Before Cara could respond, Zach took hold of Lina’s hand and dragged her onto the dance floor. A hackneyed version of a Hootie and the Blowfish song was pulsing from the huge speakers in the corner.
Lina couldn’t help laughing as he twirled her into the crowd and started dancing.
It was the beginning of the best night of her life.
Madelaine paced back and forth across the living room, picking up knickknacks and moving them from table to table, studying the manufacturer’s marks on her china candy dishes as if she’d never seen them before. Each and every Christmas decoration held her avid attention. For the fifteenth time in as many minutes, she looked at the mantel clock. The Christmas tree sparkled in the corner.
“Thirty minutes,” she said, more to herself than to Angel. “They should be dancing by now.”
Angel turned away from the window, where he’d been standing motionless and silent for the same thirty minutes. “Okay, enough is enough.”
Madelaine stopped and looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“She’s at the dance, she’s having a great time. She hasn’t been kidnapped by terrorists. I’m going to try and forget my negative fantasy—which is, by the way, that she gets in a car with that red-faced kid and keeps on going, stopping only long enough to get pregnant and rob a liquor store.”
Madelaine laughed, and it felt good to make light of it all. “You’re right. We have to relax.”
He whipped the living room curtains shut and turned around, giving her a smoldering smile. “Now I have you all to myself.”
She felt a shiver of anticipation. “So you do.”
“Good, let’s talk.”
She knew she looked ridiculously disappointed, but she couldn’t help it. “We’re alone for once, and you want to talk?”
He grabbed her hand and led her to the sofa. They sat down side by side, and he turned to her. “You said earlier that I was a never kind of guy.”
Her heart seemed to stall for a second, then pick up speed. She tried to make light of it. “Forget it, I didn’t mean—”
“What did you mean?”
There was no laughter in his eyes, just an intensity that stole her breath. She knew it mattered to him, what she said, and she didn’t know what was the right thing. She wanted to blurt out that she was afraid—afraid of so many things, loving him, not loving him, everything. “I meant that I know you, Angel. I understand the kind of man you are.” She gazed up at him, trying to smile. “I’m not sixteen anymore, and you can’t break my heart like you did before. We can just … be … this time. No promises, no guarantees. It’s enough for me.”
He looked at her sadly. “It’s not enough for me, Mad.”
“What do you mean?”
His gaze left her face, traveled around the room as if he were searching for something. After what seemed like hours, he took hold of her hand and held it to his chest. She felt the fluttering rhythm of his heart beneath the heavy cotton fabric of his coveralls. “I want so much for us, Mad. I want to be here for you, with you, forever. I want to bounce our children and our grandchildren on my knee. I want to go to bed with you every night and wake up with you every morning for the rest of my life … but I don’t know how long that will be.”
The words sank deep inside her, twisted around her heart and brought tears to her eyes. “No one ever knows those things, Angel.”
“I missed so much of Lina’s life…” He looked away again. “I wish I could have those years back. I threw them away so easily…. I’ll never do that again. I love you, Madelaine Hillyard. And I know I’ve said that before, but you’re just going to have to give me a second chance.”
It was all there in the words he was offering, in the look in his eyes, everything she’d ever wanted. The love, the family, the commitment—everything. She wanted him, beside her on this couch and in her bed for as long as forever could be.
She wanted to answer, but the words tangled in the thickness in her throat and wouldn’t come out. And then he was holding her, kissing her so passionately, the world began to spin. She clung to him, loving him so much that the emotion was a sharp pain in her chest.
He pulled slightly away. His breathing was ragged and shallow as he rested his lips against her cheek. “Say it, Mad, say it before I rip the house apart.”
She drew back, laughing. It would always be this way with him, she realized. He would always be able to rattle her senses and confuse her, and he would always demand things in that arrogant, selfish way of his, as if the world owed him everything. And he would always be the one person in the world she wanted to sit on this sofa with. “I love you, Angel DeMarco. And if you take that lightly again, I’ll—”
He covered her mouth with his, whispering, “Never.”
