“So what wentwrong?”
“I made a huge mistake.” Kira’s insides knotted at the recollection. “I shot the runway for two full days. Not only Finny Shea’s work, but other designers as well. When it was time to turn our work in, I stupidly gave my flash drive to Monty, or Python, or whatever he’s going bynow.”
She chuckled over his ridiculous names, but then the pain sank back into place. Threatening the confidence she’d built up like an axe hovered over a shiny red apple. As lovely as that confidence was, it was nothing compared to the haunting menace of her past. “Monty stole my images and claimed they were his. Finny wasreallyimpressed with them, too. Not only did she hire him on full time, letting me go in the process, but she initiated a relationship withhim.”
“Ouch.” Anthony pulled in a breath through clenched teeth. “That had tohurt.”
She nodded. “I even took them to court over it. I’d been cheated out of the photos, the money, the recognition … But I lost the case since I couldn’t prove the images were mine without having a digital copy of them.” The humiliation was like a layer of scum. A layer that worked its way back over her skin at the memory. “The hardest part of it is just … not being able to clear the Moretti name. Here I raise this big stink suing a world-renowned fashion designer, and Ilose.I wish I could go back and not file the suit in the first place. Better to leave it alone than to taint the familyname.”
A sigh pulled at her throat. “It also would’ve been nice to show my family that I could accomplish something big. They know I was wronged and that Imighthave had some prize-winning pictures in the bunch. But I have nothing tangible to show for it. I wanted them to see that I actually had talent. Enough to take me somewhere besides a small-town studio that Gramps handed down tome.”
There.She’d done it. But unlike the tasks she regularly scratched off her lists, this didn’t offer that anticipated flood of relief or boost of accomplishment. If anything, she felt an increased dose ofdread.
Anthony’s face was unreadable as he sat there, seeming to take itin.
“I guess I was hoping to sort of start fresh, you know? Be in a place where people weren’t aware of my past screw-ups.”
He nodded. “I can understandthat.”
“So maybe it was a bad idea to share that with you, is what I’m saying.” Her heart kicked back like she’d corneredit.
“Your family shouldn’t hold that against you, Kira. And it sounds more like a life-lesson thing. But if it’ll make you feel better, I can sort of even thingsout…”
Kira quirked a brow. “I’m sure it won’t compare withmine.”
“If I hadn’t been out there chasing butterflies of my own, I would have been here when you came the first time.” He let that simmer in the space between them before elaborating. “Elsie Fischer. She was the butterfly I was trying to catch. Or maybe I was chasing the happiness I thought being with her would bring. She was probably a lot like my mom, in retrospect. She’d moved to Cobble Creek, determined to make a life for herself at a duderanch.”
“They have those here?” Kiraasked.
“A few.” He ran a thumb over the smooth leather surface of the couch. “Elsie wanted to learn about horses and eventually teach others how to ride and care for them. She and I started dating. I took her out to Griff’s place and taught her what I knew about the animals. I fell fast and hard, something I have the tendency to do. Told myself she was perfect for me since—unlike my first girlfriend—she planned to stay put. But soon enough she started complaining about small-town life. When we didn’t see eye to eye on it, she started prodding at a rebellious part ofme.”
“See?” Kira said. “I knew you had it inyou.”
“Yeah, it was my James Dean moment. Elsie kept telling me that staying here and running the diner wasn’t what I really wanted to do. That I was stuck here against my will. And I started to believe it. I started thinking I’d been forced into a life I neverwanted.”
“Where did she want to go?” Kira asked, folding her legs crisscross beneath her. “What did she want todo?”
“Run an aquarium,” Anthony said with alaugh.
“That’s aleap.”
He nodded. “From land to sea creatures. Neither of which she knew anythingabout.”
Kira swallowed hard. Anthony had compared the girl to his own mother—a woman who’d abandoned both him and his father. But if she were being honest, this Elsie sounded a lot like Kira, too. Which shehated.
“She’d found this place in Detroit. It was about to close down, so she put the rest of her money into buyingit.”
The sun must’ve broken through the clouds, because suddenly the natural light in the studio glowed twice as bright, bringing with it a warm, gold glow that enhanced Anthony’s olive complexion. One that created shadows along the muscular contours of hisarms.
“Since she’d poured all that money into the aquarium, I stuck around to help her get it off the ground. We replaced bulbs and fixtures, filters and glass. And refinished the floors. The whole process showed me that Elsie was right. This really was the right path forher. Which made me wonder if that’s what was happening on some island for my mom. Perhaps it’d just taken a few tries. But something else became clear during that time: Sadly, it wasn’t whereIbelonged. I missed being home. And soon that homesickness outweighed my feelings forher.
“When I look back on it, I think God put it in my heart to help give her the new start she was looking for. In return, he showed me that I didn’t need to go looking for anything outside of what I already had.” He glanced out the window toward the diner. “I’m glad I came back in time to share those last years with my old man before he passed. I was the only family he really had.” A wistful look brewed in his eyes. “Means the world tome.”
“Yeah,” Kira said, the word nearly choked with emotion. “I’m glad too.” Inwardly, she was thinking of how Anthony didn’t have any family left. She was glad he’d found friends in the people he’d referred to, some regulars who come into the diner, and others around town. But still, it made her wonder if she’d taken her own family forgranted.
“So now you’ve got the scoop on me,” Anthony said. “At least one of them. If you ask me, it sounds like we’ve both made our mistakes. But you’ve got this nice studio to run. I’ve got the diner across the street. It’s possible each of us has landed exactly where we’re meant tobe.”
Kira couldn’t help but envy the confidence he spoke with. Voices from her past—Gramps used to call them gremlins—told her she’d never settle down. Never enjoy a content life. And never achieve anything great in the eyes of herfamily.
