Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
MILLER
There’s definitely a lot of staring at me going on.
Heart battering my ribs, I step around Hockey Jersey Woman and take off my cap.
Frankie goes rigid, her unwavering eyes fixed on me.
It’s impossible to tell if her expression is one of horror or delight, but whichever it is it definitely has a healthy dose of suspicion thrown in. I just have to make sure that by the end of this she’s totally on the side of delight.
“Sorry to hijack the talk,” I say, fighting a wave of nausea as I head down the center aisle of the seats. There’s no going back now.
“But it’s important to know,” I say to everyone in the room while my eyes never leave Frankie and hers never leave me, “that this magical spot that’s filled with love and caring can change people too.”
I’m right at the front now, her grandpa rising from his seat while looking between the two of us.
I hold Frankie’s gaze. If my heart had arms it would reach between my ribs and stretch with all its might to touch her, to hold her and never let her go.
“It changed me,” I declare.
There’s a general affectionate sigh from the audience.
I blink to force myself to break the spell and turn to Frankie’s grandpa. “Mr. Channing, nice to meet you.” I offer Sam my hand. “I’m Miller Malone.”
“Ah,” he says. “Mr. Malone. The one renovating the old arts barn and naming it after my late wife.” He takes my hand in both of his. “I can’t thank you enough. You have no idea how much it means to me. To us.”
“It’s my pleasure. I’m honored to be the one to restore it. Should be back to its former glory by spring.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you.” Sam winks.
“And I’m absolutely certain most of it is not exactly awesome,” I tell him.
“Well, you’d need to have a word with Frankie about that.” He starts to move away, but I stop him.
“Please, stay.” I turn to everyone else who’s in various states of either exiting the barn, or standing and staring at the unexpected show. “That goes for everyone. I know you came for a talk about the history of the sanctuary, but you might want to stay to hear about the future of it too.”
“Miller.” Frankie’s first word to me since she threw me out is stern. Her head cocks to one side and her eyes darken.
“Please, I know I’ve been an ass.” There’s a titter from the audience. “Sorry, unintended pun. And I know you probably never want to see me or hear from me again—”
I’m silenced for a second by Frankie merely folding her arms and raising her eyebrows.
“But could you see your way to just hearing me out for a second?”
“Oh, I’m glad I made it for this,” says a voice somewhere behind me.
I turn to see the senior woman in the pink sparkly hat whipping around the outside of the audience with a walker, stopping at the end of the front row and dropping into its seat. A beaming smile fills her face.
When I turn back, Frankie is right in front of me, her face barely a foot from mine, her beautiful features rigid and uncompromising.
“Today is going so well,” she whispers for my ears only, barely moving her lips. “If you ruin it, I will never forgive you.”
“I’ve been working on the basis that you’ll never forgive me anyway.” God, her lips are so utterly irresistible. “This is me doing the best I can to put things right, despite that.”
“Let’s hear what the man has to say,” Sam says.
There’s a buzz of yeses from the crowd, many of whom have retaken their seats, and a very clear, “Definitely,” from the woman in the walker.
“It seems I’m outvoted,” Frankie says, taking a few steps back, widening the gulf between us to a distance I’m not sure I can bridge. This is going to be the toughest construction job of my life.
“Maybe it would help if I told everyone,” I suggest. “Confess my pure unadulterated awfulness to the whole crowd.”
Frankie snorts and rolls her eyes, like she couldn’t care less either way.
Since things can’t get any worse and my hope of success can’t get any less, I figure I should employ the one skill I’ve had since I was a kid. Talking.
“Folks, I came to Warm Springs to stand up for my family. Right a wrong. Level life’s score.”
Some of the people sit back down.
“But then I met this woman.” I gesture to Frankie who’s not softened one bit.
“And by being around her, getting to know her, soaking up her kindness, her generosity, her endless capacity to care and do good and to love her grandpa, the donkeys, the sanctuary itself, and this whole town, I realized that the good thing I’d planned to do was actually…bad.”
A woman who’s appeared next to Frankie’s grandpa says, “Aw,” and rubs his shoulder.
I take a deep breath. Here goes something I haven’t even remotely planned. But at least I know how to tell a story, and this is a story I’m very familiar with—because it’s mine.
