Edge of the Ravine

49

Chapter Forty-Nine

I stared out over the river, perched on the bridge I had retreated to just before the last time I left that town. Like everything in my life, my perception was changed as I studied the calm waters. A long time ago I had once thought the river wide and imposing. Years of traveling and experience now made me look at it very differently. Small, calm, and narrow. Those were far more accurate descriptions than the one I gave a lifetime ago.

Similar discrepancies in my mind had come to light with my being there. Especially when I became aware of why people had stared at me upon my leaving the train station. What I had took for recognition had been on,y a slight miscalculation of my part.

As Alec informed me the morning following the funeral at the café where we had breakfast. Our waitress, a young girl who couldn't be more than sixteen years old, set our food down with trembling hands and scurried away with a gleam in her eye while suppressing a smile. I was beyond confused. Alec, however, laughed heartily and I watched his eyes crinkle in pleasant amusement.

"Why?" I demanded.

"She's mesmerized by you," my friend snickered. "I bet she's back in the kitchen right now showing her favorite magazine to anyone who will spare a glance."

My eyes widened and I sat back in my chair, stunned by this so obvious revelation. Of course people were staring. I was Hummingbird the supermodel. Not Oliver trapped in the valley.

Laughing even more, Alec continued to tell me about how he first became aware of my career. "I've been collecting your pictures ever since. Blair thinks it's an unnatural hobby, but she allows me my little obsessions. So long as they don't interfere with hers."

It was the first time he mentioned his wife and I quickly fished for details. As it happened, Blair was to him almost what Layla was to me. His savior.

When he'd left, he'd headed to California. Once there, he had no idea what he was going to do or where he was going to go. At the time, Blair was a secretary in the police station near the train where he got off. Through her, he found a place to live and she got him a job as a rookie security guard.

It was Blair who convinced him to call his father when he had been gone only three months. And it was she who consoled him when he's learned that I'd left too. Alec admitted then that, having her there during that moment, was probably when he first began to love her. From there on out, it blossomed.

"We got married six years ago. A year later, I was a father." They way he said the words made my heart burst. Each syllable was files with a mixture of love and wonder, pride and humility. Nothing in the world could compare to how he said that sentence.

It took only slight pushing for him to produce the pictures. His son, Tommy, had just turned five. Though keeping close with his mother's features, according to Alec, I instantly recognized those eyes. And his daughter, Carrie, was only eight months. Even though baby fat still clung to face, I was attuned enough by my profession to notice the makings of a very beautiful young woman in her. My praise for his family was sincere and heartfelt. Maybe that's why he chose to turn the questioning back to myself.

I softened the blow. Having already forgiven Alec for what he did, there was no need for me to add more senseless guilt to his shoulders. So I kept the beginning very brief with only glimpses of my life in Boston and New York. The move to Charleston seemed lively in comparison and Rebecca's abandonment of me in London caused Alec to gasp. My adventures from there kept an awed expression on his face. Right up until the moment I got to my father's letter.

He listened in appalled astonishment as I described the plea for money and described my step-mother's supposed illness. It amused me slightly to think that my half-brothers must think me callous and sadistic to have dismissed them so easily. Which was ironic considering how our father treated me. Though in general I was very easy to forgive, the betrayal of the man who was supposed to love me above all others was not something I could ever fully get over.

Once again, the conversation continued but was put to a halt once Vlad entered my life. My smile was enough for Alec to know. And he only had one question to ask.

"Is he worthy of you?"

Hearing those words, my heart swelled and I felt fit to bursting with my emotions. "Yes," I whispered. The exultation I felt in that moment could allow for no higher volume.

The same exultation filled me even as I thought about the conversation that had taken place three days ago. It burst through me even more to know that the object of it would soon be in my arms.

Though Alec had asked if Vlad was worthy of me, I knew that my thoughts would always ask, am I worthy of him?

Finally, I was able to answer as I had before. Yes, I was.

Looking down at the ring I'd been twirling in my right hand for half an hour, I knew now was the time. The moment to leave it all behind. To just be happy.

Snapping my head back to the river, I pulled back my right hand before shooting it forwards. The sunlight glinted off the white silver one last time before it disappeared in the calm water below me. Smiling, I took a deep breath and let it out.

Without waiting a moment longer, I got to my feet and headed back towards the train station. As I did so, I pulled out my cellphone and hit his number on my speed-dial.

"Vlad? I'm coming home."