by Marie Force
“That one’s harder to keep.”
“I’m looking forward to when our relationship is no longer in the headlines.”
“How long do you think that’ll take?”
“A while probably,” he said with a sigh. “The people in this town don’t fool around when it comes to gossip—and they’re all extremely protective of you.”
“Good thing I picked the right guy to spend time with. At least they’ve got nothing bad they can say about you. Everyone loves you.”
“I guess we’ll find out for sure, won’t we?”
They headed around the mountain, past the entrance to the sugaring facility that Colton ran and north to the outer limits of Butler, where Gavin’s logging company was headquartered. He lived in a log cabin on the property adjacent to the sawmill he’d built four years ago. Hannah hadn’t been up here in a long time, but at first glance she could see the business had grown tremendously.
She felt a surge of pride for what Gavin had accomplished, much of it fueled by relentless grief and the need to pour all that emotion into something productive. Her recently satisfied stomach turned with worry about how this visit might go. The thought of being at odds with Gavin or his parents was unimaginable.
As Nolan parked his truck next to Gavin’s, he said, “Relax, honey. It’s going to be fine.”
Hannah wished she could be so certain. She got out of the truck and wiped her suddenly sweaty palms on her jeans. As they walked to Gavin’s front door, she felt Nolan’s hand on the small of her back guiding her and took comfort from his solid presence by her side.
She knocked on the door and waited anxiously until Gavin appeared wearing only a pair of faded jeans. As always, the sight of him was a stark reminder of the husband she’d lost, and it took a moment to recover her bearings. “Hey, Gav,” she said. “Could we come in for a minute?”
Without a word, he pushed open the screen door to admit them.
Nolan squeezed her shoulder as he followed her inside to Gavin’s cozy home, which boasted a big-screen TV set to a Boston Red Sox preseason game.
Gavin went to the fridge, got a beer and cracked it open. “Want one?”
“No, thanks,” Hannah said.
“I wouldn’t mind a beer,” Nolan said.
Gavin gave the one he’d opened to Nolan and got another for himself.
Hannah sat next to Nolan at the bar. Gavin stayed in the kitchen, facing them, drinking his beer and waiting for one of them to say something.
Nerves fluttered in her belly as she tried to think of what to say.
“I heard you came by the garage yesterday,” Nolan said.
Hannah was grateful to him for the opening salvo.
“Uh-huh.”
“I assume your parents told you Hannah and I are seeing each other.”
He kept his expression unreadable when he said, “Right.”
Hannah couldn’t bear to remain silent any longer. “Gavin—”
“Don’t, Hannah. Please don’t say anything. Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it.” He put down his bottle with a loud thunk. “No, wait. That’s not true. I’d like to know why you didn’t tell me yourself when I saw you the other day.”
Thrown by Gavin’s angry outburst, she said, “I should have. I don’t know why I didn’t. My only excuse is that it’s still new, and I wasn’t exactly ready to talk about it yet. With anyone.”
“You saw fit to tell my parents.”
“Because I didn’t want them to hear it through the grapevine.”
“But it was okay that I did? It was okay that I was at the diner and heard you two had been there and were getting rather cozy? Can you imagine what it was like to hear that from someone I barely know when I had just seen you?”
“I’m sorry,” Hannah said softly as tears formed. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“We should’ve told you,” Nolan said.
“How long have you been interested in my brother’s wife? When he was alive, too?”
“No! God no. You know how I felt about him.”
“Yeah, I do, which is why I find this so unbelievable.”
“Why, Gavin?” Hannah asked, feeling desperate to make him understand. “Why is it so unbelievable that I would have feelings for an old friend, and he would have them for me?”
“What I find unbelievable is that this only happened recently.”
Hannah stared at him, stunned by the implication. “I, um . . . I have to go.” Blinded by tears, she got up and rushed out the door.
CHAPTER 21
The army chaplain came three days ago. I still have no words . . .
—From the diary of Hannah Abbott Guthrie, age twenty-eight
“Seriously?” Nolan said after Hannah ran out of there. “You’re honestly accusing her of fooling around behind Caleb’s back?”
“How do I know what to believe?”
“You disappoint me, Gavin. We’ve been friends a long time, and I know you’ve been to hell and back. That’s the only reason I’m not going to drop you on your ass for saying something like that to her.”
“Go ahead and give it your best shot.”
Nolan’s hands rolled into fists he kept planted at his sides so he wouldn’t be tempted to flatten a man he’d always considered a friend. “It’s taken her all this time to get to the point where she’d even consider being with someone else. If you’ve undone all that progress with your thoughtless comments, I’ll never forgive you. You owe her an apology, and until she gets it, I have nothing to say to you.”
He was almost to the door when Gavin called out his name. His better judgment told him to keep going. Instead he bowed to the bonds of decades-long friendship, turned and raised a brow in inquiry.
“Have you given any thought at all to what he’d say about you banging his wife?”
