I looked toward the ceiling like it might hold some answers. A direction. Maybe in the texture was one of those secret mazes that led to a hidden clue, or maybe it was one of those pictures of Jesus that suddenly popped out and spoke to you.
God knew, seeing Izzy again felt like some kind of biblical miracle.
Or maybe it was just karma teasing me again with what I could never have.
Was I really going to let Clarissa continue to influence me?
Heaving out a sigh, I drained the rest of my beer, threw the bottle in the recycle, and walked out of the kitchen to the hallway that led to the back of the house.
I passed by the one guest bedroom on the right, then followed the hall as it made a ninety-degree turn to the left where the two additional bedrooms ran along the very back.
The first one I used as an office, and the second was the master.
Opening one side of the master’s door, I flicked on the light. Basically, the entire house had needed to be gutted when I’d purchased it, new floors and new paint and new fixtures.
I crossed the room and went into the restroom at the back. It was all white cabinets and chrome fixtures and black accents.
I brushed my teeth and shrugged out of my tee and jeans, tossed those into the hamper.
Routine.
Exhausted, I made my way back out and climbed into my bed.
My very huge, very empty bed.
I flopped onto my back.
Excitement and dread warred inside of me. This feeling that I was coming up on something good. Worry was if I was going to taint it. Ruin it the only way I seemed to know how to do.
I tossed, trying to get comfortable, then tossed to the other side.
Yeah, sleep was not gonna happen.
It was going to be a long damn night.
Sitting up at the side, I flicked on the lamp and opened the drawer on my nightstand.
A mangle of emotions surged from that dark place hidden within. Grief and regret. I rarely let myself visit it, but tonight, I couldn’t resist.
I squeezed my eyes closed for a beat before I pulled out the flimsy book that had been bound with twine, the pages made of a thick tan parchment, cut at haphazard angles.
Completely handmade.
The cover was cardboard that had been covered in more of that parchment. It was the drawings on the front that had gotten to me most.
A black dragon had been sketched like it was perched on the spine, and images of a young man were interwoven in the shiny, scaly tapestry with peeks of the sky and a volcano in the background.
Gorgeous and crude.
Agony settled over me.
The loss radiating. Screaming out from my insides. What I would never reclaim. A life I would never be able to save.
My whole childhood I’d pretended I was a dragon. Hell, I’d claimed it, insisting the truth of it to my mother and anyone else who would listen.
She’d nod along, tell me I was the best, fiercest dragon in the world, laughing under her breath as she’d shake her head.
I’d thought she thought it was silly. Nothing. Or maybe that she hadn’t even listened or understood me in any way.
But then I’d found the book with my name scrawled on the inside in the shed near her things when I’d cleaned it out that last time. Like she’d left me a message. Words when she no longer had the power to speak.
And it’d spoken to me.
It was the day I’d turned my back on my past and made the decision to become who I was today.
Inside, it was filled with a story that was simple and profound and had always felt like my mother had left me a message.
This was a fantasy about a barn boy close to becoming a man. He’d been sent to slay a dragon to earn his right in the castle, only to find the dragon close to death, left with a stab wound from a knight who’d already come to do the deed.
The boy had nursed it back to health, and in the process, they’d found something in the other. A missing piece. An understanding. A realization that things weren’t always as they seemed.
They’d become united. A team who’d sought out the treachery of the king who’d sent the boy in the first place.
I flipped it open to a spot at the end where the dragon had been injured again in the last battle that had brought everything to a head.
“Go, earn your right. Finish what you were sent to do,” The Dragon rasped. Its body heaved with great lurches of pain, the wound at its side gaping as its blood spilled onto the mountain floor, running down like a red river twisting through the towering trees.
Teno shook his head. “No. I won’t leave you.”
“Go. There is nothing left for you to do here. There is nothing to gain. Prove who you are. Inside. You’ve already proven it to me.”
Teno looked at his truest friend. The one who was to be his enemy. A vile creature to be left as dust and ash. Teno grabbed him by the ears, dragging him close.
Black eyes stared back, ridged in flames and surrounded by ire. But held within was eternity. “I will not leave you, my friend. We fight. We fight together. It is you who will earn your right.”
The Dragon’s black eyes deepened, and it struggled to climb to its feet. Massive and unsightly. The most beautiful thing ever seen. It nudged Teno with his snout, and Teno pressed his cheek to the fire that burned from within. He ran his palm down his coarse neck. “It’s you who will earn your right.”
I guessed it was this passage that always made me wonder exactly who it was I was fighting for.
Eight
Izzy
I glanced at the clock.
Only for the three-thousandth time this morning. In the last twenty times I’d checked, only two minutes had passed.
Goodness.
I was gonna drive myself right out of my mind.
Needing a distraction, I lifted the lid off the pot and poked at the boiling potatoes with a fork, trying to breathe around my heart that had ridden all the way up into my throat.
Or maybe it was actually floating outside of me, like a child who was misbehavin’ and wouldn’t do what it was told and sit still.
All night it’d been fluttering, wings wayward and wild, my night spent tossing in my bed, wondering if I’d made the worst mistake of my life.
