But he knew they were her pounding steps on the stairs and down the hallway.
Bear yanked open the top drawer of the dresser in Beckett’s bedroom—the one Raegan’s brother had cleared to make room for Jamie and Erin’s clothes. He scooped up a pile of shirts and jeans, then realized he didn’t know where he was going with them. He dropped the clothes back into the drawer and turned. Where was the duffel bag Rosa had packed nearly three weeks ago?
“Bear.”
He didn’t look at her, just stalked to the closet and flung open the door. He found the faded fabric bag on the closet floor. A lot of good that would do him. No chance all the new clothes he’d purchased for the kids would fit in this thing, not to mention the shoes, the books, the toys.
He could borrow an extra suitcase, but that’d be one more bag to check at the airport. If they were driving, it’d be different, but they didn’t have a choice. They had to fly if they were going to make it back in time—
He froze, heart reeling. It couldn’t be ending like this. That social worker in Georgia had it all wrong. So very wrong.
“Talk to me, Bear.” Raegan’s voice was as soft as her footsteps, padding over the carpet and coming to a stop beside him.
“I have to get Jamie and Erin back to Atlanta. I’ve got forty-eight hours.”
Forty-eight hours until Marilyn Beach called the police and the police issued an arrest warrant. This couldn’t be happening.
But he’d spent an hour arguing with the woman. There was no swaying her. She couldn’t get ahold of Rosa. She couldn’t get ahold of Rio. And all she knew about Bear was that he had a criminal record. That he came from a family with the wrong reputation.
And she had a court order demanding he show up with the children by noon on Monday. Make that less than forty-eight hours.
Raegan leaned into his side, circling her arms around his waist. He let himself breathe in the smell of her and will her strength to rub off on him. She was all that was good and warm and right in his life. She fit into his heart as securely as she fit into his arms.
And he had to leave her.
“You could talk to Beckett,” she said. “Even if he doesn’t know anything about custody issues, he’s probably got other lawyer friends who do and—”
“I love you, Raegan.”
The whisper slipped from his lips before the words had even fully formed in his mind. He hadn’t planned to say it. And somewhere in the farthest reaches of his mind peeled the faintest of alarm bells.
You don’t tell a woman you love her when you’re in the midst of a crisis. When you have to leave. When you honestly don’t know when you’re coming back.
But he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. With his lips against her hair, he whispered it again. “I love you.”
She tipped her head to meet his gaze, her eyes filled with wonder. “Bear McKinley.”
He loved the way she said his name. Somewhere, somehow, he found a hushed, teasing tone. “That’s all you have to say? I tell you I love you and I just get ‘Bear McKinley’?”
She moved from his side to his front, stretching to wind her arms around his neck. “Bear McKinley,” she said again. “I am pretty sure I’ve loved you since the day I met you. I don’t care how cliché it sounds. It’s true.”
“I’m okay with clichés.”
She pressed a kiss to his lips. Another. And another.
And then he lost count as he surrendered to his desire, his need to forget everything else except the woman in his arms. He lifted her from her feet, crushing her to him, kissing her as if his next breath depended on it.
Abruptly, she pulled her head back, breathless. “Bear, I have an idea.”
Really? She was capable of talking right now?
“A really good idea.”
He trailed his lips along her cheeks toward her ear, making her shiver. “Shut the door in case your dad or brother happens to walk past?”
“I can go with you.”
He stopped, loosened his hold on her just enough to let her feet touch the floor, her back pressed against the closet door. “What?”
“Take me with you to Atlanta.”
“But you don’t like new places.” It was the closest his brain could come to forming a coherent thought. He should probably put more than a sliver of space between them. Catch his breath. Think.
But he couldn’t make himself pull away.
“I don’t like new places when I’m alone. If you’re there, I’ll be fine. I can help with the kids, support you however I can until this is all resolved and we can come home. I can just . . . be there for you. The way you’re always there for everyone else. You could even show me where you grew up and—”
“No.” Now he could pull away. Did. He reached down to pick up the duffel bag he’d dropped and returned to the dresser.
