A Different Blue

Chapter Twenty-Eight





When I awoke the next morning, Wilson was already up, showered and clean-shaven, but his eyes were tired, and I wondered if holding me all night had taken a toll. And I was a little embarrassed that I had been rebuffed, as tender as his refusal had been. He didn't act awkward or uncomfortable, so I pushed away my hurt feelings and rushed through a shower and a quick breakfast so we could make our flight home. I was preoccupied and quiet, Wilson was introspective and morose, and by the time we dragged ourselves through the doors of Pemberley, we were both in need of our separate corners, the weight of the last twenty-four hours hovering like a black cloud. Wilson carried my duffle bag to my apartment and paused before heading to his own.

“Blue. I know you're exhausted. I'm absolutely knackered, and I'm not the one who's had their world turned upside down over and over again over the last few months. But you need to see this through to the end,” he entreated.

“I know, Wilson.”

“Would you like me to call her? It might make it easier to take the next step.”

“Is that weak?” I asked, really wanting to let him but not wanting to do the easy thing if it meant I was a wimp.

“It's delegation, luv. It's ensuring it gets done without tying yourself up in knots.”

“Then, yes. Please. And I'll be ready whenever she is.”





It turned out Stella Aguilar was tougher than I because she was ready immediately. So Wilson and I headed for St. George, Utah, the very next morning in Wilson's Subaru. We had both had a solid twelve hours of sleep in our own beds . . . separately, which concerned me a little, mostly because I didn't know what to make of it. Wilson was a completely different kind of guy than I was used to. He was a gentleman in a world of Masons and Colbys. And I was very afraid that the fact that I wasn't much of a lady was going to be a problem.

“Tell me what it's like,” I pleaded, my thoughts narrowed on the task that lay ahead .

“What what's like?” Wilson replied, his eyes on the road.

“Meeting your birth parents for the first time. What did you say? Tiffa said you did it on your own. You are obviously braver than I am. I don't think I could do this alone.”

“The circumstances are completely different, Blue. Don't ever believe you aren't brave. You are the toughest bird I know, and that, luv, is a compliment. I was eighteen when I met my birth parents. My mum had maintained contact with them throughout the years so that someday I could. She thought there might come a time when it might be important to me. My dad was against it. He thought it was unnecessary, and he was certain it would be distracting. I was one semester away from graduating, and I had been burying myself in school, which was very like me, I have to confess. I'd managed to fit four years of school into two-and-a-half, keeping to a schedule my father and I had mapped out. My father was an incredibly driven man, and I thought being a man meant being just like him. But it was semester break, and I was restless and irritable, and frankly, I was a powder keg, waiting to explode. So I flew to England and stayed with Alice. And I looked up the folks,” Wilson finished glibly, as if it had been no big deal. “My mum and I thought we could keep it a secret from Dad. Bad idea. But that's another story.”

“What was it like?” I prodded.

“It was bloody awful,” he answered promptly. “And enlightening and . . . very confusing.”

I had no idea what to say to that, so I just waited, watching his thoughts play across his face. He brooded for a moment, lost in remembering.

“When I met my birth father my first impression was that he was a bit of a bum,” he mused. “After a few hours talking to him, walking around, seeing his neighborhood, meeting his mates, I began to see him a little differently. We went to a pub where he liked to have a bitter after shift, a place called Wally's, where everyone seemed to know him and like him. Bert's a copper.”

“A copper?”

“A policeman. Which seemed so at odds with his personality. He is incredibly jovial and free-spirited. I always thought coppers were the strong, silent type.”

“Maybe more like your dad?”

“Yes! Like John Wilson. Driven, hard, serious. And Bert Wheatley was anything but serious or driven. He said he was a copper because he loved his neighborhood. He liked being with people, and when he was a boy he'd always wanted to drive a car with lights and a siren.” Wilson laughed and shook his head. “That's what he said! I remember thinking what a nutter he was.” Wilson looked over at me as if I was going to scold him for his opinion. I just stayed quiet.

“But I noticed other things. Bert seemed very content. And he was very fun to be with.” Wilson laughed again, but his laughter was pained. “In those ways, he was very different from my dad, too. John Wilson was never satisfied – rarely happy – and he wasn't exactly a pleasure to be around most of the time.” Wilson shook his head and abruptly changed the subject.

“My birth mother's name is Jenny. She never married Bert, obviously. She married a plumber named Gunnar Woodrow. Gunnar the plumber.” Wilson said it like Gunna the Plumma, and I tried not to snicker. I'd gotten to the point where I didn't even notice his accent . . . most of the time.

“She and Gunnar have five kids, and their house is like a zoo. I stayed for an hour or two, until Gunnar got home from work, and then Jenny and I slipped out and had tea around the corner where we could talk without the monkeys interrupting.”

“Did you like her?”

“Very much. She's lovely. Loves books and history, loves to quote poetry.”

“Sounds like you.”

Wilson nodded. “We have a great deal in common, which thrilled me, I must say. We talked about everything. She asked me all the things mothers are interested in: what my hopes and dreams were and whether I had a girlfriend. I told her I didn't have time for girls. I told her that history and books were the only loves in my life so far. We talked about school, and she asked me what my plans were for my future. I rambled off my ten year plan, involving grad school, medical school, and working with my father. She seemed a little surprised by my career goals and said, 'But what about the loves in your life?'”

