A Woman Worth Loving Page 13

  In the early photographs, Seth didn’t like the woman Audra had been. Even if he had been able to set aside the bitterness he’d felt over his family’s tragedy, Audra wouldn’t have appealed to him on anything other than a physical level. She hadn’t been a particularly “nice person,” to use her description.

  But now that he knew more about the woman, he found himself judging her less harshly.

  It didn’t take a psychology degree to connect the dots in Audra’s past. She had developed early as a girl, struggling with unjust comparisons to her brainy twin and then subjected to a teacher’s inappropriate advances. She’d left a relatively sheltered existence only to find herself swimming with the sharks in Hollywood, humiliated and emotionally mistreated by her first two husbands, and then in a one-sided relationship with a drug addict, before seeking safety in the unassuming embrace of a father figure.

  Before, the way Audra had acted and the things she’d done had angered, even appalled him, but now Seth also could admire the way she had survived heartache and her own poor choices, and the honest way in which she was confronting her past. It took guts to own up to one’s mistakes and start over.

  Seth paced to the window and wondered if he finally had that kind of courage. If he did, he owed it to Audra.

  The irony was that for two years he’d been determined to make her pay for a sin she hadn’t actually committed. He had talked himself into believing he was on a crusade and that what he did was justified. He had wanted so desperately to discount the goodness he kept glimpsing in Audra because he’d known deep down that he was the worst sort of hypocrite, castigating her for his own blatant shortcomings. Now, however, Seth took a fresh look at his motives.

  Once again the angry words he’d exchanged with his stepfather the day of the accident pelted him like shards of glass. Once again his mother’s and sister’s disappointed expressions burned him like acid.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so damned sorry for everything,” he whispered.

  Covering his face with his hands, Seth sobbed hoarsely as the realization finally dawned. It wasn’t Audra he had been unable to forgive these past two years. It was himself.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SETH didn’t sleep that night. He sat in the cottage’s small kitchen, nursing a lukewarm beer and staring at the photographs spread out over the table. He was ashamed of himself, ashamed of what he had put Audra through because of his blindness and inability to accept his own guilt.

  In the wee hours of the morning, as darkness cloaked the cottage, a lot of things became clear to him.

  First and most important was that Audra deserved the truth. She’d had the courage to bare her soul, to admit her true identity. Now he owed her the same courtesy.

  How would she react when she learned that he was actually Scott Smithfield? Could she forgive him for being the very photographer who had pursued her so relentlessly—and, as it turned out, so erroneously—during the past two years?

  When she’d left the cottage after telling Seth everything, she’d assured him she would understand if he decided he didn’t want to see her again. Well, after Seth made his explosive confessions, there was no guarantee she would want anything to do with him.

  And wasn’t that the kicker? Because if being honest were the order of the day, then Seth had to admit the feelings he had for her ran deeper and wider than the vast lake surrounding Trillium.

  Love? Seth had denied it the day before when Audra told him that she was falling for him, but he couldn’t deny it now. It no longer seemed relevant to question how it had happened or why. Some things just needed to be accepted and appreciated for what they were.

  Audra had taught him that—and so much more with her quiet compassion and surprising strength of character.

  As dawn broke, he was waiting on his porch when she opened the door to her cottage. They stood on their respective porches for a couple of awkward moments, questions hanging between them in the cool morning air. Finally Seth jogged down the steps and met her on the road in front of her unit.

  God, she looked so lovely with the hair rioting around her face and her eyes shining with the promise of a new day. She wore jeans and a simple white pullover that left her neck exposed. She wasn’t hiding anything any longer. And neither would he.

  “Hello,” she said, dipping her hands into the front pockets of her pants and scuffing the toe of one shoe in the gravel.

  “Hi.”

  She glanced up at the expanse of blue sky. “It’s going to be a nice day.”

  Seth glanced up as well, uttering a silent prayer that she would be proved right.

  Afterward, he said, “Will you come with me, Audra?”

  A smile trembled on her lips when he held out his hand and then she weaved her fingers through his.

  “I didn’t know if you’d be up for a walk today,” she said. “I left you with a lot to think about yesterday morning.”

  “More than you know,” Seth agreed. Then he took a deep breath. “I don’t want to go for a walk right now, though. Maybe later. I want you to come inside the cottage. There are…there are some things I need to show you.”

  Even though her brow wrinkled in confusion, she came with him. She trusted him, Seth realized, sickened anew by his deceit.

  When they entered the kitchen his courage faltered. He pulled her into his arms. He needed a minute, one more minute before the mask was torn free and his future decided. He dipped his head and captured her lips, savoring her sweetness and stamping it into his memory. When the kiss ended, he rested his forehead against hers.

  “Seth,” she whispered.

  And his very name seemed to damn him.

  He stepped back, brought his hands up to frame the face that had long beguiled him.

  “I’m so sorry, Audra.”

  She misunderstood his apology, of course.