“But . . . why not?”
Was that hurt mixed in with the confusion in her voice? He couldn’t stand the thought of hurting her. But that was the very reason he couldn’t let himself say yes. “It’s not a good idea, Rae.” He pulled a pile of clothes from the drawer.
“You just said you love me—”
“And I do. Like you wouldn’t believe. But Atlanta is my old life. You’re my new life. Mixing the two . . . it’s just not a good idea,” he said again.
“They’re already mixed, Bear.” Frustration laced her voice. “An old life or a new life, one life or two lives or three or however many—they’re all yours. And you’re a part of my life. The biggest part. The best.”
“I don’t even know how long I’ll be down there. You’ve got the mural. You’ve got therapy.” She’d had another appointment yesterday. She’d spent more than an hour last night telling him about it, thanking him again and again for being the one to nudge her into it.
Her eyes had glistened with tears. “It’s hard, but it’s right, Bear. Even if I have cried more in the past week than in the past five years put together.”
He emptied the drawer and zipped the duffel bag. Hard, but right. “I don’t want Beckett involved either.”
“Please, Bear—”
“I just can’t. Not again.” He hung his head, vision blurring on the empty drawer, the duffel bag slipping from his fingers.
“What do you mean ‘not again’?”
“I mean . . . Annie was my new life once.” He heard Raegan’s inhale, looked over to see her blink. He’d meant to tell her. Just not like this. “It was different than . . . than it is with you. I was just so grateful to her, to her family. They showed me this new way to live. They accepted me. I knew she had a crush on me and I wasn’t sure I liked her the same way, but I dated her anyway.” He closed the empty drawer and turned to her, forcing himself to go on. “We started making plans. She had a semester left of college. We were going to join her parents in Brazil.”
Raegan didn’t move. “Were you engaged?”
“Close.” He hated this. Hated that he hadn’t just been honest with Raegan from the start. Hated that he’d hid so much away and that now it’d come back to hurt the woman he loved. “I was saving for a ring.”
And he would’ve proposed, too. Even knowing he didn’t love her the way she loved him, he would’ve proposed and he would’ve married her and he would’ve gone to Brazil. Because everything he’d yearned for, for so long, he’d found with Annie and her parents. Because even as a young adult, he’d still been that little boy longing for a family bound by love and peace and commitment.
He would’ve married her because of what he’d have gotten out of it. So selfish. But even that wouldn’t have been as bad as . . .
Raegan touched his arm. “Bear, what happened?”
He towed the words from gaping depths. “Rio. The warehouse. The arrest.” That split-second decision in the back of the cop car. “When I confessed to Rio’s crime, I chose my brother over her. I knew what I was doing. I knew it would ruin all our plans. She said she’d wait for me. She came to the trial. She visited me in p
rison, called, wrote letters. But it wasn’t the same. Every time I saw her, she just looked . . . sick almost.”
And the gaps between letters and calls grew wider. She didn’t show up for a scheduled visit . . .
And then, John’s letter.
“There was a car accident. She’d been on her way to Rio and Rosa’s place. Because I asked her to check in on them.” It was coming in spurts now—short, desperate utterances. “She had all these dreams, but one choice, my choice . . .”
Raegan’s gasp filled in the gap where his choking words cut off. And then she was in his arms again—or was he in hers?—tears he couldn’t contain trailing down his cheeks. “But Bear, you have to know . . .”
He shook his head against her shoulder. He had to know it wasn’t his fault? He’d tried to believe it so many times. Accidents could happen anywhere, anytime.
But he couldn’t escape the reality that behind it all was the way he’d hurt her when his old life had invaded his new. If not for him, she might have been in another country when that drunk driver on I-85 took to the road. She’d have been living out her dream, not tangled in his mess. If not for him. No second chances. “I can’t do it again, Rae. I won’t choose again. I need you here—safe, in a good place, with your family.”
