Now that I was here, I didn’t know what to do, what to say. For several long minutes I just sat there, staring down at the headstone, my eyes tracing over each letter. Eventually I lay down and put my hand in the same spot that Annabelle had touched. Closing my eyes, I pictured what Michelle would look like. Mieke was her identical twin so they would look exactly alike, but I wondered what her personality would have been like.
Without realizing it, I found myself asking her that question. Once the first words were out it became easier to talk to her and before I knew it my chest wasn’t hurting nearly as badly as it had when I’d been in bed. It felt like I talked to her forever, finding it just as easy to talk to Michelle as I did Mieke.
It was getting late and as much as I wanted to spend the rest of the night right there, I knew we needed to get home to Mieke, who might wake up and be worried that we weren’t there. I sat up, still rubbing little circles on the ground where Michelle rested. “I’m so sorry, honey. I love you so damn much. Please, if nothing else, believe that. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make up to your mom and sister for not being there when they needed me—when you needed me. Out of all my regrets, my biggest is that I didn’t get to hold you.” Tears streamed down my face, but I didn’t wipe them away. Like Annabelle, I would never wipe away a tear that was for Michelle. “I’d give up my last breath to get that time back, to hold you and tell you how much I love you.”
A soft hand touched my shoulder, but it didn’t startle me. I’d sensed Annabelle long before she’d reached me. I covered her hand, squeezing it and silently thanking her for being there with me. “How do you leave?” I asked her. “How do you get up and leave her every time?” I needed to know how she did it, because even though I knew we needed to get home to Mieke, I couldn’t bring myself to stand up and walk away from this little grave.
“You take a deep breath, tell her you love her, and take one step at a time,” Annabelle whispered. “Don’t worry, Z. She knows we love her, and she will be waiting right here for us to come back.”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Annabelle
The sun was just coming up when we walked into the kitchen. My heart was still feeling heavy, like it always did after a visit to West Bridge to see Michelle, but I was also feeling more at peace than I had in a long time. Maybe for the first time since I’d been told Michelle wasn’t going to make it.
Seeing Zander at our daughter’s grave—watching how completely torn apart he was over the loss of our little girl—it had healed something inside of me. Not because he’d been in so much pain; no, I didn’t take pleasure in his pain now. It was because I had him to share the pain with. Sure my brother and sister-in-law had hurt at the loss of Michelle, but they would never truly feel how heartbroken I’d been—still was—at the loss of my baby. Zander did, though.
Pulling out a chair at the kitchen island, Zander sat down heavily. I moved to the coffee pot, hitting the button to start a pot of the strong brew Jesse Thornton had taught me to make. With the sound of the liquid hitting the bottom of the coffee pot filling the kitchen, I moved to stand beside Zander. He’d been so quiet on the drive back, his eyes looking lost with very few flecks of gold in sight.
I ached for him, knowing exactly how hard it had been for him to stand up and walk away from Michelle. Unable to see him like that and not offer him some kind of comfort, I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his chest. Damn, he smelled good. My body instantly took notice of the delicious scent and reveled in the heat of his body so close.
He didn’t even hesitate as his arms wrapped around my waist, his hold almost crushing me against him. He held on until long after the last drop of coffee had dripped into the pot, but I didn’t try to move away. I needed this more than coffee.
Fuck, I needed this more than anything.
Zander sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I stayed drunk for two weeks after I left you that morning.”
I went completely still against him. Here it comes, the reason he didn’t come back for me. I knew that whatever left his mouth shouldn’t matter now. Seventeen years had gone by since it had happened. That didn’t mean I wanted to stand there and let him break my heart all over again by hearing what had been so terrible that he hadn’t wanted to come back for me. That he couldn’t even pick up a phone or a pen and tell me goodbye like he should have so that we could have at least had some kind of closure.
I didn’t move away, though. I stood there, waiting for him to continue because I knew he needed to get it out, to purge it so he could move on. I just hoped I could move on, too.
“For the first two days, I avoided the cell I’d gotten so we could talk like I’d promised. Just thinking about hearing your voice would make my chest hurt, and I knew that if I heard you cry, I’d have been back in Tennessee in a flash.” He tightened his hold even more, cutting off my air, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t sure I would have been able to breathe even if I could. “I pussied out and avoided the pain, then drowned it in any bottle that Rich Branson handed me.”
He said his old manager’s name more like a curse than anything else. I remembered the paps going to town when the story had broken about Demon’s Wings dropping Rich Branson, the restraining order that Emmie had to take out against the old man, and even the assault charges that Rich had tried to file against Nik Armstrong for knocking him out. Within a month, OtherWorld had cut ties with their manager and signed on with Emmie. With two of his biggest clients gone, and the reasons for it spreading like wildfire, Branson had been bankrupt within a year.
“The booze made the pain of missing you…not better, but I guess easier to deal with.” He blew out a harsh breath, as if frustrated with himself. “It numbed me up and I stayed that way for a full week.”
“You said you were drunk for two weeks,” I murmured and felt him nod his head but didn’t dare look up at him. I didn’t know what I would see in his eyes right then and had no idea if I could deal with what I would see.
