“Yeah. I’m not sure.” I make a face. “Did he get remarried? I mean, the guy had to have a reason, right?”
“Oh, he had one. He said he never got to experience life without me and wanted that chance before he died. I blame the doctor, to be honest. Had him convinced he had cancer, and of course, he didn’t.” She blows out a breath. “You can’t trust a doctor these days, Trevor. They’re all about the money.”
“Okay.”
I shake my head, trying not to laugh, because I know she’s serious. Not laughing is easier than I expect it to be because I realize I have no humor in me. All I have is a place where I used to be happy.
Damn it.
“So what’s going on with you, hon? You’ve walked in here every day since the day you came and got a room and been the most pleasant, happy man. Today you look like you want to be anywhere but here. And by here, I mean anywhere but inside your skin.”
I roll that observation around. Anywhere but inside your skin. I sigh and hope she’s wrong. Otherwise, I’ll go back to Nashville and still feel like I left a part of myself here in this quaint little town that my poodle-loving stepmother led me to.
A grin ghosts my lips as I realize I didn’t just think of her as my dad’s wife, but as my stepmother.
I really am losing my damn mind.
“I had to make some tough decisions today,” I say.
“Mm-hmm.”
“And I don’t really like having to make the ones that make me feel like this.”
“First things first: you don’t have to do anything but die and pay taxes. I’m assuming you’re up to date with Uncle Sam.”
I nod.
“And you’re clearly alive. So that’s kind of a bit of a fib you’re telling right there, Trevor.”
“That’s a cute little ditty, but there’s more you have to do in life, Lorene.”
She sets her needles down. “Like what?”
“Like . . .” It shouldn’t be as hard to come up with a list of things you have to do. There are a lot of things. “Like doing what is right.”
She scoffs. “That’s subjective. Life is not black and white, and it’s not even black to everyone. Sometimes I’ll see something as black and you’ll see it white. Doesn’t make it any less black to me because you don’t see it that way.”
“Right and wrong is pretty straightforward.”
“Ha.”
“I mean it,” I say. “Generally speaking, most things that are right are right and wrong are wrong. There are exceptions, sure, but more or less it’s not up for debate.”
She raises a brow that looks like she stenciled it with a crayon. “So did you harm a child?”
“Of course not.”
“Did you hurt an animal?”
“Really, Lorene?”
“Did you lie to someone’s face to cause them harm? Because sometimes you have to tell a little white lie. I know people say you don’t, but you do.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t.”
“Then the only other thing you could’ve done that would’ve been unequivocally wrong is taking something that wasn’t yours.”
Thief.
“Trevor?”
“I had to break it off with a girl today,” I say softly. “A girl I care a lot about.”
My face falls. I avoid her eyes and look at the floor. The edges of the rug are a whiskey color, and they remind me of the flecks of gold in Haley’s eyes.
“You had to, huh?” Lorene asks.
“Yeah. I had to.”
“Oh. Okay.” She takes off again in her rocking chair, her needles clashing together in a quick tempo.
I wait for her to say something more, to ask me for details, to pressure me into spilling my guts, because I fucking need to. But she doesn’t.
“I expected more from you.” That simple one-liner slams into my chest with the force of a wrecking ball.
“What?”
“You’ve been the biggest help to me while you’ve been here. I was telling my friends at the salon on Saturday morning how I’d be as proud as a peacock if you were my grandson.” She sighs sadly. “And to hear you say you did something you aren’t proud of because you had to . . . I know you, boy. No one makes you do anything.”
“It’s for her own good,” I argue.
Her eyes flip to mine. “That’s the weakest argument you could make.”
“It’s true.”
“And why is it in her best interest for you to walk away? Does she love you?”
I shrug.
“Do you love her?”
I don’t answer.
“I fed Geoff, nursed him when he was sick, held his hand on his deathbed even though the man ended our marriage and hurt me in a way I’ll never be able to explain if we sit here for the next hundred years. Want to know why?”
“Why?” I say, my voice hoarse.
“Because love doesn’t end. Because that piece of paper that says we were no longer married didn’t climb inside me and cut the line from my heart to his.”
I hang my head again.
The piece of paper in the form of a napkin that Haley and I signed didn’t keep me from hurting her either. Maybe I’m as bad as Geoff.
I flinch as stomach bile threatens to come up my throat.
The weight of the world presses on my shoulders, and I think I hear the wood crack in the chair from all the pressure. Maybe it was my heart cracking instead.
Lorene scoots to the edge of her rocker and sets her project on the coffee table. “If you’re running from love, Trevor, you better stop while you can and go back and get it. Because I’m telling you the truth when I say you can’t outrun it.”
The wind vanishes from my sails. I sag against the chair. “What if I change my mind?”
“Then you do.” She laughs. “Geoff changed his and I survived.” She reaches across the space between us and takes my hand in hers. There are brown marks marring her papery skin, her veins bright blue. “You’re a bit of a pistol, you know that?”
I grin.
