Tragic

by Devney Perry

  Piper may have cleaned the inside of my house, but she’d left the disaster outside for me to handle.

  “Sonofabitch.” The headache that those cinnamon rolls and cups of coffee had chased away was rearing its ugly face.

  “Apparently, that chair was much too short,” Piper deadpanned as she stepped outside with both of our coffee cups. She handed me mine, then took a seat in the chair I hadn’t killed.

  My eyes stayed glued to the carnage. “What the fuck was I thinking?”

  “That using a hatchet would have taken too long?”

  I frowned. “Smartass.”

  “Sarcasm is my weapon of choice. Unlike some people I know, who prefer to wield chainsaws against innocent lounge chairs for being the wrong size. A half inch was the problem, if I remember.”

  “I’m a perfectionist.”

  “Nooo,” she gasped, clutching her heart.

  A chuckle escaped my mouth. “What a damn mess.”

  “Yeah, you did a number on that poor thing. I’m just glad you didn’t cut off your leg or arm in the process.”

  “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” My eyes whipped to her in a panic, scanning her from head to toe.

  But she waved me off. “I’m fine.”

  My shoulders sagged, and I walked over toward the porch stairs, sinking down in the same spot where I’d sat just last night with Piper. Only this time, instead of resting my head in her lap and staring into the forest, I sat sideways to face her.

  Last night was coming into sharper focus, as were my drunken ramblings.

  In my inebriated haze, I’d opened the door to my past. She had every right to an explanation, and a small part of me wanted to confess it all right then and there. Would things be easier between us—easier for me—if I finally unburdened how I’d come to live here in this forest?

  No. I wasn’t ready. Those memories had been bottled up for too long. Even after three years, the pain was crippling. Once I told the story, I’d no doubt get angry. And I didn’t trust myself around her when I was in a rage.

  Just look at what I’d done to her chair.

  “About last night and what I said. I know I owe you an explanation, but—”

  “Kaine.” She cut me off. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “If you ever want to talk, I’m here to listen. But you don’t owe me anything.”

  I nodded, looking at my lap, and whispered, “Thank you.”

  “Actually, I think I’m the one who needs to do some explaining. I’m sorry for leaving like I did after dinner.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not.”

  “You cleaned my house and made me breakfast. You also made sure I didn’t decapitate myself with a chainsaw. It’s all good.”

  She smiled. “Still, I’d like to explain. If you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  Her eyes lost their humor as she looked out into the trees. This wouldn’t be some light explanation or a bunch of nonsense excuses. She was about to tell me the reason she’d disappeared to Montana and sought refuge on our mountain.

  “My ex-husband didn’t want to get divorced. In fact, he fought it tooth and nail for nearly two years, contesting every agreement my attorney drafted. He kept saying it was because he loved me. Maybe that’s true, but I also think he didn’t want to be alone. He’s used to getting undivided attention, and ever since the day I met him, he had all of mine.”

  I’d gathered as much from the one side of their phone call I’d overheard.

  “We got married right after college,” she said. “We were both really focused on our careers, and life was good. We were young. We were ‘Happily Married’—that label everyone works so hard to get. But after a couple of years, I wanted more. I wanted to be ‘Mommy.’ So we started trying for a baby. One year passed, then another and nothing. I was so young, it shouldn’t have been a problem, so we decided to see a fertility specialist.”

  The pain in her voice physically hurt to hear, but I stayed quiet, listening as she poured her heart out on my porch.

  “We weren’t . . . I wasn’t able to have children.” A lone tear slid down her cheek and she brushed it away.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She forced a smile. “There are a lot of treatments and options for infertility. We could have kept trying. But still, the news was hard to hear, and I didn’t take it well.”

  Piper twirled her mug, watching the dregs spin at the bottom. “Adam didn’t take it well either. Instead of staying home to comfort his wife, he took his gorgeous costar out to dinner at my favorite restaurant. And then he kissed her and got caught.”

