Million Dollar Road (42 page)

Con didn't say anything more and the unspoken hung there between them, thick with memory, heavy with the ghosts of pain, but there were no panicked wings in Emma's chest now, no jeering voices to distract her from this moment.

Finally, Emma took a quick sip of the scalding tea and asked, “And Lizzie?” Her tone was neutrally questioning. “What about your wife?” She couldn't help being curious, but she was also buying time, wanting to come to some kind of understanding of what that “you, only you,” might mean to her after all this time.

His elbows on the table, Con buried his face in his big-knuckled right hand and rubbed his eyes. “We've agreed to part,” he said quietly. “It wasn't working out.”

“That's a shame. What about . . .” Emma took a deep breath. “. . . the baby?”

Con shook his head. “I honestly don't know what's going to happen, but Liz has told me that it's not up to me anyway. I guess I'll find out soon enough.”

“I'm sorry,” Emma said simply.

“I am, too, I think. Before now, I don't know that I ever saw myself as a dad.”

No, Emma thought. Their baby had never been as real to him as it had been to her.

“And Lireinne?” she asked. She needed to learn this, too. “What happened with that?”

“You know about her?” Con looked up from his hand, his eyes surprised.

“Yes.” Emma didn't explain how. Her brief time with Lireinne, her new relationship with Bud—she didn't owe Con any of this.

“Lireinne. Well, yeah.” He sighed heavily. “There was nothing there, never was.” Con avoided her eyes. “I was an idiot, okay? But now I know,” he said, almost too low for her to hear him. “Now I know I never stopped loving
you
. Not for an instant.” Con's eyes, his beloved eyes, the color of the sea at dawn, were glistening wet. “It's been a kind of hell for me lately, but I've always needed . . . you. Just you.”

How long? Emma wondered. How long had she waited, praying to hear him say that? How long had she wandered through her days, lost without his smile, his generous spirit, his easy laugh that had lightened and lifted her? Con was so beautiful to her still, anchored so deeply in her heart, that before this instant Emma could never have imagined saying what she said to him next.

“I can't, Con.” Ah, the regret in those words.

Con's face collapsed, a tear slipping free to his cheek. He dashed it with the back of his hand. “Em, please. It's true I hurt you, but you could forgive me. We could go back to the way we were. I know we can.”

Emma reached across the table and wrapped his scarred left hand in both of hers. “I can't do it, I can't. I'm not the lonely girl you left, and I'm not the adoring girl who loved you, blind and heedless, for so many years. Not anymore. It's been hell for me, too, but that hell changed me. I've become a woman with a wiser heart. I'm responsible for my own life. I've learned how to be happy at last. No, there's no going back to what we were. I can't be with you again, not like that.”

“I don't understand. What do you mean? What can you be to me if you can't be
with
me?” Con's questions revealed such desperation that Emma ached inside for him.

She thought for a moment, pondering how to answer him. “Something like . . . a friend?” she offered.

Con withdrew his hand. “You're telling me you want to be
friends
? That's it?” He barked a bitter, disbelieving laugh. “Hell, it's just one goddamned irony after another. Since the divorce, all I wanted was your friendship, but that's the last thing I want now. Friendship would be . . . bullshit! No one's ever loved me the way you did, no one. I want your
love,
Emma.” He grimaced at his left hand. “You asked what they'd done to me. Nobody did any of this to me but myself—okay, I know that's true, but I've got to have your love if I'm ever going to heal.”

“You'll always have it.” Emma found her own eyes welling with tears for him. “You're a part of my heart. How can I not love you? I'm still breathing, aren't I?” She brushed at the wet tracks on her cheek. “But I'm not the same person anymore, and you say you've changed, too. So . . . we'll have to love again the best we can—being friends, caring, wanting only the very best for each other.”

“Yeah, right.” Con's voice was leaden. “Be honest. There's someone else, isn't there.”

Of course he'd think that. Con wouldn't be able to imagine any woman deciding all on her own to get over him. Dry-eyed now, Emma thought of Bud and suppressed a smile. Well, maybe she'd had a little help. Maybe a lot.

“That's not why,” she said, her voice even. “We've outgrown what was left of us like a, a . . . swallowtail outgrows its chrysalis. We're here talking to each other, really talking at last. It's a good place to start, isn't it? We can do this.”

Be here now
. That New Agey advice had been slow to bear fruit, yes, seemingly fallow and empty for so long, but deep underground it had set roots, found its way up into the light, and bloomed at last. This newness between her and Con was as “here” as it could get, Emma thought, nodding in recognition of that truth.