Infuriated by Gavin’s word choice, Nolan fought to keep the rage out of his voice. “Yeah, Gav. I’ve given it a lot of thought and a few sleepless nights, too. I think about him all the time, and I wish more than I wish for anything in this life that he hadn’t died. But he did, and the rest of us are left to do the best we can with the hand we were dealt. I love her, but I never touched her until very recently. Believe what you will, but that’s the God’s honest truth. And after her faithful devotion to your brother, Hannah deserves a whole lot more than the pile of shit she just got from you.”
Fuming and panic-stricken about what must be going through Hannah’s mind, Nolan let the screen door slam behind him. He went outside to find her sitting in his truck, staring straight ahead without so much as blinking. Anxious to get her out of there, he got into the truck and left dust in his wake as he floored the accelerator. When they reached the main road, he stopped long enough to reach across Hannah for the seatbelt, which he fastened around her.
That’s when he noticed her hands trembling in her lap as unshed tears brightened her eyes.
Motherfucker, he thought, shocked and horrified by Gavin’s extremely out-of-character behavior. In his heart, Nolan believed that Gavin knew she’d been faithful to Caleb. His accusations were coming from a place of deep, unrelenting grief, but that didn’t give him the right to disrespect Hannah the way he had.
“Talk to me, baby,” he said, reaching for her freezing-cold hand. All he could think about was how happy and carefree she’d been for most of the weekend. He’d loved seeing her that way, and the thought of her brother-in-law’s bad behavior undoing all that progress infuriated him. “He’s just spouting off. He didn’t mean that. You know he didn’t.”
A sob escaped through her tightly clenched lips, and a flood of tears spilled down her face.
Nolan pulled the truck to the side of the road, unclipped both their seatbelts and lifted her into his lap.
She fought him at first, but he kept his arms banded tight around her, giving her no choice but to lean on him as her heartbroken sobs filled the cab of his truck.
“That was a shitty thing for him to say, and he know
s it. He’s hurting at the thought of you moving on without Caleb, and he has a right to those feelings, but he has no right at all to take it out on you.”
“I never looked at another man for the entire twelve years I was with him,” she said, hiccupping on her sobs, “or for the seven years since he died. For nineteen years, he was the only one.”
“I know, baby. I know, and so does Gavin. If he doesn’t already feel like shit for inferring otherwise, he will before long, and you’ll hear from him. If I know him at all, and I know him as well as I know anyone, you’ll hear from him.”
“That he could even think that, let alone say it . . .”
“I know.” Nolan regretted that he hadn’t dropped Gavin on his ass when he had the chance. It was the least of what he deserved.
“I always thought he was one of my closest friends,” Hannah said. “We’ve been through hell together.”
Another thought occurred to Nolan that had his mind reeling with implications. “Is there any chance that he might’ve, you know, held out hope that you might one day be interested in him?”
“What? No! God no. There’s never been anything like that between us. We were always just friends.”
“Maybe as far as you were concerned.”
“I can’t get my head around that possibility. It’s so far outside my comfort zone it’s not even conceivable.”
“It might explain why he behaved the way he did.”
“No,” she said, whimpering as new tears wet her face and spilled onto his coat. With only her heartbroken sniffles to break the long silence, she finally raised her head from his chest. “I’d like to go home now, please.”
She may as well have erected an invisible, electric fence between them. That’s how profoundly he felt the distance creep in, despite the fact she was still sitting on his lap with his arms wrapped around her. He had no choice but to release her when every instinct he had was screaming at him to hold on tighter. Yeah, he really should’ve punched Gavin Guthrie when he’d had the chance.
Hannah put her seatbelt back on, pulled a tissue from her purse and wiped the tears from her face. She didn’t say another word as he drove them to her house. When he carried her bag to the porch, she turned to face him. “Thank you for a wonderful weekend.”
“Why do I feel like everything that happened between us this weekend was undone by one insensitive comment?”
Hannah sighed and her chin trembled.
Nolan wanted to go back to Gavin’s place and take out all his frustration—and he had a lot of it all of a sudden—on Hannah’s brother-in-law.
“I just need some time to think.”
“Why, Hannah? We both know exactly how this happened.” Nolan felt like he was fighting for his very life. “Why would you give him the satisfaction of driving a wedge between us right when things are going so well?”
“If he thinks that, maybe other people do, too.”
“No one thinks we were together before Caleb died! Gavin doesn’t think that. He’s lashing out because he misses his brother and wants everything the way it used to be. It has nothing at all to do with you—or me.”
“I need some time.”
“How much time?”
“I don’t know.”
“Please don’t do this.”
“I’m sorry.” Taking her bag from him, she slipped into the house. The door closed quietly behind her.
Nolan wanted to scream with frustration and fear and love and regret. He never should’ve let her be part of the conversation with Gavin. If she hadn’t been there, she never would’ve heard his ugly accusation, and Nolan certainly wouldn’t have shared that with her. Everything would be as it was this morning when they awoke wrapped up in each other.
If he could go back in time twenty-four hours, he wouldn’t have told her Gavin had come by the garage. That was his first huge mistake.
After slamming the driver’s side door to the truck, Nolan started the engine and left dust in his wake as he pulled away. The last place he wanted to go was home where he might encounter his father, who’d surely run through the money Nolan had given him by now.
