All the Way Page 23

  Blake took her chin in his hands. “Layla, I want you more than I want anything, but those are just words, I guess. Nothing I say will be enough to rise above the past—your past. Why do you assume every guy is going to let you down?”

  She bristled under the accusation, which touched a little too close to the truth. “I don’t,” she countered with false conviction.

  He leaned closer, their mouths an inch apart. The heat of his frustration emanated from his body. She felt it all through her, instigating, arousing.

  He persisted despite her refute. “So you set up a test. If he passes, you set up another one, and another, until finally there’s an obstacle that makes him stumble—then out he goes. Another failure.”

  Her nostrils flared. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m telling you that I’m not perfect . There will be times when I disappoint you. I won’t mean to, but I’m a normal human being who makes mistakes. Yes, last year when I left you, I made a mistake. Huge. Something I’ll regret forever.”

  Fiery orange light from the window was suddenly whisked away. The sun had set. A lavender hush fell over the room, the bed, her heart.

  “What you said before—you’re right. Last year I screwed up. I didn’t mean to, it just happened while I was trying to make things right again.”

  Layla watched the shadows deepen and shift across his face. He seemed to be digging for the right words to convey the conviction behind his poignant, personal truths.

  “I want to be what you need, Layla. I can try, but I can’t be everything all the time. I’m just a guy who’s trying to do the right thing to win back the woman he lost his heart to a year ago.” His voice cut off abruptly, a flash of agony twisting his features. “I haven’t felt right since.”

  Of its own volition her hand uncurled to cup his cheek.

  His bristle lightly scraped her palm. “I’m not perfect. I’ll make mistakes. You can’t throw them all back in my face. Layla, I can’t replace Kenny.”

  The shocking truth drove the air from her lungs. Kenny had represented everything she’d ever wanted. Had she been so caught up in searching for the perfect replication of him that she’d set the bar too high? All this time, she had been looking for a replacement for Kenny. She had missed the amazing gifts in the man right in front of her. She looked up into Blake’s poignant stare and felt something rare, incredible. He understands me .

  His voice lowered solemnly. “I can’t make up for the past. But I can be here now. I can stand beside you, and try to be the man you can trust and depend on.”

  “I want to believe in you. I know I can,” she whispered, the words dripping from her heart as it squeezed with hope.

  “It’s up to you, Layla, but you’ll have to take me as I am.” A glow of emotion filled his eyes as if his spirit lit them from behind. “A man who would give anything to be with you.”

  His lips closed when the echo of his words faded in the room. He left the bed.

  Layla remained stock still. Her comfort zones had been annihilated. An avalanche of suppressed emotion cascaded through her. Rattling her to her core, it all settled in a heap at the base of her heart. Past expectations crumbled, making room for something brand new.

  Reawakening to her senses, all she heard was stillness. Silence.

  Blake had left her alone on the bed. He moved away from her toward the door.

  At the sight of his back turned, her throat closed. Her lungs surged, but she couldn’t draw in air. Like a person trapped underwater.

  Then he closed the door. A quiet sound that echoed hollowly inside her like the final closing of a tomb.

  Layla’s ribs flexed. Her chest threatened to burst with unmet need.

  At last, she felt her heart creak open.

  Blake, don’t go. I need you.

  The flame within her heart burned past her fears. Taking their place was a startling sensation of openness, of trust and possibly a new beginning.

  In order to trust Blake, she had to trust herself first. Layla didn’t need a recreation of the past. She needed a partner in the present.

  Recognition filled whatever cracks remained in her heart. She needed Blake.

  *

  Blake looked up at the sky. The last vestiges of daylight edged the horizon like lavender lace trimming the navy blue curtain of night. He inhaled the scent of dew beading on fresh-cut grass, while a chorus of night sounds orchestrating the background music to his reverie.

  A striking contrast to his mood. Although the darkness reflected his thoughts well enough.

