Trespassing(70)

“I . . . saw . . . Daddy.”

“What? Where, Bella? Tell Mommy.”

“I think she may have mistaken me for . . .” Christian’s words trail off when I meet his gaze. “She came running after us, yelling for her father.”

I close my eyes to get my bearings and take a few deep breaths to calm the beating of my rampant heart. I try to picture Micah, but for the first time since I met him at Lollapalooza when I was twenty years old, I can’t remember his face, can’t remember his eyes, his lips. The only face that enters my mind is one I just saw: Christian’s.

Could Bella have mistaken him for her father?

They’re roughly the same height, same build, and now that Christian seems to be shaving his face on a regular basis, maybe a three-year-old could draw some parallels.

I try again, will myself to picture Micah’s face. Just as it comes to me, it’s gone.

How is it possible that I could be forgetting all the details that make him Micah? And so soon? Think, Veronica. Think about him. Make him stay.

Stay with me . . . stay some more . . .

I hear his version of “Sway,” nearly feel his offbeat cha-cha.

I have to remember him for our daughter.

After another deep breath, I get to my feet with Bella still in my arms.

“Down,” she says.

Reluctantly, because all I want to do is hold her close, I put her down.

“Looks like you could use a drink,” Christian says.

I probably could use more than one.

“I’m heading out to the Rum Barrel tonight,” he continues. “Pretty good band playing. Want to join?”

“Oh. Thanks, but I’ve got Bella, so . . .”

“I’ve got nieces,” he counters.

“We don’t mind taking her for a while,” Emily says.

Bella swings between the twins again, and for a few seconds, I fixate on the sight of it. One, two, three . . . fly. Like double-dutch jump rope, it’s definitely a game you need partners to play. And I no longer have a partner. It’s just Bella and me.

“Your daughter seems to like the girls,” Christian says.

“Listen, I appreciate the invitation, but I have so much to catch up on . . .” Starting with a phone call to Guidry. I just hung up on him at the height of his accusations. I can’t imagine that’s going to go over too well.

“Anytime you want to tackle that pool, you let me know.”

“Yeah, all right. Thanks. Maybe next week?”

A smile slowly spreads onto his face. “Yeah.”

“I hate to take you away from your writing.”

“Writing?” Emily giggles.

He gives his niece the hush sign, an index finger pressed to his lips. “Em’s right, actually. I haven’t been too productive lately. Maybe you can help me with that.”

I hear my phone ringing. “Rock-a-bye baby . . .” A quick spin in place, however, doesn’t reveal its location. Where was I when I dropped it?

“Here you go.” Christian’s located my phone a few paces away. By the time he retrieves it, it isn’t ringing anymore, but I know from the ringtone: it was a call from the fertility center.

He locks me in a staring contest that probably lasts only a few seconds but feels like an era and a half. He probably saw the name on the caller ID. Great. That’s all I need for him to know that my life is even more complicated than he originally thought.

In the periphery: “One, two, three . . . fly!”

“Come on, Veronica. How long have you been doing this? All on your own? Christ, have you even slept through the night since the accident?”

I still haven’t filled him in. I haven’t told him there were no federal agents, that Micah might be alive. I shake my head. “I couldn’t possibly . . .”

“I’m giving you permission. Let yourself off the hook for an evening. Just . . . tell me you’ll think about coming out tonight,” Christian says.

“Okay.” I close my fingers around my phone when he slides it into my hand. “I’ll think about it.”

He gives me a nod. “Good. You know where it is?”

“Front Street, right?”

“Don’t look now, Veronica, but you’re almost a local.”

I crack a smile and turn to walk back up the drive. “Come on, Bella. Let’s get some food in that tummy.”

“Chocolate pudding?”

“Sure.” I glance up at the archway through which we’re about to pass.

GOD LAND GARDENS

I look over my shoulder at Christian. “You wouldn’t happen to have a ladder?”

“Sure do.”

I’m going to take the letters down off the arch.

I don’t want to be at God Land anymore.





Chapter 37

“He was in the trees,” Elizabella says. “He called my name.”

“Are you sure?” I open my wedding album and prop it up on the kitchen countertop. Micah’s smile zaps me in all the places that have gone dormant since he left.

The trust I had in him, the devotion and dedication we shared . . . If I went back in time to do it all again, I wouldn’t change a thing. Everything we endured resulted in our daughter, but if I knew it would all turn out like this, would I have walked down that sandy path to the shore of Lake Michigan, where he awaited me with a wedding ring? Would I have agreed to love him, had I known I’d have less than a decade of forever?