Reborn Page 15

  “Do you remember her? Isabel?”

  I drum my fingers on the table nervously. “No, not really. But we reconnected.”

  Brennan’s face is awash with pity. “Wow. That sucks.”

  “What?”

  “You came home and didn’t even remember her? I can’t imagine. She must be special if she took you back after all that.”

  Isabel is special. My instincts knew it the second she said my name. We may be mired in heartache and peril, but Brennan’s just given me one more reason to protect her.

  I need to get back to her before things get worse.

  I rise and reach out to shake his hand. “I should let you get back to Angel. Thanks for everything. I know it’ll never be enough, but I am sorry. I really wish things had been different. I’m sorry to make you go through it all again.”

  He stands and offers a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. “We can’t bring them back. But we survived, and as shitty as that feels sometimes, it reminds me to be grateful for whatever I’ve got. Because nothing’s promised.” He shakes his head slightly. “Nothing’s promised.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Isabel

  “What does it mean…that lettering on the car?”

  Makanga squints out the window of the barbeque place we’ve stopped at for lunch.

  “Means fall down a thousand times, get up a thousand and one. At least that’s what the Cambodian lady I bought it from said. Works for me.”

  Sounds like my new life motto, so it works for me too. I swallow the last of my pulled pork sandwich and reach for my phone. No messages from Tristan. I’m still shaken from my run-in with the director. I want to tell him about it, but I’m also not sure how he’ll react. One step into his old house put him in a place dark enough that he couldn’t stay with me last night. I worry what this new discovery will mean for us.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  I contemplate Makanga’s question. “Yes and no.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I may have found something I wasn’t looking for.”

  “All right.” He leans back in his chair and tosses his napkin on his finished plate. “Where to next?”

  I quirk an eyebrow. “You’re not going to try raising your rates on me again, are you?”

  He chuckles. “Nah. I figure you’ll make it up to me later.”

  When I freeze, his brows come together.

  “That’s not what I meant.” He waves his hand. “Not at all. I know you’re Red’s girl. I just meant, you know, sometimes we have to help each other out. Maybe one of these days, I’ll need a favor from you. Plus, I don’t have anything going on today, and I want to make sure you stay out of trouble.”

  I relax and choose to believe him. “Thanks.”

  The waitress brings our check, and Makanga takes it. We exchange a look like he’s logging this with the rest of my debt.

  “What makes you think I’m with Tristan anyway?”

  I’m not really sure what to call us. There’s no mainstream term for the circumstances that have thrust us back into each other’s lives.

  Makanga drops some cash into the check holder. “I’ve known him a little while. Red’s not exactly a passionate guy. He’s…” He smirks. “Well, he’s all business, you know? With you, it just seems like something else is driving him. Like he’s ready to go to war for you or something.”

  I avert my eyes and try to hide how true his words are.

  “Maybe he already has,” Makanga says with even more certainty.

  Tristan hasn’t exactly professed his love to me, but he’s protected me. He followed me here. I believe he wants me safe, even for his own selfish reasons, which I can’t deny are significant. The attraction aside, I’m the only reliable person from his past.

  I decide to sidestep Makanga’s presumptions about Tristan.

  “Do you think you could take me to my parents’ place?”

  Makanga clucks his tongue. “Eh, not sure about that. Red didn’t want me taking you there until it was safe.”

  “My father works for the CIA. He wouldn’t ask me to come home unless he knew it was safe.”

  “Shit,” he mutters under his breath as he slides his gaze to his sorry excuse for a car.

  Everything is just as I remembered. The Midday Lane of my childhood is freshly paved, curving through our quiet suburban neighborhood. On either side, brick colonials are set back on quarter-acre lots. Ours is painted yellow with a red door at the end of the walk. The yard is manicured, though spring has yet to bring the trees and grass back to life.

  “You just going to walk right in?” Makanga scans our surroundings from our parking spot across the street.

  I look around, feeling much like Tristan as I do. I expect to see danger, or feel it, but I don’t. “I guess so,” I say hesitantly.

  “I’d wait for you, but I think Betsy might be a little out of place here.”

  “I’ll be fine. Maybe Tristan can pick me up later.” I look down at my phone, unsure if that’s even a possibility. Tristan has no idea I’ve been out and about.

  I tuck the phone back into my pocket, thank Makanga, and make my way to the front door. I ring the bell once. Twice. No answer. Over my shoulder, I spot Makanga still idling, waiting like a worrisome parent for me to get inside safe.

  I circle to the back and try the door, but it’s locked. Finally, I bang on the door, and my mother comes into view. Her eyes are wide with worry. Her dark-brown hair is falling in wisps around her face, fluttering as she walks briskly toward me. She flings open the door.

  “Isabel!”

  She meets me at the threshold, grabs me, and traps me in a hug so tight it’s difficult to breathe. “You’re home. Thank you, Jesus, you’re home. My baby.” She rocks me as if I still were a child. “I should have never let you go,” she whispers shakily.

  I choke back emotion at being in my mother’s arms. Once upon a time, this was the safest place to be. The place where tears turned into giggles. The place I could always run to for comfort and soft words…in simpler times.

