A Wedding on Bluebird Way Read online

  After it was on, he found her. What had been empty was about to be exquisitely full. Gently, insistently, he worked his way in, making her feet pedal weakly on the cover. She wasn’t used to sex. But then it all came back to her, along with the sense of urgent need. The white-hot friction that was half sin and half magic. And then the mounting waves of pleasure that came radiating out from some place deep inside her, some place only Joshua could reach.

  The muscles between her thighs ached from being stretched, but need overrode it. She dug her fingers into the hard, smooth skin of his shoulders and let those waves bring her higher. There was a pounding in her ears that she might have remembered from before, from those endless summer nights when they lay entwined in each other’s arms. The restless pounding told her what was coming next, what was coming now.

  And then all at once the truth of everything rushed toward her in a burst of blistering fire. Her back arched. She cried out, shuddering. Joshua gave a hoarse shout as he, too, drowned in that sea of flames. She felt it through her fingers, the way his body churned above her, thrusting wildly, before he finally went still.

  Minutes later, Hailey was still circling the earth somewhere, trying to catch her breath. She’d only ever been with Joshua, and knew she had no one to compare him to, but . . . if her love for him had been any less absolute, she never would have been able to give herself to him this freely.

  Joshua brushed the hair away from her face. She knew his heart was thumping as hard as hers because she could feel it pressed against her. But she also sensed, without having to say the words, that he was feeling the same dizzying rush of love and happiness that she was. When he kissed her, she could taste it. She snuggled closer. Joshua’s sheer size made him a world-class snuggler.

  “You’re the only thing that got me through this awful day,” he said softly.

  “Awful how?”

  “My folks found out about . . . well, about everything. What they didn’t know, I filled them in on.”

  Hailey’s glow suddenly deserted her. She had a strange premonition of doom. “What did they say?”

  “They kicked me out and told me not to come home again. I’m no longer welcome there. And I’ve got to tell you . . .” He frowned, clearly puzzled by her pushing away from him and scrabbling out of bed. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

  Along with having a sickening sense of déjà vu, Hailey knew then that this was what she’d feared all along. She kept gulping air because she couldn’t get any. Grabbing her panties, she pulled them on and then sat at the edge of the bed with one hand bracing her stomach.

  A crushing weight of sadness bore down on her. Life was so unfair.

  “You sacrificed your family . . . for me?” she whispered.

  “Sacrificed?” He sat up, clearly worried. “I told them the truth. They reacted about as well as I thought they would.”

  She went to the window that overlooked the garden. Joshua used to meet her down there next to the trellis of climbing roses. The roses were dusted silver by moonlight now. All she’d ever wanted was for the dream to go on forever. No parents, no college, nothing that might take him away from her. Deep down, she’d known his family would never accept her. She might have yearned for two parents to fill in the hole left by the loss of hers, but it would never be the Lovings. She had been crazy to even think it was possible.

  Joshua’s family could never love her. And she could never let Joshua give up something so important.

  “You’d better go,” she said over the lump in her throat.

  “What are you talking about?” Joshua said in a tense voice. He looked stunned.

  “I can’t be the reason your family disowns you,” she said. “Loving you means putting your needs ahead of my own. And what you need, whether you know it or not, is your family.”

  “No, I need you.” Joshua got off the bed and came over to her. Not even his comforting nearness took the edges off her despair. Good things like him didn’t happen to girls like her. Just more of the same in a long, dark tunnel that never ended. Tears slid down her cheeks, her throat, her chest. She tried to make them stop, but they kept falling.

  “Look, I’m not going to make myself miserable trying to live the life my parents tell me to,” Joshua told her. “I love my folks. I do. But this is my life. And I need you to be in it.”

  “You say that, but you’re not even out of school yet. Who’s going to support you during your internship? During vet school?”

  “I’ll take out student loans,” Joshua said, shrugging.

