From the Moment We Met

by Adair, Marina

  She was offering a sincere gesture of friendship and love. A gesture he wasn’t sure he deserved. Because while he’d been keeping Ferris’s offer close to his chest, waiting to figure out the best scenario that ended with Abby in his life, she’d been pouring everything into these sketches.

  “Abby, about Oakwood, I uh—”

  Her face fell, then went absolutely pale and she took a step back. “You hate them.” She swallowed and forced a smile. “Which is okay, I mean, like I said, I was just throwing some ideas on paper to—”

  He pulled her to him and kissed her because she was breaking his heart. Or maybe that was his heart breaking.

  “I love them,” he whispered against her lips.

  She pulled back and damn, those eyes went straight through to his heart. “I love you, Jack.”

  And there it was. The one thing he’d been waiting forever to hear and was terrified of knowing. Out there between them, and Tanner felt his chest fill until it was too tight to breathe, let alone speak.

  Abby loved him. The girl he’d been waiting most of his life to be seen by finally saw him. Not his money or his ring or the person he put out there for the world to notice. Nope, she saw him, flaws and all, and she loved him anyway. It was right there in her eyes. Maybe it always had been and he’d just been too stupid and scared to acknowledge it.

  “I’m moving to Santa Barbara,” he said.

  She stepped back as though he’d just punched her right through the chest and ripped her heart out.

  “Wait, that came out wrong, I’m just nervous because . . .” When her lower lip began to tremble he blurted out, “but I have a plan. To make this work.”

  Her face softened and her smile trembled, but it was the good kind of tremble. The kind that told him he got this right. “You want me to move to Santa Barbara with you?”

  “What? No. I want to live here, in St. Helena.” She looked as confused as he felt. “Ferris called and offered us the chance to build out the other property, which means I’ll be living in Santa Barbara during the week. But I checked and it is only a six-hour drive, which means if I take off early on Fridays I could make it home in time to take you to dinner.”

  “So you’re moving to Santa Barbara and you want to come back to St. Helena on the weekends?”

  “Yeah.” But she didn’t seem to be as excited as he’d expected. In fact, she looked close to tears—and not the good kind. Maybe it was the bad delivery or that she’d shocked him with the whole I love you and he was reading this all wrong.

  When she still wasn’t smiling, he took her hands, wanting her to feel what she meant to him, to let her know he was committed to making this work. Committed to them. People did the long distance thing all the time. She was the reason he’d come back here.

  “Colin and I were counting on this coming through, so as soon as we finish your brothers’ wine cave, our calendar is clean.” He intertwined their fingers, loving how delicate and elegant hers felt in his big, calloused ones. “I want this to work, Abs. I want to see where this goes. I want to be with you.”

  “But you won’t,” she said, pulling her hand away. “You’ll be in Santa Barbara and I’ll be here. How is that ‘seeing where this goes’?”

  “This is only for eighteen months, twenty-four tops.” What part of this was she not getting? “Ferris shoulders all the risk, and Colin and I get to learn from the best. It’s a win-win.”

  “A win-win,” she said so quietly he barely heard her. “What about your win? What about Oakwood?”

  “It will still be there when we’re done.” Even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true, and he had a sick feeling if he walked away, he was walking away from more than a development and it would never be the same. “It’s a really big opportunity, Abs.”

  He watched her throat bob on a hard swallow. “Then I think you should take it. It’s what you want.”

  Tanner’s heart stopped. “Why does that sound like a good-bye?”

  “Because it is,” Abby said, and to her credit, she didn’t look away once. She held his gaze as her eyes welled and tip of her nose turned pink and she shattered his heart. “Because I guess I thought the big opportunity was here,” she touched his chest—right where it hurt the most, “between us. And to me it’s worth more than rotating weekends and holidays.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Abby sat on the bottom step of her front porch, knees pulled to her chest, and wiped her eyes with her shoulder. No matter how hard she tried to pull it together, the waterworks refused to stop, which made her mad because they were ruining her aim.

  With a quick sniff, she lifted her slingshot, pulled back, and let it rip. The nail sailed through the air, hitting with enough force to shatter a baseball-sized chunk out of Richard’s upper right thigh.

  “Stupid tears,” she mumbled, picking up another nail from the jar, angry she’d missed. She’d been aiming a little higher and to the left. Dead center, actually, trying to take out St. Helena’s most infamous Dick.

  She pulled back and—

  “Ahhh!” She stomped her foot and her slippers let out a fierce growl.

  It had been the perfect shot, but a tremor left over from sobbing shook her shoulders as she went to let go and it flew high, particles of his nose shattering and littering the grass. Undiscouraged, since she had another three hundred nails and bolts in her arsenal and a line of credit at the hardware store, she blinked back the tears and grabbed two bolts.

  “You could knock it all off in one whack if you want.” Nora stood on Abby's walkway dressed in a pair of bright yellow coveralls and a matching sun hat, wielding a sledgehammer fit for Thor. “I saw you talking to some overclassed lady this morning, could smell her perfume all the way through my closed windows.”

  “Yeah, that was Richard’s grandmother.”