“Yeah. At the end of the first week, on the last stop of our pseudo-tour that Rich arranged to give us his version of a real rocker experience, I woke up in a hotel room with three girls lying on top of me.”
I shut my eyes tight, trying to block out the mental picture he’d just put in my head. I couldn’t, ah fuck, I couldn’t. Before he’d left, I’d known that there was a huge chance that something like that would happen, that he’d cheat. But after that last night, after he’d made love to me all night long, I’d thought my fears weren’t anything to worry about.
Sucking in a deep, pain-filled breath, I tried to pull away from him. Zander didn’t let me move back more than an inch before tightening his hold. I still didn’t lift my eyes to meet his and he didn’t try to force me to, but I could feel his gaze drilling into the top of my down-bent head.
Tears stung my eyes and clogged my throat, my heart breaking for the second time in my life over this man. I didn’t expect it to hurt this much, didn’t think I could still feel this kind of pain over something that had happened another lifetime ago.
“I went a little crazy when I opened my eyes and saw what I’d done. Tore the fucking room apart. It took Wroth and Devlin to calm my ass down. When I was able to think a little clearer, Dev told me that nothing had happened. I’d passed out and the girls had just stuck around. Later, I found out Branson had paid the girls to make it look like I’d fucked them.” His voice was full of a menace I’d never heard before from Zander.
Slowly, I lifted my eyes and met his dark green and gold eyes. “Y-you didn’t…? But…”
Zander lifted a hand that noticeably shook and wiped away a tear that I hadn’t realized had fallen from my eyes. “The second week I stayed drunk because I realized I’d been right all along. I wasn’t good enough for you. I didn’t fuck those girls, but what about the next time? I was a fucked-up mess and you deserved so much better than that. I wanted my rock-star dream and I wanted you, but I couldn’t have both. I
picked one over the other. You deserved a man who would pick you over anything and everything else, Anna. That guy wasn’t me.”
I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “So why couldn’t you just tell me that?”
He flinched at the chill in my tone. “Because I knew if I heard your voice, I’d throw away my dream and be home with you. I’d have given it all up in the blink of an eye if I’d talked to you, baby. But I was too much of a pussy, and too much of a selfish bastard to do that. Part of me liked the lifestyle I’d found with OtherWorld. I was living the dream I’d envisioned for myself for most of my life. Playing my music for thousands of fans every night, hearing them chant our name, seeing them rock out with us. It was a high all its own. I wasn’t ready to walk away from that yet.”
Oddly enough, I understood where he was coming from. Even at sixteen I’d known that Zander would always pick his music over anything, me included. I’d even accepted it—or so I’d told myself. Hearing him admit it now was like being punched in the chest. I didn’t know what hurt more, the thought of him cheating on me just days after making me a promise to come back for me … or having him say out loud that I’d come in second place.
No one wanted to be second best, damn it.
I pushed against Zander’s chest until he dropped his hands and took three steps back. “From the time you started playing with my brother in the garage, I knew you were destined for great things, Z.” My voice was raspy from the tears I refused to let fall. I’d cried enough that day. I wasn’t going to shed another one. Not when I’d known better, but still hoped for something more…
Fucking hope destroyed lives.
“I knew it and yet I let myself fall in love with you anyway. I knew it even though I let myself believe you when you gave me your grandmother’s ring and promised me that you would be back. I can’t blame you for something when I knew better than to hope I would ever mean more to you than what everyone could see you ached for.” I pushed my hair back from my face and finally met his gaze. My eyes ached, but not with tears. They were dry now. So dry I doubted I’d ever cry again. “So if anyone is at fault here, it’s me. I’m the one who hoped for something I knew I couldn’t have—even if it was just a small piece.”
His face tightened, but I turned away from him, hurting too much to worry about his own pain right then. I loved him so much—I probably always would—that seeing his pain would only increase my own and I’d want to comfort him. To tell him it was going to be okay.
This time I couldn’t do that.
Going to the coffee pot, I poured two cups of the strong coffee and placed his on the island in front of him before moving into the living room and quickly made my way upstairs. I went to Mieke’s room, pausing at the door to suck in several steadying breaths before I knocked twice and opened it.
My daughter sat up, pushing her tangled curls out of her face as she yawned. “What time is it?” she grumbled.
I had no idea. Glancing at the digital clock on her nightstand, I saw that it was just after six thirty. “How about pancakes for breakfast?” I offered, needing something to do to distract myself from the pain that was cracking me from the inside out.
Gold-tinted green eyes brightened. “Can I call Ben and Audrey to come over?”
Somehow I kept my smile in place. “Let’s just keep it to us and your dad this morning.” I was exhausted—emotionally and physically—after only an hour of sleep the night before. If my niece and nephew came over for breakfast, I’d probably lose what was left of my sanity trying to keep up with all their excited chatter.
Mieke’s eyes widened as if her sleepy mind had just remembered that her father was in our house. “Okay. I’ll be down in a few minutes.” I nodded and turned to leave. “Mom?”
I stopped at her hesitant tone, my back to her, and glanced at her over my shoulder. Praying my smile didn’t crack my face, I lifted a brow at her. “Yeah, baby?”
