LITMIR.BIZ

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Amber. “No voice. It kind of puts a crimp in the talking thing.”

      “That’s a cop-out. Especially with me. Should I tell you again how sexy I think your voice is?”

      She sighed. Transparency was one of the many things she couldn’t avoid with Matt. It went hand in hand with the vibe between them. And it went both ways. He’d veered away from Amber on purpose, maybe to avoid talking about her. Or maybe to find some straw he could grasp from her own experiences. They were both fighting their way out of the valley.

      He was so compassionate and decent and didn’t want anything from her but her company. She should honor that.

      “I lost everything.” She shut her eyes. “Not just my career. I sang my whole life, from as early as I can remember. Back then, my voice was the one thing that belonged to me and no one else. Singing was a coping mechanism.”

      “What were you coping with?” he asked gently.

      “You know, stuff. My home life.” She hadn’t thought about it in years. But that had been the genesis of using her voice to express all the things going on inside.

      “My dad, he was a hockey player for Detroit. A seagull who swooped in, got my mom pregnant and never called her again. She tracked him down, got child support. She moved to the U.S. so he could know his daughter. Guess how many times I heard from him?”

      “Evangeline...” Matt nearly pulled her on top of him in a fierce hug, lips buried in her hair.

      “It’s fine. I’m over it.”

      “I don’t think so,” he murmured and softened the contradiction with a light kiss. “You started to say you had family in Detroit. When we were dancing.”

      God, she had. How did he remember that? “He’s not my family. He lost that chance. But, I...have a...sister.”

      “Are you and your sister close?”

      Evangeline laughed but it came out broken. “She worships me. Not like in a million-screaming-fans way. Because she wants to sing.”

      Lisa texted her all the time asking for career advice. Evangeline still didn’t know why she’d ever answered. No one had helped her. But before the surgery, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from pathetically responding each and every time. Once, she flew Lisa and three friends to London for a concert for Lisa’s fifteenth birthday. It was the last time she’d seen her sister.

      After the surgery, Evangeline went into a hole and stopped responding to the texts. One of these days, Lisa’s name on her caller-ID wasn’t going to cause such deep-seated anguish. She hoped. It wasn’t Lisa’s fault their father was a bastard.

      “Is she any good?” Matt asked.

      She shrugged. “I’ve never heard her sing. Too busy, I guess.”

      “You’ve got time now,” he pointed out quietly, but his words reverberated in her head like the boom of a cannon.

      “Yeah. I should call her.” She wouldn’t. What would she say? They had no relationship, had only ever connected over their mutual interest in singing. Now they had nothing in common other than a few strands of DNA. “Armadillo.”

      She was done with midnight confessions. Lisa was a corner she couldn’t stand being backed into.

      “I should call my brother. I haven’t talked to him in a month.” Matt rolled away and she missed his warmth. Had she hurt his feelings?

      A sick niggle in her stomach unearthed the realization that she’d set up the code word as a way for him get out of difficult subjects, but only she used it.

      “Is a month a long time?” she asked.

      “We saw each other every day. His office was next to mine. We went to the same college, played basketball with some guys once a week. And you know. He’s my brother. It’s my job to make sure he stays out of trouble.”

      “You miss him.”

      It wasn’t a question. She could hear it in his voice and didn’t have to ask if they were close. Could Evangeline have a similar relationship with Lisa if she tried harder?

      No. Evangeline wasn’t cut out for family relationships. Didn’t want to be. It hurt too much.

      “That was before. When Amber was alive. After, I drifted through everything, disengaging until everyone stopped trying. I kept thinking something would happen to snap me out of it. Then my grandfather died and I realized. I had to snap me out of it. So I dumped my entire life in Lucas’s lap and left.” He chuckled derisively. “I even sold him my house. He’s in my house with a wife he’s gaga over, making new memories, about to deliver my parents their first grandchild. I should be there, living that life.”

      There. Not here. Venice was a temporary fix. She knew that. So why did it make her so sad?

      “Are you jealous that your brother is happy?”

      At least they had that in common.

      “No. Not really. Maybe a little.” He sounded defeated all at once. “Mostly I’m glad. I never thought he’d get married. He was kind of a screwup. But he met this woman who transformed him into a guy I didn’t recognize. He’s responsible. Committed. Expecting a baby who will be the first of the next generation of Wheelers. That was my role. A role I couldn’t do any longer. And I need to figure out how to do it again.”

      He had more demons than she’d realized. “You’re not just trying to get over Amber. You’re trying to fit back into the life you had with her.”

      A life that included lineages. Babies. Roots and new branches on the family tree. Concepts so alien she barely knew how to label them.

      He huffed out a breath. “I can’t. I know that. But for as long as I can remember, I’ve done the right thing. I ran Wheeler Family Partners, and I was good at selling real estate. Successful. Amber was a part of that. She had connections, came from a distinguished family. There were five hundred guests at our wedding. CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. A former U.S. president. The governor. We were happy being a power couple. People could depend on me. I want that back.”

      Her stomach dropped. No wonder he hadn’t cared about her celebrity status or her money. He had his own social clout, in a world far removed from hers.

      A cleft, one she hadn’t realized was there, widened.

      He hadn’t embraced the wanderlust—he’d been desperate to find the magic formula for curing his grief so he could pick up the broken pieces of a life he’d abandoned, but yearned to return to.

      Unlike her, he could go back. And would. Not only did neither of them have a whole heart to give to anyone else, they came from different places and were going different places.

      She kissed his cheek. “I depend on you. Right now, you’re my entire world.”

      How pathetic did that sound? He had a career waiting for him. A family. Both would welcome him back with open arms, she had no doubt. No mother who took the time to teach her son to cook would turn her back on him.

      “Right now, I’m pretty happy being your entire world.”

      Shock flashed behind her rib cage. “Really? I thought you were heading toward the big breakup.”

      He should be heading toward the breakup. She should, too.

      “What, you mean of us?” He laughed and shifted suddenly, rolling her against him, tight. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time. Why would I give that up?”

      “Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about? You want to go home.” Home to a place she couldn’t follow. Her gypsy soul would wither and die in the suburbs. “This is...our Venice bubble. It’s not going to last.”

      Quiet settled over them, and she waited for him to agree.

      But he said,

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