Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)(50)

Guilt churned her stomach—she was the one holding in a secret on this sofa—and that pain mixed with a burn of curiosity. “Something about your marriage?” she guessed.

He shook his head. “Long before.”

“Before that, there was…me.”

“Before that.”

She tried to sit up, but he held her right where he wanted her, heart to heart, face to face. “I want to tell you about the very first woman who hurt me.”

She blinked at him. They’d talked about former lovers when they’d dated; she knew all about Adele Townshend and even a few girls from college. “Your first love?” She had deluded herself in thinking she’d been his first love.

“Every boy’s first love, I guess.”

“Your mother?”

He nodded and she dug back into those memory banks for information. All she knew was that his mother had died young, his father and grandmother had raised him, and…that was it.

“Did she die of cancer, too, Oliver?” Maybe that was the death that really put him on the track to this life, a boy who wanted to save lives because he’d lost the one that mattered most.

But why wouldn’t he have told her that?

And why did his face register nothing but agony right now?

He stroked her cheek, brushing an imaginary hair, his gaze beyond her as he visibly gathered his thoughts. “When I was a little older than Evan and nowhere near as smart, I might add, my mother died.”

Sympathy swelled. “That must have been so hard. What happened?”

“She…” He closed his eyes. “I came home from school and the house was so quiet.”

It was his turn for his heart to race and his body to tighten. She caressed his bare arm the same way Tessa had stroked her earlier. Calming, soothing, and comforting.

“It was never quiet,” he said. “My mother didn’t work outside the home. She was a housewife supporting my dad’s engineering career. When I came home from school, there was always music. Early-eighties rock and roll, mostly, but really anything. She would be dancing around in some kind of crazy outfit, putting together a play for the neighborhood kids, or organizing a garage sale, or planning a party. She was the original good-time girl.”

“I like her already,” Zoe said with a sly smile.

His eyes narrowed. “You would have…” He shook his head. “You’re very much like her, Zoe.”

Something told her that wasn’t a compliment.

“She was the center of attention, always making jokes, never taking anything seriously, filling her life and our house with…”

“Joy?”

He shifted his gaze to focus on her. “Fake joy.”

For a moment she couldn’t speak. Then she asked, “What is that?”

“That’s when…” He curled a strand of her hair around his finger, winding it like a spring. “You convince the world you are so happy and always laughing and joking and singing but inside you are very, very…damaged.”

The word was like a quick stab to the heart. Damaged sounded familiar.

“What happened to her, Oliver? Just tell me.”

“I went upstairs.” He paused, getting composure. “She wasn’t in her room or anywhere else. Then I went up to the third floor. We lived in an old Georgian-style house outside of Wilmington. It needed a lot of work and, in fact, that was what my mother was supposed to be doing—hiring contractors or carpenters because my dad was working fifty, sixty, even more hours at DuPont.” He took a moment for a breath, and Zoe realized their hearts were beating in unison—way too fast.

“She wasn’t on the third floor, either, so I had to go up to the cupola. The very top of this old house, which I’m sure could have been restored to greatness, but my mother was too…distracted.”

“What happened, Oliver?” She could barely whisper the words, like a child listening to a scary story and knowing the very bad thing was right around the corner.

“I found her.” He closed his eyes and bit his lip. “She’d hung herself.”

Zoe sucked in a deep breath, the shock of that hitting her brain. A happy, joyful, music-loving, easily distracted, party girl had killed herself.

And her nine-year-old son had found her.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “We never knew. No note, no issues, no hidden secrets, no journal, no safe deposit box, no friends came forward, no history of instability, nothing. But it was suicide and she was clearly a troubled, depressed woman who hid behind a façade of happiness. There had to be a reason, but it defied logic. She defied logic.”

Zoe stared at him, chugging all that in, and, man, it tasted bleak.

“Wow, I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you,” she said, placing her hand on his face and forcing him to look at her.

“It was horrible,” he agreed. “It changed me, forever.”

“How?”

“I guess I’ve studied enough psychology to know it’s why I have a need to fix broken things.” He gave a quick smile. “I spent the next five or more years wondering if I could have fixed my mother.”

“Not if you didn’t know anything was wrong with her,” she said. “Not if no one knew the way she was feeling.”

He didn’t answer, still playing with one of her curls, his eyes unfocused as he no doubt relived the memory and its aftershocks.

“You think I’m like her, don’t you?” she asked in a soft whisper.

Now his eyes focused, and he looked right into her eyes. “In some ways, yes. In others, no.”

Some ways. “You think my tendency to run is just another way of escaping life when it gets tough.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.





Oliver’s chest felt lighter than it had in years. Even though they’d rolled to a more comfortable position on the couch and Zoe was more or less draped over him, squeezing the breath from him, he felt nothing but buoyant inside.

It was as if the confession had freed him.

But not Zoe. She had a million questions, which he did his best to answer, reserving judgment on his mother’s decision, convincing her that with no note and no indication that she’d been unhappy at all, the family had learned to live with a scar they’d never understood.

“But you’re not living with it,” Zoe said. “It’s still haunting you. I bet that’s the reason you’re scared of heights.”

“That might be a stretch, but okay,” he agreed. “I know it’s why I hate to come home to an empty house. None of that means I’m letting the incident define me.”

“You said it had a lasting impact.”

“But not one that defines me. I won’t let it.” He pulled her into him, as close as he could get her, but there was nothing sexual about the move. He wanted her to understand how important his next words were. “I’m not letting it define us.”

She shuddered out a breath. “There is no us, Oliver.”

“There could be. You know how I feel. I love—”

She inched up, warning flashing dark green in her eyes. “Don’t say it, Oliver.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t say it back.”

“You never could,” he said on a dry laugh. “Remember, even when I tried to teach you.” He sat up next to her and held her face in his hands. “I…” He nibbled on her lower lip. “Love…” He sucked that lip into his mouth, wanting to rush and get the last word out, but really wanting to taste her. “You.”

Amazingly, she didn’t stop him or jerk away. Instead, she kissed him, her mouth open, her tongue sweet and slippery, her hands closing around his neck.

“Zoe?” he asked when they finally broke the kiss.

“I can’t, Oliver.”

She never could. She never had. And now he knew why. She was afraid of having the rug pulled out from under her the minute she took a chance standing on it. She needed time. “Will you spend the night with me?”

She didn’t answer right away, and he could practically feel her rooting around for excuses.

“We’ll do nothing but sleep, I swear.”

“I don’t have any clothes for tomorrow and I need to shower and…”

He stood, pulling her up with him. “Listen, go into my room, take a hot shower, and climb into bed. I’m going to run over to your bungalow, get you clean clothes and whatever you need. We’ll wake up early, before Evan’s even up, and he’ll think you arrived in the morning.”

She searched his face, then nodded with one last sigh of resignation. “You win.”

“It’s not a battle, honey.” He stroked her cheek. “I’m going to hold you all night and when you wake up and look at me, you’re going to say the first words that pop into your brain and those will be the unvarnished truth.”