Page 74 of All Autumn
He grabbed his car keys from where he’d dropped them on the counter and walked out. I hobbled along behind him, feeling like the biggest shit in the world for throwing Savannah in his face like that. To this day he’s never told me the full story of what went down, and it’s the only secret he’s ever kept from me.
Autumn wasn’t home when we got there. I tried to remember if she’d told me what appointments she had this week, but honestly, my brain was still hazy on things that had happened recently. Then I thought about the flowers she’d sent. The note had been impersonal, not at all like her. Before we’d hooked up, if she’d sent flowers, the note would have been silly or snarky, something about my hard head or falling off a mountain.
If I’d hurt her feelings, I wanted to know so I could apologize and explain that I hadn’t been myself when I’d sent her away. If her note was a kiss-off, I wanted to know that, too. And I especially wanted to know why. If Adam wouldn’t take me back to her house later tonight, I’d drive myself there.
Halfway back to Adam’s, my phone buzzed with an incoming e-mail. “Damn it,” I said after reading it. “Humphrey accepted the other offer. Said it was too good to turn down.”
What a craptastic day this had turned out to be. We’d lost the property, and I didn’t know where Autumn was, much less what was going on in her mind.
39
~ Autumn ~
That wasa cowardly thing to do, sending Connor flowers with that crappy message. But we weren’t a couple, right? So it wasn’t like I was breaking up with him because there was nothing to break up. But if I saw him in person, my resolve to put distance between us would melt away faster than an ice cube on a hot stove.
It was that one moment at the hospital, when he didn’t want me to stay, that had me backing away. Armor surrounded my heart, and I liked it that way. That something as minor as Connor telling me to go away hurt was a sign my armor was slipping.
I would not give another man the power to hurt me, not even Connor, one of my best friends. He was smart, and he’d understand the message on the card. Our time was up. He’d probably be relieved. Now he could go have fun with all his girlfriends. That I wanted to scratch the eyes out of those miscellaneous girlfriends was another sign that I needed to end things.
From what Jenn had told me after she and Dylan had stopped by to see him, he was home and resting. I’d asked her if he’d mentioned me, and he hadn’t. My disappointment was the third sign that I was starting to care too much.
After leaving the florist shop, I headed for Asheville. Lucas Blanton had called this morning to tell me that Taren was going to the family’s home in Raleigh tomorrow. She wanted to see me before she left. Actually she’d asked to see me and Connor, but he was in no condition to be paying her a visit, so I’d made his excuses.
To keep my mind from straying to thoughts of Connor, which it seemed determined to do, I turned my radio to a rock station and sang my way to the Blantons’ house. That helped until Lady Antebellum started singing “Need You Now.” Connor’s favorite song. I punched the knob, shutting off the radio. Then I turned it back on, and listening to the words, my eyes started to sting.
“Enough,” I said, changing the station. I was doing the right thing, for both me and Connor.
Following the directions from my GPS, I turned up a winding drive shaded on both sides by tall maple trees. Behind a fence on my left several hundred Texas Longhorn cattle grazed, the ones closest to the road raising their massive heads, curiously watching my car pass. I’d never seen one in person before, and it was easy to see why they were called Longhorns. On my right were acres and acres of plowed fields waiting to be planted. Probably with corn to feed the livestock.
The drive took me up a gentle incline, and when I reached the top and the Blantons’ Asheville home came into view, I let out an impressed whistle. “Welcome to Tara, Autumn.” I was a classic movie buff and had watchedGone with the Windnumerous times. If Scarlett O’Hara walked out of the white, two-story plantation mansion with the tall columns and black shutters, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised.
I parked in the circular drive in front of the house, and after touching up my lipstick and running a brush through my hair, I walked to the door. Within seconds of ringing the doorbell a man I guessed to be in his fifties, wearing black dress pants and a crisp white shirt, appeared.
“Miss Archer?”
“Yes.”
“The Blantons are expecting you. Come with me, please.”
They had a freaking butler? I followed him past the black-and-white marble-floored foyer into a parlor. This was the first parlor I’d ever been in, and my interior designer’s eye wanted to take in everything, but I focused on the woman sitting on a gray linen sofa, her legs resting on a matching ottoman.
“Forgive me if I don’t get up,” she said. Her brother did stand.
“Of course you shouldn’t.” She wore shorts, and a bandage was wrapped around her right upper leg. Her right arm also sported a bandage. “Hello, Taren. I’m Autumn Archer. I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you looking so well. May I give you a hug?”
She smiled. “I’d like that.”
Careful not to touch her arm, I leaned down and gently hugged her. She was very pretty and had the same beautiful amber-colored eyes as her brother. I glanced at Lucas to see him softly smiling at her. There was no doubt in my mind that he loved his sister.
“I have to tell you that I love your name. Taren’s unusual.”
“Thank you. It’s a family name,” she said.
Lucas smiled at her. “Our maternal grandmother was Charlotte Grace Taren.”
“I’m just thankful I didn’t end up with two first names.” She chuckled. “That’s such a southern thing to do, but so is giving us last names for first. I’ll take Taren over Charlotte Grace.” She leaned back against the sofa and peered up at me. “How do I ever thank you? I wouldn’t be here today if not for you and Connor. Oh, and your dog. What’s his name again?”
“We were just in the right place and the right time, and his name is Beau, short for Beauregard.”
