Seeds of Yesterday Page 3
He didn’t.
But England was different. I became a woman in England.
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Once I reached Cambridge, I never thought back on Amy and Daniel. Well, nothing more than fleeting thoughts once a year at best, the sorts you entertain in flickering moments of nostalgia.
I have a new life now and one I cherish. I fell in love once and almost married my college sweetheart, Nigel, until he decided he was gay. (A long story—trust me when I say you don’t want to hear it.) Most importantly, I became everything I wanted to be and more.
One year became two, two turned to three, and before I knew what had happened I’d been living and working in England for fourteen years. Sarah became an actress; I became a playwright. Sarah moved to London and got her big break. She joined the cast of a popular television comedy that airs on the BBC while I remained in Cambridge, developed my plays, and still teach at the university part-time. We all became British citizens. Dad retired from factory work when his daughters’ careers took off and he shuffles back and forth between London and Cambridge at his leisure.
All was perfect. Life was bliss. And then I got that telephone call…
They wanted me to come back to Cuyahoga Falls. They wanted me to give the commencement speech at the high school. My alma mater—the alma mater I hadn’t thought of in years, and probably wouldn’t have thought about ever again had that phone call not came in.
My last three plays have all been smashes, you see. I debuted the first one at the university with student actors and the last two in London with a professional cast. A few months later my plays were being performed on Broadway to rave reviews, giving me instant fame in certain chic circles. (I’ll never forget those times when I bowed to standing ovations. That was Cool with a capital C, even if it felt a bit overwhelming to someone who’s basically shy.)
And now that damn telephone call…
I’ll never know what it was that prompted me to go and deliver a commencement speech in a town I had no desire to ever lay eyes on again. Nor will I ever understand 25
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why I bothered to read the newspaper that was delivered to my hotel door the day before the speech was to be given. But I did—on both accounts. That’s when I learned that Amy had died. And oh, how the memories began to pound away.
Amy—oh God…
Now I’m sitting here in my hotel room freshly back from giving that damn speech, wondering whether or not I should delay my plane trip back to England by a day and attend the funeral of a woman who had been my best friend. A part of me wants to go and say goodbye, but another part of me wants to hightail it back to London on the next flight out.
I became a woman in England.
In Cuyahoga Falls I’d always be a scared, lost, little girl.
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Chapter Three
Thankfully and unsurprisingly, Amy Hunter’s funeral was heavily attended. The Hunters were still the most affluent and politically connected family in Cuyahoga Falls—possibly in all of Ohio. The death of their only daughter drew a large crowd; some of them no doubt there for the right reasons, others just to stay in the Hunters’
good graces.
Trina wasn’t going to complain about the swarm of funeral attendees. It afforded her the ability to pay her last respects to Amy without unduly upsetting the family by her presence.
Dressed in head-to-toe black, Trina slunk into the back of the funeral parlor and took a seat near the far wall just as the pastor began delivering his sermon. Taking a quick glance around, she espied the Hunter family up in the first row.
Mr. Hunter was still strong and strapping, his dark hair graying at the temples.
Mrs. Hunter looked as formidable as ever, her spine straight and proud. She didn’t look much different than what Trina remembered. Perhaps the only noticeable difference was her long, golden hair was now white-blonde, obviously dyed, and cropped fashionably short.
“And now,” the pastor said, snagging Trina’s attention, “Amy’s brother, Daniel, would like to say a few words about his sister.”
Trina’s teeth sank into her lower lip as she watched Daniel Hunter rise from the seat adjacent to his father. Her heartbeat picked up upon seeing him, immediately noting that the years had been more than kind to him. Back in high school, she hadn’t thought it possible for Daniel to be any more handsome than what he already was. She had been wrong.
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The dark, brooding eyes hadn’t changed, nor had the grimness of his expression.
His face, on the other hand, had matured into that of a powerful, masculine, thirty-four-year-old man. His body musculature, evident even beneath the designer Italian suit he wore, looked impossibly more massive and honed than it had back in the glory of his high school football days.
She had heard through the grapevine that he was now a prominent, powerful lawyer. No surprise there.
“Good morning,” Daniel said in the commanding, larger-than-life tone he had always possessed. “I’d like to thank each and every one of you for coming here today to show your respects to my sister.”
Trina closed her eyes briefly. She willed her heart to stop pounding. She hadn’t thought that seeing Daniel again after all of these years would affect her as ruthlessly as it was. Again, she had been wrong.
You are here for Amy—just Amy. Let the old ghosts rest, Trina. What happened between you and Daniel was over and done with sixteen years ago.
“Amy was only with us for thirty-two short years, but…”
Trina heard Daniel’s voice from somewhere in the back of her conscious mind, but her thoughts were elsewhere, plagued by bittersweet memories. Amy laughing and screaming as they rode the roller coasters at the carnival that made its way into town once per year. Amy trying to tease Trina’s curly hair into the “in” feathered look of the Eighties—Trina had ended up with a head that resembled a cotton swab. Amy’s dimpled smile. Amy in the hospital after she’d accidentally shot up with too much insulin.
