Lakeshore Candy: The McAdams Sisters (By The Lake Book 4) Page 17

  The band started up and Riley, having had enough of being judged and scrutinized, took Abby’s hand. “Dance with me.”

  She looked just as relieved to escape as she climbed off the bar stool and let him lead her into the middle of the busy dance floor where a slow song wrapped around them like Riley’s arm around her waist. He pulled her directly against the length of him wanting and needing to feel her. They hadn’t touched each other this intimately since that morning. After spending the day back in Oakston for the first time in years, then a visit to his house, it felt like forever ago. Abby’s hand wrapped around his neck, the flesh of her arm warming his skin, and her fingers reached up the back of his scalp. He could feel the music pulling his struggles away.

  “I’m sorry about Avery,” Abby said, pressing her cheek against his and whispering in his ear. When she spoke, it drowned out all the noise around them. It was simply him and her on the dance floor.

  Her hair softly rubbed the side of his face as they moved. “Don’t be. He’s worried about you and looking out for you.” Even if he was being as ass about it. “I can handle him.”

  “At the time he’s insulting me. Tame a lion?” she scoffed. “That ass.” Exactly his thoughts.

  “I meant what I said,” he told her, loving the way her hips moved against his arm.

  Her hand caressed the base of his neck. “It was beautiful.”

  “You are beautiful.” He still couldn’t believe she was here, standing beside him, dealing with his shit, the shit of his past he could hardly deal with himself. Run-away Abby, who had spent her life trying to avoid sadness and drama to live with a smile and laughter.

  “You are beautiful,” she said.

  Their bodies moved slowly through the song and when the next song fired up with a beat and a bounce, Riley held Abby close, not wanting to let her go. But when Izzy reined in their solitude, yanking Abby from him to swing their hips, the broken contact brought his past slamming into his gut. Suddenly the memories of this place took over his mind, and he could hardly focus on Abby’s laughter as she danced with her friend.

  Who was he to pull her back? I want to pull her back. Her touch would help him forget that the front row table had once been reserved for him every Friday night, or that the waitress had known exactly which drinks and food to serve him. Or that the owner, Alex was always willing to let him know the behind the scenes of the bands, who had their heads so far up their asses they’d be a bitch to work with. It was all just too damn much.

  Then there was Izzy laughing with Abby but sending him warning looks too. Did everyone think he was going to hurt Abby? Avery was still sitting at the table, Riley’s old table, staring at him. Riley had to get the hell out of here.

  Grabbing Abby’s elbow he leaned in and said over the music, “I’m heading home.”

  “I will come with you.” She was already pulling away to tell Izzy, but he kept her close.

  “No.” He didn’t need the Izzy anger stare-down. “You stay. I will see you later.”

  Abby frowned at him and he felt her reluctance, but Izzy was pulling her and his body was getting that suffocating feeling again.

  “I’m driving Avery’s car home.” He already had the keys since they’d been drinking and had designated him the driver. “I will settle the tab for your cab at the front and they’re putting everything on my bill.” Yes, they’d known who he was when he’d walked through the door. No over-grown hair, and five o-clock shadow fooled Trixie at the front door or Marlow behind the bar. He was just thankful Alex wasn’t there too.

  Abby stopped bouncing with the music, tiptoed up and hugged him tightly, squeezing him with her little feminine arms. For a moment, his harsh emotions braked. “I’m going to be fine. Are you alright?”

  He held her tight, not wanting to let go. Maybe he should let her come home with him instead of insisting she stay, but if he listened to his head he needed to go home alone.

  “I’m alright. Just tired,” he promised, then kissed her goodbye.

  The stuffy, cold Oakston air calmed his nerves immediately as he stepped onto the busy sidewalk.

