Let Me Love You Again (An Echoes of the Heart Novel Book 2) (8 page)

“Let me go, Travis. Seriously.”

“Not until I’m done ruining both our mornings. We’re settling a few things.”

Travis, biceps bulging beneath the short sleeves of his uniform, hustled Oliver down a hallway a sign said led to the cafeteria. People were staring.

“I asked Brad to wait for us,” Travis continued. “You two are going to have it out before you spend another moment with Mom.
Before
you see Dru. I’ll contain the carnage, enough to keep your ass out of jail this time. But you’re giving him the benefit of the doubt, or I’m throwing you in a cell myself.”

“There’s nothing to have out.” Oliver yanked his arm free, but he kept walking.

“That’s right. You both got on with your lives. You
both
learned everything the hard way. And what does any of it matter
now? We’ve all made peace with the crap we pulled when we were kids. The rest is holding a grudge, Oliver, and nobody needs that from you.”

“So?”

“So talk to the guy, without looking like you wanna have his spleen for dinner.”

Oliver treated his brother to an under-his-breath, anatomically impossible suggestion. “I’m just as sick over Dad as you are.”

“I know that. Brad’s worried, too. So let’s get this out of the way, so everyone can focus on what Joe and Marsha need.”

Oliver marched down beige corridors washed with the kind of fluorescent lighting that seemed manufactured to effect maximum gloom. They cornered into the cafeteria and were assaulted with skylights. People. Ambient noise. Oliver squinted through his growing migraine.

Brad was at a just-this-side-of-shabby table, in a corner where he sat with his back to the wall. The rest of the room was packed with a fast-eating lunch crowd. Doctors, nurses, visitors of patients. Groups talking with hushed intensity.

Brad watched Travis and Oliver settle across from him. His resigned expression had taken a definite tilt toward pissed. He was expecting a fight. Maybe he was looking for one.

“I don’t give a shit,” Oliver said straight off. “About you and Selena and seven years ago. I did.” His hand clenched into a fist on top of the wobbly table. “I still do, I guess. And let’s be clear, I’ll knock you from here to next Tuesday if you do anything to hurt Dru again. But I figure she’s a grown woman. She knows what she’s getting into. If you weren’t one hundred percent into her this time, she’d have stomped you into the dirt when you came sniffing at her again.”

Travis’s chuckle loosened some of the tightness between Oliver’s shoulder blades.

Brad scratched behind his ear and stretched his legs under the table. “Your sister did a fine job stomping on me herself when I first got back to town.”

Oliver was cheered by the image. “Go, Dru.”

“But I couldn’t let her slip away again.”

“Obviously.”

“She still gives me hell on a regular basis if that sweetens the deal for you.”

It did. Not that Oliver cared to admit it. “You and my sister fighting like a married couple already doesn’t square things between us. But I haven’t been part of this family in a long time. If they want you here, at the house, wherever, then be there. Be there for Dru. Don’t hurt her again, and you won’t have a problem with me.”

“I care about your mom and dad.” Brad braced his forearms on the table. “I care about your whole family. And I couldn’t live without your sister in my life.”

“He makes Dru happy,” Travis said. “Brad’s grandmother was the first to guess how much Dru was still stuck on him. Vi made sure Dru had one last chance to realize it herself. Stick around long enough and you’ll see it, too.”

Oliver stood. He got it. Dru and Brad were tight. No harm, no foul. All better. Except while Brad and Travis talked about second chances, images of Selena’s face kept flashing through Oliver’s mind.

“I’m sorry to hear about Vivian.” He had genuinely liked Brad’s cantankerous grandmother. She’d been a nice old lady, if you liked them brutally honest and loyal to the bone. “She was a real dame.”

“Thank you.” Brad stared at Oliver.

Meanwhile, Oliver couldn’t seem to get moving. He caught his brother checking his phone. Travis shook his head. No update yet from Marsha. Oliver dug into his pocket for his truck keys, then remembered his brother had driven them over. Travis’s raised eyebrow confirmed that Oliver wasn’t going anywhere just yet. Oliver threw himself back into his chair.

Brad had grabbed coffee. He took a long sip from a foam cup. Oliver’s mouth watered. Brad had always drunk the stuff black as sin, wicked strong. Exactly the way Oliver liked it. Except he’d cut all stimulants out of his life and made a commitment to keep it that way.

“You need a line on a local meeting?” Brad asked.

Oliver strummed his fingers on the table, letting the subtext of the question sink in. “Excuse me?”

Brad shrugged. “Sisters talk, man. You’re back. Dru’s worried about you sticking with your program. I’m saving her the angst of asking you herself later.”

Oliver’s threats to pound on Travis held new appeal.

He owed his brother big time. He’d called Travis eighteen months ago for help, and Travis hadn’t blinked before using his local contacts to muscle Oliver last-minute into a top Atlanta rehab facility. But they’d agreed to keep that and the outpatient counseling Oliver had completed afterward between themselves. Oliver was taking care of himself again. He was following the guidelines of his program—eat better, no stimulants, try to sleep more and work less, let go of the past and focus on what he could accomplish today and why it was important to stay clean.

There’d been no sense in worrying their folks or anyone else over Oliver landing in rehab after nearly blowing a project for a top client. There was definitely no reason for it to be a topic of conversation now with Brad or Dru or anyone else.

“Evidently,” Oliver said to his brother, “sisters aren’t the only ones who talk.”