Amy had been…human. Good and bad, dark and light, yin and yang. A normal sixteen-year-old girl when last they’d been together. She had her faults, but she’d had just as many attributes. It was easy to forgive her for the bad times, for she’d given Trina many, many more good times.
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Oh, sweetheart, I wish I’d been there to hold your hand. If only I’d known how ill you were…
It had been eighteen years since Trina had publicly cried, but she felt the tears welling up. Her head came up slowly, a single tear tracking down her cheek. She looked back up at Daniel. Their gazes clashed.
Trina’s heart threatened to beat out of her chest when she realized he recognized her. He paused for a moment in his speech, their eyes locked on each other. Quickly looking away, he resumed the delivery of Amy’s eulogy.
You never should have come here. The Hunters have always hated you. What were you thinking? You should have gone to Amy’s grave later, alone, and paid your respects.
Trina’s gaze flicked toward the open coffin. Even from this distance, Amy’s profile didn’t resemble the girl she had once known at all. She didn’t even look like the thirty-two-year-old woman whose photograph she’d seen in the obituary. Her face was bloated, the makeup the morticians had caked on her too orange.
She knew in that moment that she didn’t wish to walk by Amy’s coffin after the service drew to a close. She wanted to remember the laughing, happy Amy. Not the plastic caricature of her lying in the casket.
Besides, Trina reminded herself as the service came to a close, if she walked toward the front of the room, all of the Hunters—not just Daniel—would know she was here.
Trina didn’t care for Mrs. Hunter any more than the matriarch cared for her, but Amy was her daughter…she deserved to mourn her without Trina making her feel even worse than she already did.
Stan
ding up at service’s end, Trina nervously smoothed out the black, Chanel dress she wore. Taking a deep breath, she headed toward the far doors, the same ones she’d snuck in through. Giving Amy’s coffin one final glance, she smiled sadly and prepared to leave.
Her blue gaze was snagged by Daniel. She stilled, her face feeling hot as she watched him stare at her. Standing next to his sister’s coffin, he was even more somber 29
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than what was normal for him. Those dark eyes raked over her, assessing her, betraying no emotion.
Trina blinked. Sighing, she broke his stare, turned, and walked away.
Tomorrow evening couldn’t arrive fast enough to suit her. She wanted this day over and done with. Her flight didn’t leave for another twenty-four hours and every second she spent in this wretched city with all its wretched memories was a second too long.
Trina opened her balcony window, then stepped out into the twilight. Wrapping her bathrobe securely around her, she sucked in a deep breath of cool air, her hands bracing the balcony rails as she peered over the edge.
The gorge lay below her, the eerily familiar whoosh-whoosh sound of its waterfall drawing her attention.
Amy…
God, how everything reminded her of Amy and Daniel. There had been so much more to her existence here than both of them combined, yet every memory, every nostalgic thought, seemed to focus on them. It was as if her mind had become a broken record, unable to home in on anything but one night in time—the night Amy had been hospitalized.
The night Daniel had taken her virginity.
She thought back on the funeral, on how she’d felt upon seeing Daniel again. Her heart had thumped dramatically. He had been, after all, not only her first lover, but also her first love. The boy inside him would own a piece of her soul until the day she died.
The waterfall whooshed loudly, snapping Trina back to the here and now. The swirling gorge below was a whirlwind of haunted memories. She blinked.
“It was sixteen years ago,” Trina whispered to the waterfall. “Give me some peace.”
It didn’t listen.
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In that moment Trina realized this was the last time she’d lay eyes on the river. She had known that returning to Cuyahoga Falls would be painful—she just hadn’t counted on it being quite this excruciating.
She drank in the memories, allowing herself to be swallowed up by them a final time. She smiled through the tears.
Trina didn’t belong here. She never had.
She let go of the anguish and cast it into the gorge, back where it needed to be. The bubbling torrent of the river had sustained her through many difficult nights in her childhood, but she was grown up now and could stand on her own two feet.
“Thank you,” she whispered to the pounding waters below, as though it could hear and understand her. “Thank you for taking care of me all those years until I found my way home.”
* * * * *
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Melinda Calloway demurred. “Such a shame.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Lisa Hamilton quickly cut in. “Terrible.”
“A pity.”
“Uh-huh. Pity.”
Daniel Hunter was an expert at hiding his emotions and this ridiculous conversation proved to be no exception. He felt like shouting at them for showing up to a funeral they had no business attending, but years of rigid social training had taught him to hold his tongue and politely incline his head instead. “Thank you,” he muttered.
They hadn’t known Amy. None of them had. To them, her death had been but a convenient excuse to show up and feign sympathy.
Neither Melinda nor Lisa had exactly been shy about their desire to snag Daniel as a husband—everyone in town knew they wanted him. They were constantly trying to outdo each other and invariably showed up to any function Daniel was attending. Even, disgusting as it was, to his sister’s funeral.
