The Long Road Home (These Valley Days, #1)

by Bethany-Kris

  “Hell yeah. I wouldn’t miss it. Congrats, beautiful—you deserve it.”

  A visceral heat speared through Gracen’s body at his praise. Even her cheeks heated with a blush as she mumbled, “Thanks.”

  It wasn’t like she needed further proof beyond her broken sleep and constant internal dialogue about just how much she missed this man. No, even his approval came off smooth and sweet. Genuine in a way that made her crave the ability to crawl through the phone to wrap him in a hug. The time she took away from Malachi to think did little for Gracen except make her more aware of the hole in her life

  A lonely hole.

  Shaped a lot like him, too.

  Of course, the hole hadn’t belonged to his lack of presence in her life before he walked into it—but he’d filled it when he was there all the same. Without her even realizing it, maybe. Late nights were a lot later when they didn’t include phone calls with him that crawled into the early morning hours. She had nothing else better to do but think, then, and it also brought her to the understanding that none of it would be enough.

  From him, Gracen wanted more.

  He made her happy.

  With him, she was.

  She could be happier, though.

  If only ...

  She just didn’t know how to tell Malachi as much, and she wasn’t entirely sure that he could give her what she needed, either. It wasn’t entirely his fault. After all, constantly running away from painful things took a lot of energy.

  A pitiful thing, her heart.

  She was so used to protecting it from getting broke.

  “Does the place look the same as when you were young?” Malachi asked.

  “A few things do,” she returned about the house that had once been her childhood home.

  Her private offer, twenty-five thousand dollars over the asking price before the house was even properly listed, and her personal connection to the property, sold the owner within twenty-four hours of Gracen’s agent making the first call. Her good standing at the bank, excellent credit, a lawyer she’d kept on retainer since purchasing her first business, and her savings account made the rest possible, though. Including a closing date within three weeks of her initial offer.

  “Oh?”

  “The floors are all original and the woodwork my dad did is intact downstairs,” she explained, picturing the farmhouse’s open concept layout and the familiar details she was able to recognize the moment she had stepped back inside. “They added a big garage with an apartment loft and workshop.”

  Malachi whistled low. “Nice.”

  Gracen grinned at his appreciation. “Yeah, I bet somebody good with their hands could put that to use.”

  Somebody like you, she wanted to say.

  But she didn’t.

  Fear was a real thing.

  The fear of rejection, mostly. Gracen hadn’t needed to consider she was scared of walking down that road again until Malachi. It sucked something awful that it made her just a little less bold.

  “Anyway,” Gracen said, grateful that she had at least been able to take this first step to close the distance she’d created between them with a phone call and invitation, “I know you’re probably busy with work or whatever, so I won’t keep you on the phone.”

  “I am working,” he confirmed.

  Not happily.

  “Sorry,” Gracen said.

  An automatic Canadian sentiment for any unfortunate news or inconvenience.

  Malachi chuckled dryly. “Yeah, well—we all do what we’ve got to do, I guess.”

  That wasn’t like him at all.

  Gracen couldn’t bring forth to memory a single time when Malachi had spoken about his work with such a negative tone.

  “I called at a bad time?” she asked.

  “It’s a bad day. It’s not you.”

  “Oh.”

  Why didn’t it feel that way?

  “I can let you go,” Gracen said. “Maybe give me a call back later, if you’re—”

  “I’ve got a few minutes,” he interjected fast.

  She couldn’t suppress the smile that formed.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay,” Malachi echoed before clearing his throat. “So, a housewarming party, huh?”

  “Delaney said I had to throw one if I was buying a house.”

  “She’s not wrong.” Then, Malachi asked, “Is that the same weekend as my sister’s wedding?”

  “I heard they were getting married in the tabernacle that Sunday.”

  Her party was on Saturday and the guest list wouldn’t cross over between the two events. Much.

  “You think you’re gonna like being that far out of town?”

  Gracen laughed. “The Flats aren’t that far out of town. Twenty minutes, at most.”

  “Fifteen if you speed,” he noted.

  “Yeah, don’t do that. Especially not on that damn bike. I’d like for you to actually be there—I want to see you.”

  Her proclamation quieted Malachi on the other line for more than a handful of seconds. Everyone was slightly more painful than the last. This would be so much easier face to face than over the phone.

  “We really should have a conversation,” he said quietly.

  Gracen sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

  He exhaled a hard breath. “I hate to tell you now’s not the best time considering it’s the only chance we’ve had to talk in—”

  “That’s okay,” she rushed to say. “And I would have called sooner, but things have kept me busy.”

  “Don’t apologize for needing time, Gracen. Even if that was time away from me. If a choice I made hurt you, even if my intentions were good, you’re allowed to tell me. I know where your line is and not to cross it—or if I do, now I know what happens. Simple.”

  God.

  He couldn’t possibly know how much that meant to her.

  “I’ll see you in two weeks, then?” he asked after a moment.

  “You’d make that long drive just for a housewarming party?” she asked.