So he went to the garage and spent the rest of the day catching up on all the paperwork he’d let slide over the last month, desperately trying to think about anything other than the taste of paradise he’d experienced with Hannah and his overwhelming fear that it might be over before it even started. He was paying the bills when Skeeter came into the office.
“What’re you doing here, boss man? Thought you was off romancing your lady this weekend.”
“We’re back now.”
Skeeter took a closer look at Nolan, tipping his head and puckering his lips. “You don’t look too happy to say you finally got what you been wanting for a long time.”
“It’s all screwed up.” Nolan hadn’t planned to say that, but once the words were out, the story of what’d happened up at Gavin’s poured out behind it.
“Damn,” Skeeter said as he took a seat. “He really said that?”
“He really did.”
“Doesn’t sound like the Gavin Guthrie I’ve known most of his life.”
“That’s what I said, too. It’s his grief talking. There’s no way he thinks she was fooling around with me when Caleb was still alive. He knows better. But there’s no telling Hannah. All she heard was the accusation coming from someone she loves, someone she’s relied upon greatly over the last seven years.” Nolan smacked his open hand on his desk. “The worst part is she was really happy all weekend. We had a great time together. And now we’re back to square one, all thanks to Gavin.”
“You know . . . I’m just speculating here so bear with me . . . She might’ve taken a step back anyway, even if Gavin hadn’t spouted off.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I assume this was the first time she’s . . . you know, done what she probably did with you, since Caleb died. Once the reality of that sets in, there’s apt to be a bit of a meltdown or whatever women call it when their emotions get the better of ’em.”
Nolan hated to admit that Skeeter was actually making some sense, not that he’d ever tell his old friend that.
“You just gotta be patient with her and let her know you’re not giving up, no matter what gets thrown in your way. This thing with Gavin . . . it’s a setback. It ain’t the end of the world.”
“If you could’ve seen her face when his meaning registered with her, you wouldn’t be so sure it wasn’t the end of the world.”
“It’s a big thing for her to be moving forward with her life after such a terrible loss. There’s apt to be some stopping and starting along the way. You gotta stay calm and roll with it so she knows you’re in it for the long haul.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Nothing for now. Give her the time she asked for, and be patient with her. It would’ve been a lot to process without Gavin’s unfortunately timed comments.”
“Thanks, Skeet.”
“Any time,” he said with a smile, seeming pleased to know that his words had brought comfort to Nolan.
“What’re you doing here anyway?”
“I got a coupla things to finish that didn’t get done during the week, and Dude is off at her sister’s place today, so I figured I’d work while I had the time. If that’s all right with you.”
“You getting responsible in your old age?”
“Shit, boy . . . Don’t get too excited.”
Nolan laughed, which thirty minutes ago he wouldn’t have thought possible. “At least it isn’t religion.”
Skeeter let go with a barking laugh. “No prayer of that happening.”
“The church is better off without you.”
“You know it. Don’t sit around here fretting. Go find something productive to do with all that energy you got zipping around inside you.”
“Thanks again for covering this weekend.”
Skeeter waved off his thanks. “Any time. By the way, Dude said you
can have the puppy Wednesday. I figured you’d want to wait until after next weekend’s events to bring him home.” Nolan had finally told Skeeter about the plans for Homer’s funeral.
Nolan wondered if it was still a good idea to get the puppy for Hannah, but he’d deal with that after Homer’s funeral. “You figured right. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Might be afternoon. I wouldn’t want to be too reliable.”
Nolan laughed and stepped into the waning afternoon light. He dropped the mail into the outgoing box and walked to his truck. The hell with it, he thought, heading for home despite the expectation that Vernon would show up again soon looking for more money.
He had a ton of wood he could split for next weekend to keep the fire pit going. That was something he could do for Hannah while he waited to hear if all they were going to get was one amazing weekend together.
• • •
After Nolan left, Hannah wandered aimlessly through the big house, trying to think about anything other than what Gavin had implied. She knew Nolan was right, and that Gavin’s harsh words had come from a place of grief rather than anger. However, that he was hurting over something she had done was impossible for her to handle on top of the other recent changes in her life.
She started a load of laundry and curled up in bed to reread Caleb’s journals, flipping through each page slowly so as to absorb every word. Then she took some time to record the latest events in her own journal, something she’d done just about every day of her life since a teacher suggested she keep a journal in sixth grade. The crazy hours she and Nolan had kept during the weekend caught up to her, and she dozed off for a while.
The dream started slowly, wrapping around her subconscious subtly, the same way Nolan had over the last couple of years while she knew he was waiting patiently for her. He wasn’t patient in the dream. Rather, he was passionate and loving, his body wrapped around hers from behind as he slid into her with slow, sensual strokes while his hands cupped her breasts and teased her nipples.
Hannah woke up gasping, on the verge of release, an insistent throb between her legs reminding her of the pleasure she’d known in his arms. She wanted to call him and beg him to forgive her for sending him away, but she couldn’t get her leaden limbs to move to reach for the phone.