  Embraced by this incredible night—so full, crammed with stardust, sounds and scents—his soul echoed back only emptiness.

  His gaze drifted up from the last fragile wisps of day lingering along the horizon to the stars, a mesmerizing dazzle, a million points of light glittering with distant mystery. No moon competed with their captivating display tonight.

  Blake stared at the extravagant profusion of stars as his reverent gaze swept the heavens. He probably had enough wishes to hang on each one.

  But useless hopes fastened on faraway lights wouldn’t bring him love.

  Still, the wishes gathered, collected inside him. They pricked at the very backs of his eyes, finally clogged his throat. If not for the loss pressing on his chest, this would’ve been the perfect summer evening. Attempting to overcome hope’s futility, he murmured, “What an amazing night.”

  “It is now that you’re here,” a voice cooed behind him.

  He turned and forced a smile. “Carolyn.”

  She approached him, stood at his side and handed him a bottle of beer from a local Wisconsin brewery. He tipped his head back and took a swig from the bottle, slick with condensation. It went down smooth and left a strong, comforting wheat aftertaste.

  Carolyn looked up at him. “She’s the one, isn’t she? The one you told me about last year.”

  His smile waned. “What tipped you off, our endless arguing?”

  Carolyn shook her head. “I can tell by the way you look at her. You’re in love with her, aren’t you? Still.”

  Taking a long drink to dispatch the clog in his throat, he wiped foam from his mouth and stared at the horizon. “I guess it’s obvious, huh?”

  “Completely. So why are you standing out here alone? You should be with her.”

  Blake frowned. His whole body echoed the droop of his lips, shoulders slumped, arms slack at his sides. “I would be. Except she doesn’t want me.”

  Carolyn threw him a startled look. “Why would you say that?”

  “She’s made it obvious she’s not ready to trust a man. I can’t be what she needs.”

  “Is that what you think? I’m curious, then. What were you two arguing about?”

  “The usual. How I did something to screw things up. But I can’t help that I’m a sexual man who adores women, and I’m not going to apologize for my past.”

  “Ah. So she was jealous that we were lovers.”

  Blake nodded in glum response, his slump deepening as if bearing the load of rejection. “She accused me of abandoning her, coming here and sleeping with you last year, after she and I had our falling out.”

  “You told her the truth, though, right?”

  “I tried, but it’s like she already had her mind made up from the start—maybe before our relationship even began—that I’d disappointment her. Giving her an excuse to push me away so I couldn’t come close enough to break her heart.”

  “That’s easy to understand,” Carolyn murmured.

  Blake’s brows drew together. “I wish she knew…I’d do anything to protect her, and her heart. Maybe I’m not perfect, but I’d offer her everything I have in my power to give.”

  “And she’s obviously accepted. Otherwise she wouldn’t be so protective of you.”

  He turned and blinked at Carolyn. “Huh?”

  Sighing, she shook her head. “Don’t you understand anything about women?”

  “Evidently not,” he muttered.


  “She was jealous. Madly jealous. You should be doing a victory dance, not moping around my backyard.”

  Blake scratched his neck. “Um, I’m not sure I get it.”

  She pushed at his shoulder. “You big dumb lug. She’s smitten with you!”

  “She is?” His expression went from curious to blank. “Since when?”

  “At least since you two walked into the B and B. The way she looked at you, and then the way you looked at her, I figured my mother and I would have to air out the honeymoon suite.”

  “Seriously?”

  Carolyn rolled her eyes. “You two are the most oblivious, in-love couple I’ve ever seen. Layla feels hurt because she believes she’s being threatened. People don’t feel threatened unless they believe they’re losing something valuable, something worth fighting for. That’s the foundation of your argument. Not indifference. She’s probably falling in love with you and she’s scared to lose. That’s all.”

  He looked at Carolyn like she’d rattled off some scientific conversion requiring the highest forms of calculus to decipher. “How am I expected to figure that out?”

  “Trial and error, I guess.”

