“You called her?”
His nod seemed frantic, as if he was worried any second she might lose it on him. “But I didn’t want to tell you in case she never called back because I didn’t want to get your hopes up, and she never did call so I never did tell you.” He offered a feeble shrug. “And then I was so annoyed on your behalf that I texted her yesterday morning and pretty much—”
“Reamed me out?” Aunt Lauren stood in front of them, the smile she’d worn a moment ago now faltering and uncertain, with just the faintest hint of amusement as she regarded Lucas.
And then her gaze returned to Jenessa, all softness and light, just like she remembered. “Jenessa Marie.”
“What are you doing here? After all this time . . . I don’t even know what to say. Just . . . why are you here?”
Her aunt’s skin was still smooth and her voice, unchanged. “Because when you get a text that long from a distraught man demanding you stop hurting your niece . . .” Her blue eyes, so similar to the ones Jenessa saw staring back at her whenever she looked in a mirror, filled with tears. “You realize you have to listen.”
Emotion clogged in Jenessa’s throat. She didn’t know what to do, what to say. Didn’t even know who to look at, her gaze straying from the woman she’d thought she’d never see again to the man who’d compelled her to come.
A man who watched her with so much gentle care and concern right now, she wanted nothing more than to shoo everyone else away just for a moment. Just long enough to tell him all over again that he was the best man she knew.
But the kids were shivering and Cade was starting to fuss.
And Aunt Lauren was standing in front of her, waiting.
“Jen, if you want to go rinse off and get dressed real quick so you can spend some time with your aunt, I can take care of the kids.” Lucas’s palm warmed her back. “We still have an hour before checkout.”
“There’s a coffee shop in the lobby,” her aunt added. “I could wait for you there.”
She gave a befuddled nod and minutes later, she was standing in a hot shower, washing the chlorine from her hair, but the shock clung to her as stubbornly as her wet swimsuit and the smell of the pool. She hurried through the motions of finishing the shower, drying off, dressing, throwing the rest of her things into her suitcase.
She knocked on the door that joined her room to Lucas’s. His muffled voice reached her before he did. “Vi, please stop jumping on the bed. You’ve already got one broken arm.” The door swung open and he appeared, still in his swim trunks, but he’d pulled a t-shirt over top.
He spoke instantly. “I’m sorry if I messed up, Jen. I was trying to do something good, but if I shouldn’t have—”
She interrupted his apology with a kiss she’d been saving up for too long. And it wasn’t the kiss she wanted to give him—something lingering and unforgettable and packed with a gratitude she could never hope to fully express—but it would have to do for now.
She should’ve ordered decaf. She was jittery enough without drinking this grande French roast.
But without the coffee, she wouldn’t know what to do with her hands. And her first sip or two at least allowed her to stall. Because she didn’t know what to say.
All these years of wishing to talk to her again and you can’t find a single solitary sentence?
“Nice coffee shop,” she finally managed. “I like that it’s not a chain. Has more personality. Not as much as Coffee Coffee, of course, but . . .”
Aunt Lauren seemed as uncomfortable as she was. She was seated across from Jenessa, her mug of chai tea steaming in front of her. “Coffee Coffee?”
“Oh, it opened, I don’t know, seven or eight years ago. Maybe nine. Long after . . .” After you left. Disappeared. Abandoned me to an insufferable old mansion and parents who didn’t understand me.
But the mansion wasn’t insufferable any longer.
And as for her parents, she’d tried—she’d really tried—to make her peace with their relationship in their final years. It would probably always hurt that they’d set her to the side. That their family didn’t have what others did.
But living back at Belville Park now, watching the gardens take shape under Lucas’s care—it’d helped her more and more look forward instead of backward.
Clearly, though, she hadn’t moved past her questions and longings and tangled emotions regarding Aunt Lauren. She’d sent that magazine and gala invitation last week, after all.
And she was a bundle of fluttering nerves now. Just ask her. “Why’d you leave? Why didn’t you say goodbye? Why didn’t you call or write? And when I found you and tried reaching out—over and over—why did you ignore me?”
The clatter of the coffee shop rose around her—groaning machines, clinking dishes, voices. But her focus didn’t leave her aunt’s face.
“Jenessa, I . . .” Aunt Lauren’s hands shook as she tried lifting her mug of tea. But she gave up halfway to her mouth, set it back on her saucer. “I hate what I did to you,” she finally whispered. “I didn’t want to leave. I knew I was abandoning you and I hated it.”
“So why did you do it? I know you and Mom didn’t really get along, but it’s not like you lived in the same house. If you needed more space from her, you could’ve bought a house across town. Or even moved to a new town, but still been a part of our lives.” Her fingers squeezed the handle of her tall cup. “A part of my life.”
Aunt Lauren shook her head, letting tears spill down her cheeks without bothering to wipe them away. “I promised my sister. I owed it to her after I . . .” She sniffed, closed her eyes, took a breath as if desperate for the resolve she needed to continue. “Jenessa, your father and I had an affair. It was short-lived and tumultuous and by far the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
Every jittering nerve inside her went still.
“Not the worst thing,” Aunt Lauren said in a hushed tone. “The worst thing was leaving you.”
“You . . . and Dad?”
“Your mom found us and it was horrible.” She pulled a napkin from the holder at the edge of the table. “She told me to leave, to never come back. Made me promise to stay out of their lives forever.”
That memory came ghosting in—that day she’d come home from school. Dad’s yells, Mom’s sobs. Aunt Lauren running from the house, never to return. Never any explanation from her parents. Never again the warmth she’d once felt, if not at the mansion, at least in the cottage out back.
Until Colie and Violet and Cade had come to live with her. Until Lucas had moved into the cottage. For days now, weeks, they’d felt like a family. A complicated, cobbled together, perfect family.
“That promise included skipping your own sister’s funeral? Ignoring me when I tried to reconnect?”
Aunt Lauren looked away, eyes still glassy. “That’s what I told myself, but I think the truth is, I couldn’t bear the thought of telling you, of confessing.” She dabbed her eyes with the napkin. “I’m so very sorry, Jenessa. I’ve never, ever stopped regretting, wishing . . .”