He kissed her until she was breathless. Then, with a suddenness that should have surprised her, but didn’t, he lurched to his feet and dragged her into the center of the living room.
“Stand there,” he ordered.
She protested and he ignored her. Instead, he went around and flicked off all the lights, until the room was completely dark except for the glowing red of the firelight and the sparkling gold and white of the Christmas tree. “Close your eyes.”
She couldn’t help laughing. “It’s a little pointless, don’t you think? The room is dark.”
“Doctors,” he said with mock disgust. “Just close your eyes.”
Grinning, she complied. “I’m getting the feeling you’re not used to dating career women.”
She heard him chuckle. “Most of my women had the IQ of field mice. Now, keep your eyes closed.”
“And the bodies of Playboy bunnies,” Madelaine muttered under her breath.
She stood there, eyes closed, arms crossed, trying to figure out what he was doing. She heard the front door open, then close. She listened and knew he was no longer in the house. She thought about peeking and decided it would be no fun.
In the distance she heard a car door open and close; a few seconds later, her front door shut again. He dragged something—a chair—across the hardwood floor. Wood creaked and groaned, and she thought he was climbing onto the chair. Then he pushed it back across the floor.
“Okay now, don’t look,” he said again, and she heard him walking toward her.
She felt him come up close, so close she could smell the musky tang of his aftershave and feel the moist heat of his breath on her forehead. He started to unbutton her sweater.
She kept her eyes shut by sheer force of will. He didn’t say anything, didn’t touch her anywhere except on the sweater, unpopping each button. Then he peeled the sweater off, his palms dragging sensually across her bare shoulders.
Cool air swept across her flesh, sent goose bumps scurrying down her arms.
She heard his bones creak as he knelt in front of her. He unhooked her leather belt and let it dangle, then he unbuttoned the waistband and slowly, slowly, lowered the zipper. She felt his fingertips brushing against her belly.
Her pants fell to the floor. His hands formed to her thighs, branding her with their heat, then moved up, up her legs, dipped in at her waist, and kept moving up toward her breasts. At the last second his touch moved to her back and he unhooked her bra, let it fall to the floor with the pants.
She tried to imagine herself as he saw her now, standing there in the middle of her living room, lit only by the soft gold of firelight, wearing nothing but white underwear and black knee socks. It was amazingly erotic, fantasizing about how she looked, about how he saw her.
She waited breathlessly for him to touch her. Her skin seemed to tighten in anticipation, her heartbeat sped up. But he didn’t touch her; instead, he slipped something silky and slippery over her head. She knew it was a gown—maybe a nightgown—that hugged her every curve and fell all the way to the floor. The silk felt whispery and delicious against her bare skin.
He moved away from her, and she felt a flutter of frustration. “Angel,” she said, wanting him back, aching
for his touch.
There was an electronic click, and music came on. The slow, romantic voice of Dan Fogelberg drifted through the room. “Longer.” She recognized the song instantly, and she smiled at the sheer romance of it.
“Open your eyes,” Angel said, and she realized that he was right in front of her. Smiling, she opened her eyes.
He was wearing a gorgeous black tuxedo—and he looked stunningly handsome. He’d dressed her in an elegant black silk sheath dress that was so sexy and daring, she’d never have bought it for herself. She started to reach for him, to throw her arms around him and kiss him, then she noticed everything else he’d done and her breath caught in her throat.
There was a huge, mirrored ball hanging from the chandelier above the dining room table. Each little square of glass caught the candlelight and threw beads of light across the walls, the ceiling, the floor.
He’d created a high school prom in her living room.
“Oh, my,” was all she could think of to say. It was such a wild and crazy and romantic thing to do—so totally Angel.
He reached his hand out, and in his palm lay a black velvet box. “Open it,” he said softly.