  “It’s okay. I understand, really. What I told you yesterday, it was a lot to take in. I’m just glad you believe me when I say I’ve changed.”

  “I do. You’re an incredible woman, and a courageous one. I admire you for that. I hope you will believe that after…after I say what I need to say.”

  She tilted her head to one side, frowning. “What is it? What do you mean?”

  He’d planned to ease into the conversation, maybe give her some background so that his confession wouldn’t come out of left field, but in the end he decided to let the pictures tell the story. And so he pointed to the table where the photos were laid out, a couple dozen full-color examples of his treachery arranged in chronological order.

  “You’re finally letting me see your work?” she asked, stepping around him.

  “Yes.”

  But of course Seth knew this wasn’t the first time she’d seen photographs that he had taken under the moniker of Scott Smithfield. And he held his breath, waiting for that realization to dawn on her.

  She walked to the table and was smiling when she picked up a photograph that showed her bending to inspect a cluster of trillium in the woods. He’d taken it on the first morning walk when he had followed her into the woods, not knowing where she would lead him. He’d captured a look of wonder on her face.

  “Oh, Seth. This is incredible. You have a good eye. I’d like a copy of this one.” Her gaze flicked back at the table. “And this one,” she said, reaching for one of her skipping stones on the lake’s smooth surface.

  But then she glanced past those ones to the pictures on the far side of the table and her brows knitted together in a frown.

  “Where did you get these?”

  Audra picked up a photograph that showed her leaving a nightclub in Los Angeles. It seemed like a lifetime ago that Seth had last seen her in one of those flirty short skirts and midriff-baring tops with her hair bleached nearly white and every last loose curl ruthlessly ironed out. Her makeup was heavier, eyeliner smeared. She was sticking out her tongue at a police officer who was stuffing a parking ticket under the windshield wiper of her convertible.


  “Where did you get these?” she asked again, her voice rising as she snatched up image after unflattering image and then clutched them in her shaking hands.

  “I took them.” His voice cracked and he was forced to clear his throat before he could continue. “I took all of them, Audra, and hundreds of others just like them. It’s what I do for a living.”

  She shook her head, not quite ready to believe him. “But that would mean…that would mean you—”

  “I knew who you were when I got to Trillium,” he interrupted. “In fact, it was no accident that I came to the island in the first place. I followed you here from Los Angeles after the attack.”

  Her wide-eyed gaze flew back to the photographs before reconnecting with his. He saw disbelief flicker briefly before acceptance finally settled in.

  “My God! You’re him! You’re Scott Smithfield.”

  Seth wished he could deny it. He didn’t want to be that cold, calculating man any longer. But if there was one thing he’d learned by watching Audra these past several weeks, it was that you had to embrace the past before you could be set free from it.

  “My name is really Seth Ridley, but, yes, I am Scott Smithfield. That’s what I go by for my work.”

  “And you work as a photographer for the tabloids,” she said. A low moan escaped her lips and tears clouded her eyes. “You’re just here to take my picture.”

  He nodded again, swallowed the thick lump of remorse that made speaking so difficult. Then he completed his confession. “Yes. I came for an exclusive, for pictures and information to go in a tell-all book that a guy I know is working on. I promised him my best work yet.”

  Tears leaked down her cheeks, but her voice was strong when she asked, “Did you get what you need? Did you get what you came for?”

  He shook his head.

  “No?” Her eyes widened. “I’m surprised. I’ve always made such a good subject.”

  “You used to, yes. I’m sorry, Audra.” Seth reached for her, but she backed away and he was forced to let his hand drop.

  “I thought that I…I thought that you…” She closed her eyes, shook her head. “God, I can’t believe what an idiot I am. You must have been laughing the entire time I was pouring out my life story to you yesterday. You already knew every last bit of it.”

  “No. I thought I did. I thought I knew everything about you before I came to Trillium, before I spent time with you and realized I didn’t know this Audra at all.”

  “New and improved,” she murmured. Then she brought a hand up to her throat. “Back in California, the night Henry’s son tried to strangle me, you were there. You…you saved my life.”

  Seth nodded, but he knew he was no hero. “I’ve also done my damnedest to destroy it.”

  “Why? What did I ever do to you?”

  His laughter was harsh and self-directed. “Nothing. It turns out you didn’t do anything, but I thought you had, or rather I needed to believe you had.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He took a deep breath and after exhaling, said, “John Woods was my stepfather. Elaine Woods was my mother. LeeAnn Woods was my sister.”

  “No. Oh God, Seth. No.”

  He could see that she was putting the pieces together for herself, and yet he continued with his confession, determined to get the last of it out in the open.

  “I thought you’d let Trent Kane leave your house drunk and high,” he said. “I thought that you had lent him your car to drive.”

  “You blamed me for the accident?”

  “Yes.”

  “God, thinking what you did, you must have hated me,” she said quietly.

  Seth rubbed a hand across his eyes and swallowed hard. “I wanted to. Even after coming here and spending time with you, I wanted to hate you, but I couldn’t and so for a while I hated myself thinking I was falling for the very woman I’d long assumed helped destroy my family.”

