The Bridge

  He opened the worn cover and stared at the inscription. I would do anything for you, sir. Anything that was right . . . Love, Molly.

  Anything that was right. The line from the novel had stayed with him, haunting him daily at first. How could she have thought that the most right thing was to leave, to find her way back to a life her parents had planned for her? And how could she have married Preston Millington when she had never loved the guy?

  Not until two years later had he picked up the book and read through it. He was on the road then, but between shows on the bus, in the quiet of his bunk, he journeyed once more through the story of Jane Eyre. Only then did he see what Molly had written at the back of the book. Another quote from the novel’s protagonist, but one that held an insight he didn’t quite understand.

  Her inscription was this: All has changed, sir. I must leave you.

  “What changed, Molly?” He whispered the question, as confused today as he was back then. He held the book to his chest and leaned his shoulder against the bookcase. The snow falling out the front window took him back, and gradually, the images around him faded until all he could see was yesterday.

  Seven years of yesterdays ago.

  That day the staff at Molly’s house was off—at least that was the plan. Ryan and Molly had reached the end of their second year at Belmont, and finals were a few weeks away. The idea of sharing dinner at the big house in Brentwood was Molly’s idea. “I’ll make pasta primavera,” she told him. Her eyes danced at the thought. “My dad will never find out.” She hesitated, and her face lit up. “Actually, come early and we’ll work together.”

  They skipped The Bridge that day. After school they went to the market and bought a cartful of groceries, laughing all the while at how two people could eat so much food. As close as they’d been, Molly had never brought him to her house for fear of her father. Not until they walked through her front door with two bags each did Ryan fully grasp the wealth she came from. The house was a mansion decorated with the sort of furnishings and artwork Ryan had never seen outside magazines and TV shows.

  “What’s your house in San Francisco look like?” He put his hands in his pockets and cast her a bewildered look.

  She grinned and gave a slight roll of her eyes. “You don’t want to know.”

  Ryan had a feeling she was right. “I bet my parents’ house would fit in your garage.”

  “Yeah.” She made a face that showed she was uncomfortable with the conversation. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Like how come we’re starting the primavera sauce with a pile of vegetables.” He came over and nudged her with his elbow. “Mine always comes from a jar.”

  “Yours?” Her eyes sparkled. “Come on, Ryan. Don’t tell me you’ve made pasta primavera before.”

  “Hmm.” He leaned against the kitchen counter and studied her. “Does spaghetti sauce count?”

  “No.” She washed her hands, her eyes on him the whole time. “True primavera sauce starts with a soffritto of garlic and olive oil.”

  “Soffritto?” Ryan couldn’t say the word without laughing. “You didn’t tell me you were a culinary expert.”

  “I’m not.” She dried her hands and pulled two cutting boards from beneath an eight-burner stove. “Just because I can order it off a menu doesn’t mean I can make it.” She grinned. “You’re my guinea pig.”

  “Oh, is that right?”

  “Yes.” She laughed and handed him a bag of broccoli. “Start cutting. Let’s see what we come up with.”

  Somewhere between chopping broccoli and sautéing the soffritto, Ryan felt the mood between them change. Molly had turned his head from the first time he saw her, but she was off-limits. Practically engaged to the guy back home. And he had Kristen waiting for him in Carthage. But that night in the kitchen of her enormous Brentwood home, there was only the two of them. Way before they sat down to eat, Ryan felt a sense of inevitability about what was coming. As if they were no longer two college friends aware of their limitations, but characters from some classic love story.

  They didn’t talk about it, didn’t make commentary on the emotions flying between them. They simply lived in the moment. When dinner was over, she turned on music and took him outside. The house backed up to a forest, but the yard sat beneath open skies, and that night the host of stars seemed hung for them alone. She led him to the backside of a gorgeous swimming pool where they sat in a cushioned glider. Usually, at The Bridge, they kept distance between them, enough so they could turn and face each other and read from Jane Eyre or compare notes from their various classes.

