by Tabatha Kiss
Tears fill my eyes again. Regret clenches my chest but I don’t want to back down from this.
He doesn’t care?
My parents’ story is the whole reason why I let myself open up to him in the first place. It’s the basis for our entire relationship… and he doesn’t care that it was all a lie?
Nana sits quietly in her chair with one hand resting over her mouth. I look over at her but I say nothing. I don’t even know where to start.
I listen closely as Leo moves across the lawn. His truck door creaks open and closes behind him. I wait for the engine to purr but it doesn’t start. It’s just silence. Long, world-altering silence.
The truck opens again and slams closed just as fast.
I wipe my eyes and turn around to look out the window.
Leo stands on the front lawn, staring at the house with his strong arms crossed over his chest.
My brow furrows. “What is he doing?” I ask myself.
I wait for a long minute. He doesn’t move or speak or do anything. He just scans the windows with barely blinking eyes, calmly breathing in and out.
I pull open the front door and step out onto the porch. “What are you doing?” I ask him.
He stands a little taller. “I’m engaging in a silent protest,” he says.
I pause. “You’re what now?”
“I’m not leaving this spot until you agree to marry me again.”
My chest lurches. “Oh, no, you’re not!”
He digs his heels into the dirt.
“No, no,” I say, pointing a finger. “You can’t play the protest card. That’s my card.”
He doesn’t budge.
“Go home, Leo!” I shout.
“No,” he says. “I still love you. I still want to marry you. And I’m not moving until you realize how unbelievably stupid you’re being.”
I gasp. “I am not being stupid.”
“Well, you aren’t being smart.”
I stomp my foot. “You’re trespassing!”
He smirks. “Have me arrested, then.”
“You think I won’t?”
“No.” His smile deepens. “Because you taught me the value of seeing the good in people and I believe in you, Hazel Smith.”
“Ugh!” I spin around to march back into the house, slamming the door closed behind me.
I immediately double back to the window to watch him standing there with his knees locked and his light, amused eyes smiling in his damn skull.
You’ve gotta be freakin’ kidding me.
Leo Jackman.
What an idiot.
Six
Leo
Hazel Smith.
I could call her a lot of things right now. Many of which wouldn’t be nice to say in polite company, though that hasn’t really stopped me before.
Hazel’s not perfect. She’s idealistic and naïve. A bit too sweet at times but never for her own good. What she lacks in strength she more than makes up for with wit and perseverance. Just when I think about giving up, she’s there to show me that determination to keep going. She’s always been there for me. I’m not about to abandon her when she needs me the most.
Honestly, the only thing I want to call her is my wife.
I glance around the lawn, feeling more than one pair of eyes on me. Cars fly by on the street behind me, reflecting orange light from the sun setting on the horizon. Neighbors in nearby houses peek out their windows to see what’s going on. Dogs bark at the police sirens off in the distance.
Spokane, Washington. No wonder Hazel agreed to move in with me on Whitefish Lake. It’s peaceful there. Quiet with fresh air and wildlife. This city doesn’t hold a candle to the world she’s threatening to leave behind.
She’ll change her mind.
Any time now.
Hopefully, before I start to get really, really annoyed with this place.
Some curtains move in the window by the front door. Hazel made of point of closing every single one of them after bolting back inside like some kind of bank robber but the only thing she’s holding hostage in there is our future together.
And I’m the negotiator.
She’s not leaving that house. I’m not leaving this lawn.
Not until she talks to me.
I chuckle. So, this is what that feels like.
I remember staring at her from my cabin, annoyed but so utterly intrigued. Here was this girl, an absolute stranger. All she wanted was for me to take five minutes out of my life and listen to her. I didn’t. I refused until I absolutely couldn’t anymore. She wore me down. I’ll do the same.
The front door swings open, drawing my eyes up. Hazel steps out with wide eyes and a stiff jaw.
“You don’t have it in you, you know,” she says.
I smirk. “Don’t have what?”
“The patience. You’re going to give up a lot faster than I did.”
“Are you sure?”
She nods. “No doubt.” She gestures up. “It’s almost ninety degrees. You have no water, no food—”
“I have a cell phone and money,” I say. “I can order water and food.”
“Oh, so you’re going to cheat?” She shakes her head. “Not surprising considering your history with chess.”
“Okay, fine. No water, no food. But I am confident that you won’t let me starve.”
Hazel scoffs. “Wanna bet?”
“Yes. If I make it longer than you did, then you have to marry me.”
Her eyes roll back.
“Come on, Haze.” I grin. “You scared?”
She huffs in annoyance. “You have a job,” she says.
“I’m on two weeks leave for our honeymoon.”
“You have Pearl.” She steps forward. “Who’s going to take care of her?”
I shrug. “Bobby can do that.”
“Pearl hates Bobby.”
“And she loves you,” I say. “Did you think about that? Sure, she’s a dog, but she’s our dog, Hazel. She’s family and she adores you and she won’t understand this.”
Hazel’s shoulders slip an inch. “That’s not fair.”
