Finding Solace: A Small Town Second Chance Romance

by S. L. Scott

  “I didn’t want to bring you anymore pain, especially on your wedding day.”

  Her feet touch the ground, but her arms stay around me. “So much has changed yet so much is still the same, but I see you. I see how you hide inside your thoughts. I see how you watch, how you tick the boxes everywhere we go. I see you putting on an act that you’re the same guy we used to know. I see you, Jason Koster. The real you. That’s the man I love. Your secrets don’t scare me, but the reality of what they are, do. I can’t turn my love on and off for you. There’s always a steady stream when it comes to us, but I need time to understand, to learn more about the life you left behind. It doesn’t have to be today, but promise me that you’ll never lie to me, and you won’t keep your secrets bottled up inside.”

  “I’ll make that promise if it means I get you.”

  “I’m not a prize. I never was. But I like who I am these days, and I like you too much not to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  My body relaxes, knowing this isn’t the end and that maybe we can get past this.

  She’s so damn strong or stubborn. Either way, I’m in love with this woman and so damn grateful. “I want to hear more, but maybe we can finish this over lunch. I’m starved, and I never expected to actually hear what you’ve been doing,” she says.

  “If it makes you feel better, it wasn’t all bad. I was a stuntman in Hollywood on two films. And a bodyguard for a visiting dignitary in San Francisco for a couple of weeks, which is how I met the woman who became my boss for almost two years.”

  Her mouth is hanging open again. I lift her chin to close her mouth, but she asks, “How close were you to this boss?”

  “It wasn’t like that. It was strictly professional.”

  “Stuntman, mercenary, and bodyguard. Is that all?”

  Despite the sarcasm of her question, I continue, “Oh, and I worked at a mini-mart for a few months in a small town in the mountains.”

  “Okay. This is a lot to process.”

  “Not the stuntman or the mercenary, but the mini-mart is what took it over the top?”

  She laughs, rubbing her temples. “Anything else I need to know right now?”

  “I was shot once.”

  Her eyebrows rise in surprise, and she takes a deep breath to release the tension. “Good Lord. I did not see that coming. Are you okay?”

  Turning toward the truck, I wrap my arm around her shoulders, and we start walking. “I’m better now.”

  19

  Delilah

  Sitting in the kitchen eating lunch, we’ve not suffered from a lack of conversation. “Is that scar on your leg from when you were shot?”

  “Yes.” He bends down and rubs over the spot. “It was just a graze that became a story to tell.”

  “It’s still pink. You were shot recently?”

  As I watch him shift in the chair, his discomfort is still noticeable. He doesn’t avoid any of my questions, though. I’ve made a few observations over the past two weeks that I’ve determined are fact as of today. Jason is not the carefree boy from my youth when his biggest worry was a game of football on a Friday night.

  He’s now a man who has struggled and fought with many demons. And most likely alone. As much as I hate that he’s capable of killing someone, I’ve learned that sometimes things in life are not as black and white as we’ve grown up to believe. How many times had I wished Cole dead after he took out his “justified anger”—as he called it—on me?

  After exhaling and sitting back, he says, “A couple of months ago.”

  My throat tightens, and I grip the sides of my chair. “You came back because you were almost killed.” I’m not asking, but I can see I’ve stumbled onto the truth.

  He nods. “Even though this is only a graze, there were times I didn’t think I would live to see daylight. Near-death experiences make you grateful for another opportunity to make things right in your life.”

  I relate to this too well. “Your turn.”

  “Tell me about the tattoo. You didn’t have that when we were together. What made you get it when we weren’t?”

  It’s a fair question. I was just hoping for more time before addressing it. But how can I complain when he’s already opened up so much to me? I can’t. After the heaviness outside this morning, I’m just going to be straightforward and rip the Band-Aid off this sore subject. “Cole had been pressuring me to get his name tattooed somewhere on my body.”

  Jason growls under his breath. “He was pressuring you?” His gaze lengthens over my head as he slowly exhales. I can see the way the muscles in his arms tighten and would be willing to wager that his hands are fisting under the table.

  His reaction gives me pause to continue. Although his jobs had nothing to do with me, this has everything to do with him. “Back then, I didn’t understand how he was twisting things to make me his, but it makes so much sense to me now.”