  My hands tightened around my mug. Talk about babies would normally send me running for the hills. The image of Piper holding a swaddled bundle was way more than I could handle this morning. So I forced it away, not letting painful memories shut me down. And instead, I focused on a different emotion. One that had gotten me through a lot of hard times. Anger.

  What kind of a fucking asshole cheated on his wife? And under those circumstances? That motherfucker deserved to have his ass kicked. Repeatedly.

  “He says he didn’t sleep with her.” Piper rolled her eyes. “But I don’t know.”

  “You think he’s lying?”

  “Maybe.” She sighed. “Yes, I do. But it doesn’t matter now. The kiss was enough. I moved out and filed for divorce.”

  “But he still calls you?”

  She nodded. “I asked him to stop. We’ll see if he listens.”

  This guy didn’t love her. If he truly did, he’d let her go. Maybe calling and harassing her was his way of getting even with the divorce. “What did he say to you during our dinner?”

  “He asked if I was seeing someone. I told him yes. I know we were just casual, but you’re the first man I’ve been with since Adam.”

  “He didn’t like it, did he?”

  “No.” She smirked at me. “He didn’t.”

  “Good.” Though I didn’t like that he’d upset her, I did like that it was because of me that the asshole ex-husband had gotten pissed off.

  She flashed me a dimpled smile, then shook her head. “Regardless, I shouldn’t have answered the call. I shouldn’t have run out of here like that. I let him get to me when I should have just told you all about it over dinner.”

  “No big deal.”

  I wouldn’t admit how good her apology felt. Because that would mean admitting how much it had hurt when she’d left.

  “I’ve held all this in for a long time,” she said quietly. “My parents don’t even know about the infertility stuff. When I was married, they kept asking me when we’d give them grandchildren. My mom was so eager, she learned how to knit because she wanted lots of time to practice making baby blankets. I didn’t have it in me to break their hearts, not when mine was broken too.”

  “Understandable.”

  “Maybe.” She shook her head. “But I should tell them. I will tell them. Maybe. Eventually.”

  I wish I had some advice to give when it came to relationships with parents, but mine was so fucked up, it was better to keep my mouth shut.

  Never in a million years would I have thought I’d go more than two days without talking to my mom. She’d once been my best friend. When I was having a rough day, she was the first person I thought to call. When I had good news to share, she was the person I wanted to take out to dinner and celebrate. She was the person I’d wanted to make proud.

  But as it was, I hadn’t spoken to Mom in three years. Anger had kept me away. And fear.

  I was terrified to look at her face and see only disappointment for how I’d handled things.

  Handled was too generous a term. I hadn’t handled anything.

  I’d run away.

  “It doesn’t matter now, does it?” Piper asked rhetorically. “I’ve come to terms, or I am coming to terms, with everything. I’m lucky that Thea and Logan have three beautiful kids who I can spoil rot
ten as Aunt Piper. And I hope Owen settles down one day too and has some children I can love, even if it’s from a distance.”

  “What about adoption?”

  She shrugged. “I could look into it, but I don’t know if they’d approve a single parent. And is that really fair to the kid? To live a life without a father?”

  “I was raised by a single mom.”

  “Oh, yeah? Did you ever feel like you were missing something?”

  “As a little kid? No. She was my everything. But as I got older, I became the man of the house. It would have been nice to have had a few years as just a teenager.”

  It would have been nice to have someone to lean on as an adult through the hard times.

  Once I’d hit twenty-five, something in my relationship with Mom had changed. In a way, I’d become the parent. I’d fixed things around the house that were broken and made sure the oil in her car was changed regularly. I’d added her grocery list to my own and delivered food to her house on Sundays. I’d even started balancing her checkbook because it was the one task she’d always griped about in my youth.

  Mom seemed glad to let me take the wheel. I didn’t blame her. She’d put in so many long hours for so many long years, it was probably nice to have someone else drive for a change.

