“Whenever I’m in the city,” Abe said now. “Mostly I only go to support my mom. I carry Dad and Tessie here.” He touched his heart, right on the spot where he bore a tattoo of a tiny wood sprite peeking out through long reeds. Such a delicate tattoo for this big, tough man, but Sarah knew it was his favorite.
“The wood sprite tattoo,” she said, “it’s in memory of your sister, isn’t it?”
To her surprise, Abe shook his head. “No, it’s not in memory. It is a memory—Tessie’s the one who chose the design,” he told her. “While she was in hospital that last month, I used to read to her and I asked her what my next tattoo should be.” A smile in his voice. “She never blabbed about my tats to our folks. They didn’t know back then, thought I was the most clean-cut rocker on the planet.”
Sarah held her breath, not wanting to break the moment, not wanting to lose this instant when Abe was trusting her with a piece of himself. It was far too late for them… but it still mattered that he would.
“So Tessie picks up the fairy book I’d been reading to her and says, ‘This one.’” He laughed. “I got it that week—she saw it before…” His smile faded, his hands fisting at his sides. “It fucking sucks that assholes get to live and Tessie and Aaron didn’t. That my dad didn’t.”
The blunt words were so what Sarah felt that hearing them unexpectedly eased her grief. “Yes, it does.”
Beside her, Abe closed his eyes, took several deep breaths, and seemed to consciously force himself to unclench his hands.
Sarah felt her eyes widen.
He’d never focused on control that way when they’d been together; he’d worn his fury at the world on his skin. She’d been able to feel it shoving to escape at every moment, had worried constantly what would trigger it. It had never been directed at her, not until that last night, so she hadn’t worried for herself but for him, what it was doing to him.
This man… he released another breath before opening his eyes. And when he turned to her, despite the grief and anger that still lived in him, he was the Abe she’d seen only rarely during their marriage: the gifted musician who felt deeply but who was at peace with himself.
“I’ll drive you home.”
She started a little at the deep sound of his voice; she’d become so lost in trying to come to grips with the change in him. “My car’s still at the arboretum.”
“I’ll have a driver pick it up,” Abe said as they walked back to his SUV, “drive it back for you.” He helped her into the vehicle.
Sarah went to argue, realized she really shouldn’t be driving. She was too exhausted from the emotional storm that had just passed. “All right. Thank you.”
Not saying anything in return, Abe drove them to her house in a silence that slowly became filled with a thousand whispers of memory. Sarah had always loved being in the passenger seat of Abe’s car, had been so proud to be his wife, to have the right to sit beside him.
Not because he was a rock star. Because he was Abe, talented and incredible.
He still drove as easily and as confidently as he’d always done, as if LA traffic wasn’t a serious nightmare—and he got her home in far better time than she would’ve made herself.
“I should’ve stopped, picked up takeout,” he said as she pushed the button on her key-fob remote to open the gate, then the garage. “You must be starving.”
Sarah shook her head. “I’m fine.”
“Sarah.” Parking in the empty garage, Abe turned to her, tipped up her chin. “I know what grief can do to a person, and you’ve clearly already lost weight. You gotta eat, sweetheart. Come on, I’ll make you my famous omelet.”
She laughed, and it was a startling thing to have her lips curve up instead of down, to feel the knot in her chest begin to loosen. “You make terrible omelets.” The last time he’d made her one during a silly, fun weekend when he’d stayed home the entire time, it was only half-cooked and she’d had to pick out pieces of shell.
It was one of her happiest memories of their marriage—seeing Abe grin as he banged pots and pans and declared himself her personal chef for the weekend.
“It’s the thought that counts.” His grin hit her hard as they got out of the SUV, reality colliding with memory.
She lowered the garage door, and then for the first time since she’d run out of the music room on the anniversary of Tessie’s death, she invited Abe into her home.
CHAPTER 6
TENSION SIMMERED IN THE AIR BETWEEN THEM, but it wasn’t like it had been at the music festival. Then it had felt as if she stood precariously balanced on a razor-thin tightrope, her heart braced for further hurt from this man who’d always meant too much to her. But Abe hadn’t hurt her. He’d apologized… and the look in his eyes, it had shaken her.