  “You used the word prize earlier. You were a prize to him. He used to tell me how lucky I was to have you, but he didn’t mean having a girlfriend. He meant you specifically.”

  “He wasted no time, Jason. One moment, I only saw him when out with you, and the next, he was over every night offering a shoulder for me to cry on. That’s when the stories started about you and the other girls, although he’d already whispered a few before we broke up. He told me story after story about how much he had loved me for so many years, and how he was so disgusted that you, his best friend and my boyfriend, would cheat on me. That no woman of his would ever know such betrayal. That he would look after me because no man around here would look at me twice after being with you.”

  “Delilah . . .” It’s as if his frustration and pain have collided, and he pushes up, letting the feet of the chair skid against the linoleum. With his hands pressed to the edge of the sink, he stares out the window. His anger feeds the shame I feel inside for falling for it. But then he turns around, and says, “You had no reason to doubt him.”

  “I had you. That was reason enough.” I shake off my own pain. “No one came near me once I was with him, so I guess I proved his theory true. He was an enemy in disguise.” I’ve never spoken these words out loud and for good reason. “I feel like such a fool.”

  “Trusting someone isn’t a flaw. You saw the good in him—”

  “And the bad that wasn’t true in you. Why are you defending him?”

  “Defending him? Is that what you think? I’m not fucking defending him. I’m defending you. You were told lies from a trusted ally.”

  I didn’t have to believe him, but we’re going in circles. Jason gives me more credit than I’m due. Pushing my plate away, I look down at the years of scratches on the table. “He came home drunk one night. That wasn’t unusual. It must be hard to live in the lies of screwing over the people who once cared about you. Anyway, the guys had been teasing him that he got your sloppy seconds.” Just saying that phrase makes me feel cheap. “That’s what I was relegated to in this town. Not the girl who made good grades or who was a cheerleader. I wasn’t even a former beauty queen to them anymore. I was Jason Koster’s sloppy seconds.” I cringe when the words reach my ears again.

  I dare to peek up at him. His breathing is deep, his arms crossed defensively, but worry is seen in the depths of those whiskey-colored eyes. Before he can say anything, I do. “We had a huge argument. That was the first time he ever slapped me. He’d been rough before but had never gone that far.”

  “Hitting a woman doesn’t make him a man or more powerful. It makes him a coward.” His knuckles whiten from gripping the counter on either side of him. Our eyes meet, and I stand before him wishing I could change everything that tainted us back then. I can’t, so I’ll live, survive like I’ve been doing. “I’m here, and I’m okay.”

  His silence is eerie as his gaze shifts from me to the table. He’s still, so still I almost back away, but I’m not afraid of him. I want to soothe that anger away. Just as I reach for him, he says, “Do you know how much it kills me
that you were ever touched by him? In any way. I will never understand how he could hurt you like that.” It hurts to see him in so much pain, especially because of me.

  I cover his hands and tilt my middle to rest against his legs, wanting this connection to give me strength. “You’re not to blame. I know you want to take fault because you weren’t here, but I don’t blame you. That sits squarely on my shoulders. I’m still so angry with myself that I got mixed up with him in the first place.”

  “Because he twisted shit around to look like a hero. He took one fight between you and me, a fight that never should have happened, and worked it to his advantage. But if I would have fought harder for us—”

  I’m hugging him, my head against his chest, but I can’t keep my eyes off him for long, needing to see every reaction and emotion flickering through his eyes. The anguish he wrestles with, the guilt that seems to fill him, comes in waves of rage, and I feel it too. I understand. I’ve been there. I’m still in that catastrophe, if I’m being honest. “We can’t go back and change those things.”

  My arms are around his neck, and his hands find my lower back. I always did love our size difference. Even though he’s still hard in all the right ways, we fit together like two puzzle pieces. “I never stopped thinking about you. I never thought I had a chance of getting you back. If I’d known you weren’t living the life you wanted, I would have been here. If I’d known he hurt you, I would have killed him.”

  “Don’t say that.” Though if I admitted my darkest secret, it would be one and the same. “What am I going to do with you?” When his arms tighten around me, I have the same thoughts I’m sure he does. I crack a smile. “We can’t solve our problems between the sheets.”

  He tilts his head to the side, a smirk spreading across his lips. “You sure about that?”

  “Despite the heavy topics, I’ve not been this happy in years.”

