“Want to see my ink?”
“More than life itself.”
“Here, I’m not flashing you, I promise.” She turned and lifted her shirt to show him her rib cage, which sported a tattoo about eight inches high of a beautiful Greek woman holding a scroll in her hands. He rolled over on his side, got in close, and studied the outlines in the firelight. He wanted to trace them with his fingertips, but if he started touching her, he wouldn’t want to stop.
“Her name is Calliope,” Lucy said. “She’s the chief of the Greek muses. The muse of epic poetry.”
“Please don’t tell me Sean Parrish made you get that.”
“Oh no, I did this to myself. Thought it would make him happy since I was his ‘muse.’”
Hugo looked at it closely, not a man ogling a woman’s body but an artist admiring a work of art.
“You know anyone looking for an unemployed muse?” she asked, lowering her shirt.
“I’m a modern artist.” He put his hands behind his head. “My muse is the fear of poverty and obscurity.”
She smiled, but her eyes looked far away, as if remembering something she wished she could forget. “I will say this for him. He was the first person who made me feel wanted in my entire life. Really wanted. And when you feel wanted for the first time in your life, you realize how much you’ve been starving for it.”
Hugo heard something else in her voice, some old secret sadness creeping in. He sat up and softly asked, “What happened with you two?”
She let out a long breath before she began to speak.
“I should have known the first month we started sleeping together what kind of man he was,” she said. “He asked me why I’d taken his writing class when I didn’t want to be a writer. I told him I was thinking of working in publishing someday, getting a job in New York at a children’s book publisher. I remember hoping he’d say something like, ‘You’d be great at that.’ Or, ‘Sounds like a dream job for you.’ Or even just a vague, stupid, ‘You can do it. I believe in you.’ But no, he rolled his eyes, said children’s books weren’t real literature, and I should find something to do that didn’t involve—you know.”
“Books with pictures,” he said. He’d heard all the jokes before about his work.
“Right. That. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I know you don’t believe it.”
“No, but I didn’t have the guts to say that. I just nodded along and let him kill that dream. But he could be charming and funny and sexy, and we traveled, and his apartment was nice…so I stitched a sort of patchwork relationship out of all that. You don’t have to be happy to convince yourself you’re lucky. Lucky me, dating a famous writer. Then I got pregnant and it all fell apart.”
“Oh, Lucy.” Poor mite, he thought. He wanted to hug her but knew he shouldn’t.
“Deep down, I always knew what I was to him—the younger woman he kept around to make people think he was younger. But kids were not in his plan. He wanted me to end it. He told me to do it a hundred times, even made an appointment for me.”
She took a deep breath.
“And that’s how I ended up in California,” she said, continuing. “Every time I got out of the shower and looked in the mirror, I saw that stupid muse tattoo. It reminded me how much of myself I’d given up to make him happy. If I stayed, I knew he’d eventually wear me down. So…one evening we went to his launch party in Manhattan. I faked a headache and went back to the hotel, grabbed my bags, and ran for it. Put the whole trip out west on the one credit card I had. A friend from college let me stay with her while I figured things out. A couple of weeks later I started bleeding.”
Hugo didn’t say anything, too afraid of saying the wrong thing.
Lucy’s hands clutched into fists. “And…I…I didn’t tell Sean. Anything. At all. Didn’t tell him where I was, even. I was still scared he’d talk me into coming back to him. I decided to stay, start over. That’s what California’s for, right? For people who are on the run, who need a fresh start. I got a job. Started over from scratch. And here I am, still scratching.”
“I’m sorry,” Hugo said. What else could he say?
“After my miscarriage, there was this little voice in my head that said maybe Sean was right that I shouldn’t be a mother.”
“No,” Hugo said. “No, not a chance. You were ready to swim to California just to hold Christopher’s hand. That’s not something a bad mother would do. Sean Parrish didn’t want a child because that would force him to think of someone other than himself, and don’t you dare believe anything else.”
She looked up at his ceiling, blinked as if trying to stop herself from crying.
“Listen to me,” Hugo said. “If Davey were still alive, and I had to pick someone to take care of him, I would trust him with you before anyone else—Jack included.” He was shocked to find as he said it that he meant it.
She smiled. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “That’s very sweet of you to say, but I can’t even take care of myself.”
“Do what I did—sponge off your rich friends. That’s your real problem—no rich friends.”
He was trying to make her laugh. The ghost of a grin flitted across her lips.
“Anyway, that’s the whole story. The end.”
“The story isn’t over yet.”
She smiled tiredly. “Yeah, of course. Because I’m going to win this game, right?”
Hugo took her face in his hands and met her eyes. Although he wanted to kiss her, he didn’t. That’s not what she needed.
“You can do it,” he said instead. “I believe in you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lucy woke up on Hugo’s couch to the sound of a gentle breeze, a tranquil ocean, and the delicious scents of coffee brewing and bread toasting. The sun was out. The power had come back on. No more excuses to run or hide. Lucy slowly sat up and ran her fingers through her hair.
“Hugo?” Lucy called out. He stuck his head out of the kitchen. Already up. Already dressed. Already cooking breakfast. And she was already remembering how nice his large warm hands felt on her face last night, the intensity in his eyes when he said he believed in her. She pushed the thought away before she started blushing.
“Morning,” he said. “How do you take your coffee?”
“Injected directly into my bloodstream,” she said.
“I’ll get the IV drip. Shower’s all yours if you want one. Towels in the cupboard in the hall.”
Lucy followed his directions but stopped to examine a display box hanging on the wall. Inside was a large gold coin stamped with the image of a man riding a horse. She narrowed her eyes to read the printing on the coin. It was a Caldecott Medal. The highest award a children’s book illustrator could receive. Hugo had won a Caldecott? He hadn’t told her that. Sean told everyone he met he’d won the Pulitzer.
Quickly, before Hugo caught her in the act, she searched online for the book that had won him the prize—Davey’s Dreamworld, a gorgeously illustrated picture book about a young boy with Down syndrome who stumbles into another world where all his dreams come true. Flying a plane, climbing a mountain, fighting a giant…but when he’s offered the chance to stay, he goes back home because he misses his family. It was, of course, dedicated to the memory of David Reese.