Package Deal(76)

He heard what sounded like drumming on a table. “You still there, Evie?”

“I’m here. I’m thinking. From everything you’ve said, Amanda doesn’t sound at all like Felicity. Is that what’s holding you back from telling her how you feel?”

The sound of his former lover’s name sent an electric shock through his heart, and he sat up straighter. “No. God, no. She’s not at all like Felicity. I know she’s not.” But she hadn’t said she loved him—not to his face, anyway. He slumped back in the chair.“But what if Amanda doesn’t—won’t—if I can’t convince her to take me back?”

“I can’t help you there, hon. Have you told Amanda you love her?”

He cleared his throat. “I’ve shown her—” There was that drumming again, louder this time.

“Not again! Why is it that men think actions are so important? I’m not talking about what you do in bed or wherever.You have to tell her—Amanda and Cecelia. They want to hear it. They need to hear it. Both of them.” She lowered her voice. “So, what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to talk to Amanda right now.”

“Do you want to talk to Mike?”

“Not now. Maybe later.”

“Okay. Let me know. And remember, we love you—in spite of—”

“I know. I’m just like Mike.”

After hanging up the phone, Marcus stepped out on the porch attached to his room. He paced, angry at himself for not telling Amanda what she wanted to hear, for not telling Cecelia what she needed to hear for her mother’s sake. Was this really about Felicity and how she had played so fast and loose with his love—as Evie had suggested? Was that what was holding him back from telling Amanda, from telling each of them how he felt?

He didn’t want to hurt Amanda, and he ached to think that he might have hurt her little girl, too, by not saying he loved them, both of them. He didn’t want to lose them. If only Amanda would say she wanted him, permanently like he wanted her. Married. That was it. But she had been so vehement in her reactions when he had hinted around about it.

That owl. There it was again. The sound reminded him of a loon on a Nebraska lake when he and Mike had gone fishing after their parents’ death. A sound full of melancholy, a sound that had accompanied his grief-stricken sobs at fifteen when he and Mike talked about their parents and how, together, the boys would survive their loss. The call of the loons never failed to bring tears to his eyes when he recalled how the brothers had struggled that first year, the year after Mike married Evie and she took on a big sister/mother role with him, working with Mike to help Marcus look to the future, to help him stay focused on his schoolwork and on his sports. She was the reason he had not drowned in his grief and resentment at having lost his parents. He knew it hadn’t been easy for her, watching over a fifteen-year-old mad at the world and resentful at having to listen to his older brother. He could have easily slipped into total despair or worse—except for them. Both of them had insisted he go to college when he had the chance. He marveled that he and Mike—and Evie—were still so close, closeness more pronounced with each passing year. And that time after Felicity. Evie had been there when he needed to talk about that, too.

How should I approach Amanda?A real man would knock on the door to her room and demand she let him in—not just into her room, but into her heart, into her life, into Cecelia’s life? But he already was a part of their lives. Couldn’t she see that? Maybe he should just blurt out that he loved her and wanted to marry her even if she hadn’t told him how she felt, even if he wasn’t supposed to mention the M word.

Out of the corner of his eye, something white caught his attention. He looked in the direction of the trees, thinking it must be the rising moon. But the trees were dark. Then he saw her when she moved out of the shadows across her patio. She had placed her shawl on the table near the window of her room before turning and looking into the woods. Was she, too, listening to the hooting of the owl? She looked ethereal in the moonlight.

He went back into his room and picked up a blanket, stepped outside and walked through the trees to her patio. He said nothing and just held out the blanket. Wordlessly, Amanda opened the small gate and allowed him in. He wrapped the blanket around them both, kissed her and held her close, until she relaxed against him.

“I do love you, Amanda. You know I do,” he said when he released her.“And I love Cecelia, too. I can’t stand the thought of us not being together—all three of us. Let me show you how I feel—how I feel about us.”