  Of course. He’s never had to worry about money. He’s never had to skip paying the gas bill in order to keep the lights on. It’s all so easy for him.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The only thing that does matter is that we’re together.”

  “That’s not true.” She shook free of him and put on her clothes. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Hailey—”

  “No.” She couldn’t make out his expression in the dim light, but he seemed as baffled and angry as she was sad. The truth was, even if you wanted to, you could never turn your back on your family. Not for long anyway. The world was too harsh a place.

  Hailey didn’t know a lot of things, but she knew this: in the end, all you had was family. After they were gone, you had nothing.

  “You have to fix this,” she told him. “We can’t be together until you do. Families are a pain in the ass, but that’s not important. You still need yours. Everybody does. That kind of love is the only love that will bring you home.”

  * * *

  Dawn broke pink over the horizon as Joshua sat in his Jeep and stared at the Serendipity city limits sign. How many times had he driven right past that sign without giving it a second thought? Come on back now, ya hear? it said in red italic script.

  Now that his life was falling apart, it seemed horribly ironic, even sinister.

  He pulled onto the shoulder of the road and cut the engine. He had nowhere to go except back to Austin. His eyes were raw from lack of sleep, but that was nothing compared to the ache inside his chest. He’d had all these wonderful plans for his future. Now the only thing he felt sure of was endless amounts of misery.

  He was a lover, not a loner. Worse, he was one of those pathetic saps who only loved one woman forever. And that woman was Hailey.

  There were few cars this early in the morning. Joshua sat in the soft hush of dawn and listened to the birds awakening. The sky was pale blue and cloudless, which meant another scorcher of a day—a day without Hailey in it. He raked one hand through his hair and tried not to feel so lost and alone.

  A part of him willfully refused to understand how she could tell him to stand up for what he believed in, but then reject him when he did it. Of all people, why would she insist he reconcile with his family? Women. What on earth did they want? Sometimes he wished he could be more like Trip—get in, get out, and get gone.

  But if Joshua had to be fair, which he didn’t want to be, Hailey had a point. In the end, all you had was family. Sure, they made you crazy. Maybe all relationships made you crazy. And yet . . .

  He gripped the steering wheel with both hands and squeezed as hard as he could, every cell in his body blistering with rage and love and frustration. His friends always teased him about being the “chill” one, the gentle giant. Now he wanted to rip the steering wheel off its column and use it to smash things. He wanted to run over that city limits sign again and again until it lay crushed and mangled beneath his tires. Then he wanted to set fire to the country club that gave his mother all those crazy ideas about being too good to have Hailey Deacon as a daughter-in-law.

  To hell with that.

  Joshua jumped out of his Jeep and found a big branch lying by the side of the road. He grabbed it and snapped it with his bare hands. Yes. Better. He found another and then another after that, breaking and demolishing, feeling like a jackass, but unable to stop himself.

  When he was done, the roadside was
littered with broken branches, yet his mind felt clearer. The whole world would be a better place if people had somewhere to go where they could destroy stuff. It was very therapeutic.

  Panting, he surveyed the damage and thought: What are you doing, you idiot? You’re supposed to fight for what matters. You’re supposed to fight for Hailey.

  He knew what he would do. First, he needed to find a motel and sleep for a few hours. He couldn’t do anything on no sleep. Then he’d take a shower and head over to the ranch.

  No way was he giving up. Not now. He climbed back into the Jeep and started the engine. His dad did a lot of stupid, hardheaded stuff, but he always felt bad about it afterward.

  Joshua shook his head. Why hadn’t he remembered that?

  His sister would be up in a few hours. High time they talked. Who better than Savannah to hash things through with? He’d call her and get some advice. For the first time in a while, he felt absolutely sure of himself. Only an overgrown child would let himself be driven away by anger and resentment. A man—a real man—put his foot down and did the right thing, not the easy one.

  Joshua put the Jeep in gear and roared away.