  Because she hadn’t promised a single thing else, and Malachi wasn't exactly the type of guy to assume. It was one of the things she liked best about him, honestly.

  “Gracen, I’d drive a hundred hours to see you if I needed to—distance was never the issue. I can’t be the reason someone else doesn’t get the chance to live their life. Sometimes, there are bigger things than me. Right now, that’s my sister. A lot of things happen behind closed doors that people don’t know; I couldn’t forgive myself if I was the reason she stayed locked in the house.”

  “Right,” she whispered. “I guess we all have to make hard choices, eh? Even if somebody gets hurt.”

  “I’m sorry that person was you. I should have handled it better.”

  Really, that was all Gracen wanted to hear. Other factors had come into play to cause problems. No one ever promised things would happen exactly as she wanted them to—life didn’t come with fairness.

  “Anyway,” Malachi said, his tone a bit cheerier. “I don’t know what the hell to get someone for a housewarming—never been to one of those. Is Delaney moving to the new house, too, or ...?”

  “We’ve got another three months on this lease, so she’s gonna see it out. I think me putting in an offer kind of lit a fire under her ass because every time I catch her on her laptop lately, she’s looking at listings.”

  “Near your new place?”

  “Or the general area,” Gracen confirmed. “It’s going to be different ... Not living with her, I mean.”

  “Time changes a lot of things,” Malachi murmured.

  Fair enough.

  “Sometimes for the better?” she asked.

  “Sometimes,” he confirmed.

  Gracen hoped this was one of those times for her. A step forward toward something greater. The next stage in her life. Whatever that might be, she was ready for it.

  “So, that's a definite yes on the party?”

  “I’ll be there,” he said.
>
  “I hoped you’d say that.”

  Malachi laughed softly. “And there’s nothing you want for me to bring you? I don’t think I can show up without a gift. That’s not how it works, is it?”

  “Yourself is great, Malachi. You’re perfect.”

  “Out of the two of us, I think that’s definitely you. I should have told you that before. There’s something right about us”

  For all the wear Gracen had put into the kitchen floor with her nervous pacing, it took nothing for her to come to a complete stop. “You feel it, too?”

  *

  “There you are,” Delaney said as she leaned in the doorway of Gracen’s bedroom.

  Peeking over a pile of packed and taped boxes, Gracen beamed. “Here I am. Did you manage the groceries without me?”

  In other words—did she have any problems?

  Sometimes, just shopping in their town could bring Delaney face to face with less than kind family members. Even if they didn’t hurl insults at her in the grocery aisles, their blatant shunning and silence was still abusive.

  Delaney shrugged. “I plugged my EarPods in and—” She waved her hand. “Just went.”

  Gracen grinned. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Good.

  Delaney creeped further into the bedroom, and peered around the changing space. Most of the decoration and trinkets that made the space feel like Gracen’s had been packed away. Even her bookshelves were cleaned of books. A task that took a handful of days because she couldn’t just pick up and move her books. If she touched one, she had to look at it, too. Flip through the pages and remember the first time she read it.

  Really, a lot of her possessions were like that for her. It all—in one way or another—made up the story of her life.

  “Remember when we fought over who was going to get what room when we first checked this place out?” Delaney asked.

  Gracen cackled. “We were gonna throw some hands that night.”

  “Never,” her friend returned.

  “Except the first time, right?”

  That go-round, it was Delaney’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, well ...”

  “The good news is the bedroom’s all yours for at least three months. More, if you’re planning on extending the lease.”

  Delaney sauntered around the bedroom, but otherwise, said nothing in return. It was obvious to Gracen that her friend hadn’t made a firm decision on what her next few months would look like as the two of them made some changes.

  “And I mean, there is that apartment over the garage at my new—”

  “I think I want to learn how to be alone,” Delaney interrupted quietly, looking back at Gracen from where she’d come to a stop at the foot of the bed. “And maybe learn how to like it, as well.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  Delaney nodded. “I keep telling myself that, too.”

  “Keep doing it.”

  Eventually, she’d start to believe it.

  Gracen pointed at two boxes near the open door. Neither were taped. “Those are for Bexley. Clothes—stuff in my closet I haven’t touched in more than six months to a year. And some bedding and towels we had in storage.”

  “The extra?” Delaney asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t want to take those to the new house?”

  Gracen smiled.

  New house.

  Because she called the farmhouse as much, Delaney had started referring to it that way, as well, despite the home being forty years old. New-to-her in a way, she still found a deep sense of comfort walking through its rooms and halls where memories whispered to her, too.

  “Bexley’s gonna need stuff for her apartment more than I do,” Gracen returned, shrugging.

  Stuffing her hand in the pocket of her high-waisted skinny jeans, Delaney eyed the boxes of things. “All right. At least I know what to buy for you.”

  “Nothing, that’s what. I don’t need anything.”

  “People bring gifts to housewarming parties. How many times do I have to tell you?”

  Gracen only rolled her eyes.

  Delaney moved to shove the boxes out into the hall. “I was going to make a trip to Freddy this weekend to take some things down for Bexley’s place.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. You wanna take a road trip?”