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He possessed no interest in either of the women, but was always cordial when he saw them. They had known each other all their lives, after all. They’d grown up in the same circles and attended the same parties and corporate functions. Their parents had been friendly acquaintances for ages.
Daniel couldn’t wait to get the hell out of here.
“I’ll see you at the house,” Daniel murmured to his parents. He patted his father on the back. “I’ve got to take care of some neglected business, but I’ll be over before I return to Cleveland.”
Later, when the townsfolk had left and he could be alone, Daniel would return to his sister’s grave to say goodbye. That would be a private moment, one he wouldn’t share with a bunch of people who never really knew her.
There had been only one other funeral attendee who had known the Amy that Daniel had known, but she hadn’t shown up at the graveyard. He could hardly say he blamed her.
Daniel solemnly made his way toward his Jaguar. He punishingly ran a hand through his short, closely cropped, dark hair.
He couldn’t believe he’d seen her.
Trina.
She was here—back in Cuyahoga Falls.
He hadn’t seen her in sixteen years, but he would have recognized her anywhere.
Same voluptuous physique—large breasts and long legs. Same unruly, light-brown hair—threaded with golden highlights and falling to mid-back. Her face had matured in a distinctly sexy way. Gone was the chubbiness of youth and in its place was a sculpted, refined face with feminine angles and high cheekbones.
A more beautiful girl had never existed than Katrina Pittman. A sexier woman didn’t exist now.
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Daniel knew she’d been living in England for the past fourteen years. There were very few people in this small town, if any, that hadn’t read about her success. Just a year ago, she’d given a phone interview to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, her accomplishments highlighted on the front page.
You became everything that Amy told me you always wanted to be…
Daniel opened his Jaguar’s door and took a seat behind the wheel. He revved up the engine, closing the door simultaneously. He was so happy that Trina had found her happy ending.
And so sad that he wasn’t a part of it.
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Chapter Four
A knock at the hotel room door startled Trina. Frowning, she hurried in from the balcony, wondering who it could possibly be. She hadn’t ordered room service yet. Nor was she expecting any deliveries.
“One moment, please,” she called out, winding her hair into a loose knot on top of her head. “I’m coming.”
She opened the door with a polite smile on her face, expecting to be greeted by a member of the hotel’s staff. The brooding eyes that addressed her instead forced the smile from her lips and caused her pulse to soar.
“Daniel,” she breathed out. “What are you doing here?”
Good God, he looked even more sinfully handsome up close than he had from afar earlier today. The aura of controlled power he’d always possessed was just as cloying, if not more so.
“Trina,” Daniel murmured. His dark eyes, those same dark eyes that hadn’t gazed into hers for over sixteen years, locked with hers. “May I come in?”
Her mouth worked up and down, but nothing came out. He used her hesitation to seize the moment and brush past her into the hotel room.
Trina took a deep breath. She closed the door, then turned to Daniel.
They looked at each other for a long moment, neither of them saying a word. There was so much between them—too much between them—that words weren’t necessary anyway.
“I wanted to thank you for coming to Amy’s funeral.”
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Trina stared at Daniel, but couldn’t seem to speak. Her heart was beating like crazy, thumping against her chest as though it meant to break out. She couldn’t believe he was
here. She also couldn’t believe he’d thanked her.
She blinked once and delicately cleared her throat. “I-I was in town and I saw the obituary notice and…” She sighed, meeting his intimidating gaze. “I loved Amy once,”
she said gently. “It was a long time ago, but I’ll always carry the memories we created together in my heart.”
“Me too.”
Trina smiled. “Did she ever lighten up on you? You know, quit treating you like the enemy?”
His gaze never broke from hers, but a small smile cracked his otherwise stoic façade. “Eventually,” Daniel said quietly. “We’ve always been close though, despite whatever she might have said about me when we were kids.”
“I know. Amy always loved you. You were her hero.” She felt tears gather in her eyes and quickly batted them away. Daniel had been her hero, too. Even after the night they’d made love, she had still revered him. In her own way, she probably always would. “Can I offer you a cup of coffee?”
Coffee was a safe subject. The past was not.
“No. But thank you.”
Silence.
Trina’s gaze broke from his. He’d always wielded such an unnerving presence. It hadn’t diminished over the years. If anything, it was a thousand times stronger.
Neither had the sexual tension that had always existed between them waned in the slightest. It was even more intense now, despite everything, and Trina knew that Daniel recognized it as well. His eyes, always so unfathomable, burned with a dangerous fire in their deepest depths.
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“Why are you here?” Trina asked again. She straightened her spine, her nerves frayed. The sooner he was out of sight, the sooner he’d be out of mind. She hoped. “I’m sorry if my presence at the funeral upset your mother. I had hoped she wouldn’t see me—”
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” Daniel interrupted.
Her head snapped up. Her blue eyes rounded.
Daniel ran a hand over his freshly shaved jaw. He looked tired, a bit weary, like a man who’d been through hell and back.