Inviting that man to my house.
Could I be ripping myself open any wider?
Just begging for him to reach out and punch in a few new holes. Apparently, there weren’t enough already.
“Would you stop it?” my mama scolded softly from where she was putting the freshly-baked biscuits in a basket.
“Stop what?” I asked, wiping my sweaty hands on the back of my pants.
Erasing the evidence.
She huffed out a dubious sound. “You’ve been flitting around this kitchen like a loon the entire morning. You might as well have your head cut off the same as that bird that’s currently roasting in the oven.” With the butter knife held in her hand, she pointed at the oven where the chicken was roasting.
“Seems about fitting, considering I put my neck on the chopping block,” I muttered under my breath.
Pushing out a sigh, my mother set the knife down on the counter and moved my direction. She placed both her hands on my face, dipping down to catch my gaze when I tried to drop my attention. “Hey, baby girl. Look at me.”
I did.
She squeezed a little tighter. “I know you’re nervous, but you are doin’ the right thing.”
On a long sigh, I blew out some of the strain I was holding in. If I kept it in for a second longer, it was gonna drive me mad. I peeked up at my mama. “And what if it turns out bad?”
“Then that’s on him.”
My lips pursed. I knew she was just trying to give me encouragement, that I couldn’t make the right choices for Maxon, but still, that feeling in my chest grew heavier with the thought. “But that’s the problem, Mama. If he does turn his back? I’m not sure I can handle that kind of rejection from him again. I�
�m pretty sure it will crush me.”
Even after all these years.
“Love always hurts, Izzy Mae. That’s what makes it so important.”
I shook my head, not even willing to go there with her.
“I don’t still love him.”
The wrinkles at the corners of her eyes crinkled. “You just keep tellin’ yourself that. You think a mama doesn’t know when her baby girl is in love? I knew it then, and I know it now.”
“I think you’re delusional,” I told her, trying to play the heaviness off.
She quirked a brow. “You mean old?”
Soft laughter rolled out. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
She moved back to her biscuits. “Well then, I guess you should be thanking your lucky stars that your mama still has it together enough to make your favorite meal.”
“And to butt her nose into my business. Don’t forget that.”
She swiveled a fraction, grinning wide. “Never. I’ll be meddlin’ until the day I die.”
“Lucky me,” I mumbled, going back to the potatoes, poking at them again.
“Damn right, you are.” She winked.
In amusement, I shook my head, and her smile softened. “No matter what happens, your daddy and I are here for you. You are never alone.”
I started to tell her how much that meant to me, but she beat me to the punch. “Of course, we don’t look quite as good as that man who has you in a stir. But I guess we’ll have to do.”
“Way to ruin the moment, Mama.” My eyes went wide with the playful taunt. Seriously, after everything, I had a hard time understanding why she still kept Mack on some kind of pedestal.
“Ruin the moment? You should be thankin’ me for that visual I know just went through your mind.”
I jumped a little when the swinging door banged open, and Dillon came running in. Dark blond hair flying, grin so wide my floating heart jumped back in my chest. Right where it belonged.
Because it didn’t matter how stirred up I was over Maxon Chambers. In the end, my boys were the only thing that mattered.
My world.
My reason.
He dashed around the island. “Nana, Nana, is lunch ready yet? I’m starving!” He threw his belly out, pounding it like a drum.
“You’re starvin’, huh? What have you been doin’ to work up such an appetite since I made you breakfast this morning?” she asked, bumping him with her hip.
“I’m a growing boy, Nana. Five-years-old. Do you know how many inches a boy my age grows in one year? We have to have lots of food to make us grow strong. And milk. Don’t forget the milk.”
Nothing but serious business.
“Never.” She glanced at me with a secret smile. “Good thing it’s coming up on time to eat.”
That was the cue for my heart that had just settled into place to jump right back into a disorder. Thrashing and flailing and doing stupid things. I searched for a breath, for clarity, reminding myself that I could do this.
I pinned a smile onto my face, crossed over to Dillon where he was standing beside my mama, and ran my fingers through his messy hair. “Remember we have company coming over?”
He looked up at me. “Your friend who really isn’t a friend anymore and now gets to be a cop?” His eyes got wider. “Being a cop is so cool. Maybe I should be a cop instead of a pilot.” Contemplation twisted his brow. “What do you think, Mom? You think I should fight bad guys or shoot down bad guys?”
For once, I ignored his crazy train of thought and focused in on the first part of what he’d said. Is that what he got from the explanation I’d given the boys last night when I’d been tucking them into bed and told them Maxon was coming over?
Mr. Chambers, actually.
And I sure didn’t tell them what he’d been to me. I guessed I’d really mucked that one up. Basically, I’d hemmed and hawed and stuttered around a really pathetic explanation of who our guest was gonna be.
“He’s not not a friend. He’s just . . . well . . . it’s complicated.”
Awesome.
There I went. Another bang-up job of explaining this to my son.
“What your Mama is trying to say, Dill Pickle, is that they used to be friends and they grew apart, had a misunderstanding, which is what adults do sometimes, and now maybe they want to get to know each other again.”