  Audra closed her eyes, trying to take in what he was telling her. How was it possible that Seth Ridley and Scott Smithfield were one and the same? And, knowing that they were, where did that leave her and Seth?

  “You’ve always managed to catch my most outrageous moments,” she whispered, glancing through some of the photographs he’d taken. “There were times I would see the tabloid covers after I’d been out and about, and I just wanted to die.”

  “I shined the spotlight on your life, telling myself I was on a crusade.” He said the word bitterly. “It was never that noble. I think I began to realize that when I came here, and I knew it for a fact yesterday. I’ve blamed you, Audra. I’ve held you responsible for something you didn’t do because I couldn’t face my own guilty conscience.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He told her about the argument with his stepfather, the ugly things that had been said just before the accident occurred.

  “I can’t take any of it back now,” he whispered hoarsely. “My mother said she would wait for my apology to John before I was welcome in her home again and now there’s no one left to apologize to.”

  Seth’s voice caught and Audra’s heart broke. Two years was a long time to hold in that kind of pain. She should know. She had spent more than a decade wishing she could go back and do things over. How could she not have compassion for the man when she had made so many regrettable choices herself?

  Besides, if there was one thing she knew with certainty, it was that she couldn’t start over by holding on to bitterness or anger.

  “You didn’t shine a spotlight on my life, Seth,” she said quietly. “You merely held up a mirror to it. I was no saint, no innocent victim. You took the pictures, but ultimately I’m the one who posed for them.”

  He shook his head. “You didn’t deserve the way I treated you. I was wrong about you. I was wrong to go after you the way that I did. I’m sorry for that, Audra. I’m sorry for everything.”

  She nodded. In the end, she found it surprisingly easy to accept his apology. Love, she decided. It made a lot of things easy to accept and understand. It cushioned blows, buffered hardships. And hadn’t he just said that he’d been falling for her, too? Maybe there was hope yet for that happily ever after.

  “I forgive you.” Three words that were just as important as the other three she wanted to say.

  Then, just as he had when they’d stood outside the cottage, she held out her hand to him. More than offering him her forgiveness, she knew she had to show Seth how to forgive himself.

  “You’re right that you can’t take back the things you’ve said and done. But you can find peace and move on,” she assured him, squeezing his hand tightly.

  “How do you find peace?” Seth whispered. “How do you move on?”

  “One sunrise at a time.” She raised their joined hands and kissed the back of his. “Walk with me?”

  He nodded, not trusting himself to speak as they made their way down the gravel road and then through the woods. In the weeks since he’d been on Trillium the undergrowth had started to fill in and the trees had begun to sprout leaves, but he could still glimpse the lake, and the sight of it on this day filled him with an odd feeling of hope.

  “It’s the wrong direction for the sunrise, but I think it will do,” she told him when they were standing on the sand facing the brilliant blue of Lake Michigan and a cloudless morning sky.

  Seth closed his eyes, listening to the water lap gently against the shore. The rhythm was soothing and peaceful. He recalled how Audra had looked that first morning when he’d followed her to the water’s edge. She’d stood in profile to him, her eyes closed and her heart open to the possibilities. He’d taken her photograph as tears had streaked her cheeks.

  It was his face that was wet this morning.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered.

  Audra wrapped her arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder.

  “They already have,” she murmured.

  And Seth wept in earnest.

  He’d come to Trillium to
get his revenge. Audra had come home to rebuild and reform. In one another’s embrace, they had each found redemption.

  EPILOGUE

  IT WAS two months before Seth finally got around to sending Deke Welling any of his work. He’d needed the perfect photograph, the one that would tell the whole story and tell it best. He finally had it.

  Just that morning as he and Audra had stood on the beach with the trees lush and green in the background, Seth had pulled a small velvet-covered box from his pocket and held it out to the woman whose life he’d once saved. The woman who had saved him right back.

  Three other men had asked Audra to marry them. Three other men had given Audra their surnames to sign and their rings to wear. Not one of them, however, had ever asked her to truly share his life. That’s what Seth did. And he wanted to share hers as well: The good, the bad and everything in between.

  He’d knelt in front of her on the cool sand, pledged his love and then he’d offered to take good care of the heart he’d nearly broken with his lies.

  They were two imperfect people, but they were perfect for one another. And they were starting life over, individually and as a couple.

  He’d set the timer on his camera and then he’d run to where Audra stood, slipping the ring on her finger, documenting their transformation.

  Now, as Audra hovered behind Seth as he sat at his computer and attached the image to the e-mail he was preparing to send to Deke Welling, he asked her once again, “Are you sure you’re okay with this? I don’t have to send the picture. I don’t have to send Welling anything.”

  “I’m positive,” she replied. “He told you he’s going ahead with the book and that I’m going to be featured in it. We might as well make sure that at least one of the shots he’s got of me is flattering.”