  She pulls away with tears in her eyes. “Come in. Quick. It’s freezing.”

  She ushers me inside and into the kitchen. She’s in jeans and a loose top with a beige pashmina wrapped around her shoulders. The skin around her eyes is dark, evidence of what likely have been many sleepless nights worrying about me. She doesn’t look well.

  Seeing her this way, I’m steeped in an emotion stronger than my fear—newfound guilt that I left DC for such a dangerous and unpredictable place. I even find myself acknowledging the heartache my determined love affair with Tristan caused her.

  “I didn’t think you’d come here,” she says.

  “Dad said you wanted to see me.”

  She glances out the window and then back to me. “I thought we could at least meet somewhere. He told me everything that happened. I just felt like I had to see you to believe you were truly okay. This has been awful. When they told me you were missing…” Her eyes glimmer with tears.

  “I’m okay now, I promise,” I say softly.

  “I know, but sometimes it’s hard to convince myself when everyone else thinks you’re still missing. I have to pretend like you are, and then I start worrying that something’s happened to you. These people…” Her tears spill over. “My God, this is all my fault.”

  “Mom, this isn’t your fault.”

  She shakes her head stiffly, wiping at her eyes as she does. “You don’t understand, Isabel. This world is full of hateful people. Monsters who thrive on vengeance and stealing people away from the ones they love. They could have taken you.”

  Her elegant features collapse with a silent sob.

  “Mom, no.” I go to her and bring my arms around her shaking frame.

  “They took Mariana. Not you too.”

  I hold her closer and tighter, the seed of worry growing. She’s not making sense. I glance around the kitchen expecting to see an empty wine bottle
or something. Only her cold tea and dishes from yesterday’s meals stacked in the sink. Maybe she’s taken something, or maybe she needs to.

  “I’m home now, okay? No one can hurt me,” I say in a soothing voice. “Do you want to lie down or have some tea?”

  After a few moments, she seems to calm herself. “I’m fine. Come.”

  I follow her into the library, a quaint sitting room where I’d spent many hours curled up in the window seat, watching cars go by between the pages of a book. She draws the curtains, and we get settled in two comfortable chairs. She seems to have composed herself. Her eyes are only slightly red.

  We share the kind of tense, knowing smile worn by two people who’ve just endured something truly grueling. Even though we’ve been thousands of miles apart, I’m certain we both have. I’ve missed our regular phone calls. I’ve missed a lot of things…

  “How is Tristan?”

  I shrug slightly. “Fine, I guess. Different.”

  Moody. Intense. Impossibly sexy.

  Her lips draw tight, and I can see her wheels turning. My mother never hated Tristan, but she hadn’t exactly warmed to him either.

  “I wasn’t sure what to think when Morgan said you were with him. It’s been so long.”

  “I know. It’s not like I ever really stopped thinking about him though.”

  “What about Kolt?”

  I rise and walk to the fireplace. The mantel is lined with old family photos. My parents’ wedding photo among them.

  “Kolt always wanted more than I could really give him. He wanted a part of me that I’d already given to someone else.”

  I turn back, expecting to see her disappointment, but her expression is calm and lacks the judgment I’m used to seeing whenever conversations revolve around Tristan.

  “Does that disappoint you?” I ask for good measure.

  “You’ve never disappointed me, Isabel. If anything, I’ve disappointed you. God knows if we hadn’t resisted so much when it came to Tristan, maybe none of this would have happened.”

  She gives voice to a thought I’ve had many times since Tristan came back into my world. What if we’d been met with less opposition from the start? What if he hadn’t fulfilled their every wish by leaving and ending things?

  All the wondering leads me to the same place it always does. What if Tristan hadn’t come back into my life ever again? And that seems like the worst what if of all.

  TRISTAN

  I’ve been parked down the street for over two hours. Long enough to see Isabel’s father pull into the driveway and walk inside. Long enough to talk myself out of storming into her parents’ home and fulfilling their worst nightmares—kidnapping their daughter all over again in the name of keeping her safe. I can’t leave, though.

  Seeing her phone location hovering over this location inspired a rush of anger, followed by a swift compulsion to get here straight from my meeting with Brennan.

  Now that darkness has fallen, I make my move. I duck into the shadows of the trees that line the edge of the property. Much of the first floor is lit up, but I can’t spot them inside. The curtains are drawn in one room. The library.

  A gust of wind sets a chime on their back patio jangling loudly, drawing my attention. The porch light illuminates a bare stone patio and the faint outline of an oak tree near the corner of the house. One of its branches leans unnaturally toward the structure, creating a perfect ladder to the second floor. To Isabel’s room.

  I don’t understand how, but I know this house. After all that’s happened to me, somehow it’s still mapped in my brain. I can feel it. Warm inside. Smooth wooden floors on the bottom. Clean, plush carpeting on the top. Books on the shelves. Photos on the walls. Smells of food and flowers. Smells that a home should have. A real home.

