“Get out of the truck, Rosa,” he screamed at her. “If you don’t, I’m leaving with you in it.”
“Do it, then,” she screamed back at him.
Tucker backed the truck out of the driveway and sped away. He didn’t look back, he didn’t see who the other man was.
“Tucker, I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
He didn’t want to listen. She was ripping his heart right out of his chest. He drove faster and faster on the winding mountain road.
He was going around a curve when she pulled at his arm. He lost control of the truck. It barreled off the road and rolled. He remembered Rosa’s terror-filled eyes boring into his.
“I looked at her, Blythe, right before the truck rolled. The look in her eyes…I’ll never forget. She looked at me like I was supposed to save her, and I couldn’t.
“She didn’t live, Blythe. And it was my fault. Do you understand? It was my fault. I killed her that night, the only woman I ever loved. Until you.”
Blythe nodded. “Go on, Tucker.”
“I had internal injuries that required emergency surgery, and I ended up in the hospital for several days. Her family came to visit one night, but waited until my parents left before they came in the room. Her father was in a rage. That I could deal with, but her mother—her rage was far worse. The things she said to me…I’ll never forget them.”
“What did she say?” Blythe whispered.
“She cursed me. Screamed that I would never know love, because I didn’t deserve it. She told me that even Rosa didn’t love me, but she’d been too afraid to tell me. I didn’t understand. Rosa never acted as though she was afraid of me. I was confused and heartbroken.
“Her mother told me Rosa had wanted to get away from me for months, but she was afraid of what I’d do when I found out she was in love with someone else. And then she told me Rosa loved someone close to me and knew, if she told me, I’d kill him.”
There were tears on Tucker’s cheeks, and the final words he said came out as a sob. “I guess she was right, because when I saw her with another man, I did want to kill him. I honestly did. And that’s why I wanted to leave, because I was afraid of that kind of rage. I wouldn’t have hurt her, but I might have hurt him, whoever he was.”
Blythe reached out her hand to him. He wanted to take it, he wanted to let her hold him, but he needed to finish.
“When I got out of the hospital, I lashed out at all of my friends. I knew it had to be one of them. I accused them all and swore them off. I never wanted to talk to any of them again. The only one I didn’t was Chris, who you met at the restaurant. He and his wife, Kate, have been together since high school. Kate told me that Chris had been with her that night, and I knew she wouldn’t lie about it. If she thought Chris had been unfaithful to her, she would’ve been in as much of a rage as I was.”
“That’s why you’re such close friends.”
“He was the only one I trusted. And Jace. They became the only people I’d talk to, other than my parents. Every man I saw, I wondered if he was with her that night. If he was the man she fell in love with.”
After graduation, which he didn’t attend, he left for Europe. He went to art school in Spain and decided to make his home there. He came back to the States for holidays but was always anxious to leave again. When he was in Aspen, he only saw his family, and occasionally Chris and Kate. Then he’d return to Europe.
It wasn’t long before his work became known and US galleries were clamoring to represent him. In the last couple of years, he’d been coming back more often, but he still had no desire to live here again.
“Jace and I have a condo in Aspen, but I’m never there. It has my art in it, the pieces I’ve given to Jace, or the ones I haven’t wanted to sell. In the last three years, I don’t think I’ve slept there more than a dozen times.”
“Spain is your escape.”
“It has been.”
“Is that where you were?”
“No, it isn’t. I would’ve been too easy to find. I went to Mexico.”
Blythe was taking it all in. He could see her processing the story he was telling her.
“When I came back before Thanksgiving, I had been feeling as though my life was meaningless. I wanted love, the kind of love my parents have—the kind that, since Rosa died, I never believed I could have—but I knew it was too much to hope for.
“And then there you were, with your violet eyes and obstinate attitude. The minute I saw you, I wanted you, and somehow I knew it wouldn’t be meaningless between us. I could feel you. Our connection was immediate, and I know you felt it, too.”
Tucker moved his chair closer to the bed. He wanted to hold her, but he wasn’t finished.
“I didn’t plan to leave on Thanksgiving. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to get away, push Rosa out of my head, and come back to you. Once I started driving, I kept going. Leaving is what I knew, what I know. Up until this last time, I always ran to Spain.”