“She was worried about your love life? You were only eighteen,” I protested, ridiculously grateful he didn't have a past like mine.

“No. She wasn't worried about my love life. She was worried about the 'loves in my life,'” Wilson repeated. “History and books.”

“Oh!” I responded, understanding.

“Meeting my parents had me questioning myself for the first time ever. I suddenly wondered if I really wanted to be a doctor. I found myself thinking about what would make me happy. I thought about lights and sirens.” Wilson's lips quirked, a hint of a smile. “I thought about how I wanted to share everything I learned with anyone who would listen. In fact, I drove my parents and my sisters crazy, constantly reciting this or that historical fact.”

“St. Patrick?”

“St. Patrick, Alexander the Great, Leonidas, King Arthur, Napolean Bonaparte, and so many others.”

“So being a doctor lost some of its luster.”

“It had never held any luster, and once I realized that, I told my dad I wasn't going to medical school. I had kept my mouth shut until graduation, quietly making different plans while my dad continued to map out my future. I told him I wanted to teach, hopefully at a university someday. I told him I wanted to write and lecture and eventually get my doctorate in history. He found out that I had contacted my birth parents and blamed my change of heart on my trip. He was furious with me and my mother. We fought, we yelled, I left the house, my father was called to the hospital, and I never saw him alive again. You've heard that part of the story.” Wilson sighed heavily and pulled his hand through his hair.

“Is that what you meant when you said meeting your birth parents was dreadful . . . because it set so many other things in motion?”

“No. Although, I guess it could be construed that way. It was dreadful because I was so unbelievably confused and lost. Two feelings I'd never felt before, ever. I know, I lived a sheltered life, didn't I?” Wilson shrugged. “I met two people who were very different from the people who raised me. Not better, not worse. Just different. And that's not a slight against my mum and dad. They were good parents, and they loved me. But my world was rocked. On the one hand, I was very confused about why Jenny and Bert couldn't have made it work for my sake. Had I meant so little to them that they passed me along to a rich doctor and his wife and went their merry way, washing their hands of me?”

I winced, knowing intellectually that this wasn't about me. But there was guilt all the same. I wondered if Melody would ask me the same question someday. Wilson continued.

“On the other hand, I suddenly came to realize that I didn't want the things I always thought I wanted. I wanted to pursue things that made me happy, and I wanted a certain amount of freedom that I had never experienced. And I knew that meant taking a very different road from the one I'd been on.”

“I can understand that,” I whispered.

“Yes. I know.” Wilson's eyes met mine, and there was a heat there that had my heart doing a slow slide inside my chest. How was it that he could look at me that way yet manage to hold me all night long without a single kiss?

“The last week in England, I left Manchester and took a coach to London. Alice is a lot less protective of me than the rest of my family. She kind of shrugged and said, 'Have fun, don't get killed, and make sure you're back here in a week to catch your flight home.' I met up with some mates from school, and I spent the week completely sloshed doing things I'm rather embarrassed to talk about.”

“Like what?” I said, half-aghast half-thrilled that Wilson might not be squeaky clean after all.

“I was absolutely desperate for companionship. I lost my virginity, and I don't remember most of it. And it didn't stop there. Night after night, club after club, girl after girl, and I just felt worse and worse as the week went on. I kept trying to restore my equilibrium by doing things that just made me dizzy. Does that make sense?”

I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. I understood dizzy.

“One of my mates ended up driving me back to Manchester. He made sure I got on that aeroplane and back to the States in one piece. And over the next six months, I managed to stop the spinning in my head and find my balance again for the most part. But in many ways being with you through your journey has been a journey for me, too. I understand myself and my parents – both sets – so much better now.”

We drove without talking for a long time. Then I asked him the question that had been bothering me since waking up alone the morning before.

“Wilson? What happened in Reno? I mean . . . I thought you would want . . . I mean, are you not attracted to me?” I felt like I was asking the star quarterback to the prom, and my knees shook. Wilson laughed right out loud. And I cringed, trying not to slump down in my seat and cover my face to hide my rejection. Wilson must have seen the humiliation on my expression, and with a screech of brakes and some illegal lane changes he was swerving over to the side of the road, hazards on and everything. He turned to me, shaking his head as if he couldn't believe I didn't get it.

“Blue. If this was simply about attraction, you and I would never have left Reno. We would still be in that crappy hotel room, starkers, ordering room service . . . or, more likely, pizza from down the road. But for me, with you, sex is not the goal. Do you understand that?”

I shook my head. No. I totally did not understand that.

“When you climbed into my bed in Reno, all I could think of was how I felt in London in that awful week when I'd had more sex than any teenaged boy could dream of. And how gutted I felt at the end of it. I didn't want our first time to be like that for you. You were emotionally rocked in Reno, just like I was in London, and you needed me. But you didn't need me that way. Someday . . . hopefully bloody soon – because I will combust if I ever have to spend a night like that again – you will want me because you love me, not because you're lost, not because you're desperate, not because you're afraid. And that's the goal.”

“But, Wilson. I do love you,” I insisted.

“And I love you . . . most ardently,” he responded, twisting my hair in his hands and pulling me toward him.

“Pride and Prejudice?”

“How did you know?” he smiled.

“I have a thing for Mr. Darcy.”

In response, Darcy himself captured my mouth with his, and showed me just how ardently he cared.