  The comfort didn’t last long. When he pulled up to his house, he let everything sink in. Facing his past with Avery and Izzy in tow hadn’t been a great idea because it hadn’t given him the opportunity to deal with anything, only hide everything. But now when his feet hit the familiar solid ground, and how they skipped up the four steps, he felt his body beginning to absorb his surroundings. When he pushed back the smell of a house unlived for years, he could smell the old familiar smells and with that came the smell of his daughter. She took over his feet and he was in his bedroom, pushing open the door to the nursery. Baby powder, baby shampoo, and the smell of her still cloaked this space. He stood in the entrance staring at the darkened room and felt the desire to talk. But she wasn’t here. She wasn’t in the crib or beyond into the next room, Dani’s bedroom. She wasn’t here. He knew where he could talk to her. He knew the one place that would give him solace, that he’d asked Abby to go with him but now he couldn’t stay away another moment.

  He grabbed the keys to his Mustang and drove to Oakston Cemetery.

  Riley knew the way to their double grave by memory and didn’t need a flashlight through the pitch-black path that was darkening his soul instead of lifting away his guilt. It seemed with every step, the darkness tightened around his heart, his lungs, stealing his breath away. By the time he reached them, he couldn’t hold himself up anymore. He fell to his knees, the soft grass cushioning his palms as they landed inches from the stone. His head fell as tears, he wasn’t used to giving into, broke down his walls and streamed across his face. He cried. Hard. He hadn’t cried for them after their death or since and now as he let himself go, the sobs stole his breath away and left him gasping for air until no more tears would fall and the air settled in his lungs slowing his grappling.

  He looked up. His hand touched the stone and over the engraving. “I’m sorry.” Just above a whisper, but then it all came out. “They all told me the accident wasn’t my fault and deep down I knew it wasn’t. I didn’t get behind the wheel drunk. I didn’t drive through Oakston at crazy speeds in a storm. But I let that blame overtake me because the real blame was too hard for me to accept.”

  He was talking loudly now, into the empty gloomy shadows, alone, but not alone. He felt them, both of them and he knew they were listening.

  “I didn’t prevent that night either. I didn’t help you Dani. We weren’t dating, but I saw your sadness and I should have tried to help you instead of running away. I knew how to. I raised Cece, I watched her, I protected her and I knew when she was consumed with sadness. A sadness that had consumed you, but I was angry at you too. Angry because I felt like you had trapped me, but you weren’t the only one in that bedroom the night she was conceived and I never should have blamed you.”

  He sucked in another breath of air losing the last one with his words. “I should have phoned your mother and I should have told her what was going on because you wouldn’t. Because you were too proud to do it yourself. That’s the real blame which brought it all to that night.”

  That night. The night that changed everything.

  “Dani, I’m sorry. I’m asking for your forgiveness.” If he hadn’t cried all his tears away they would have formed again. When he felt a softness run through his body like a soothing hand touching his skin, he knew that was her forgiveness. “And Jenny I love you. I will love you forever and you will always be in my heart.” Then as though Jenny was right beside him, he could swear his body tingled from her touch. Another wave ran through him, calming him, forgiving him...healing him.

  Riley sat back, with his feet sprawled out in front of him and he felt the guilt begin to release itself into the darkness, and for the first time he let it go. He didn’t grab it back and push it back into his chest to teach him the lesson he thought he deserved. No, this time he let it go, all of it and sat there silently saying thank you to his fami
ly.

  The longer he sat, the better he felt and when his guilt wasn’t taking over his entire body, he found Abby once again trickling into his thoughts. He didn’t know how it happened, but sitting here letting go of his guilt he felt something else consuming him, but in a good way. He didn’t have to guess what it was because he already knew...love.

  Riley had never been in love before, but he knew he loved Abby and now he was finally ready to show her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ONE HOUR LATER, Abby climbed into a cab alone and was dropped off in front of Riley’s dark house. There were no lights on inside. Maybe he was asleep. Avery’s car was parked out front.

  Abby found the master bedroom dark. When she turned on the light, it cast across an empty bed and empty room.

  “Riley?” she called out, making her way to the attached bathroom en suite. Empty. “Riley?”