  But when the world turned black and the numbness settled in, she hadn’t been there to pull me through.

  She’d made the wrong choice. She’d crushed me.

  So I’d come here to suffer alone.

  Then I’d gotten a neighbor.

  “I’m here.” Kaine knocked on the camper door with three hard thuds.

  “Coming!” I hopped on one leg as I pulled my foot into a tennis shoe. “One sec!”

  “Take your time,” he called back.

  I bounced over to the couch, sitting to tie up the laces. My fingers fumbled with excitement. Kaine was here to take me on a hike this afternoon and then I was cooking us dinner.

  In the two weeks since my confession on Kaine’s front porch, we’d settled into an odd sort of friendship. Well, odd for me. I’d never been friends with a man who I’d had sex with after the sex had stopped.

  But friends we were.

  I cooked dinner for us almost every night. I’d told Kaine it was no hassle since I had to cook anyway, so he’d come over to my camper, or I’d walk over to his place and we’d share our evening meals.

  He’d taken me on a short after-work hike earlier in the week, and we’d found some huckleberry bushes. I’d never had huckleberries before since they were native to the Pacific Northwest, but after trying a couple, I’d been inspired. We picked a bunch, and on my table was the pie I’d baked for dessert.

  After my confession on Kaine’s porch, something had changed between us. Sexual tension still rippled between us when we got too close. Whenever we accidentally touched, the flying sparks were hard to ignore. But we both held fast to our nonsexual relationship.

  What we’d found was a mutual adoration of good food. A love of this forest we called home. And the beauty of companionship.

  I carried the bulk of the conversation, as I expected I would always do. Kaine wasn’t one to speak just to hear his own voice, something that Adam had done more often than not.

  It was refreshing for me to talk about my work, to share my excitement with someone who was just as excited to listen. Kaine might not share a lot of details about his life, but he was a willing confidant for the details of mine.

  His face would soften as I spoke. Whenever I was feeling particularly sassy, he’d gift me with his quiet chuckle. And his vibrant eyes were always on mine whenever I spoke, telling me that he was completely engaged in our conversation.

  I had his attention.

  And he had mine.

  After dinner, the two of us typically spent the evening together. Usually I’d accompany him to his shop, where I’d watch with rapt attention as he worked on a piece of furniture.

  It was easy to get lost in the fluid movements of his hands and the strength in his arms as he turned a plain, rough piece of wood into something refined and graceful. It gave me tingles when he’d narrate the process in his deep, sexy voice. He’d whisper to the wood, and to me, as he worked, his unique lullaby the perfect end to my day.

  When we weren’t in his shop, we were inspecting my future home.

  Kaine had taken such an interest in my remodel that he’d do regular walk-throughs with me to scrutinize the progress of my construction crew. One night last week, he’d found an issue with a window frame—something about it not being precisely level and how it might let in a winter draft. It had looked fine to me. But the following morning, Kaine had marched over first thing in the morning, his own level in hand, to have a word with the foreman.

  I’d watched, laughing from my camper window, as my foreman followed Kaine inside. Ten minutes later, they’d come back out, shaking hands as the foreman promised to have the window fixed.

  Kaine might not be ready to confide his past, but those little things told me he cared. They told me that this friendship was just as important to him as it was to me.

  With my shoes tied, I swiped a baseball cap off the kitchen counter. It was a gift from Thea, one of the new red-and-white trucker hats she’d ordered for the bar.

  “Hey.” I opened the door and stepped down. “Ready?”

  Kaine’s forehead furrowed. “That’s what you’re wearing?”

  “What?” I looked down at my clothes. I had on some denim cutoffs and a red racer-back tank top. It was also from the bar—I was basically a walking advertisement for Thea’s business. It was cute, and I hoped to get some sun.