“You’re right. It’s not. But I don’t care. Emotional appeal is the only thing that gets through to you. Logic doesn’t work. I could easily point out how many people you’d be inconveniencing and disappointing by canceling our wedding at the last minute but the only thing that’ll really twist the knife is the idea of Pearl’s little, whimpering eyes filling with sadness as I tell her she’s never going to see you again—”
“Stop that!” she shouts.
“I don’t know, Pearl,” I say. “Hazel just didn’t want you anymore.”
Her jaw drops. “Don’t tell her that!”
“I promised her you were coming home. Two more nights, I told her. Two more nights and she’d have you back. We’d be one big, happy family again.”
She looks down.
“But you know,” I continue. “She’s a dog. She’ll get over it. But I won’t. I don’t know how to live a life without you in it anymore, Hazel. Without you challenging me and comforting me and driving me fucking crazy every day. I don’t want to give that up. I don’t want to go back to the way things were before. Work, home. Work, home. I won’t give up what I have now and that’s why I’m going to stand here until I rot. You think I won’t last on your lawn for as long as you did on mine? Challenge accepted.”
“Shut up, Romeo!”
A voice cries out from somewhere down the street.
Hazel snorts but quickly lays a hand over her mouth to hide it. Her hidden smile sparks a bit of warmth in my chest and for a moment, I think she feels the same.
“And I forgive you,” I say.
Her smile drops. “You forgive me?”
“Yeah.”
“For what?”
“For...” I pause, “making me drive all the way out here for no reason, maybe?”
She clears her throat and shifts a few steps back. “Goodnight, Leo,” she mutters.
; I jut forward. “Wait, Haze. You—” The door slams behind her. “Damned woman.”
I should have just shut up when I had her smiling. I’ll have to remember that. You’d think I’d know that by now but the deep, overwhelming urge to taste my own foot won out once more.
My phone rings in my pocket. I reach for it, somehow a little hopeful that it’s Hazel, but it’s just Bobby.
I swipe it on. “Hey,” I answer.
“Any luck?” he asks.
“Honestly not sure yet.”
“Well, hang in there. You won her back before. You can do it again.”
I breathe a laugh. “I don’t think I can chop down her parents’ honeymoon tree a second time, Bob.”
“You’ll just have to think of some other wood you can give her, then. And fast. It was easy to come up with excuses for your absence today but tomorrow is gonna be tricky...”
“We’ll...”
I pause as I brush my hand along my back pocket. I fish inside, feeling for the small lump with my fingertips.
“You still there, Leo?” Bobby asks.
I pull out my pocket knife. Hazel got this one for me two Christmases ago. She thought it was a dumb gift — especially after I just bought her a house — but I loved it. I still do.
“We’ll be there,” I say before hanging up.
I palm the knife and walk over to my truck. I peek inside the windows, scanning the seats in the back until they fall on the small, plastic bag on the floor.
I pull open the door and step in to reach for it. It crinkles and tears as I try to pull it free from the back, spilling the contents out onto the floor. A few old tools, a jar of nails.
A little block of basswood.
I take it with me and sit down on the lawn. With the block nestled in my palm and the knife in my other hand, I start shaping the piece as I listen to the sounds of the city passing by around me.
Seven
Hazel
It didn’t break them.
Four little words that kept me up all night. My parents defied all odds, went against everything everyone ever told them to be together. People told them they were insane. You can’t marry a person you just met. You don’t even know them. How can you trust them? They’re hiding something. They want something. Break it off and don’t get married.
It didn’t break them.
My mother made a mistake. For all I know, my father did, too. The others won. They were right. They couldn’t trust each other. My mother was hiding something. But...
It didn’t break them.
I sit on my front porch, watching the sun slowly rise over my old home. More cars pass by each minute, people hustling to make their morning commutes and send the kids off to summer camp and daycare. Those who happen to walk by notice the bearded man sleeping on my lawn but they don’t say anything. It’s none of their business, after all.
I hold a cup of cold coffee in one hand and my mother’s diary in the other.
Leo stirs, subconsciously reaching beneath his head to fluff the non-existent pillow. Honestly, I’m not at all surprised he spent the night here. It’s what I did, though I’m a little jealous that he didn’t have to worry about bears eating him in his sleep.
As reality dawns on him, Leo opens his eyes and looks down the street.
“Hey, Leo,” I say, raising my mug to take a sip from the old coffee.
He looks at me as he sits up. “Hazel,” he says, yawning.
“Did you sleep well?”
He stretches his back. “You kidding? I could do this all week.”
My lips twitch as he turns his stiff neck. He’s not lying, either. He will do this all week, all month if he has to.
I could make him prove it. Or I could accept the inevitable.
I set the mug down on the porch. “You were right,” I say.
His brow arches. “Say that again.”
My head tilts. “I shouldn’t be trying to live up to some fairy tale. I should just get over it and move on.”
He glances from me to the diary. “Haze—”
“Just let me say this, please,” I say.