“But I
need
you!”

Con's outburst blazed like a kitchen fire. It banished ghosts and echoes and her inward reflections, seeming to render the air in the room almost too hot to breathe. But tempered to searing heat in a restaurant kitchen, Emma waited. This was her time. For long seconds, Con's furious, wounded eyes scorched her from across the table, but then the fires in them flickered, and then they went out. He slumped in his chair.

“And you don't need me,” Con said then, a note of discouraged wonder in his voice. He studied her. “Not anymore.”

“Yes.” Emma was tempted to tell him again that she'd always love him, but she didn't. This was a moment of real honesty and she meant to give it full weight, to honor it.

“So,” Con said, with a tired sigh. “I guess I don't get a choice—again. It's going to be this friendship thing or nothing.”

Emma smiled at his fatalism. “It's going to be good between us, Con. Just different.”

Con's return smile was sardonic. “Oh, it'll be different, all right. You know, it's damned odd. Just a couple of days ago, I began to learn what it's like, being friends with a woman. I think . . . I think I'm almost good with that, but it's still really new to me. I'll probably suck at being friends, but please be patient. Don't give up on me.”

“Never.”

“Thanks for that.” Con was quiet, his sardonic smile fading. “Oh, Em,” he said, his voice low and passionate. “
You
. You were always wiser than I am. I should trust you, of all people. Even though I can't imagine being only your friend, I've got to believe that you've got this right.” Con took a sober sip of his tea.

“I hope so,” Emma said, although there was no doubt about it, not to her.

“But I will always, always love you. You can't make me stop.” To her startlement, Con caught Emma's hand and pressed his lips to her wrist for a long moment.

And for that moment, just that one moment, it was as though the lost years between had never happened.

 

The rain had ceased when Emma walked Con to his car, but the evening air was still damp. The night had turned windy and cold.

“Be sure to get into some dry clothes as soon as you get home,” she told him. She rested her hand on the wet sleeve of his leather jacket. “This is going to need to go to the dry cleaners.”

Nodding, Con opened the door to the Lexus. “Got it—dry clothes, dry cleaners. Um, when can I see you again?”

Emma took her time, thinking about that. Con said hastily, “Don't worry. Nothing more than lunch, maybe, but I want to catch up, get started on the friend thing.” He hesitated, visibly struggling to find the words to say something more.

“So . . . when can I call you?” he pressed.

Emma had to smile at his insistence. Con would always be Con, after all—a vital creature, impatient, single-minded, and relentless in the pursuit of whatever he desired. “I think I'd rather call you, but it won't be long. We'll do it soon.”

“That would be good.” His hand on the door to the Lexus, Con paused again, his eyes not leaving hers, as if he could hold her there with his gaze. Emma's return gaze was steady, waiting. Time slowed, and in that time, in that place, gradually it seemed that Con himself found something like acceptance. He turned from her and opened the door, fitting his tall frame into the front seat.

“Love you, Em.” Con's voice was almost too quiet for her to hear him. He pulled the door shut then, and the Lexus, absent of music, drove away from the house, its taillights glowing red, dwindling until they vanished around the bend in the road and were gone.

“And I you,” Emma said softly to the listening night.

But through the open front door the light was falling like a shining beacon across a dark shore, calling her back inside the house and out of the wind. With a last glance at the empty road, shivering, Emma hurried up the front steps onto the porch, into her warm home, to her kitchen where she'd make the pastry and peel the apples for a tart.

Bud and Wolf would be coming in an hour, and they'd be hungry.

M
ung bean sprouts, a big package of bright green baby spinach, asparagus out of season.

This Saturday morning in December, Lizzie had exhausted Maestri's produce department for sources of fresh folate, a nutrient her obstetrician had insisted she incorporate into her diet.

“Prenatal vitamins are good, but there's nothing like the real deal, Mrs. Costello. Eat your greens.”

She could have picked up a mess of collards, too, but Liz drew the line at sandy bunches of field greens that required so much damned washing, chopping, and shredding it wore her out just to think about it. Lizzie had learned to pick her battles. She might still need to cook from time to time, but nowadays it didn't seem like the chore it had been, especially since she'd discovered that Skip didn't give a damn whether he ate at home or went out. To him, food was just another part of life, and Liz had happily concurred. If it weren't for the baby, she'd be content with only the power smoothies he whomped up for her in the blender every day for breakfast—strawberries, yogurt, bananas, and whey powder.

