judged her for the mistakes she’d made. “I didn’t know what I wanted for a long time.”

Marsha folded the towel, smoothing out every wrinkle. “We were willing to wait for you to decide.”

“I worried you all so much.” Bethany had never realized
how
much, until she’d experienced Mike doing the same thing to her. “I treated you like an accessory I could just throw away because I didn’t want it anymore.”

“We trusted you to figure out what was important. And here you are.”

Bethany nodded, reliving the moment when the man she’d trusted had told her to stay away from him and his problems.

“How’s your painting coming?” Marsha asked. “The one you’re giving your dad and me for our anniversary.”

Bethany rolled her eyes. “Who told you?”

“It’s a small family.” Her mother smiled. “Actually, it’s a large family, which makes secrets even tougher to keep. We’re all dying to know what you’re doing in Mike’s studio.”

“Which is exactly why I’m not talking about it—with any of you.”

Her plans for the wedding had grown now, far beyond a single present for her parents. Thanks to Mike’s inspiration for how to kick-start her imagination, hours flew by each time she booted up his photography software. She couldn’t be with him, so she lost herself in the excitement of combining their work, nudging and cajoling and coaxing their collaborative pieces into reflecting how beautifully their lives could fit together. And when she wasn’t on the computer, she was painting.
Really
painting. And then taking photos of whatever progress she’d made, thinking . . .

Thinking that one day soon she’d show Mike the light and energy and passion for creating that he’d helped her rediscover. George had even downloaded Mike’s shots from his and Bethany’s night at the meadow. Their sunset over the pond. Each image was a vivid reminder of their worlds and hearts and dreams colliding, stunning them, forever changing things. Forever changing Bethany.

Her creative mojo was back, the excitement, the freedom of liking what she was doing and trusting that her art had its own mind and knew where it needed to go. She’d barely slept since Mike left. And when she did, she dreamed of him being there, creating beside her. Only to wake up to the reality that he might never return.