He nods and shifts to face me on the grass.
I heave a weak breath. “I tried to read more. I tried to find out all the answers. Did my dad know? Did she fall in love with this other guy? Did she ever come clean? In the end, I don’t want to know. Because you’re right, it didn’t make a difference to them, so why should it make a difference to me? I based my life on this idea of true love and that there would always be someone out there for me. But, you’re right, Leo. There is no such thing as true love.”
His head tilts. “I didn’t say that.”
“I should stop trying to live up to this impossible ideal and just… live.” I look at my hands. “But I don’t know how to do that.”
Leo exhales. “So… are we getting married today?” he asks. “Yes or no?”
I don’t answer. I hesitate, torn between two powerful paths.
He stands up and reaches into his pocket. “I’m going back to Whitefish,” he says, stepping closer. “I’m going to take a long, hot shower to wash this city stench off me. Then, I’m going to put on my tuxedo, I’m going to stand in front of the dock at sunset, and I’m going to wait for you.”
I open my mouth to speak but I fall silent as he pulls an object from his pocket.
A chess piece carved from wood. A small bride with a bouquet of roses.
My heart skips.
Leo sets it down in my open palm. “I can’t tell you what we’ll be like five years from now,” he says. “Your parents didn’t know that, either, but they still went for it. They stayed together. For better or worse, they stayed together.”
I turn the piece over in my hand, admiring the details of her wedding dress and her little face and the flowers in her hands.
“Hazel, we’re gonna screw up,” he continues. “We’re gonna get frustrated with each other and we’re gonna fight. God knows we already bicker enough already, but just know... that whatever happens, I’ll stay. That’s what true love is. You don’t run. You stay. And I want to stay with you.”
He turns and takes short strides toward his truck.
I run my finger along the piece, feeling the little notches and cuts, all the little details that make it come alive.
“Leo...” I say, my voice breaking.
“What?” he asks, his hand hovering over the door handle.
I stand up, nearly fumbling on quaking knees. His eyes flash a glimmer of hope as I walk toward him across the short lawn.
I extend my hand and he opens his as I drop the piece into his palm.
“This looks nothing like me,” I say.
His frown fades into a look of surprise. “I carved it at night,” he says. “In the dark. You’re lucky she has a head.”
I turn up my nose. “Is this what you think my dress looks like? I’m not a nun.”
“No, I have no idea what your dress looks like. I had to make it up and this looks nothing like a nun’s habit.”
“Then, what’s that?” I tease, pointing toward the head.
“It’s a veil!”
“Really?” I look again. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t whittle a translucent veil into a basswood block,” he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’ll try harder next time.”
“And I’m wearing my hair up, not down.”
His lips curl. “Are you?”
“Well, yeah. It’s an outdoor wedding in the middle of summer. The last thing I want to mess with is humidity.”
He exhales slowly and takes a quick step forward. I stiffen as he rests his hands on my hips and pulls me closer.
“Leo...” I warn, leaning back. “It’s not the wedding night yet—”
“I don’t care.”
He picks me up and crushes his mouth on mine, seducing me with the gentle tug of his teeth on my lips.
My urges ignite with the scratch of his beard on my face, fillin
g me with warmth and comfort. I let the feeling overwhelm me. Tears spill down my cheeks and I cling to him as if he could disappear at any moment.
Leo pulls away but he keeps his strong arms latched around me. “Why are you crying?” he asks with a chuckle.
I sniff. “Because I’m sorry.”
He kisses my forehead. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I’m an emotionally immature brat.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m used to it.”
“No, you were right,” I interrupt. “I’m sorry and I won’t do anything like this ever again.”
He snorts. “Yes, you will.”
“No, I won’t. I was wrong.”
“Hazel...”
“What?”
“Shut up and King me.”
I smile. We kiss again, laughing hard. I throw my arms around his neck, squeezing tight enough to hurt him but he doesn’t even wince.
“I love you, Leonard Jackman,” I say against his lips.
“Leo,” he corrects with annoyance.
I chuckle. “I know.”
He sets me down, still staring into my eyes with devious lust but he holds back. “I love you, Hazel Smith,” he says. “And I forgive you.”
My brow furrows. “Don’t start—”
He kisses me again, easily silencing me as his tongue takes over mine.
Eight
Leo
“Do you, Leonard Jackman, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
I inhale a deep breath, once again feeling time stand still as I look down at Hazel. Water slaps lightly against the dock nearby. Sounds of wildlife echo around us. Orange light from the setting sun brightens Hazel’s face as she smiles up at me.
Well, she was right about one thing. That chess piece I carved doesn’t look a thing like her right now. Her dress is tight, but elegant, with a flowing skirt that extends back toward Claudia. Her hair is styled up with godly perfection. Bright eyes and pink cheeks. I can’t take my eyes off her. I haven’t since the moment she walked out of the house and down the aisle, given away by her grandmother. I can hardly even breathe.
Moore clears his throat. “Leo? Did you need me to repeat the question?”