  She shouldn’t have let him go alone. She knew something was wrong, she’d sensed it forming from the moment they’d arrived in Oakston. He’d worked at masking it all day and now that she had let him go...where had he gone?

  She slid open the back doors and automatic lights lit the backyard, but again it came up empty.

  Why didn’t the man have a cell phone?

  Stepping back into his bedroom, she caught sight of a door open to the left that had been closed earlier. “Riley?” Her voice came out quiet and low scared of what might be behind it. As she pushed the door open, she searched for a light switch. As light filled the room, her eyes squinted against the brightness and her heart strained at the sight of the white crib, the focal point of the nursery. The entire room was coordinated with pink and white colors from the painted white wood furniture to the pink stripes on the walls and polka dots on the pillows.

  In an instant, she knew where he had gone.

  Abby called another cab and asked to be dropped off at Oakston Cemetery. The driver had reservations about leaving her at almost eleven in the evening, amongst the dark tombs, but she promised she was meeting the man who owned the Mustang sitting in front of them.

  Abby spotted the dark shadow she assumed was Riley.

  She began to contemplate whether to make her way across the grassy ground, around the headstones, or leave him until he was ready to come to her. Abby needed to make sure he was alright but if he wanted her to leave, she would.

  The cool breeze caught her hair and whipped it around her face almost as though telling her to climb back inside, but Abby was drawn to Riley like the stars to the sky.

  As she stepped up behind him, he was kneeling on the ground, unaware of her presence. His hunched over shoulders looked like the weight of the world rested them. She knew whose names were on the stone, even though his form blocked it from her view. They were his family...his daughter. Such a tragic loss, such an unfortunate situation.

  “Riley?”

  His shoulders stiffened, as they had many times in her presence before they’d taken their relationship to a new level. She didn’t like the uneasy pull those stiff shoulders had on the recess of her insides and wished instead her presence relaxed him...calmed him.

  Riley stood and squared his shoulders as he slowly turned to face her. “Abby...” The wind stole his breath away and the sadness in his voice broke her heart.

  She spoke softly to him. “I don’t want to intrude, but you were gone and I was worried about you.”

  His body relaxed with her words and smoothed across the harsh lines of his face. “I’m alright. I’m better than alright, I’m good.”

  He pulled her into his embrace. As she wrapped her arms around his middle, noticing his rigidness from the hug at the grill was gone, she melted against him. He was good. He was good. Abby couldn’t put into words how happy she was that he’d faced his fears and now together, they could move on.

  They stood for a long while beside his family’s gravestone, simply holding one another. Holding hands they walked back to his car.

  Riley turned to her before he opened the door for her. “Abby, you are an amazing person,” he said.

  Abby touched his cheek and rubbed her thumb along his five o’clock shadow. “You are an amazing person Riley. Look at everything you’ve accomplished today. I am so proud of you.”

  He covered her hand with his and gave her a light squeeze before pulling away. “You make me laugh when I feel like I don’t have humor left in my body. Your smile alone inches mine up when every muscle in my body objects. You make me feel things that I have never experienced in my life. It’s as if you’ve opened up a part of me that I didn’t even know existed or felt so amazing. I don’t know how I could live without these new feelings...without you.”

  You don’t have to live without me. I never want to spend another day without you.

  She would have spoken up, but he continued without giving her the opportunity. “I’ve never felt passion for anything except my work. When I think of you, that passion consumes my soul to the very core, so much more than I’ve ever desired for my career. I have this need to protect you from harm and claim my stake with you. I think about you when you’re not around and when you’re around I want to touch you, kiss you...hold you.” He scoffed. “I simply want to hold you. I’ve never wanted to hold anyone and with you, I could stay wrapped in the blankets forever. I want to be with you forever.”

  That was exactly how she felt about him and her insides were exploding with the need to tell him.

  “The night of the concert I was going to tell you everything, but we got in the way.” Her body tingled remembering the way she had taken her sweet time across his magnificent body, how she had mapped out every section and was never going to forget.