  That night they sat with their bodies touching, and Ryan wondered if she felt it, too. The electricity between them, as if all their lives had led to this. The air was warm, and they wore T-shirts and shorts. As they set the glider in gentle motion, every whisper of her bare arm against his, every touch of their knees, every rapid beat of his anxious heart, made him wonder how long he could wait. Because with everything in him, he wanted to kiss her.

  He found a resolve he hadn’t known he was capable of and forced himself to look up at the stars. “So beautiful.” He was talking about her, but he couldn’t let on. Who was he kidding? The feelings between them were impossible, right? She hadn’t come to Belmont to fall in love. And even though he and Kristen hadn’t talked in over a week, he would have to end things with her before he could think about Molly the way he was thinking about her there in the glider.

  A comfortable silence settled around them, and finally, Molly sighed, her eyes still on the sky. “My dad isn’t sure about me finishing up here. He wants me to come home.”

  Fear breathed icy cold down the back of Ryan’s neck. “What?” He kept his tone in check. “Why would he do that? You’re halfway finished.”

  Though she laughed, the sound was desperately sad. “He doesn’t care about my music. He wants me to sit at the head of his empire one day.” She gave him a weak smile. “I’m the son he never had. That’s what he always tells me.”

  “Molly.” He eased away and turned to face her. “You haven’t taken a single business class.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She didn’t laugh. “He’ll have me surrounded by experts. He wants our family to maintain control.” She took a slow breath. “He says I’ll learn on the job.”

  “You’re only twenty.” Ryan couldn’t believe the man was serious. “He wouldn’t put you in that position now.”

  “No.” She managed a light bit of laughter at the idea. “He wants to groom me, have me finish classes closer to his headquarters, take me to the meetings, and get me familiar with operations. Grooming is like, I don’t know, a ten-year process.”

  It felt like a prison sentence, but Ryan didn’t say so. He slid back to his spot beside her and set the glider in motion.

  “You think I’m giving up.” She sounded hurt, and this time she shifted so she could see him. “That’s why you’re not saying anything?”

  He stopped the glider and met her eyes. “You’re the one with a dream, right? Playing in the philharmonic?”

  “What can I do about it?” Her tone flashed a rare anger. “My whole life has led to this. I’ve known what I was supposed to do, where I was supposed to live, since . . . since the first grade.”

  “He can’t make you.” Ryan stood and walked to the edge of the patio. For a long time he stayed there, staring into the forest, trying to see clear of the heartache ahead if she left. Suddenly, the reasons seemed clear and he spun around, his own voice louder than before. “It’s safe. That’s what this is about. You could tell him no, Molly.” He was breathing hard, his emotions getting ahead of him. “But going home and doing what he says is safer.”

  For a few seconds, it looked like she might refute him. Instead, moving slowly, she came to him, and the anger between them kindled a passion they had denied from the beginning. She stood inches from him, her body trembling, and when she spoke, her voice was a whisper. “I hate safe.” She came closer st
ill, and tears filled her eyes. “I want to be like Jane Eyre.” She sniffed, her voice breaking. “‘I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.’” She let her forehead fall against his chest. “Help me, Ryan. Please. Help me be free.”

  He felt his head spinning, his heart pounding. He took a half step back so he could think clearly, her quote from Jane Eyre still playing in his mind. No matter how he fought for control, his voice betrayed the depth of his feelings for her. “How, Molly? How can I help?”

  She didn’t hesitate and suddenly he could see her again, feel her breath against his skin that summer night. She closed the distance between them once more, and with a determination and anguish that made her breathtakingly beautiful, she took his face in her hands. “Kiss me. Give me a reason to stay.”