She looked up at him. Slowly, her hands shaking, she reached for the box and snapped it open. A brilliant diamond blinked up at her. “Oh, Angel…”
He eased the ring from the box and fit it onto her finger. “Marry me, Madelaine.”
She stared down at the ring, laughing and crying at the same time. It was an absurdly big diamond—conspicuous and dazzling and flashy—just like the man who’d bought it. She knew suddenly that her life would be different with Angel, more different than she could imagine. He would never do things the way other men did—he was like a flame, hot and dancing and capable of great destruction. But she knew—God, she’d known since she was sixteen years old—that there was no one else for her. “It’s so big…You shouldn’t have…Oh, Angel…”
He grinned. “I’m from Hollywood—the land of big jewelry. I want the world to know you’re mine.” He moved closer, and his smile faded. He looked at her with a seriousness that made her heart feel achingly full. “You are mine, aren’t you, Mad?”
“Always.”
His grin came back, brighter than the diamond. “Good. Now, dance with me, Mrs. DeMarco.”
The laughter rose through her and spilled out in a light, airy sound of pure joy. “Why, Mr. DeMarco, I thought you’d never ask.”
Epilogue
He sits on the porch swing, trying to make it sway beneath him. He can hear the high, clear sound of Lina’s laughter floating on the air. In the yard just in front of him, Madelaine and Lina and Angel are untangling a strand of Christmas lights. On the corner beyond, a young man stands in the shadow of a hundred-year-old oak tree, his hands jammed in his Levi’s pockets. No one in the yard has seen the boy yet, but he knows that they will. Soon Lina will look up and see the boy and go running down the walkway toward him.
He feels himself start to smile. It feels good, that slow, easy curving of the lips, and he realizes halfway into it that he can feel himself smiling. He notices that the wind is brushing his cheek, rustling his hair, and that he can smell the thick, puffy snowflakes that blanket the winter grass. He notices, too, that the birds have come back, and he can hear their magpie chatter.
He looks down, and for the first time in forever, he can see himself again. He places his feet firmly on the ground and gives a little push. The porch swing begins, very slowly, to rock beneath him. He hears the quiet, creaking whine of its movement.
In the yard, Madelaine pauses, her arms full of dark lights, her eyes—her beautiful mist-green eyes—riveted on the porch swing. He feels the heat of her gaze on him, and the heat grows stronger and stronger until it is so hot, he feels as if he’ll surely melt beneath it. The sunlight seems to come at him from all angles, sparkling on the new-fallen snow, glancing off the white fence posts, sifting down from a blue break in the clouds. It’s as if he’s standing in the path of the sun, and it warms him, oh, how it warms him.
“Look,” Angel says quietly, slipping his arm around Madelaine’s waist, drawing her close.
“The porch swing,” Lina says, moving toward her parents.
Together they walk toward him. He can feel their eyes on him, and he wants to sing out in triumph. He concentrates very hard and rises to his feet, and keeps rising.
He feels the laughter welling up inside him, spilling everywhere as he hovers above the ground, weightless and free. He hears his laughter in a dozen sounds—the chatter of the birds, the creaking of the swing, the falling of the snow from overburdened branches. In the distance a snowblower whirs to life, and he hears his laughter in that, too.
And through it all he can hear his old heart beating in Angel’s chest, beating and beating and beating like the steady hum of the wind as it pushes through the leaves.
For the first time in his life, he doesn’t feel as if there’s a hole inside him. Instead, he feels lighter than air, giddy with a sense of promise and discovery. He looks up at the sky, sees the distant blues and grays and whites whirl together in an impossible glow.
He looks at Madelaine, his Maddy-girl, and in a flash he sees her whole life, spinning out in front of him like the stuttering scenes of an old black-and-white movie. Her hair will never turn gray, it will instead turn a bright snow white, and she will live in this house, and sip lemonade on his porch swing, up until the day she dies. She will wear baggy sweats as an old woman and never need glasses, and she and Angel will name their son Francis, and they will call him Frank.
