Page 12 of Sweet Escape at Bayside
She turned away, but not before he saw tears in her eyes.Crap.Could he have chosen a more hurtful word? “I’m sorry, Daisy. I shouldn’t have said that.”
She shrugged and said, “Forget it. It was a long time ago. Who cares?”
“I do.” He glanced down at her left foot pointing inward and digging into the ground and said, “Obviously you still do, too.”
She looked down, speaking softly. “It was so long ago, I don’t even remember us.”
His heart hammered against his ribs as he ground out, “Bull.”
He hauled her against him and crushed his mouth to hers, kissing her so deeply he felt his love for her seeping out of his skin. She clung to his arms, her nails digging into his flesh, but she didn’t fight him, didn’t try to pull away. Her tongue swept eagerly over his, but he knew she was still holding back, so was he. Because what the heck was he doing? Setting himself up to be slaughtered again?
He tore his mouth away, leaving them both breathless, and seethed, “Remember us now?”
Her hands slid from his shoulders, and she touched her lips as if they were still burning for more, like his were.
“I’m not leaving until I get answers, if for no other reason than to finally get the closure I deserve.” Struggling against every iota of his being, he turned and walked away.
VIOLET STOOD ON the gravel watching Andre walk away, feeling just as she had the night she’d left their village, like she’d been sliced open and left to bleed out. And just as it had that night, her body refused to let him go. She could still taste him. His musky scent had rooted itself into her pores, and the hard press of his hands gripping her shoulders remained. She felt possessed by him, by his essence. He waseverywhere. But hadn’t he always been?
She didn’t know how long she stood there staring in the direction he’d gone, and she couldn’t remember going up to her pottery studio at the inn. But several hours later, she was sitting at her potter’s wheel, covered in clay, still thinking about their confrontation. Desiree had come up to talk with her, but the ache in her chest hurt so bad, she’d sent her away. It wasn’t fair to take her heartache out on the one person who probably cared most about her, but for the third time in Violet’s life, she felt like her world was spinning out of her control, and she didn’t know how to stop it any better than the first two times—when Lizza had taken her away or when she’d left Andre.
She realized she was crying and dragged her forearm across her eyes. She forced herself to focus on the vase she was creating. The only time she ever felt completely in control was at her potter’s wheel, when she decided what she was making, how it would look and feel. Sometimes she strove for beauty; other times she went for interesting or meaningful. Today she just wanted to lose herself in the work and forget Andre’s accusation.Do you have any idea what it was like for me to pour out my heart and soul to you and wake up the next morning not just alone but having been abandoned?
Abandoned…
The clay lobbed to one side, and she realized she was squeezing it. She closed her eyes, and her shoulders slumped as she thought about the truth in his accusation.
Violet had started her life having already been abandoned. She never knew her biological father, who had left when he found out Lizza was pregnant. When she’d asked Lizza about him, her mother had said,You don’t need his ugliness rattling around in your head. It’s better if you don’t know.But Ted had loved and taken care of Violet as if she were his own child, and she’d opened up to him, and after her baby sister was born, she’d bonded with her, too. Lizza had stolen that happy second chance away and thrust her into a nomadic lifestyle. Gradually over the years, Lizza had abandoned her, too, even if on a different level. But her mother had taught her an important lesson. Life was easier if she didn’t form close bonds, and Violet had become an expert at building walls around her heart.
Except shehadformed a bond with Andre. A deep, meaningful connection that had been so real it had scared the life out of her.
And then I left him.
Abandoned him.A tear streaked down her cheek.
“Knock, knock,” Lizza said from the doorway, drawing Violet’s attention.
Violet swiped at the tear.
Her mother’s wide-legged pants swished around her long legs as she crossed the studio floor. She wore a dark shirt beneath an oatmeal cardigan that was frayed along the edges, and looked soft, like an old favorite. Violet had no clue whatan old favoriteof her mother’s might be.
Lizza’s bracelets clinked as she looked over the pots and vases Violet had drying on various tables. “You still do beautiful work, sweetheart. I’m glad to see you’ve continued doing pottery. I worried about you having been away from it for so long. You’ve always been my earth child. Working with your hands fills your soul in ways other things cannot.”
Violet scoffed, her blood boiling. “Like youknowme?”
They’d spent years living in remote villages with sometimes fewer than fifty people, so they were never far apart. But Lizza would go off to teach or meditate, sometimes leaving seven-year-old Violet alone for hours.
Lizza smiled and came to her side. “You’re my resourceful girl. The earth has always been your playground—hiking, learning, creating, experimenting…”
“Like I had any other choice?” She spun the wheel, working the clay and hoping for the knots inside her chest to unfurl, but they just kept tightening.
“You had choices, honey, and I listened as best I could.”
“You listened?” Violet pushed to her feet, standing eye to eye with her mother, and said, “When exactly did you listen, Lizza? When I begged you to take me back to Ted and Desiree? Or was it when I told you I was lonely and had no friends?”
“Honey, those were the things you said, but I listened to the things you showed me. You would have been unhappy tangled up in classrooms and curfews. Don’t you remember how you used to sneak out of your elementary classes when we lived in Oak Falls? I had to go to the school and hunt you down nearly every day.”
Violet scoffed and stalked away. “I don’t remember that.”
