February Lover by Rebecca Royce Read Free Book Online

Michael Roux made a lot of money. None of them had ever much cared for her silent son. Easier to throw him under the bus. Or at least that’s what he had come to believe. The psychology of the whole thing could drive him mad if he really tried to work it out. He’d studied it all in medical school. Yet analyzing himself or his mother proved next to impossible for him to handle.
    If they knew about Michael’s tendency to beat on Aidan, they’d have known her own shame, her own culpability. He got it. The question remained as to whether he’d ever be able to forgive her.
    “I stood up. I hollered at her. I called her a liar and pathetic in front of her group. Then I turned out and left. Drove down to the local army recruiting station and signed up, then and there.”
    Stacey rubbed her forehead. “At least it all makes sense. Thank you. I’ll never tell a soul, Aidan.”
    “I know, Stacey. I should have told you then. I didn’t have the words.”
    She wiped at her mouth with her napkin, leaving a little of her dark red lipstick behind. It was such a natural gesture, and watching her do it let him take a deep breath. This would be okay. He’d survive having told her.
    “I still can’t believe you came back at all. Miss Linda paraded you in front of her group again.”
    “She never recovered from my outburst. I heard about it in letters for a while. She wrote. Dad didn’t. I don’t know what I would have done if he had. When she asked me to come back, I figured I’d have to do some social fixing for her, even after so much time. All these years later and they’re all she has, those Uptown biddies.” He waved his hand in the air. “Let her have them. What do I care?”
    He realized he meant it. Really, what did it matter at all? Aidan couldn’t change his mother. The best he could do was move on.
     
    ***
     
    Stacey wandered through her studio. She worked in digital photography, the days of darkrooms long gone. Her computer could be called her best friend. Without it, she’d never be able to create what she did.
    She stroked the side of a black frame while she stared at a picture of her grandfather. He held her in his hands, up toward the camera. She must have been a week old. ON her eighth birthday, he’d given her a Polaroid camera. No one could have predicted all the years later she’d be doing the kind of work she did. Not until Aidan, broken and abused, had stumbled out of her life in search of salvation from pain.
    The army had made him strong. No one would beat him. Certainly not a drunken fool who hadn’t deserved his son. Oh, she supposed she should find her heart of compassion toward the man. Her year photographing the Nepal countryside had taught her the importance of kindness. But at the moment, she couldn’t muster any.
    The men in her family were kind, gentle. Most of them horribly unsuccessful. Big dreamers who didn’t make much happen. On both sides of the family. But their women loved them to pieces. Not one divorce she knew of in three generations and despite their lack of finances, they loved their kids to distraction. She’d take adoration over the falseness of Aidan’s people any day of the week.
    Even when she’d been younger and caught in the glow of his world, whenever he’d brought her into it, she’d known she liked her own world better.
    Aidan had suffered, and she’d had no idea. All of those years. God, she wished she could take away his pain. Then and now. Could a person ever be more ineffectual than she’d turned out to be? Ha! She credited herself with the ability to see things others missed. That was, she’d told herself, why she took pictures people responded to.
    Maybe she only knew how to line up the light.
    Their last eight days together had been incredible. Aidan came to her every night and made love with her until she couldn’t keep her eyes open. He held her while she slept, ate breakfast with her in the morning, asked her how her day had gone each