His Brother's Bride

In a way, he felt it was.

“Where do you picture yourself five years from now?” he asked, propped up on one elbow on the blanket they’d spread beneath a hundred-year-old tree.

Laurel sat cross-legged, looking comfortable and at ease. She slipped off her white strappy sandals.

“I don’t have a picture of that.”

He frowned, looking at the glass of wine he held. “You don’t plan to be around five years from now?”

“I don’t look that far ahead.”

“You don’t?” Scott had been looking ahead his entire life. “Why not?”

He glanced over at her and she turned away, hugging her knees up to her chest. “Growing up like I did, you learn not to look too far ahead, because what you see isn’t what’s going to be there when you reach that point.”

A dull ache of compassion spread through him. “But what about now?” he asked. “You’re in charge of your life now, not some faceless state employee.”

“Am I?” Her gray eyes were almost bitter as she turned back to study him. “Can I tell the Fates to bring Paul back? Was I in charge when they took him in the first place?”

Scott pushed his food aside, no longer the least bit interested in it.

“It was an accident,” he said softly, pleadingly. He was a pauper, begging for one small morsel of forgiveness.

“And how can I be in charge when ‘accidents’ happen around every corner?”

Sitting up, Scott gazed out into the surrounding meadow, searching for the peace he’d come there to find. He didn’t know when he’d hated himself more than he did at that moment.

Not only was he responsible for his brother’s death, he’d also killed Laurel’s ability to hope.

“Don’t you ever look forward to things?” he asked, not breathing as he waited for her answer.

She shook her head, eyes dry as she smiled sadly. “Not since Paul died. If good happens, I have plenty of time to enjoy it then. And the rest of the time, I’m not left with bitter disappointment when it doesn’t.”

“What about goals?” Scott just couldn’t let this go. He needed her to have something left. An ability to believe. Have a little faith. Something. “You don’t have a career as successful as yours without goals.”

“Actually, you can,” she said, her smile brightening just a bit, though her eyes were somber, remnants of the painful memories still resting there. ?

??I didn’t have any plans to be where I’m at at this stage. I thought I’d be married and raising children, not using my journalism degree.”

“But after the accident, once you grew to be serious about a career, then you had goals.” He watched her, wanting like hell to change things so that his time with her wasn’t so short.

“Not really.” She shook her head, her hair glinting pure gold in the rays of sunlight shining down through the leaves of the old maple. “I love what I do. But I got where I am by hard work, not planning. I didn’t go after my current job. It was offered to me.”

He picked a blade of grass and rolled it between thumb and forefinger.

“So how far ahead do you look?” he asked.

“A few months, maybe.”

Scott thought that was one of the saddest things he’d ever heard—and knew he’d never climb out from beneath the weight of guilt.

* * *

“REMEMBER OUR SENIOR PROJECT?” Laurel asked Scott almost dreamily. Though the remains of their picnic still lay around them, they’d finished eating quite a while before, and were lounging quietly on the blanket, enjoying the peace of the late August afternoon. “What were there, fifty of us out here helping to tap the trees?”

Though she’d been desperately missing Paul, who was away at college that spring, the final semester of her senior year of high school had been one of the happiest times of her life.

“I remember we had to reschedule because a warm front blew in. We thought we’d never get started.”