Lizzie smiled, thinking of Skip this morning. They'd woken at the same time, rolling toward each other in the bed. Skip had pulled her close. His eyes were sleepy and half-open but his kiss was warm, lingering on her lips.

“Morning, gorgeous. How're you feeling?” he asked. He always asked. Better, he always listened.

“Good.” But the answer really should have been
lucky
. After all the years of longing to be adored, to be the only one, Liz was astounded at her good fortune to have found this man, this lover who'd unswervingly put her first in his heart. Skip made her feel beautiful, precious, and rare. To her delight, he even seemed to like how she looked at this point in her pregnancy—rounder all over, the swell of her belly more than merely noticeable now.

While not exactly into maternity clothes yet, Lizzie's waistline was growing apace and soon she'd be reduced to wearing baggy tops and sweatpants. She didn't mind this as much as she'd been sure she would. Her skin was glowing, she felt more full of her old restless energy than she'd experienced in years, and Skip told her every day she was the most perfect woman in the world. Besides, the bulk of the remaining months of her pregnancy was going to be during the winter and early spring: when summer rolled around, Liz planned to have shed the baby weight in time for swimsuit season. They could take the baby to the beach in June. With a secret smile, she dropped an outrageously expensive carton of strawberries from Mexico into her cart.

Skip loved strawberries.

Done in the produce department, she was wheeling her grocery cart around the corner to the meat section to pick up some salmon fillets (an excellent source of Omega-3 nutrients), when Lizzie spotted a familiar figure shopping at the cold case.

Con.

Hell
. She hadn't seen or spoken to him in months, leaving the necessary correspondence to her lawyer so she wouldn't have to talk to him at all. Why did he have to be here, at Maestri's, today of all days?

Disconcerted but immediately on guard and ready to join the battle, Liz stopped dead in her tracks and the shopper following too closely behind her almost ran a buggy into her motionless back.

“Excuse
me
.” The indignant older woman, wide as an oil tanker and decked out in a hideous Christmas sweater of red and green reindeer prancing across a starry maroon sky, swerved her cart around Liz as though she were an inconsiderately parked vehicle.

But Lizzie didn't notice because Con had just looked up from the selection of rib eyes, Porterhouses, and T-bones. She held her breath as he put his plastic-wrapped foam tray of meat back in the cold case, his eyes holding hers all the while. He raised an eyebrow and gave her a half-smile.

Why hadn't she done the grocery shopping yesterday? Son-of-a-bitch, Liz fumed. He was walking toward her right this minute. Lizzie resisted the impulse to turn her cart around, head back into the produce section, and pretend she hadn't seen him. It was too late for that anyway, and besides, she'd wash bushels of collard greens before she'd run away from this confrontation, Liz thought hotly.

“Lizzie,” Con said, his voice warm and confident. “It's been a while. I'd been hoping to run into you before this.”

Donning her chilliest demeanor, Lizzie narrowed her eyes in a frigid scowl. “Why?” she blustered. “It's not like there's anything else to say to each other. Whatever it is you think you need to tell me, you can tell my attorney instead. I don't want to have to get a restraining order.”

To her irritation, Con seemed surprised. “That sounds a little uncivilized, Liz.”

Lizzie arched a haughty eyebrow. “You're the one who hired Edith Gillette to represent you. If you wanted to be civilized, then you sure picked the wrong lawyer. She's a real
bitch
.”

“That she is,” Con agreed. “But Jerry Soames is a real bastard, so we're evenly matched. That's not what I wanted to talk to you about, though.”

“What, then?” she demanded. Anything to terminate this odious conversation.

“I hear that you and Skip are moving to New Orleans. That could be something of an issue, Liz.”

Oh, that.

A big Uptown plastic surgery practice had made Skip an offer, asking him to join their overburdened group. It would mean a big jump up from his already more than comfortable income, and Lizzie was currently looking for a house for the two of them in the Garden District, something with a pool and a yard big enough for the trampoline. It was going to be absolutely great to get out of Covington. There were too many people here with too many opinions about her and Skip's moving in with each other so soon, their decision to have the baby and raise her together. Lizzie was looking forward to a fresh start in New Orleans, a welcome change from this provincial backwater. She'd easily find work there after the baby was born, and the schools were much, much better than here on the north shore of the lake.

Wasn't it just like Con to try to stick his nose in her business? Wouldn't he ever learn he wasn't welcome anymore?