  I refuse to let my thoughts return to the house in Baltimore. I sped away from there determined never to think of that damned place again. Of course that means denying the time Isabel spent there with me, which isn’t exactly fair.

  I step away from the nagging guilt and go to the base of the tree. I wedge my foot into the narrow valley of the trunk and propel myself onto the arching branch. A few feet away from what I’m convinced is her bedroom window, I shimmy along its sturdy length, feeling ridiculous but strangely compelled to find her on the other side. Once I’m closer, I reach forward and try the window but find it locked.

  Damn it.

  Straddling the branch, I withdraw my phone.

  Isabel.

  Are you talking to me now?

  I will if you come upstairs.

  I hope to hell she comes up alone. The last thing I want to do is climb back down this tree, and I’m feeling anything but stable waiting on it. A few minutes pass. As soon as I consider going back down, the bedroom light switches on. Isabel’s figure appears through the sheer, willowy curtains. She turns around but halts at the door when I rap my knuckles on the glass. She turns back and quickly unlatches the window and pushes it up.

  “Tristan, what the hell are you doing?”

  I don’t answer her as I slip through the opening and shut the window behind me. When I turn, she’s already a few steps away, locking the door. The distance irritates me. Because after one look at her, I realize I miss her. The same way I missed her when I watched her plane take off for Panama.

  Too much space or time between us feels like a bridge we have to keep journeying over again and again. I can read it in her careful stare, her hesitant posture. She’s gauging my mood, wondering whether I’ll cross the space and touch her or offer the smallest reassurance that she’s still important to me. That I still want to kiss her and make love to her more than I want to protect her from the foolish affection she has for me.

  Foolish? No, real. I can finally accept it was real for me too. The day I lost my memory, I was in love with Isabel Foster. She was red flowers and desert air and my last breath before everything went dark. Three years later, I’ve opened my eyes for what feels like the first time since, and she’s all I can see.

  She finally breaks the silence. “How did you know how to get up here?”

  “I don’t know. I just remembered, I guess. Did I used to sneak up here a lot or something?”

  Her lips curve a little. “Until we got caught. Then my dad threatened to cut down the tree until I swore I’d never let it happen again.”

  I laugh, but she presses a finger to her lips. “My parents are on high alert. We have to be quiet or—”

  I take two long strides and press my lips to hers, silencing her surprised squeak. I cradle her against me and push my fingers into her hair, angling her how I need her. And hell, I need her. She melts, and I go deeper. Savoring all the soft recesses of her mouth. Binding her tighter to me. My instincts scream for more, but I know it’s never going to be enough. Not until she’s preaching my name again.

  I force myself to tear from her lips, even though I’m hard and completely unwilling to stop touching her or fantasizing about all the things our bodies could do. She doesn’t help, guiding her fingertips along my unshaven jawline.

  “Tristan, don’t stop.”

  “We have to. Getting caught may have different consequences this time.”

  She kisses the corner of my lip. “We’ll be quiet.”

  I laugh softly. “You are not quiet.”

  Color rises to her cheeks. I skim my knuckles across her warm skin, reliving the moment that has her embarrassed. “If you had any idea how many times I’ve heard your voice in my head saying my name, Isabel, you’d be blushing twice as hard.”

  “I’m not blushing,” she says, patting her cheeks.

  I step away and catch my breath, something I’m going to have to get used to if I don’t stop this thing between us. I’m not sure she’ll ever stop affecting me the way she does.

  “We should head back, Isabel.”

  The heat in her eyes cools. “I can’t. My mom…”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. She’s di
fferent. When I first got here, she was so upset, talking nonsense. She seemed to get it together after a while. I told her everything that happened. But I’m worried about her.”

  “She’s upset over all of this. That’s to be expected,” I say.

  “You don’t understand. This is her worst nightmare. Worse than her worst nightmare.”

  “Then the best thing you can do is keep yourself out of harm’s way. Your father is here for her. That’s got to be enough.”

  “Tristan…” She walks past me and drops onto the edge of her bed.

  She sighs, but I can’t be sure it’s resignation. Exhaustion, maybe. Maybe if I hadn’t lost my shit at my old house and dropped her off at Brienne’s with barely a word, she wouldn’t have felt compelled to go off on her own. Now here we are.

  “Isabel,” I say softly.

  She lifts her wordless gaze to mine.

  “We keep doing this to each other, you know.”

  “What?”

  “Second guessing each other. Then leaving each other behind when we’re trying to move in the same direction.”

  Her shoulders soften, as if some of her defenses are already coming down. “Believe it or not, we weren’t always like this, Tristan. Not until you left, anyway.”

  I lower into a chair in front of her writing desk and face her. She scoots back on the bed and props herself up against the wall with her knees tucked to her chest. She seems in no rush to leave, and against my better judgment, a part of me wants to stay too.

  “What was I like…before?”

  I’m almost afraid to hear the answer, but we’ve come this far. Brennan didn’t think I was too awful, judging by his warm reception and willingness to relive some of his worst memories for my sake.

  She rests her chin on her knee, eyeing me calmly. “Are you sure you want to know?”