  Nora harrumphed. “Figured as much. No person with any sense would invade the neighborhood at such an ungodly hour, only to start harping and wailing for all the town to hear. It’s un-American. Considered citing her for being a public pain in the ass but didn’t know how international law would handle a GN violation.”

  “She came, she saw, she took his ashes, and when she learned the money was gone, she disappeared in a flash.” And in true Moretti fashion, left all of the messy stuff behind for Abby to clean up—one piece at a time.

  Nora held out the sledgehammer. “Again, one good whack and it will all be over.”

  That’s what she’d thought about one good cry, and yet here she was out of tissues and looking like Rudolph.

  “Every party needs a piñata. Even a pity party,” Nora added.

  Suddenly, Abby wanted to take that whack, because she wanted, more than anything, for it to all be over. She wanted the anger and sadness and that dark space that filled her chest until there was no room for anything else to go away so she could breathe again without feeling like it was her last breath.

  Worse, she wanted it to be Tanner on her walkway with his sledgehammer, offering to help her get rid of her past once and for all and help her pick up the broken pieces so they could start their future. Together.

  Only he didn’t want together, he wanted weekends and holidays.

  “And then what?” she asked, looking at her neighbor. And there went the waterworks again, because one final swing and Richard would be gone and Abby would finally be free.

  And Tanner would be in Santa Barbara. Off living his next big opportunity, moving on to another chapter in his life without her. Something she should be used to by now. Her parents moved on, Richard moved on, and now Tanner was moving again. And for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why she was so easy to leave behind.

  “Depends on what you want,” Nora said, leaning the sledgehammer against the porch rail and taking a seat next to Abby.

  She wanted to be important enough to keep. Important enough so that m
oving on without her was not an option. She wanted Tanner to finally step up and fight for her.

  “I want to leave my mark,” she finally said. Not on a vineyard or a cheese shop or even on Oakwood. She wanted to leave her mark on Tanner’s heart—the same way he’d left one on hers. Not the gaping hole she felt now, but the warm, wonderful feeling that happened whenever he smiled at her or just held her hand.

  “Well,” Nora said, picking up the sledgehammer. “You want to sit there crying about it or be bold? That house didn’t come from wallowing after my first husband died. No siree, the day he died, you know what I did?”

  “Buried him with a bag of dog poop?”

  “No, but I should have.” Nora gave a rare smile. “I went down and bought this here sledgehammer and knocked down every wall in that library, then I built a workshop and started making these little mailboxes shaped like houses and selling them around town.”

  “You made those?” Abby gestured to the mailbox on Nora’s front lawn then spread her hand to encompass the mailboxes on nearly every house on the block. All unique, but all by the same craftsman.

  “Every single one. Including the one you tore down the first day you moved in.” Nora gave her a stern look. “I sold it to Mr. Withers back in fifty-eight. He was my first customer.”

  “It was rotted and housing a family of mice,” Abby started to explain, then caught herself. It didn’t matter why—she had destroyed Nora’s first mark on the world. “I’m sorry, Nora.”

  “No matter now, I already started building you a new one.”

  Abby felt her eyes well up again, this time from gratitude. “Thank you.”

  “You might want to wait until you see the bill before you go thanking me.” Nora stood, handing her the sledge. “Now, you going to be bold and make your mark? Because my suggestion is to start with one right between his legs.”

  Abby wiped her eyes and grabbed the hammer. The heavy steel in her hand was cold and smooth and made her feel bold. Made her want to stand up to all the crap in her life and make her mark in one swing.

  Remembering how Trey had taught her to hold a bat, she choked up on the handle, pulled back, and with a little hop to get going, she took off in a sprint. Battle cry in full effect, Abby used the momentum of her body as she took aim. Aiming higher than she’d originally planned, high enough to leave her mark on every last piece of his chest so he’d know what it felt like to have it shattered.

  Hands shaking, heart in her throat, Abby swung that sledgehammer with everything she had left in her. Swung with enough force to push all the way through and come out the other side.

  A crash sounded and her body rebounded from the impact, but she kept going, forced herself to hold on and finish.

  “Direct hit,” Nora hollered, pumping her fist in the air.

  Another loud crack echoed through the cul-de-sac as the hammer crashed right through the back side of the marble, shards of rock splintering and shattering in every which direction. Pelting her hands, her face, scattering across the front lawn and down to the sidewalk.

  Breathing heavily, tears streaming down her face, Abby stood there watching as the massive statue teetered back and forth, slowly picking up enough momentum to crash to the grass with a giant thud.

  Sweat beading on her skin, blood pounding in her ears, Abby stood with the hammer hanging limply in her hand and looked down at the hundreds and hundreds of pieces of the worst mistake of her life.

  “Well, would you look at that?” Nora said, coming up beside her. “The damn thing was hollow.”

  “I know,” Abby said, laughing at the irony. She laughed so hard she started crying, then she was so tired she sat down. Right there on the lawn, surrounded by a million pieces of her marriage.

  Piece by shattered piece, Abby would have to clean up the mess, just like she had after her parents died, after Tanner went to Buffalo, after Richard left her holding the empty vows of their marriage and an even emptier bank bag. And Abby was tired.