  “Mrs. C instructed me to be straightforward with you, but there was so much to tell you that the part I feared the most was left hidden.”

  Abby stepped closer to him. There was nothing he could say that would scare her...not anymore.

  “I’ve never known what love felt like besides the love for my parents and Cece. But my feeling for you, this desire and lust built up from a friendship between us combined together made me fall in love with you.” He didn’t even pause, stammer, or think about the words. They were as solid, as sure as the sun rose every day.

  Fall in love with her? Fall in love with her! There was that word...her exact feeling. Their feelings were united, a love so strong and so solid nothing could break them apart and he was letting go of his demons to take all the steps forward with her...for her.

  His hands touched her arms.

  “Riley, tell me now. I’m right here.”

  “My daughter’s name was Jenny...Jenny Calvert.” Jenny Calvert? “Dani is short for Adrianna. Adrianna Calvert.” Adrianna Calvert? Jenny Calvert?

  Abby’s eyes blinked in confusion, furrowing her forehead and her mouth dropped open in a very unladylike. This was Mrs. Calvert’s daughter and granddaughter’s grave? It felt like every function in her body stopped, stealing her soul and leaving her empty.

  In a rush of fear, the long conversation Abby had with Gran after Adrianna’s death crushed the love she was feeling at his confession. The evening after Adrianna’s funeral in Oakston, which Abby hadn’t attended, she’d found Gran crying in the sun room over the loss of a woman none of them really knew. Her tears had been for Mrs. Calvert and although the two older ladies both respected each other’s privacy, Gran had needed someone to talk to that night, someone to confide it and that somebody had been Abby. She’d listened to Mrs. Calvert’s side of what happened, her loss, her broken heart...the person she blamed...

  Her mind reeled. Adrianna’s boyfriend’s name wasn’t Riley. Was it? What had Gran called him? What was the name? Think Abby, dammit!

  Drawing a blank, Abby pulled her phone from her pocket with trembling hands feeling Riley’s fingers burning into her arms. She understood his words and yet she wanted them to be wrong. She searched the Internet for recording labels in Oakston. Scanning the indie recording studio until she found t
he one that popped out at her: Torsten Recording Label. She hit the image button.

  Her heart stopped.

  Image after image of a younger Riley with short spiked hair standing beside band after band stared back at her with Torsten Label hash tags. Torsten Recording Label was Riley’s. He owned it. Which meant...

  Abby looked up at him. “Torsten?”

  “Torsten was my dad’s name.”

  “You’re Mrs. Calvert’s son-in-law?”

  His stare confirmed who he was. “I was never her son-in-law. I was the guy who got her daughter pregnant.”

  Abby was mortified by the revealed truth. His story against Mrs. Calvert’s clashed in her head like pots and pans she could hardly hear over.

  “You lied to me.”

  “I wasn’t ready...”

  “This isn’t just about you, Riley,” she snapped, a protectiveness for the woman she held so close to her heart, consuming her. “This isn’t just your past. This is Mrs. Calvert’s past, this is Adrianna’s past and it’s not just black and white. It’s you against her. It’s her story against your story. It’s...it’s...” Her throat was closing in on her.

  She could hardly look at him.

  “You should have told me. Mrs. Calvert, Gran you all knew and you kept this from me. Now you spring it on me and what? What Riley?” she yelled at him pulling out of his grasp. “I’m in love with you. You asshole! You let me fall in love with you, but you’re not even who I thought you were.” Her eyes fell back across the graveyard to the stone.

  “I am exactly who you think I am. I am not the person I was when Dani was in my life...”

  She couldn’t listen to his excuses. Not now. Not now! “I...I can’t do this. I have to go...”

  “Abby−”

  Abby turned and felt his fingers around her wrist but she pulled away, swinging around to face him. “No! You lied to me. Adrianna had your baby Riley. You...and she...and...”