“But—”
He cut her off with a desperate, pleading kiss. When he finally felt her yield, he broke away with a ragged inhale. “You need to stay. I need to go. But I’ll come back. I promise. Just wait for me, okay?”
She clung to him. “Always.”
Raegan closed Beckett’s bedroom door gently. Bear needed this time alone. Time to pull himself together before Jamie and Erin finished the Disney movie they were watching downstairs and he had to tell them they’d be leaving in the morning.
She squeezed her eyes closed, the force of Bear’s pain still wending through her like a sharp, unstoppable gale.
It’s not fair, God. He doesn’t deserve this—this loss and hurt and guilt.
No, not just guilt. Shame—scathing and scarring. She’d caught glimpses of it before, but now he wore it as visibly as the tattoo on his arm. Wasn’t it enough that the man had gone to prison for something he didn’t do? That he’d left Brazil because of rumors and false accusations? Did he have to be drilled by the police and threatened by a social worker on top of it?
She slumped against the hallway wall, his crushing hurt becoming her own as a shudder wracked through her, clasping and then squeezing . . .
No. She swallowed the swell of anxiety. Not now.
“Raegan?” Dad rounded the corner.
Inhale four seconds. One. Two. Three. Four.
“Honey, are you okay?”
Five. Six. Seven.
“Please not now.” Did the words eke past her lips? Was she talking to Dad or herself?
“Not now what?”
She gulped for air. Slow down. Four seconds—hold. She closed her eyes, counted around a wordless prayer, exhaled. The pressing eased. Another inhale.
“Rae—”
“Breathing exercise.” Hold. Exhale. “Sara taught me.”
No ringing in her ears. No blurring vision. It was working.
“Sara?” Dad nearly choked on the name.
Raegan met his eyes expecting riled confusion. But all she saw was concern. “I get panic attacks. Sara’s helping me.”
As she breathed and counted and waited for her hands to stop shaking, she watched the realization pass over Dad’s face. The secret she’d kept. The fact that she had turned to the only woman he’d ever asked her to avoid. He’d want to know how long she’d been having the attacks, of course, and how many times she’d been to see Sara. He’d want to know Sara’s diagnosis and if there was something he could do to help. He’d ask about medication and—
“Are you okay?” He touched her shoulder. “Right now, I mean?”
Her trembling ceased. “Yeah. I am.” Thanks to the breathing exercise, to Sara’s help, to a prayer that didn’t need words.
It might not always be like this. Breathing exercises were a coping technique, not a cure, Sara said. Therapy was a marathon, not a sprint. And prayer didn’t always mean sudden, miraculous healing.
Sara hadn’t needed to add that last one.
But this moment, right now, it felt like a victory. Not only because she’d stared down the familiar dark well and found the strength to step back. But because she’d been honest with Dad. She’d refused to hide.
“How long?” he finally asked.
“Since before Mom died.”
He closed his eyes for a long moment. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Why have you never told me about Sara?”
He opened his eyes.
“Why didn’t Beckett tell us for so many years why he stayed away from Maple Valley? Or Logan open up about how much he was really struggling back in LA? Kate still hardly ever talks about that thing with her college professor.” And Bear—it’d taken him so long to let her all the way in. He still hadn’t entirely, not really. Not when he was so intent on drawing a line between his life in Atlanta and his life here. “Why do any of us keep anything from the people we love most?”
Swelling music from the movie downstairs drifted upward. Dad opened his mouth and then closed it, the etched lines of his face seeming to deepen right in front of her eyes.
Finally, he took a step back. “Sara and your mother were best friends.”
“I know.”
“So naturally, I spent a lot of time with her as a teenager. Double dates, sometimes, but more often than not, it was just the three of us. Sara didn’t really seem to mind being the third wheel.”