  “Are you driving?” Gracen replied.

  Back in the doorway, Delaney said, “I can.”

  That was that.

  The eighteen-year-old’s small, two-bedroom apartment in Fredericton was paid up for the year. Gracen was going to regret pulling the cash from her investment account come tax time, but it felt like she had been able to do something tangible and meaningful for Delaney’s cousin that would help her with the struggle she faced ahead as she stepped out on her own and broke away from her family’s controlling reach.

  Leaving home wasn’t easy for anyone when coming of age. Leaving home when you knew it would also mean your family would shun you, you’d have no support, and you were barely an adult stumbling into the real world? No way.

  Everything was mostly sorted for Bexley—from beginning her education in nursing to having a place she could call hers that couldn’t be taken away. The girl could focus on getting settled into her first year at college and learning a new city. She didn’t have to worry about paying rent at the same time. It was one less thing.

  “You know,” Delaney said, taking one more look around what had once been Gracen’s favorite space, “it’s still gonna feel like yours.”

  “You think?”

  Delaney met Gracen’s gaze with a small, but sad, smile. “Just without you.”

  Chapter 34

  Early autumn rolled in practically overnight, and with it came chillier mornings and nights. Nothing severe. Nothing that a nice hoodie wouldn’t fix. By far, it was Gracen’s favorite time of year to watch the trees around her change colors. Their vibrancy made for a beautiful landscape no matter if she was jogging the boardwalk in town or just taking a drive.

  “It’s almost the day,” Delaney said from the driver’s seat of her Jeep.

  Gracen, only a little distracted by the fact she currently stood in the driveway of her own home, could only mumble, “Mmhmm, it is.”

  Delaney laughed, but not unkindly. “I didn’t mean your party.”

  At that comment, her gaze swung her friend’s way where Delaney stared back from her rolled down window. “I know that—I didn’t mean you were talking about me, either.”

  Not everything was about her, after all.

  Delaney drummed her fingers to the steering wheel and eyed the side of the two-storey farmhouse with light blue siding and dark colored stonework along the bottom. “We didn’t forget anything, right?”

  Nope.

  Everything she packed to move fit between their two vehicles, and only took a couple of trips. Delaney would keep most of the furniture the two had purchased together for their rental house, but Gracen had already put in an order at her favorite furnishing store to fill the many rooms in the farmhouse. Or at least to get a decent start on it. The delivery for her furniture was set for the middle of the next week as long as everything came in on time.

  Fingers crossed.

  Until then, she could make do with the fact she didn’t have a table and chairs for her dining room, or the sectional couches to lounge around on and not even her flatscreen TV had a proper place to sit.

  The worst had been dismantling Gracen’s big bed frame and finding someone to haul it and the mattress and box spring, so they didn’t have to tie it down to the top of Delaney’s Jeep. The Jeep could do it, sure, but neither of the women wanted to do the heavy lifting.

  Things worked out, eventually.

  Sometimes, the universe did look out for her.

  “Everything’s great,” Gracen said. “You can head out. I know you’re probably tired.”

  It was like her reminder of how exhausting their Friday had been made
Delaney yawn on cue. She looked sheepish about it but shrugged in the end.

  “Yeah, I better get going, huh? I need a nap.”

  “Call me later?” Gracen offered. “If you want.”

  Delaney turned the key over in the Jeep, starting the engine. “I will.”

  Despite her cheery tone, Gracen could still hear the lingering worry that Delaney tried to hide.

  “Things are going to be okay,” Gracen said.

  Delaney glanced her way again. “You think?”

  “It’ll work out. It always does.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Leaning in the driver’s side window, Gracen wrapped her arms tight around Delaney’s neck and hugged. All their surroundings disappeared, and for a second, it was just Delaney and Gracen again. Best friends until the end. Them against the world. Well, it had certainly felt like that for a long time. Things were changing a bit now.

  For the best.

  Her friend grabbed back, squeezing just as hard and mumbling to Gracen, “Thanks. I love you, huh?”

  Gracen pulled away with a sniffle and held onto the edge of the door for a second longer. “I love you, too. If you get the chance to talk to Bexley before the wedding on Sunday, tell her I said good luck.”

  While everyone was distracted and enjoying the reception after the big wedding for Alora and Sonny, someone else would take their chance at starting a new life, as well. Bexley had the plan—as simple as it was—and she just needed to follow through. She wouldn’t take much, already had the two duffels of possessions and clothes packed that she planned to take, and if everything went right for her, no one would notice she was gone until it was too late.

  Which was the point.

  Bexley worried how her father and older brothers would react once they realized she was gone—so much so that she’d sworn Delaney and Gracen to secrecy about everything. Even her new apartment’s address in the city. Of course, they agreed.

  “And remind her to fill her car with gas tonight,” Gracen added. “She shouldn’t even bother with that tomorrow, and certainly not on Sunday. You know?”

  Delaney wiped at the new wetness under her eyes. “I will. I hope you know she wouldn’t have been as confident to do this had you not helped out as much as you did. It wouldn’t have been possible without—”