  “Great,” he mumbled. “Well, I’ve got the error stuff down pat. Now if I could only get her to give me a second chance at the trial part.”

  “If she’s jealous over you, it sounds to me like you’ve already won that chance.”

  “You don’t know Layla. She’ll want me to jump through ten more hoops before I get close enough for further consideration.” He scraped a hand through his hair.

  The homey creak of hinges, followed by the light slap of the screen door shutting, drifted from the front of the house.

  At the sound, Carolyn eyed Blake. “Would you be willing to jump through one more hoop?”

  Blake exhaled, his lips tipped with a self-deprecating smile. “Always. She’s a part of me, in here.” He tapped the center of his chest. “I think it’s a permanent affliction.”

  “Then one more hoop won’t be so bad. Go to her, Blake. You deserve to find happiness in love. Even if it isn’t with me.”

  “You’ll find the right one someday,” he assured, looking at her with affection. “Hell, if I can, every lonely soul in the world should be overcome with hope.”

  “Maybe someday,” she replied, nodding wistfully. Then she nudged him away from the brick patio, toward the front of the house.

  When she smiled encouragement, her eyes sparkled gently, reminding him of stardust. With great respect and sincerity, he said, “Thank you, Carolyn. My best to you and your mother.”

  With a nod of acceptance, she did as he’d done, looked off toward the horizon as if willing some distant vision to come close enough to touch. Her eyes settled on some implacable point that made her smile.

  She whispered, “Goodbye, Blake.”

  Chapter 19

  Layla squeezed the last droplets of water clinging to the ends of her hair. A breeze drifted past to help dry the strands, still damp from her shower. Feeling refreshed and reflective, she discovered a hammock sloping between two trees at the side of the house and sank into it. She leaned back, tested its strength, then sank into its cradling net.

  Beyond the fascination of looking up through the dark latticework of leaves, taking in the full stretch of the Milky Way skimming across the sky, she felt conspicuous swaying alone beneath the stars. Like something was missing. Someone.

  She’d searched every room in the house for Blake. Then she checked for his motorcycle in the drive and found it gone. He must’ve gone for a ride, to clear his head like he’d done last night at the motel when the sounds of lovemaking pounded at them from the other side of the wall.

  Layla had wanted him to take her last night with the same anguished lust-wish as she’d resisted half an hour ago when he’d hovered over her, dominating, forcing her attention in a way he’d never done before. And, oh, how her body had responded.

  She’d wanted Blake to pin her beneath him, her wrists grasped in one of his strong hands, while his other hand coaxed her into a willing surrender. She’d wanted to surrender herself to him in so many ways, physically, sexually, most of all emotionally.

  But she’d been blinded by the lightening-bright jealousy that had scored her insides, her heart pounding like thunder at the thought of Blake with another woman last year when he should’ve been with her.

  The thought still struck her deeply, lashed so violently that her defenses erupted to guard against the treacherous new feeling. She tried to tamp them back down.

  One thing she could always count on from Blake—he never failed to push her boundaries at every level. That’s why he was the right man for her, even if her confused heart still resisted surrender.

  Finally she understood the truth that whispered from her heart. That love was more important than anything else. It ran through her, the deepest current of life, so sacred it defied proof or explanation.

  That’s what Kenny had taught her, at his family reunion weekend the summer Layla had turned thirteen, when innocence still rang through every note in her voice and love could conquer all bad things. Even boogiemen waiting outside their tent, which had been propped in a clearing at the edge of some woods. Their tent sat in a row beside ten others, in the freshly mowed field on his family’s vast farm in central Ohio.

  Layla had slipped out of the tent, where she’d tried to fall asleep next to Robby but woke at every crackle, noise, owl hoot. She’d shivered as the damp night descended, and headed for the fire where Kenny, her mother and Uncle Rex were the last people yet to retire for the evening. Uncle Rex dozed, the white strands in his dark hair and beard burnished golden-red by firelight.