“And why is that an issue?” Liz lifted her chin and made an impatient, dismissive gesture, but she knew why: Con's lawyer had made it aggressively clear that Con expected to be a part of her baby's life, that he was going to be an
engaged
father or some crap like that. Lizzie wouldn't tolerate any resistance to her plans. She sure as hell wasn't going to let Con Costello dictate where she and Skip were going to live. “You can take the move up with Jerry,” she said, her tone lofty, “if it's such a big deal to you.”

Con didn't rise to the bait, though. “I'm not going to make trouble for you,” he said. He ran his fingers through his hair, his expression thoughtful. “But we'll need to be on speaking terms at least. We're both going to be raising our kid for years to come.”

“Daughter,” Liz corrected him automatically.

“Daughter?”

Okay, it wasn't like it was some kind of dark secret, and Con would have had to know sooner or later. “The sonogram, you know. I'm having a girl.”

Con's handsome face came alight with pleasure. “That's great,” he said, his voice softening. “I love girls.”

“I know you do,” Liz said acidly.

Con flinched. “I guess I deserve that, but c'mon, Liz. You don't have to forgive me, but we could try to be nicer to each other. Believe it or not, I've kept Edith on a short leash so you and Skip can get married as soon as possible. I haven't insisted that you sell the house, or asked you to split the proceeds with me. I don't plan on making myself a fixture in your home, but I want—no, I
need
to be a part of our little girl's life.”

“I don't care what you need.”

“I really do need this though. Badly.” Con's blue-eyed gaze was earnest.

Lizzie's curiosity overcame her better judgment. “Why?” she asked. “What's the big deal? Why
now
? Why couldn't you have been a, a . . .”

“Faithful husband?” Con finished for her.

He looked away, over at a stacked tower of canned Spanish tuna fish in olive oil, and blew a long, perplexed-sounding breath through his lips before he returned his gaze to her. He shrugged awkwardly, as though she'd asked him to explain quantum physics in ten words or less.

“I don't know,” Con admitted. “I honestly don't know. Maybe it's a consequence of having grown up with nothing, so poor I never seemed to have enough of anything. Shoes that fit, a bed of my own. Even food. But it's like once I got out of there, I had to have it
all
. The job, the wives, the money. The girlfriends were just a part of it. Don't get me wrong—of course everybody's got a past to deal with, but mine has always been with me. All that . . .
hunger,
that appetite. I guess I could never say no to it.”

Lizzie was too stunned to be angry. “That's it? You were hungry?”

Con nodded, his mouth wry. “Yup, that's pretty much it. I just got over a pretty healthy Vicodin addiction, so I've had a lot of sober time on my hands to think—what's left of them, anyway.”

Liz's eyes dropped at the mention of his hand, but both of them were shoved in his pants' pockets. Con smiled a faint smile.

“Still getting used to that,” he said. “You don't want to have a look, do you?”

Liz shook her head. She didn't need to feel sorry for Con Costello: he already felt plenty sorry enough for himself.

Appetite indeed.

“Will you think it over, at least?” Con asked. “Trying to find the best way to be parents to her together, I mean? I can't stand the thought of having to do this through the courts. She doesn't deserve that.”

Much to her surprise, Lizzie found herself nodding. “Oh, all right. I'll try,” she said, grudgingly thinking that, even though she hated to concede the point, he was probably right. All the parenting books she'd read had insisted that divorced parents needed to at least pretend to get along, unless they wanted to raise neurotic children. Lizzie didn't want a neurotic child.

“
You
could begin by telling Edith to back off,” Liz countered. “You really don't want to name Skip as a correspondent. I don't want to have to drag that idiot girl, that Jennifer, into court, but I will if I have to. Don't think I won't.”

Con shook his head, looking chagrined. “Damn. I told Edith to let that correspondent crap go. I never wanted to do anything like that anyway. I'm sorry, Liz. I'll see to it in the morning, first thing.”

“Thank you.”

An unusual quiet fell between Con and Lizzie while the steady flow of Maestri's credit-card-bearing customers parted around them like a river in flood, grabbing up rib roasts from Idaho and New Zealand lamb chops, Italian sausages and Texas-bred free-range chickens, wines from Bordeaux and Chile, tomatoes ripened in Florida hothouses, peaches and apricots and plums grown in California far to the west, blood oranges from Israel, almonds from Morocco, pecans from Georgia, and chestnuts from France—these and a thousand other things upon things shipped from the world over, part of the oceans of commerce destined to feed a vast, grinding hunger for something more.

Always, something more.