© Copyright 2007
by Elizabeth Delayne

Love That Hurts

Part II

The house wasn’t just receiving rehab, it was being restored to its 1860 era. The history had a stake in that time, not just because of the civil war, but because of its most famous residents, Annabelle Grace Lindsey. Of course, they had recently discovered that Annabelle Grace was also the Southern painter L.E. Grace—whom everyone assumed was a man, even during those years. Long after the war, she married and moved north with her husband and settled down to live out the rest of her years, hiding her identity behind a paintbrush and in a place her dear Elijah would have considered traitorous.

Jayce spent her days with Cooper. She was being paid to communicate between Cooper, who was the general contractor, and Dorice Stephens who was the curator and university representative. Sometimes, on a few rare days, or even weeks, her job was detailed, but for the most part it had turned out to be hurry up and wait.

And wait, she thought, forever.

Cooper had tried to give her simple jobs to do. A little staining, a little painting, but she never quite did the job the way he wanted it done ... and as it was a restoration project, really the way it needed t be done. She tried. Really ... Cooper just said she was a dreamer; and the way he said it, it wasn’t such a bad thing.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like to work. She’d graduated from college Magana Cum Laud and had taught high school English for two years before everything had fallen a part.

And if anyone knew how hard it was to plan and study and teach, then they knew work. But she couldn’t teach, until she was steady. She couldn’t put herself back into the day to day pressure until she could handle it.

If she ever could.

And if she couldn’t, what would she do? She couldn’t live off her family forever.

But for now, she would do what she needed to do and accept their help. She couldn’t make it alone.

So today, as she was most days recently, Jayce was assigned to keep Cooper company, to be his runner. He was so good at his job that most of the time the job flowed smoothly around him. He was handling the little details himself, with most of his crew over at another site. Still, he said it helped to talk while he worked on these tedious details.

She was sure he was just being helpful.

She was in charge of answering his cell phone, getting supplies, dealing with people who appeared on the property. They had at least several a week, coming with cameras and all kinds of questions. The house wasn’t open for viewing.

Really. This wasn’t the White House.

She sat on the stairs as he worked on the banister and they talked about the latest expert to drop by the house and offer what amounted to an opinion of how to handle the flooring issue in the downstairs foyer. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail and wrapped with a colorful scarf like a girl from the seventies, mostly to keep the paint or gel stain or other what-not out of her hair. Dani said she looked more like their mother when she did it, and sometimes Jayce would stop and look at herself in the mirror and try to imagine the mother she’d never known. For a long time the idea had plagued her—her mother hadn’t been well.

Certainly not well enough to give birth to three girls. Especially to the third one. The youngest one.

Jayce shook herself and focused on Cooper. The time in the afternoons with Cooper was–or seemed to be what—she needed. They laughed easily, without that heavy shroud of darkness that had surrounded her for so long. She loved Cooper because he could make her laugh.

And he was crazy about her sister.

Who couldn’t like a good looking man with such beautiful green eyes that could be crazy about the hardest, meanest of the three Morgan sisters?

Jayce laughed and Cooper paused to look up at her, somewhat wearily.

“Sorry—just my own personal thought.”

“You’re not going to share are you?”

She laughed. By his tone of voice, she knew he didn’t want her too. “No–because you’ll just have to defend my sister. I know. But she’s still my sister. I’m allowed to laugh at her.”

“Good. Because the last time, you got me in a lot of trouble.”

“Only because I know her so well that I can speak the truth.” At the knock on the door, Jayce jumped up. “Time to go to work, boss.”

She skittered down the stairs to answer the front door. They were expecting some people to inspect the faux stone finish artwork in the solarium.

When she pulled open the front door, she stopped.

And stared.

He was just beautiful she thought. Forget makeup and airbrushing and all of the Hollywood tricks. Kyle Edwards was ... wow. He had that Hollywood brown hair that wasn’t really brown as it was mixed with highlights. His eyes were blue–incredibly blue. More than you could see in the movies he had stared in once upon a time blue.