  It was the middle of June and summer had finally came to Montana. I needed the sun since my regular spray tans from the city were now a thing of the past, as were manicures and pedicures. I’d taken to doing those in my camper since there wasn’t a spa in town.

  “We’re hiking.” Kaine frowned. “If you trip and fall, you’ll skin your knees.”

  “Ah, yes,” I said dryly. “That is a risk. One I mitigated by not wearing high heels.”

  Kaine’s expression didn’t change from underneath the brim of his own hat, though the corner of his lip twitched.

  “I’ll be fine.” I smacked him in the stomach as I walked by, heading up the trail to the ridge. “Are you coming or not?”

  He grumbled something under his breath, but his boots followed me up the trail. He was wearing his normal attire of Carhartts and a T-shirt. He also had on a small backpack, one he’d brought along on all of our excursions up the mountain. I didn’t need to ask what was inside since Kaine was becoming predictable. He’d brought along two granola bars, four bottles of water, bear spray and a first-aid kit.

  If I did trip and scrape a knee, he’d whip that thing out and have me slathered with anti-bacterial ointment and wrapped in Ace bandages before I could count to ten.

  “Nice hat,” Kaine said.

  I stopped on the trail and turned, waiting for him to catch up. “Thanks. Thea gave it to me.”

  He walked right into my space, towering over me, so I had to tip my chin back. We weren’t touching, but he was close enough that the heat from his chest warmed my bare skin. Or maybe that was the electricity crackling between us.

  “You look good in hats,” he said quietly.

  “So do you.”

  The longer hair at the nape of his neck curled under the band. Those swoops were begging for some attention, but I used all of my willpower to keep my fingers by my sides.

  My god, he had nice lips. His dark beard was such a contrast to the pale peach. My breath hitched as I remembered how it felt to have those soft lips on my own.

  Kaine leaned in a fraction of an inch as the magnetic force between us tugged. It was tempting, so tempting, to do the same, but before I caved to the attraction, a bird squawked above us. The noise forced our bodies apart.

  “Um . . . shall we?” I stepped backward, turning on the trail.

  “Yup.�
� Kaine took up the space beside me as we walked. We both hugged the edges of the trail so we weren’t too close. But it was a narrow path, and the proximity of his hand to mine was noticeable.

  The undercurrent between us was there, ever present and always flowing. It reminded me of the treetops today, and how they swished in the gentle breeze. They’d swing close to one another but just before they’d brush, the wind would ease and they’d whip in the opposite direction.

  We continued up the trail until it got steep, and I took the lead. Kaine let me go first to set the pace. He took the hike to the ridge like it was a stroll through Central Park. I doubted his legs were straining or that his lungs were on fire. But the view from the top was worth breaking a sweat.

  As we crested the trail, I breathed in the clean air, warmed up and ready for more. “Where are you taking me today?”

  “I thought we could go east for a change.” He pointed in the direction of his property. “There’s a game trail that runs down the ridge. About two miles off, there’s another ridge.”

  “Sounds great. I’ll follow you.”

  He nodded and wasted no time in finding the path. It wasn’t as wide or clear as the trail we took up to the ridge so occasionally the brush would scrape against my bare calves. Kaine took it slow, holding those long legs back so it wasn’t too strenuous for me to keep up.

  And though we were in dense forest, the view wasn’t too bad.

  Walking behind Kaine gave me a great view of his ass and broad shoulders. Months ago, I would have sworn up and down that a nice rear end was impossible to beat. But Kaine’s shoulders were damn sexy. They were so big and brawny. They were so powerful and—okay, that’s enough.

  I’d had my moment to drool and now it was time for my thoughts to head back to the safe zone.

  I opened my mouth to drum up some friendly, boring conversation and distract myself from the way his triceps bulged underneath the tight fit of his T-shirt, but Kaine stopped short on the trail and held up a hand.

  I nearly ran into him. “What?”

  He shook his head, and I clamped my mouth shut. Then he looked over his shoulder and pointed down the trail.