“If a woman is going to be around you long enough to fall in love with you, she’s going to be strong enough to let you go if that’s what you want.”
“But what if—”
“What if the inn burns to the ground tonight while I’m asleep in it?”
“All right, Lorene. There are lines you don’t cross.” I shake my head, my frustration growing.
She shrugs, not giving a second thought to my comment. “Well, you can what-if yourself to death. Keep it up, and you’ll find yourself on your deathbed someday, wondering what-if, and you’ll be out of time. A hundred years goes by like the blink of an eye.”
My heart is heavy as I get to my feet. It already feels like a lifetime since the conversation with Haley, when in reality it probably hasn’t been an hour.
I kiss Lorene’s hand and then her cheek, and watch her eyes swell with tears. I fight a tug in my chest as she pats my hand.
“Thank you, Lorene,” I say. “Thank you for your hospitality. I appreciate it more than you’ll ever know.”
“You’re welcome,” she says through unshed tears. “If you ever need a place to stay, you find me. Even if it’s coon-hunting season.”
I shake her hand, the lump in my throat preventing any words from coming out. She nods, understanding, as I place her palm on her lap.
“Goodbye,” I say.
“Goodbye, honey.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
TREVOR
I’m almost to the end of the driveway when a familiar truck pulls in beside me. The window rolls down, and it’s Dane staring back at me.
The look he’s giving me rips at my pride. I might as well be the dirt under his boots right now.
“Great,” I mumble. I hit the button and feel the wind fill the cab. “Hey, Dane.”
“Trevor.” He works his tongue around his cheek, as if he’s trying to decide whether to give me the speech he’s rehearsed or just rip into me off the cuff.
“Are you heading out?”
“Yeah. I need to get back to the office.”
He taps a beat on his steering wheel, gazing off into the distance. He brings his hand to his mouth and runs it along his jaw as I squirm in anticipation of what’s next.
“You aren’t the guy I thought you were.”
I flinch. “What did you say?”
“I have a really good ability to pick out bad people. It’s one of the few good things I got from my father. But I’ll tell you, you had me fooled.”
“Dane . . . ,” I stammer.
“You fucked with Haley.”
“I didn’t. Not like you think.”
He grins. It’s not a gesture of friendliness or an invitation to set the record straight. It’s a warning, pure and simple. A warning I read loud and clear.
“Here’s the deal,” he says. “I don’t give a flying fuck if you did it like ‘I think’ or not. All I know is I watched you chase her, and now I’m watching you walk away.”
I sigh, looking at the road ahead and wishing I’d left a few minutes before. I don’t need this guilt trip. I’m tripping enough on my own.
He’s right. She told me up front—fuck, she practically begged me at first—not to pursue her. She took a line from my playbook and was one hundred percent clear about what she wanted. I disrespected that.
Motherfucker.
“If you leave, don’t come back.” He levels his final shot with the sobriety of a judge.
Message received.
I want to tell him how happy I am that she has him to protect her. But why would I do that? He knows how to treat his family, someone he loves. Hell, he does it better than I do.
My stomach sinks as his words pile on top of my own lamenting and Lorene’s advice. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to climb out from under it.
“Thanks for all your work on the house,” I say, trying to make some progress before I leave.
He puts his truck in drive. “Fuck you.” I get another go-to-hell smile before he hits the gas and blows dust all over my truck.
“Fuck you too,” I mutter, rolling up the window.
I crawl through Dogwood Lane. The post office’s flag blows in the breeze. Jennifer is outside Buds and Branches, washing the windows. I wave. She waves back.
I blow out a breath as I pass the road where the dog lies in the middle of the street before coming upon the café. I slow, peering in the windows as I slide by.
My body is pulled to the parking lot, desperate for some kind of positive connection to a place I’ve grown to really like. But I keep going. Because it’s all I can do. It’s all I know how to do.
I pull my phone from underneath my pillow. The screen lights up when I press the button on the side.
Nothing.
Not a call or a text or an alert that someone sent me an email.
Nada.
I roll over on my back, the room dark. Three blankets are piled on my body, and I smile as I think of what Haley would say about the temperature of the room.
She hates it cold.
She hates all the blankets.
She hates me.
If this was the right thing to do, why does it feel so wrong? Why does it feel like someone sawed my chest in half and gave a part of it away and now I’m expected to act normally even though I can’t breathe?
It’s my own fault. This was my choice.
I swipe around the screen until I find my dad’s name. It’s late, but not too late to wrestle some advice out of the old man.
Laughing at the level of desperation I’ve reached, I listen to it ring.
“Hello,” he says.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Trevor. What’s going on, son?”
“Nothing. Just got home a little while ago. Thought I’d check in.”
“I’m getting ready for bed. Meredith and I are heading down to Dogwood Lane next week, and we have a lot of preparations to work on. I figured you’d still be there when we got to town.”
My heart sinks. He’s going to Dogwood Lane, a town where I left a piece of my heart.
“I have work to do here,” I say.