Still he was ... less perfect then he had appeared on the big screen, but very ... present. He looked a little aged around the eyes.

But his dimple was still an amazing part of him.

She lifted a hand to her hair and groaned on the inside. She was wearing another scarf over her own hair.

“This is obviously the Heritage?”

“Ah–“ Jayce shook herself. She wasn’t sure how long she had stood there just staring. “Yes, of course. You couldn’t miss this place.”

“Just what I was looking for.” he extended a hand. “You must me Jayce.”

“Yes—“ she said awkwardly, still thinking of the scarf, of her lack of makeup, of the fact that she was in her grungy work clothes. She belatedly took his hand and managed a rather weird, star-struck shake. She could have melted into the floor.

“Jayce? Have you—“ Cooper said, coming up behind her.

“Ah—“ Jayce dropped the hand she realized she was still holding. “Cooper, this is—“

”Kyle Edwards,” Cooper said and stepped forward to shake his hand. “I know.”

* * *

Carrie stood at the island and arranged food on their grandmother’s best silver trey when Jayce walked into the kitchen. She put her hands on the smooth top, and for a moment, just watched as Carrie arranged the slices.

Or tried to. It made Jayce smile, despite herself. By the time Carrie finished, it would still look like she’d dumped the bowl onto the platter.

“Between you and Dani,” she said at last, “I thought you would be more cooperative.”

Carrie glanced up. “How am I not cooperating?”

“You’re giving Kyle this huge runaround. Both of you are.”

“Kyle is it?” Carrie asked, then held up a hand. “We’re both just giving Mr. Edwards the facts. We don’t have complete authority over this house. Not anymore.”

“But we have influence. And don’t be so Southern. He told us to call him Kyle.”

“That seems unreal,” Carrie muttered. “A movie star, in this house, asking us to call him by his first name. And back to your point, it depends on what he plans to do.”

“You don’t even know what he plans to do.”

“And neither do you,” Carrie pointed out. “Have you listened to him, Jayce? They are just looking around. They don’t have plans until they find what they want. I’m not even sure what he sees in this place or why he’s really here. It can’t be the historical value, because there’s not a room in this house that is fully restored. It’s just a huge work in progress everywhere ... and surely he needs something more than the reconstruction going on in the rest of the place. Now if he wanted to pay to have a room restored back so it was just like the original, then maybe I’d get his interest.”

Jayce frowned as Carrie picked up the tray. “My whole life you’ve harped on how great the Heritage is, and when I can finally give something to help, you don’t want anything to do with it.”

Carrie stopped and looked back at her sister. “Is that what this is about? Jayce, we’ve never kept score.”

She set the tray down and placed her hands on Jayce’s shoulders. “Honey, you don’t owe anything.”

No, she didn’t owe anything, but she couldn’t give anything either. Her sisters had doubled their interest through great marriages. As if it made a difference that Carrie had Tyler and Dani had Cooper ... that the men in their lives were both helping to make changes ... changes that would take the house back to its glory days.

The way their grandmother had remembered.

The way their father had told them about, the way their mother had first seen it and fallen in love with it ... told them in such a way that Dani and Carrie remembered her grace, her words ... and helped spin dreams for one, while resentment festered for a long time in the other.

And the other, the youngest, could only stand in the middle confused. She didn’t remember her mother.

Jayce pulled back. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

Carrie smiled. “Then just give us time. I promise, if it is at all possible, I will accept a big check if they want to use this house for their filming.”

As she picked up the tray and left, Jayce stayed behind. She felt a knot in her stomach. She was fine. She would be fine.

Still, it took her a few minutes to walk back into the middle of the discussion. Kyle was all business now, but there was a glint in his eyes that she’s seen that afternoon while giving him a tour. He was full of dreams. She recognized ]that quality.

Family history flowed after the particulars of the business were discussed. The room filled with memories and with laughter. Kyle didn’t seem bored at all by the stories. In fact, Jayce thought, he seemed drawn in.