  Tired of picking up all the pieces by herself. Tired of grinning and bearing it when her life was one big gigantic mess. Tired of being too scared to be bold. Tired of feeling empty and hollow, because she didn’t want to be that person anymore. She wanted to be happy.

  She wanted to be with Tanner.

  Abby looked at the beautiful yellow Victorian next door with its picket fence and manicured lawn, then to the mailbox sitting charmingly at the curb. And she knew what she had to do.

  Wiping her face on her shirt, Abby stood and handed the sledgehammer to Nora. Then she hugged her. Nora stood there taking it with as much dignity as she could muster until the older woman finally gave in and hugged Abby back.

  “Thank you,” Abby said, kissing the older woman on the cheek. Then with a lightness to her step she hadn’t felt since the night of the accident, she walked toward her house.

  “Where you going?” Nora hollered after her.

  Abby hopped up the front steps, purpose in her strides. “Shopping.”

  “Shopping? For what? A bulldozer?” Nora sounded horrified. “What you need is to clean up this eyesore so you can get down to that cheese shop you been hemming and hawing about. The HPC will be coming through to make the announcement in just a few hours. You’ve made your first mark, Abigail DeLuca, it’s time you made your next.”

  “Which is why I’ve got to get a dress first.” Abby stopped on the top step and turned to smile at the most unlikely of allies. “I’ve knocked down the walls, Nora, now it’s time to build my home.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Where’s Abby?” Babs said, nerves wearing at her normally sunny smile.

  She’s not coming, Tanner thought, taking a sip of scotch and setting it back on the counter.

  Beer wasn’t going to cut it tonight.

  Nope, tonight he stood at the back of the Pungent Barrel, watching Nora and the rest of the Historical Preservation Committee examine every inch of the room, pointing out the ingenuity behind the wine bottle chandeliers, admiring every little historical detail Abby had maintained, knowing by the way their eyes kept lighting up that they’d won. Yet all he could think about was the enormous knot in his chest.

  It would almost be easier to give up breathing than face another minute there, in a place where every inch reminded him of what he’d lost. He knew she’d been by today—the flowers and last-minute decor had magically appeared when he’d taken a short break for lunch. But he hadn’t seen her. And not wanting to take anything away from her on this special night, he had given her the space she obviously desired.

  “She’s not here,” Tanner said, taking another sip, letting it burn down his throat. “Maybe give her a call.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Babs said, wringing her hands. “The committee has their decision, and they have a representative at each of the finalists’ homes. Waiting. Nora asked me ten minutes ago where Abby was, said they need the designer present to announce the winner. Oh, look, Ferris is here.”

  Babs pointed to her son standing near Gus, who was stoically listening to every word Ferris said, which were likely about himself. If he was trying to win any points with Babs, it was working. The woman sighed and clasped her heart. Tanner rolled his eyes.

  “I’ll go call her,” Babs said. “Tonight is going to be perfect. In fact, thanks to you and Abby, everything is perfect just like I dreamed. Thank you.” With a kiss to his cheek—which felt damn good, if he were being honest—Babs disappeared into the crowd.

  And it was a crowd. Most of the town had turned out. Partly to see the new cheese shop, but mainly to see if the rumors were true that Abigail DeLuca had really managed to raise the Titanic. The surprise was on them that she hadn’t raised it—she had utterly transformed it.

  Just like she’d transformed him. Only she wasn’t here to witness either miracle.

  Someone entered the shop and Tanner’s g
aze flew to the door. He held his breath as a beautiful brunette in a long black gown entered—a beautiful brunette who wasn’t Abby.

  “Fuck me,” he mumbled, taking another sip.

  “If we aren’t getting any, then you sure as hell aren’t,” Marc said, walking up behind him, Nate and Trey in tow.

  “Great.” Just great, he thought as they sidled up to the bar, pressing in around him like one big DeLuca sandwich with a smear of pissed-off Italian. “After weeks of silence, you guys decide to start talking to me now?”

  “Against our better judgment, yes,” Nate said, flagging down the waiter and gesturing for another round of scotch.

  “I want to take you outside and kick the shit out of you for making my sister cry, but Frankie will have my balls,” Nate said, sending him a look that spoke volumes.

  “She already has you by the balls,” Trey laughed.

  “Abby was crying?” Tanner asked, then shut up because he already knew. Tears had been right there in her eyes, ready to spill over the second she slammed the door in his face. He’d sat outside on her stoop, waiting to see if she’d change her mind and invite him back in, waiting with his ear pressed to the door, listening to make sure she was okay, telling himself at the first hint of a sniffle he’d break down the damn door. But he’d heard nothing.

  Around four in the morning he was finished being that ten-year-old kid, sitting on the front porch waiting for his mom to come home and not knowing why she didn’t. So he dragged his sorry ass home, where he lay in bed staring at the ceiling until morning trying to figure out what he’d done wrong.

  And he’d come up short.

  Sure, the game plan had changed, but he’d been honest from the start about working with Ferris, about how important this could be for Tanner Construction. It wasn’t his fault Ferris decided to move the project to Santa Barbara. Or that she didn’t see enough in him to think they could last through the distance.