“I love you. You know that, right?”
If I thought I couldn’t hurt any more than I already did that morning, I was wrong. I could and did hurt more, but at least this hurt was the good kind. “I love you too, honey.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Zander
“I wanted to fly out to Cali and punch you in the face.”
I didn’t blink at the words that left Noah Cassidy’s mouth. Fuck, if I had been him, I would have done just that. “Why didn’t you?” I couldn’t help but ask, wondering why he hadn’t gone out there and beaten the hell out of me.
Noah shrugged before lifting a bottle of beer to his lips and taking a large swallow. “Annabelle asked me not to. She said she wanted to tell you. I guess she figured since it had been just the two of you to make those babies, it should be just between the two of you. Then she fell…” He shook his head and placed the half empty bottle of beer on the table between us before raking his hands through his pale-blond hair.
The look on my old friend’s face gutted me. “How did it happen?” I’d known that Annabelle had fallen, that it was why she’d had the twins so early, but she hadn’t gone into details. I hadn’t pushed her to talk about it, not wanting to hurt her more than I knew she already was.
The other man grimaced and glanced around the room we sat in. We were in what Chelsea had called Noah’s man cave. It was what I would have expected of my friend to have in his little hideaway from the outside world: classic car posters on the walls, huge flat-screen taking up one wall, and a mini fridge stocked with beer beside a card table that didn’t look like it had been used for much card playing. A Grammy sat on a shelf in a corner—I assumed it was the one he loved the most because the rest of his awards were in the family room, decorating the walls. Noah had done well for himself in the country music world, with platinum records and country music awards of every type. I was proud of him.
Blue eyes that were nearly identical to his little sister’s finally found mine again and the agony in their depths was like a punch to the stomach. All the air rushed out of my lungs as I waited for him to tell me.
“I was in Memphis that day. Chelsea and Annabelle were out doing some shopping and girly shit. They had just left the mall when some kid who was skipping school nearly ran them over in the parking lot as they were walking to my truck.” He shook his head. “Chelsea told me she didn’t see Annabelle fall, she was too busy cussing at the kid who didn’t even bother to stop to see if he’d hurt them. When she turned around, Annabelle was on the ground. She’d fallen on her ass, but that didn’t matter. She was already so big with the twins… Chels said that there was a puddle of blood just pouring out of Annabelle. A mall security guard called an ambulance, but by the time they got to the hospital they knew they would have to take the babies.”
Noah pressed his thumbs into his eyes, as if trying to block out the images that were ingrained there. “I got to the hospital as they were bringing her into her room, and the doctor tried to tell her about Michelle. She was in shock and still half under the anesthesia they’d given her for the emergency C-section. I had to sign the papers for the heart transplant since she wasn’t coherent enough and I was technically her legal guardian.”
I grabbed my beer off the table and downed the nearly full bottle in two swallows. Even after hearing most of the story from Annabelle, it was hard as fuck to hear it again from Noah’s point of view. I could have lost them all that day. Not just little Michelle, but Mieke and Annabelle, too. Just the thought left a gaping hole in my chest.
“Let’s not talk about the heavy shit, man.” Noah drained his bottle before tossing it in the trash and reached into the mini fridge for two more. Uncapping them both, he offered me one before once again leaning back in his chair. “How have you been? You fuckers have done well for yourselves. Even heard that y’all were gonna take a break from touring for a while. That true?”
After the disaster the summer tour had turned into, I doubted any of us wanted to tour again anytime soon. “Yeah. It’s true. We all need a break from everyt
hing, not just touring.”
Noah nodded. “Yeah, that shit gets old fast. Learned that quick enough once the kids were born. It’s hard to keep everyone happy when you’re touring, making new music, and have a family to take care of. After ten years, I was done. I’d made enough money to keep us happy for the rest of my kids’ lives, but I still work. Couldn’t completely give up the music. I help produce for my label and still write a song every now and then.”
I opened my mouth, ready to tell him that he was done considering Mieke as one of his own. Now that I was in her life, I would make sure she was taken care of. Before I could even get the first word out, one of the cellphones on the table buzzed and I grunted when I realized it was mine.
Grabbing it, I saw that it was Natalie and quickly answered, shooting Noah a quick look. “Hey.”
“Hi,” she greeted with a small laugh. “What’s going on?”
“You know what’s going on. I sent you an email.” I’d sent it hours ago, but knowing how crazy her schedule was at times, I figured she’d just gotten it if she was calling now. After what I’d told her in that email, I’d expected her to call as soon as she read it.
“Yeah, I got that. I’m looking at it right now, actually. I’m just not sure I believe my eyes. Maybe these damn headaches from my blood pressure are playing tricks on my eyes. No way you sent this. Not you.”
I took a long pull from my fresh beer and leaned back, frowning up at the ceiling. “Well, I did. Figured you should be the first to know. And be the one to tell Emmie.”
“What about the others?” she demanded, sounding exasperated and more than a little concerned. I knew the concern was for me and she was wondering what the fuck was going on, but I didn’t owe her an explanation. I didn’t owe anyone that except Annabelle and maybe Mieke.