  Kenny leaned against a sturdy log, Layla’s mother between his legs, supported by his chest, a happy smile tucked into the corners of her lips. She’d fallen asleep, too. Only Kenny remained awake, looking up at the sky thick with stars, raising a beer to heaven like a toast to God for all things good. He took a swig, set it aside, and gazed down at Layla’s mom. He wrapped her tight in his embrace and whispered things that made Layla blush with discomfort and awkwardness. Things too precious to be overheard, but which made a lasting impression on her mind nonetheless. Promises. And she’d believed.

  However long she lived, Layla would never forget the look she’d caught in his eyes when Kenny stared down at her mother, a soft glow of something otherworldly, out of reach for Layla, but so encompassing in its tenderness that an exquisite connection formed between all three of them in that moment. Layla knew it as love.

  She’d approached the fire then. Kenny looked up and smiled. A different emotion came into his eyes. Maybe they sparkled, instead of glowing. The look was just as devoted and irrefutable as what he felt for her mother. Layla smiled back.

  “What are you doing up so late, Punkin’?”

  Though she balked at the childish nickname, she secretly adored it. “Can’t sleep.” She shrugged, bit her lip. She wanted to ask him something she’d overheard from the grownups, whispers and speculations, then dismissals. “Kenny, are you and my mom ever going to get married?”

  He smoothed back a few strands of silver-flecked dark hair that had escaped his ponytail, then scratched his sideburns and smiled thoughtfully. “If we do or if we don’t, that doesn’t make you any less my Punkin’.”

  Layla nodded. A grin of relief slid onto her lips. Still, she felt confused. “But isn’t that what people in love do? They get married?”

  “Some do. Sure. You bet I’m crazy about your mom. But anymore, marriage seems too much about courts and legalities and proof of purchase, you could say. Love is more sacred than all of that. It’s between you, the one you love, and God. Deeper than ink on paper. There’s something magic about it. Something vows can’t capture, only silence, maybe. Nighttime. Firelight. And holding on real tight.”

  As fate would have it, holding on tight to Kenny had transferred from something physical to something spiritual in the wake of his dea
th. Layla still felt a connection with him, alive in the times she remembered. In her memory his eyes still glowed with love for her mother, still glittered with affection for Layla. They would forever.

  These were the few feelings Layla retained that had always flown in the face her need for logical explanations.

  But perhaps some mysteries weren’t meant to be discovered or solved. Perhaps some needs ran so deep as to subvert definition. Just to defy the strict duty she’d based her life upon.

  Like her feelings for Blake.

  When he had looked down at her, half an hour ago, and that glow had come into his eyes…something had shifted inside Layla.

  The expression on Blake’s face, the feelings shimmering in his eyes, had perfectly reflected what she’d always dreamed of—that a man would look at her with the same utter devotion as Kenny had revealed when he’d gazed at her mother that distant summer night beside the fire.

  Which was why she’d lit candles in her bedroom before coming outside. And why she would wait for him here in the hammock, facing the carriage drive, tuning her ears to distinguish between the drone of night sounds and the boisterous clamor of Harley pipes.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  Layla froze, startled, then struggled up from the hammock. “Blake? I thought you’d left. I took a shower so I’d feel better. Then I looked everywhere for you. I didn’t see your motorcycle, so I thought you’d gone for a ride.”

  “The weather called for chance of rain, so I moved the motorcycle into the garage. I wouldn’t have left without telling you,” he said quietly. Layla caught his subtle reference to what he’d considered his “mistake,” leaving her without saying why.

  She sighed, her heart stretching with pleasure. “I’m really glad to hear that.”

  He looked so handsome, she thought, his face illuminated beneath the bright heavens. Shadows glided along the angles and planes of his features. A breathtaking effect. As she met and held his focused gaze, a blush seeped into her cheeks. With Blake surrounded by a cloak of shadows, she standing awkwardly beside the hammock, they looked like lovers meeting in secret.