The sound of a dresser drawer closing came from the other side of Beckett’s bedroom door. Bear must’ve finally started packing again.
“Anyway, there was this dance in town the night before I had to leave for boot camp. Spent most of the time dancing with Flora, but Sara managed to corner me before we left. Next thing I know, she’s saying all this stuff—that she knows I love Flora but that she loves me and—”
Raegan’s jaw dropped—half surprise, half amusement. This was Dad’s mysterious past with Sara?
“Then she kisses me.”
She shouldn’t laugh. She really shouldn’t laugh.
“It’s not funny, Rae. She kissed me in front of Flora, not to mention half of Maple Valley! That is not how I wanted my last night before shipping off to fight in a war to go.”
“Did you and Mom fight? Did it ruin Sara and Mom’s friendship? I’m waiting for the part of the story that would cause you to still be angry this many years later.”
He folded his arms. “No, we didn’t fight. You know your mother. She said obviously Sara had good taste and that she’d suspected it for a while. She felt bad for Sara, of all things. And yeah, they drifted apart and Flora regretted it for years. Completely unfair because it wasn’t her fault.”
Okay, that part of the story was unfortunate. But still, she couldn’t hold back her grin. “And here I thought some huge scandal had happened.”
“She kissed me!”
“Forty-some years ago.”
“She wrote me letters, too. Do you know how much I got heckled in the barracks for getting letters from two girls back home?”
“Dad, you all but ordered the woman from your house.” She was all-out giggling now. “Because of leftover high school romantic drama.”
He dropped his arms like a last defense. Cracked a grin. Finally let out a laugh. “I guess it is a little comical.”
“No, Dad, it’s hilarious.”
And then they were both laughing.
“I thought she’d, like, betrayed the U.S. during the war. Spied for Russia or China. Or at least broken your heart pre-Mom or something.”
“I did kick her out of the house. Like a general ousting an enlisted man from an officer’s club.” He was laughing so hard a tear slipped down his cheek. “It’s kind of horrible, really.”
Raeg
an could barely speak through her laughter. “You should probably apologize.” She let out a sigh, still bubbling with giggles. “Oh man, I really needed this, Dad.”
He matched her exhale with one of his own, his chuckles subsiding as his gaze found her face. “I don’t know why I couldn’t tell you about Sara earlier or why you couldn’t tell me about the panic attacks. But now that I know, you just tell me how I can support you and I’ll do it.” He laid his hands on her shoulders. “And if you don’t need me to do anything, that’s fine. Just know that I’m here for you and I love you and nothing will ever change that.”
She stepped into her father’s embrace, more thankful than ever for the man he was and consumed by the freedom of being fully seen and fully accepted. “I love you, Dad.”
“Hey, Rae?”
Beckett’s voice pulled her from the hug. Her brother glanced back and forth between them, but whatever he’d come to say must take precedence over the questions their obvious emotional state prompted because he didn’t ask a one of them. Only hesitated, phone in hand.
“Is everything okay, Beck?”
“Just got a call from Meg at the coffee shop. She was closing up. Happened to check out the mural.” He shifted his weight. “She says you need to come into town.”
16
Raegan stared at the splattered brick, her careful brushstrokes—three days of intense work—obliterated by huge blobs of wayward color. Those paint cans she’d left uncovered atop the scaffolding now littered the ground in front of the building. Emptied. “Who would do this?”
Twilight doused the riverfront in shadows. Dad shook his head beside her. “I don’t know. But we should probably call the police.”
Was it the cool evening air or the vindictiveness on display in front of her that scattered goosebumps over her skin? “It’s just paint. I know it’s just paint.” It could be covered up. But she’d already had to start over once—after that storm. She was on a tight timeline as it was. Less than five weeks until the art fair.
How many setbacks could one project handle?
And if someone in town was against this mural, why didn’t they say so back before she’d ever started?