It could all be an act, Jayce knew. It could all be an act.



Later, as Dani and Cooper went home, Kyle asked Jayce to walk him out.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Nothing more than normal. And somewhat better as your sisters seem to be up-front with us and don’t seem to be trying to gouge us.”

Jayce grinned. “The university might.”

“Probably. You’ve been quiet for the last little bit,” Kyle murmured as they walked the garden path around to the front of the house. “I really didn’t imagine you as the quiet type.”

“I’m not.” Jayce shrugged, her hands in the pockets of her skirt. “But when it all got down to just business, I’m not the one with the know-how. Not in this case.”

He stopped and turned to face her. They stood in the light of the full moon and the garden lights that wrapped around the side of the house.

“What do you know, Jayce Morgan?”

That she could lie, quite easily ... or simplify it all down to the single purpose she’d found. That once upon a time she’d been a good teacher, with passion and purpose.

That she was still a little lost.

“I suppose ...” she said at last, “that I’m the youngest of three sisters.”

“Three incredible sisters.”

She smiled. “I can go with that. We’re all quite incredible.”

“You really love them.”

“They ... they’re the best.”

He edged closer. “What else do you know?”

She shrugged. “My family tells me I talk a lot, and I do. I really do. I’ve always been able to spin a good story. My father taught me that. I have a college degree because once upon a time, I wanted to teach ... but I’m not sure what it means anymore. I’m searching ... and I’ve been forgiven for a whole lot.”

He smiled and reached up to trace a finger along her jaw. “Maybe that’s what I saw or felt when I read your script, saw you in the photo you sent. I’ve been searching myself, for a long time.”

“You really read my script?”

“Every word of it. More than once,” he dropped his hand and turned around to face the garden lit only by the path lights, “and I’m not saying that to impress you or manipulate you. I might have done that at one time. I did it a lot, many times. Still, I found something in your story. Annabelle Grace was the one who should have been searching, and yet, she had ... more.”

“Her faith. We know as much from her journals. It’s not made up.”

“It seemed real. The scene where she turns to her Bible and she just holds on to it ... she can’t bare to read it, so she holds on ... She’d lost the most precious things, her Elijah, her dreams, and she had something valuable to turn to.”

Jayce looked up at him and studied his profile that was shadowed by the night. There was more to him than a pretty face ... she wasn’t just attracted to the movie star. There was something more. Something she understood.

“You lost your love.”

“My love?”

“Someone let you down.”

For a long time he just stared off, into a distance that was further away then the Tennessee hills.

Still, she waited. There was something in him, something in his spirit, that drew her in.

And it wasn’t his ... celebrity.

“Not someone,” he said at last as he shifted uncomfortably. “Not a person. A career.”

His voice had been flat, disgusted. He stared into the darkness and for a long time the silence of the night surrounded them.

“I know that sounds dramatic. A career shouldn’t be the end all of everything. But it was. For a long time it was just who I was. It was too much ...” he said before he turned back around to face her, “and probably cliche to say, not enough to hold onto. I’m happier as a producer. The planning, the looking, the piecing together. I has a purpose, a ... story in itself. It just took awhile to get used to that.”

“I lost my mother,” Jayce told him. “But I never really had her. My father, Dani, Carrie ... they all told, tell me stories. But ... I want more than anything to reach out and touch her. But I can’t. I’ve never been able to.”

“Jayce,” he whispered. “I even met your mother in the room tonight. The light and love of both your parents. The strength of your grandmother. You have her. She’s inside you—in your sisters. I saw it in the way they opened up the memories. Like there was a box that flowed over. In the way you all laughed and in the way you, yourself, painted the stories that are more stories than memories to you. You have a gift, Jayce.”

“A gift? Of dreaming?” she thought of all the painful hours she’d spent doing just that. “Some would call it a curse.”

“I guess it just depends on how you implement it. I’ve learned to understand that.”

* * *

Carrie peered out the upstairs window and tried to watch what was happening below. She was having a hard time seeing as the limbs of a tree were blocking her view.