“Jake said you were doing a good job of handling it online. And having Natalie there helps, of course.”
“Yeah.”
The line goes quiet. My mind is in Dogwood Lane, in a little house with no room in the kitchen and a living room with a fireplace. It’s with a woman with a penchant for doughnuts and pizza and blanketless nights.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” he asks.
I’m surprised he knows anything is wrong. It’s not like he and I have ever had some deep, emotional connection.
“I think I’m having a midlife crisis,” I say with a laugh.
He laughs heartily too. “If I’m having one, as you say, then you can’t have one too.”
“I don’t know how else to explain it, Pops.” I sit up and rest against the pillows. “I’m the same guy I’ve always been. Doing the same things I always have. Making decisions under the same rules I always use, and right now, it all feels . . . wrong.”
“I thought you were in love with her.”
“What? I’m not in love with Haley,” I say, dismissing it immediately. I stand up and pace the room, fighting the urge to yell into the darkness.
“Maybe you are. Love changes people, Trev. It makes you a different person.”
“But I like who I’ve always been.”
“Then go be that guy and do it without Haley.”
I grimace, hating that he thinks those are my options. “I’ll opt for Plan C, please.”
“There is no Plan C, and there’s no Plan B either. There’s Plan A: fall in love or regret it your whole life. As a matter of fact, that’s wrong. You don’t get an option to fall in love. You only have the option to accept it.”
I contemplate that. “But what if you accept it and then you decide you don’t want it anymore?”
“Is this about Tera?”
“Not completely.”
He sighs. “What happened to that girl isn’t your fault. You were as kind and as respectful as you could’ve been. And honestly, you were right to get out of that relationship. What if she would’ve killed you?”
“Dad.”
“Things happen.” He groans as he moves. “If you want to walk away from a relationship, then you aren’t in love with that person. It’s really, truly that simple.”
“But what if there are extenuating circumstances?” I press.
“Like if she becomes a serial killer? Or drug addict? Or is married to someone else?”
“Have you been watching daytime television with Meredith?”
Dad laughs. “The pleasures of retirement.”
“I’m worried, Dad. For real.”
He laughs again. “If something like that happens, then you still love the person. You try to help them. Sometimes you have to walk away, but it’s not to go be with someone else or because you’re bored or because you just want new pussy.”
I grimace. “Don’t say ‘pussy.’ It’s . . . weird.”
“Okay. Because you want to screw someone new. Better?”
“Let’s just not bother trying to word that right. Let’s move along.”
“All right. You’re going to have to figure out how it’s easier to sleep—beside the woman you love or without her. And if you really think you’ll mess her up that much that you’d rather sleep alone, then you don’t love her. So the answer is simple. And on that note, I’m going to go because I’m in love with a beautiful woman that’s currently in my bed waiting on me.”
I lie back on my bed and hear the air conditioner kick on. I grin, knowing Haley would be objecting and wishing she were here so I could listen to her complain.
“Night, Dad,” I say.
“Good night, son.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
HALEY
I prefer the sexual hangovers. This one is definitely not that.
The coffee
takes too long to brew. Each second that passes feels like an eternity. I pull the cup from under the spout before it’s finished, and hot liquid spills onto the counter. It’s sad that I don’t even care.
I miss him already. The two phone calls last night and three texts didn’t help because I couldn’t return them. I just couldn’t. Despite needing to hear his voice and hoping he’d say that he was wrong and sorry, I couldn’t do it, because I deserve more.
It’s a weird feeling, prioritizing yourself. It’s not something I’ve ever done, and I’m not quite sure how to walk the line. What I do know is it feels good, empowering even, to know what I want and do the things I need to do to get it. After all, wanting love isn’t the most ridiculous thing in the world.
Tossing some creamer in my cup until the brew is a perfectly golden color, I take a sip. The fluid washes down my throat, clearing out some of the leftover tears from last night.
A knock at the door makes me jump. My heart scampers in my chest, my thoughts immediately going to Trevor. Gripping my mug like it’s my job, I almost jog to the front door. I don’t even check the peephole before I tug it open.
“Oh. Hey,” I say when I see Dane on the other side.
He gives me a tight smile. “Just checking on you. How are you today?”
I let the door open all the way and pad back to the kitchen. I hear it latch and Dane’s footsteps fall behind me.
“Want some coffee?” I ask.
“Nah. I’m good. Grabbed some already from Claire.”
I nod. “I think I’ll go by for a doughnut today. Sugar never killed anyone.”
“Actually, it does. All the time.”
“Well, smart-ass, the chances of it killing me before this heartache does aren’t good.”
He pulls out a chair and sits. His boot taps against the floor. The sound feels like little nails pounding into my skull.
“Can we not do that?” I ask as I sit across from him. Pulling my robe tighter around my body, I curl my legs up under me. “What are you doing today?”
“I have some paperwork to finish. Just . . . stuff.”
“You can talk about the Kelly house, you know. It’s fine.”
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