Because there’s already been a Francis.
He knows that she will miss him, always, and for the rest of her life, just as he will miss her. But she will have Angel, an Angel he never really got to know but always believed in, and she will have Lina. His precious Lina.
And he knows suddenly what kept him on the porch swing, watching the days bleed into one another and turn into shadowy nights. He is still part of that family on the snow-covered lawn, his family, and he always will be. He had it all wrong, and he realizes that perhaps that’s what life is, getting it wrong and going on, and still believing, always believing.
He feels himself going higher and higher, until they are three specks of darkness against a white, white world. After a few moments the porch swing settles again, and the family below goes back to setting up the Christmas lights.
He stares down at them, the three he loved so well, and knows that they will talk about this moment in the years to come.
They will talk of the afternoon that the porch swing creaked on its own and the winter sunlight seemed hot enough to cook eggs. They will offer to one another the comfort of belief, the promise of magic, and they will spend their lifetimes watching that old porch swing and thinking of a man they loved.
Francis smiles at the thought. And in the whisper of the wind, he hears their laughter for the very last time.
For a preview of
Kristin Hannah’s
next moving novel,
MAGIC HOUR,
read on
Look for it in bookstores everywhere
Published by Ballantine Books
JULIA STOOD in front of the full length mirror in her bed room, studying herself with a critical eye. She wore a charcoal gray pantsuit and a pale pink silk blouse. Her blonde hair was coiled back in a French twist—the way she always wore it when she saw patients. Not that she had a lot of patients left. The tragedy in Silverwood had cost her at least seventy percent of them. Thankfully there had been those who still trusted her, and she would never let them down.
She grabbed her briefcase and went down to her garage, where her steel blue Toyota Prius Hybrid waited. The garage door opened, revealing the empty street outside.
On this warm, brown October morning, there were no reporters out there waiting for her, clustered together and yet apart, smoking cigarettes and talking.
Of course not.
She was no long
er part of the story.
She was thankful for that. Even the crowded traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway couldn’t dim her enthusiasm. Finally, after a year of nightmares, she was headed down the road to her real life. It took her more than an hour to reach the small, beautiful Beverly Hills office building that she’d leased for more than seven years.
She parked in her spot and went inside, closing the door quietly behind her. On the second floor, she paused outside her office, looking at the sterling silver plaque on the door.
DR. JULIA CATES.
She pressed the intercom button.
“Dr. Cates’s office,” came the scratchy voiced reply through the speaker. “May I help you?”
“Hey, Gwen, it’s me.”
“Oh!”
There was a buzzing sound, then the door unlocked with a click.
Julia took a deep breath and opened the door. The office smelled of the fresh flowers that were delivered every Monday morning. Though there were fewer patients now, she’d never cut back on the flower order. It would have been a sign of defeat.
“Hello, doctor,” said Gwen Connelly, her receptionist. “Congratulations on yesterday.”
“Thanks.” Julia smiled. “Is Melissa here yet?”
“You have no appointments this week,” Gwen said gently. The compassion in her brown eyes was unnerving. “They all cancelled.”
“All of them? Even Marcus?”
“Did you see the L.A. Times today?”
“No. Why?”
Gwen pulled a newspaper out of the trash can and dropped it on the desk. The headline was DEAD WRONG. Beneath it was a photograph of Julia. “The Zunigas gave an interview after the hearing. They blamed you for all of it.”
Julia reached out for the wall to steady herself.
“I’m sure they’re just trying to get out from under the lawsuit. They said … you should have committed their daughter.”
“Oh.” The word slipped out on a breath.
Gwen stood up and came around the desk. She was a small, compact woman who had run this office as she’d run her home, with discipline and care. Moving forward, she opened her arms. “You helped a lot of people. No one can take that from you.”