I sent her a grateful glance and at the same time wanted to roll my eyes about the misunderstanding. If only.
“Well you coulda just said that,” he told me.
The door creaked open again, slowly, this time Benjamin using his side to push through the door. He fumbled around to make it through. A very strong part of me wanted to rush to his side to help him hold it open, but I knew he wanted to do it himself.
He grinned his overwhelming smile, and my spirit soared, and I couldn’t have stopped the affection that spread to my face if I tried. “Hey, handsome man.”
“Hiiiiii.”
On his forearm crutches, he slowly made his way over, his right foot dragging more than the other, his shoulders bunched up to his cheeks. But that grin never dropped. Not once. Not for a second. “Is itttt time?”
Nervously, I glanced at the clock again. “He should be here in about five minutes.”
Five minutes. Goodness. Was I really gonna go through with this?
“Do we have to wait for him to eat?” Dillon almost whined.
I tapped at his nose. “Um, yes, sir, you do. Where are your manners? We have company comin’.”
“But I don’t even know why you’d want to wait around for a guy you don’t even like.” My five-year-old smirked. Stinker.
“Watch yourself, little man. I don’t want any troublemaking goin’ on during lunch. You have to be on your best behavior.”
I pointed between both of my men.
“Why, ‘cuz he’s a cop?” Dillon asked, grin too wide. God, he was just like his grandma, always stirring the pot.
I raised my brows in a teasing way. “No. Because I told you, you aren’t allowed to be a troublemaker, no matter how badly you might want to be.”
“No stoppin’ that,” my mama added, right as the buzzer was going off on the oven. She went for it, grabbing her hand mitts and pulling down the door. “Mmm-mmmm,” she drew out. “Do y’all smell that?”
Dillon threw his head back and held his stomach. “Nana, what are you tryin’ to do to me? Kill me? Told ya I was starving.”
She chuckled. “Soon, Dill, soon. Didn’t anyone ever tell you patience is a virtue?”
“What’s a virtue?”
Oh, goodness. Normally, I could keep up with the constant shifts in conversation, quick to answer all of Dillon’s million questions, but I couldn’t focus on anything but the ticking of the clock.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Problem was, I wasn’t sure if it was a bomb.
Benjamin hobbled his way over to me, and I leaned over and pressed my lips to his forehead, breathed him in.
He angled back, the expression on his face a little confused, far too knowing, smiling at me as if he were trying to get a read on what was on my mind. “You okkkay? You seem more nerrrvous than when you went to yourrr interview.”
That’s because I was. Working was a necessity. And Maxon could be a travesty.
I touched his cheek. “I am, sweetheart. Don’t you worry. I’m just a little nervous to see my old friend.”
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” My mama shot me a wink.
I scowled at her.
She laughed a small laugh.
“Will I liiike him?” Benjamin asked, genuinely curious, and my heart was thumping more.
“I think you will, sweet boy.”
That was right when the doorbell rang, and my heart that had been thrashing against my ribs crashed right through. A tumble across the wood floor.
I knew that’s what I was doing. Laying my heart at his feet and praying he didn’t stomp all over it.
Inhaling dee
ply, I smoothed out the beige blouse I was wearing with the delicate lace ruffles on the collar and arms. I’d matched it with my best fitted cropped black pants and a pair of heeled sandals.
Nope.
I wasn’t dressin’ up for him.
Not at all.
It rang again.
“Well, go on,” Mama chided.
Benjamin busted out in laughter. “Whaaat’s wrong, Mom? You sccccared of cops?”
Just this one, Benjamin. Just this one.
I tossed a look at all three of them, Dillon at my mama’s legs begging for a biscuit, Benjamin leaning on the island. “Remember, I’m gonna be a bit. I need to talk to him first, and then we’ll be in, okay? I need you both to stay in here and wait. Do you understand?”
“Ah, Mom, but didn’t you hear that I’m starving? I’m gonna be a pile of bones on the floor if you gotta have a conversation. What do you gotta talk about that’s so important, anyway?”
“Yeah?” Benjamin added.
“Just . . . old friend stuff.”
God, I’d dug myself into a hole. And suddenly I was feeling paranoid that I’d done this all wrong. Yesterday’s invite had been nothing but a knee-jerk reaction. The memory of my mama saying I should invite him over paired with the thankfulness that he’d rescued me when he had.
I should have called him and asked him to meet me somewhere else.
In private.
It wasn’t like Faith wouldn’t have his number.
Because this was suddenly feeling like an ambush, and I’d never wanted to be the attacker.
But I’d already done this, and the man was at the door, and I couldn’t keep stalling for a second longer.
I inhaled and pushed through the swinging door, legs shaking as I moved through the living room. I paused only when my daddy poked his head out of his study. “You need me, just start screaming. I’ve got Gretchen locked and loaded.”
“Daddy,” I scolded.
He shrugged his bony shoulders. “What?”
“There won’t be any need for any shotguns, no matter what, you hear me?”
Pieces of Us: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel Page 9