  Here was the moment he had hoped for and dreamed of and wondered about. Though everything about it was wrong, Ryan couldn’t stop himself. He caught the back of her head in his hands and slowly, in a losing battle of restraint, he drew her to him and touched his lips to hers. The kiss was more magical than anything in a book. And for the next minute he was convinced for the first time that he wasn’t the only one who’d been fighting the attraction. Their kiss grew and built until they were breathless, and then, as if she remembered all the reasons they shouldn’t be together, she put her hands on his shoulders and drew back from him. “Ryan . . . we can’t.”

  “Hey . . .” He tried to see into her eyes, but she was staring at the ground, shame covering her face. “Don’t be afraid. You said you hate safe, remember?”

  “No.” When she looked up, the questions in her heart seemed to scream for answers. “You have Kristen. This is . . . it’s wrong.”

  He wanted to remind her that the idea of kissing had been hers, but he was dizzy from the feel of her in his arms, from her lips against his. “I’m sorry.” It was the only thing he knew to say. She was right. Until he broke things off with his long-distance high school sweetheart, he had no business kissing Molly Allen. For now, though, if this was what it took to convince her to stay at Belmont, he wasn’t really sorry at all. “I’m really sorry, Molly.”

  “Are you?” She was still breathing fast, as caught up in the wanting and fighting their forbidden attraction as he was. “Are you sorry about this?”

  His answer didn’t come in words. He took her again in his arms and kissed her the way he had always wanted to kiss her. With all the romance of a character from one of their favorite books. He still wondered what would’ve happened next, how far things might have gone. But a few minutes later, he caught someone moving in the upstairs window at the back of her house.

  “The staff.” He gasped the words and moved quickly away from her. “Molly.” He nodded toward the window. “You said they were out for the night.”

  She followed his gaze, and as she did, they watched a light turn off inside the house. Fear flashed like lightning across Molly’s face. “Do you think they saw us?”

  “I’m not sure.” He wanted to say who cared what the staff saw, wanted to draw her close again and pick up where they’d left off. But he respected her too much for that. “Would they tell your dad?”

  “Definitely.” She glanced around, clearly searching for a way out. “You need to leave.” Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. “I can’t give my parents another reason to send me home.”

  For a long moment he hesitated. Did it really matter what her parents thought or what her father threatened? She was old enough to make her own decisions. Ryan felt frustrated to the depths of his being. He could only try to understood a little of Molly’s pressures. She’d answered to her father all her life—that much was obvious. But if he knew Molly at all, someday she would find a way to stand on her own. Even if, for now, her determination to please her father overpowered her own dreams.

  Ryan blinked, the memory of her kiss lodged in some locked-up corner of his heart. Always when he looked back, he could peg that backyard embrace to the beginning of the end. He put the book back on the shelf, face out. Jane never knew what would happen next. So the only change Molly could’ve been referring to at the back of his copy had to be the one he couldn’t refute.

  The change in her heart.

  C HA P T E R F I V E

  That night after their kiss Molly hurried him to the side gate. In the shadows he hugged her, holding on as long as he could. “You said to give you a reason.” He touched her cheek, feeling the urgency of the situation. “Give me time, Molly. Don’t leave.”

  A quick nod, and she checked over his shoulder. “We’ll talk tomorrow. At The Bridge.”

  But the next day, before classes, Ryan’s cell phone rang. The memory of the phone call still made his stomach hurt. The man was gruff from the beginning. “Is this Ryan Kelly?”

  “Yes.” It wasn’t quite seven in the morning, and Ryan had been rushing around his room gathering homework for class. He stopped and stared at the phone. The caller ID was blocked. “Who’s this?”

  “Wade Allen. I’m Molly’s father.” He sounded disgusted. “Look, I know about last night.”

  Ryan stopped short. “What?” Was this really happening? Molly’s father calling him? Why would the man be awake at this hour? “How’d you get my number?”

  “That’s none of your business.” He barely paused. His voice was clipped and pronounced, the talk of an agitated and highly educated man. “Look, I know you have feelings for my daughter. But I’d like to ask you, man to man, to think about Molly and not yourself.”