  Chapter Eight

  When Hailey was sad about something, she found lots of other sad things to think about. An orgy of sadness. She figured it was more efficient to get it all out of her system at once. And there was one sad thought in particular that always wound up for the one-two punch when she was down: the night Tanner and her father had died.

  She was at her other other job today, walking Mrs. Shapiro’s husky mix, Bob. The problem with walking Bob was that it gave Hailey too much time alone with her thoughts. There was a dull pain where her heart used to be and a bucket of tears she refused to shed. Telling herself to stop obsessing over Joshua meant that Joshua was all she thought about. She had to really knuckle down and focus on something else.

  When Tanner and her dad had lost control of the truck—what had that moment been like for them? The tree, caught in their headlights, rushing toward them. The sickening crunch of metal and plastic, the shattering of glass, the acrid smell of gasoline and smoke.

  And then nothing.

  After saying good-bye to Joshua, Hailey had felt as though she’d been in a car wreck of her own making. But the nothing she kept waiting for never came. Instead, there was this numb despair and the bleakness of her future. It didn’t give her anything to hope for. She would stay right here in Serendipity, rattling around inside that broken-down ghost house until it disappeared into a pile of dust.

  Bob dragged her along the street, straining the leash so he could stop and pee every few feet. She loved Bob, but not even his silliness could drag her out of her pit of despair. Funny how he was exactly the kind of dog she’d always imagined having with Joshua. They could have been one of those couples who insisted on the dog’s staying off the bed, but who woke up every morning with it sandwiched between them. They were supposed to have ridden horses together and gone to the Ice House to drink beer and listen to live music. They were supposed to be making love, not arguing about what was owed to family.

  But she couldn’t be the wedge between Joshua and his parents. Maybe he wouldn’t hate her for it right away, but he’d hate her for it eventually. There was too much at stake for him: His career. His family. His thousand-acre inheritance. She just couldn’t let him sacrifice all that.

  Not for a misfit like her.

  Hailey took Bob back to Mrs. Shapiro’s. He panted up at her, pink tongue lolling, as she shook kibble into his bowl and poured him some water. Then Hailey locked up and headed home.

  There were a thousand things that needed fixing here—the bathroom sink was clogged, and it was high time she got around to repairing the porch swing—but Hailey felt as though she were moving through water. It was the heartache of four years ago, only worse. This time she already knew what life without Joshua would be like because she’d been through it.

  She bit down hard on the tears, poured herself some tea out of the fridge, and sat on the porch. A bluebird flashed by and then disappeared into the trees. The air smelled of lawn clippings and the loamy richness of earth.

  The screen door clattered, and Grams came outside wearing a wide-brimmed straw-colored hat.

  “‘When we two parted in silence and tears,’” she said. “Lord Byron, of course. A dreadful man, but such an astonishing poet.” Instead of sitting across from her, Grams dropped beside her on the wicker sofa. “I’m sorry that you are sad.”

  Hailey nearly dropped her tea, she was so surprised. Grams seldom made direct, personal observations about her. It was all snippets of poetry and the occasional Beowulf reference. Before becoming an eccentric Southern lady, Grams had been a high school English teacher. Old age and misfortune might have lessened her grip on reality, but not her love of the classics. Now she seemed to be having one of her rare normal spells, and Hailey wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

  “I’ll be okay,” Hailey lied. She knew every cell in her body yearned for Joshua and would never stop. She knew her one chance at happiness was gone.

  “What nonsense,” Grams said. “You won’t be okay until you work up the courage to beard the lion in its den.”

  More riddles. Hailey’s heart sank. Maybe Grams wasn’t having a moment of clarity after all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Grams touched the brim of her hat with both hands as though to check that it was still there. “You and your young man, of course. You asked him to fight for you, and he did. So why aren’t you fighting for him?”