“Bear with me while I rewind a little. There’s this man, a property developer, who ripped off my parents when he bought our house when I was a teenager.
It left us broke. My two brothers were toddlers at the time.
Shortly after that my dad was injured and couldn’t work for months.
My mom couldn’t earn enough to cover the bills, so I dropped out of carpentry school to work all the hours I could to keep us housed and fed. ”
Some of the people moving toward the door stop and turn around.
“It made me hate that guy, of course. But all my hard work meant my business grew and grew and then, when I was ready to make my first move into building condos, he reared his slimy head again. This time he nearly destroyed my career before it had even taken off by snatching my first land deal out from under me at the last minute and bad-mouthing me to everyone in the city who mattered.”
Even though I’ve told this story recently to Frankie, running through it again makes the mere memory of that time stick in my throat, and I have to cough before I can continue.
“But I used my hatred of him to fire me up, to succeed in spite of him. And as soon as I became successful, I vowed I’d get my revenge for what he did to my family.
That was hard, though, because as all villains do, he operates in a secret vacuum and predicting his next move is almost impossible.
But then, for the first time, I got wind of something he was trying to buy before he’d closed the deal—this sanctuary.
And I vowed to snap it up to stop him from having what he wanted.
It might have been my one and only chance to get him back for all the financial stress and worry he put my parents through. I had to seize it with both hands.”
Sam looks at Frankie, concern etched into his features. “I had no idea about any of this.”
She concentrates on the ground near her feet and gives him a one-shouldered shrug.
Her reaction isn’t particularly encouraging, but I can hardly walk away from this story now.
“So, I found myself here. Pretending to be a volunteer to get me friendly with Frankie.”
There’s a general murmur of disapproval from the audience.
“I hoped I could eventually persuade her that the offer from my company was better than the other guy’s.” I pause to gather myself. “And that’s where everything went wrong.”
Now, I turn my full attention to Frankie, whose eyes are back on me. “Or, actually, I should say, where it all started to go right. This is where I realized I’d become way more like the other guy than I’d realized.”
Frankie’s brow lifts just a tiny fraction as if in agreement. At least she doesn’t look like she’s going to throw me out anymore. And, relatively speaking, that’s a win.
“It was like I’d spent my entire life stumbling around a dusty old room in the dark, then someone turned on the light and I discovered I was actually standing on top of a tower under a bright sky with the whole world and a whole different future at my feet.”
“Beautiful,” the woman with the walker and the pink hat says with a wistful sigh.
“A world and a future with small donkeys that chase you across a field, and big donkeys that scratch their bellies on your head, and anxious donkeys that calm down if you sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ to them.”
Somewhere near the back of the room a little girl starts singing the song and prompts a general chuckle.
“It’s also the world where I fell for Frankie. Hook, line, and bucket of donkey poop, fell for her.”
Her eyes lock with mine, right as that oh-so-familiar strand of hair that refuses to stay tied back falls across the corner of one of them. Her expression is impossible to read, but at least it no longer screams go away, you hateful lying jerk.
“I don’t blame her for throwing me out and never wanting to see me again,” I say to the audience. “But I will live the rest of my life with regret if I don’t give it one last shot. Even if she won’t change her mind—which would be a totally justifiable choice—I’ll know I tried.”
There’s an undertone of agreement and a smattering of quiet clapping.
“So there you go.” I turn back to Frankie. “I want your forgiveness so badly that I’m willing to tell this room full of strangers the awful truth that would make them hate me before they’ve even met me.”
She folds her arms across her chest, but the sharp pointy corners of her expression have softened.
“When I got back to Boston, I realized that I was like one of the unadoptable donkeys you have here. A difficult one that’s impossible to place in a new home. One that would be too loud, trample the crops, cause too much trouble.”
Frankie tugs on a corner of her top lip with her teeth as if trying to hold it down and prevent it from curling upward into one of her half smiles.
“Just like you take in any animal without judgment, open your home and your heart to them regardless of their flaws, you did the same for me. And just like you do with them, you took me in and made me better. Made me ready for my forever home.”
There’s a whimpered oooh from someone, somewhere.