“What are you doing?” Tyler asked as he came up behind her.

“Trying to figure out what Jayce’s doing.”

“Or Kyle Edwards?”

“At the moment, it seems to be one in the same.”

Tyler stood beside her and peered down. “They’re talking. We should be shocked.”

She elbowed him lightly. “What on earth do they have to talk about?”

“If I recall, Kyle Edwards was the youngest or younger of a brood of children. I’m sure they have a lot they can talk about. Living, life ... having annoying symblings who are over protective?” Tyler sighed and pulled on her hand until she reluctantly left the window. “How would you feel if Jayce were spying on us?”

“She did.”

“That was a long time ago. She was in middle school when we first started dating.”

Carrie laughed as he pulled her into his arms, away from the window.

* * *

A week passed, then another, and Kyle kept in touch. Not just in touch ... but expected. He called and talked with her for hours, wrote rambling emails in the middle of the night and short ones during the day.

She could tell him most anything.

But she kept most of it from her sisters and she kept her secret from him.

Still, when Jayce stared at the airplane boarding pass she held in her hands, she fought against the tide of sickness she felt in her stomach. She was going to Hollywood for the Oscars. As his film was nominated in nine categories, Kyle had pulled some strings, found her a place to stay, a designer dress and the works. In Jayce’s world, the works meant lettuce and tomatoes, but she had a feeling that in Kyle’s world the works was much more.

She, Jayce Morgan, youngest of the Morgan sisters, was going to wear diamonds.

Kyle’d done so much. He’d been so nice, so excited. She couldn’t turn him down.

And she hadn’t told her sisters.

All she wanted to do was find a drink.

She’d told Carrie and Dani she was going back to Nashville to visit some friends. She’d lied to them, for perhaps the first time since she called them and admitted that she was an alcoholic and that she had done a great deal of lying over the last few years.

I am an alcoholic.

She looked across the terminal at the airline bar set up nearby. One drink, she thought, would help her get rid of these shakes, the disappointment. The fear. She could go through with it, have a good time, find her life again outside of the Morgan shadow.

Just one.

She felt the sweat beak out on the back of her neck. Her palm shook.

And as she stood, they called for all first class passengers to board.

She turned and watched as people headed to the doorway; watched as the steward checked their passes and slid them through the little machine.

She thought of Kyle, and how close much they’d shared in the last few months—and how little. They hadn’t seen each other since his short trip. She was desperate to see him again, not just Hollywood.

Not just real diamonds.

They sent short emails back and forth over single days, shared long conversations at night more than once a week. She missed him, for sure ... but she hadn’t told him everything. How could she tell him? She felt dirty, somewhat lost.

She thought of Carrie and Dani, Tyler and Cooper. How they had supported her the last year. How their support had meant everything.

She sat back down and looked at her ticket, as they called for the next round of passengers. She should have told Dani and Carrie the truth. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was an adult, going to see a friend. That was it. That was what she and Kyle had decided. They were friends. They would take it slow. He was thankful he had found someone to connect with, someone who understood his struggle. She would get to see where he worked, watch him in his environment, and go with him as a support as he was no longer comfortable in the shoes of Kyle Edwards celebrity.

He’d said he’d needed her with him. He’d asked her to come.

Everything seemed to be moving so fast.

Too fast.

She wasn’t ready to be needed by anybody.

She looked over at the bar. Just one drink, she thought, and she would be fine. She could face Kyle, her sisters. She was an adult. She didn’t need any one’s permission to fly on an airplane, visit a friend, or another city. She didn’t have to feel guilty for living her life.

She swallowed against the ache in her throat.

God ... she prayed. I can’t do this. I can’t ...

She couldn’t go forward or back. She couldn’t ...

As they called for final boarding, she stood, her hands shaking. She had to do this, she thought. She’d come to far to go back now.

I am an alcoholic.

I need your help.

HEY! and don't forget to e-mail me if you have a comment!







Return to the Heritage Trilogy!