Page 86 of Her Brother's Billionaire Best Friend
Chapter 28
Conor (Lucien)
That evening, Tracey took us for a walk around the local area. In the evening light, it was almost as if the storm had never happened, except for the fallen trees and the soaked ground. Laura borrowed a pair of her walking boots. We wandered among the place, while she checked the pH of the soil and examined the tree bark. And that night, Tracey insisted we stay again. We chatted over dinner, and I saw Tracey’s eyes raise when I told her a little bit about my business. Later on, I drifted off to sleep on the couch while Tracey told me about her activism in the 60s and 70s, the sweet-smelling smoke from the fire and the warmth of the cabin making me drowsy.
In the morning, the ground was dry enough to leave. So we bid our farewells to Tracey, who gave Laura a hug this time.
“I’ll call you when I’m in town,” she said.
“I’d like that,” Laura responded. “I wish we could—I want to do better, Mom. I want you to meet Kyle.”
“I’d like that,” she said. “Take care now.”
I couldn’t deny that my heart felt a little more at rest having seen that conversation. It looked like Laura might finally be making peace with her mom. I was happy for her. Even if we hadn’t had a chance yet to talk about what had made her so afraid of me.
As we walked through the forest and watched the stream rising from the ground, heard birds call in the trees overhead, I looked at Laura.
“So, what did you think of her?” Laura said.
“She’s nice,” I said. “A very…warm person.”
Laura snorted at that.
“What?”
“Trust Lucien Barnes to find my mom warm,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Where are we going, anyhow?”
“Let’s walk up the trail. I can call Ronnie once we get to a main road,” I said.
“This has been a hell of a few days,” Laura sighed. I nodded. I hoped we’d have time to talk about everything when we both got back.
As we got to the main road, I saw the rail depot. The barrels and the tracks, stretching out over the flat ground. Here the river was an unhealthy shade of brown, as it passed through the shacks and old bungalow houses by the railroad.
Suddenly, I remembered that this was the place I’d grown up. I could see my house from here. Sitting off to the right, at the edge of one of the roads. It looked almost miniature from this distance.
I kept my head down, not wanting to let my eyes linger too long on the little house. I crossed the road, but as I turned back, I saw Laura had stopped in her tracks. Her eyes were trained on the house, her blue irises bright and alert in the morning.
“Laura?” I said in a friendly sort of way. She turned and looked at me. I could see her hand was trembling a little, and for a terrible moment, I thought she’d remembered.
“What is it?” I said, looking up and down the road and checking the path quickly for anyone walking by. Had Laura remembered me at last?
But slowly, she stuffed her hand in her pocket and crossed the highway. She slipped a hand into my arm as we crossed over into the outskirts of Caluga Falls.
“Can I tell you something?” she said.
*
How does it feel to have a story you know off by heart told to you? To be told something you already knew in excruciating detail, but from someone else’s perspective? As Laura and I made our way down to the end of the trail and into Caluga Falls, she told me the story of Conor, slowly and faltering. And I realized that it was all so long ago, I hardly felt like I knew the story at all.
“He was….he was a lovely boy. We got engaged when I got back from college—we’d written to each other for the whole four years.”
“What did Conor do?” I said.
“He was a carpenter,” she said. “Or at least, that was what his dad made him do. Honestly he could have done anything.”
I was on my guard, all my senses at high alert. There was the sound of a car horn nearby atop the voices of the neighborhood kids as they played with sticks and stones. I felt the scar on my chest through the fabric of my shirt. Somehow, it was stinging, and I wondered if I’d pulled a muscle or something.
“And what happened? Why didn’t you marry him?”