“It’s barely been a year and a half, man.” Travis plunked his smartphone down, display up. “I thought maybe Dru would see you more. I asked her to let me know if she noticed anything we should be worried about, assuming you stayed in town for a while. Now that you are, there’s a solid local meeting I can hook you up with if you need one. I know a couple of guys who go, good men. Friends who’d keep an eye out for you.”

Brad and Travis calmly waited for Oliver to respond, as if they were talking about where he should gas up his truck.

The Three Musketeers.

Together again.

“Who else knows?” Oliver asked.

“No one.” His brother shook his head. “But I don’t see the point in keeping it a secret. No one’s going to judge you. But if keeping quiet about the fact that you’ve finally laid your demons to rest is what you want, I’ve got no problem with it. As long as being back doesn’t mess with your sobriety.”

Oliver thought of his dad upstairs, Marsha’s reaction to Kask just now, Selena running from facing all of them, his reaction to seeing her . . . There seemed to be demons everywhere he looked. He shifted gears, glaring at Brad.

“Hey,” Brad said, “I’m not talking.”

“Except to my sister.”

“She told me.”

“Because,” Travis said to Oliver, “she’s worried about your ass.”

“We all are,” Brad added. “This would be a lot for me to take in all at once.”

“This?” Oliver asked. “What the hell do either of you know about it?”

“We know family hasn’t been an easy thing for you to be close to for a long time,” his brother said. “So go to a meeting, man, if that’s what you need to do.”

“I need . . .” Oliver wished to hell he knew. He pushed out of his chair. “I need to get back upstairs and hear what the doctor’s saying to Joe.”

“So you can barge in on our parents looking half-crazed?” Travis asked.

Brad eased deeper in his chair. “You’re not going to dump your problems on your parents. Sit back down and get yourself together.”

Oliver sat, his brother and former friend’s support an unwanted comfort. And as unsettling as watching Selena bolt as if loving Oliver was the worst mistake of her life.

“Thanks.” He exhaled a razor-sharp breath.

Brad nodded. “The doctor’s talking with your parents?”

“Surgery.” Travis grabbed Brad’s coffee. He shot it back and grimaced like it was two fingers of bourbon. “We don’t know what type or when. All Kask said was soon.”

Chapter Six

“How can I help you today?” Ginger Reid Jenkins asked Selena. Her attention dropped to Camille, whom she flashed an indulgent smile. “Aren’t you just the cutest thing? And the spitting image of your mama when she wasn’t much older.”

“Except my eyes are lighter.” Camille preened. “I get new shoes, ’cause my feet are getting too big for my old ones, and Grammy says I need good ones, and I should get them here, ’cause yours won’t wear out as fast as the ones from Walmart.”

“Sometimes it’s better,” Ginger agreed, “to spend just a little more for something you want to last.”

She gave Selena a wink. The more than causal interest lighting Ginger’s eyes hinted that the rumors about Selena’s current financial straits had made the rounds to her old classmate.

“We’ve got some real nice things on sale,” Ginger said to Camille, “that I think your mommy and grammy will love. We’re making room for the summer trends. A pretty good selection of sizes, too.” She pointed to the back corner of the Neat Feet boutique that occupied the same Main Street address as it always had. “Go check them out while I catch up with your mom.”

With a nod from Selena, Camille took off toward the colorful display. The sale wall was in the same place as always, decorated today like a spring garden. Each flower sported a shoe atop its cheery green stem. As a child, Neat Feet displays had been Selena’s favorite part of each visit to the store. That and the fact that buying good shoes, even for growing feet, was one of the few things Belinda never scrimped on when she’d made her quarterly budget. And every time she’d brought Selena to the boutique, Ginger’s father had treated Selena like a princess—no matter that sale wall shoes were the only ones Belinda would let Selena choose from.

“It’s crazy,” Selena mused while Camille inspected each blossom. “It feels like just yesterday that I wanted one of everything in this place. Your parents had a knack for making you believe that pretty shoes you can’t afford can magically make your life better.”

Ginger’s attention snapped up from eyeing Selena’s tragically muddied silk flats. Her smile didn’t waver, but some of its soft-sell sparkle dimmed.

“What are you in the market for?” she asked, tactful if curt. “So we can be sure to get your little one exactly what she needs.”

“I’m sorry.” Selena cringed at her rudeness for the second time that day.

It was a sore spot, that she’d let herself dream that everything really would be okay, just because she’d met a successful businessman in New York who could buy her and her daughter all the pretty things that Selena and Belinda had never been able to afford. But comparing the master salesman Ginger’s dad had been to the soulless man Selena married was horribly unfair.

“I swear,” she said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It was a long day before I even left the house this morning, and
things went downhill from there. Belinda’s supposed to meet us here, but she’s late. And I’m afraid I’m too distracted to be good company. I’ve always loved being here—your parents made coming to Neat Feet feel better than going to a candy store. I couldn’t believe it was still around when Belinda first mentioned it. It looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. How are your mom and dad doing?”

Ginger ducked her chin. A lock of hair fell to half cover her face the way Selena remembered happening a lot when they’d first met in third grade. Mrs. Shultz would always ask Ginger questions in front of the class, and Ginger would get so shy and tongue-tied she’d look down at her desk, hiding behind her hair, until their teacher moved on to someone else.

Suddenly—too late—Selena remembered a snippet of gossip her mother had shared about Lizzy Reid, who was a member of Belinda’s garden club. Lizzy had missed most of this year’s meetings because her husband had advancing ALS.