  “Fight for him?” Hailey glanced at her in alarm. For a woman who didn’t have a clue about the world around her, Grams had a strange way sometimes of getting at a hidden truth.

  “‘The heart that has truly loved never forgets,’” Grams said. “Go to his parents. Make them understand that you aren’t a scared little girl anymore, but a woman to be reckoned with.”

  The suggestion stunned her. Hailey felt the hair lift on the backs of her arms. She’d never considered going to Loving Ranch and talking to Joshua’s parents—probably because deep down she knew what a fool’s errand it would be. They had nothing but contempt for her. There was no fixing that.

  Plus . . . Hailey gulped down more tea and tried to push the thought away . . . maybe on some level she’d wanted Joshua to prove himself by choosing her over his parents. But he’d done that. And now she realized it wasn’t what she wanted.

  Had she made a big mistake? A mistake that would cost her that one chance at happiness?

  No, this was stupid. It couldn’t be done. She was an idiot to think Joshua’s parents would listen to her.

  Grams put one arm around her and drew her close the way she had when Hailey was little. “Life isn’t going to roll out the red carpet for you,” Grams said. “You have to fight for what you want, for what you believe in. I stopped fighting a long time ago and look what a crazy old lady I turned out to be.”

  “I can’t do it, Grams. I can’t go over there.”

  Grams’s sweet face was next to hers, her expression gentle but firm. “If you think you can’t, Hailey Jane, then that’s exactly why you have to.”

  * * *

  Hailey let her ten-speed coast to a stop in front of the wrought-iron gates of Loving Ranch and tried to catch her breath. A sick case of nerves had all but ambushed her, making her hands sweat, her muscles quiver, her heart pound like a mallet. This wasn’t just a fool’s errand. It was suicide.

  They’re going to destroy me.

  Once Joshua’s parents were done with her, she’d be an oil slick on the floor. They were going to see her as the worst kind of scheming opportunist, one with the audacity to come riding up here on her hand-me-down bike in her secondhand clothes—saying what exactly? That she loved Joshua? That without him she’d been in a slow process of dying for four long years?

  She stared through the gate at the grand old house with its turrets and chimneys and its green slate roof gle
aming in the sun. The house reminded her that she was nothing and came from nothing. It put her as firmly in her place as an imperious hand.

  If she failed, she would go back to living the rest of her life eaten up with heartache and regret. She would go back to pretending that everything was okay, she was fine, nothing to see here, folks. Meanwhile, every corner of this town would be full of ghosts, full of memories of what she’d lost, memories she alone would be forced to live with day after day until she died.

  Panic rose in her throat. No, I can’t do this.

  Yet even as she thought the words, her eyes roamed for an opening in the boxwoods that fronted the property. She wanted desperately to change her mind. She wanted to go home and hide. Yet Hailey knew she wouldn’t even if it killed her because she loved Joshua and wanted what was best for them both.

  After leaving her bike at the gate, she found an opening in the hedge and headed toward the house. At noon, the air was hot and still. It shimmered over the emerald lawn and made a gazebo ripple in the distance like a mirage. By the time Hailey rang the doorbell, she had to straighten her knees to keep them from buckling. Please don’t answer. If you don’t answer, I can go away and never come back.

  Joseph opened the door and stood scowling at her. “What do you want?”

  Hailey clutched the wall to steady herself. When her mouth opened, no sound came out.

  Joshua. She needed to think about Joshua.

  “Well?” Joseph snapped. “What is it?”

  “I have to talk to you,” she said faintly. “You and Mrs. Loving. I promise not to take up too much of your time.”

  “I know why you’re here, and we have nothing to discuss.”

  “You think I’m trying to break up your family, but it’s not true,” Hailey said in a rush. “I’m here to save it.”

  The scowl deepened. In the foyer behind him, Marion Loving appeared. Hailey’s heart sank when she realized Marion clutched a highball glass and had clearly been hitting the liquor cabinet. Oh God, I’m so screwed.