  “You don’t know her.” Sudden venom spewed from Ryan’s voice. How dare her father do this, call and try to manipulate him. “She doesn’t want to work for you.”

  “Listen to me, young man. You don’t know her.” His voice maintained a chilling level of calm. “Molly is in love with Preston Millington.” A dramatic pause filled the line. “They’re engaged to be married.”

  Slowly, Ryan dropped to the edge of his twin bed. He pressed his elbows into his knees and tried to catch his breath. “She’s not engaged. She would’ve told me.”

  “They’ve set a wedding date. Two years from this summer.” He laughed, but the sound came across as condescending. “Molly is very young. This whole Belmont thing was her way of being sure about the engagement.”

  Hope breathed the slightest air into his lungs. “Have you talked to her lately, sir? She’s not sure. I can promise you that.”

  “She’s sure.” His answer was quick. “She called Preston yesterday afternoon and told him she was coming home in a few weeks. When she finishes final exams.” He sighed as if he could barely be bothered with the conversation. “I’m asking you to stay out of her life. Don’t confuse her. She knows what she wants, and she knows where she belongs.” This time his quiet laughter mocked Ryan in every way possible. “A guy like you? From Carthage, Mississippi? You could never give her the life she’s accustomed to.” He chuckled. “You didn’t actually believe she’d fall for you.”

  “What if she already has?” Ryan had no trouble standing up to him. “You can’t control her.”

  “I didn’t want to have to do this.”

  “You’re not going to do anything. Molly’s entitled to live her life, to follow her dreams and—”

  “Look.” His tone was sharp again, the laughter gone. “Don’t believe me. Let her tell you.” There was a clicking sound, and what could only have been a recording of Molly’s voice. She sounded upset. “Yes, Preston . . . you know how I feel about you. I’ve known you all my life. I told you I wouldn’t stay at Belmont forever.” Another clicking sound, and when her father spoke again, satisfaction rang in his tone. “Did you hear that? And yes, I recorded her.” He sounded defensive. “She called Preston here at the office. I’m a powerful businessman. I record all my conversations!” He took a breath and seemed to steady himself. “I’m letting you listen to it because I want you to know the truth.”

  Ryan’s head was spinning. He couldn’t find the
words to speak.

  “Look, kid. You heard her. She’s in love with Preston, and she’s coming home.” His words were like so many bullets, steady and well aimed. “If you care about her, you’ll cut things off quickly. Let her go. Anything else will only confuse her.”

  Ryan felt himself drowning, gasping for a way to keep his head above water. There was none. The voice was hers, the message clearly her side of a conversation with the guy waiting for her in San Francisco. Ryan wanted to shout at the man. There had to be an explanation. Molly wasn’t in love with Preston. If she were, she would’ve said so. Shock quickly became fury against her father, rage that rose up and consumed him. He didn’t say another word. He ended the call, tossed his phone on his pillow, and punched his fist. Punched it so hard his palm was bruised and swollen by the time he picked her up.

  Their routine that day was the same, but their conversation was short and stilted. He had no intention of honoring her father’s wishes, so he didn’t dream of ending things. But the chemistry that had captured them the night before was gone, and Ryan knew why. With every passing hour, he had to admit the truth. He could be mad at Molly’s father, but the voice was hers. Which could mean only one thing: Her father was telling the truth. Molly’s true feelings were not for him but for Preston Millington.

  When their classes were over that day, they drove to The Bridge, like always. This time when they found their spot upstairs, Ryan faced her. “Hey, listen. I’m sorry. About last night . . . I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

  “What?” Her response was more of a quiet gasp.

  “You’ve got your life back home.” He smiled at her as if the words weren’t killing him. “I have mine.”

  She shook her head. “Ryan, that’s crazy.” She raised her voice and then caught herself. “You told me to give you time. That you would show me why I shouldn’t leave.”