  He runs the back of his fingers along my cheekbone and then kisses the corner of my mouth. “We’ll get through this together.” I love how much he loves touching me, looking at me like I might disappear if he’s not watching. I never felt this with Cole. I doubt I ever loved him, or him me. When I look at the adoration on Jason’s face when he looks at me, how he cherishes me as if there is no other choice but to do so, I see the difference.

  I love him. Soul deep.

  “What happened with the tattoo of his name?”

  Not every detail is needed. Knowing the danger this man can be, I realize it’s best to keep this on the surface. Playing with the hem of his shirt, the same damn shirt that’s hiding the good stuff underneath, I reply, “After he hit me, he told me I would get it done or he’d hold me down and do it himself.” Jason’s hands aren’t tight, but I feel his fingers flex around my waist. “I had already planned to visit Shelby the following weekend, so I promised I’d get one while there. Shelby and I were blowing off steam, laughing and drinking. I never felt better than when I was away from him. One night, when we got drunk, we passed a tattoo parlor. I took his threat seriously and decided I would stick to my side of the bargain. I would be in control of anything permanent added to my body. I think you can see the error in my thinking while drunk.”

  Exhaling loudly, I know how bad this sounds, but I tell it how it was. “I told them to tattoo my husband’s jersey number.”

  Understanding passes through him and all the tension that was straining his muscles moments before eases. The figure eights he was drawing on my back stops, and he says, “Eight is a long way from twenty-two.”

  “It sure is, but like I said, I was drunk.”

  “You keep saying you were drunk. Did you tell them my number on purpose, or was the alcohol to blame?”

  “I blame the alcohol?” Closing my eyes, I shake my head.

  “Are you asking me?”

  “No. I do blame the booze.”

  He smiles. “You know what I think?” I don’t reply, instead wanting him to figure it out on his own. “I think the number eight may have accidentally slipped out, but you didn’t correct them. I have a tattoo. They don’t just ink you without a final go-ahead.”

  The gold centers of his brown eyes are bright with happiness. I want to kiss him, but I don’t want to hide behind a distraction, even if he’s hard to resist. Tapping the tip of his nose, I say, “You’re enjoying this too much.”

  “You’re right, but as much satisfaction as I’ve found in this, I imagine it didn’t go over so well once you got home.”

  “April fifteenth. The day most people dread because their taxes are due, but for me, I thought it was the last day I would ever breathe.”

  When it gets heavy, Jason needs room to process, and now is no different. He walks to the back door, but instead of looking out, he lowers his hands. The rise and fall of his torso matches the pace of his heavy breaths. As if something possesses him, he suddenly opens the door and walks out. The door is still open, and I catch the screen door before it slams shut. “Jason?”

  “How can I not kill him? How do I stand here and listen to the pain he’s caused and not want to destroy him? Tell me, Delilah, because I’m so close to following through.”

  I step outside and sit on the top step. “I know you are. I was too at one point.” I laugh humorlessly to myself. “At many points. As for you, I need you too much to let you spend your life behind bars over me.”

  He stops and looks back at me. “Billy said he took you to the ER once . . .”

  “Billy shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you can’t fix it. This anger coursing through you . . .” I take his hands to try to settle his anxious energy. “It’s fruitless. It happened, and nothing can be done about it now. I’m divorced. He’s out of my life.” I think back to finding him in my kitchen. “Hopefully for good.”

  Taking my face between his hands, he looks into my eyes and studies them as if he’s discovering new colors inside. “You don’t believe the lies you tell yourself. Why would I?”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Okay, then you’re fooling yourself into believing you’re safe when you’re not.”

  He sighs, appearing to calm down. Backing up, he goes to the back steps and sits down. “What kind of vehicle does he drive?”

  His question is so far out of left field that I struggle to link the train of thought. “Um, a Ram. A black Dodge Ram truck.”

  “Shit,” he says, looking disappointed.

  “What?”

  His body language changes, his shoulder span, a bit wider, harder like his jaw is. “I don’t think it’s a big deal, but I saw a car parked in front of the farm one night. I thought it might be Cutler.”

  “Was it a BMW?”

  His stare hits me hard, and he stands. “Yes.”

  “I forgot. He has a BMW, but he rarely drives it except for work meetings. He bought it when we were together, but we couldn’t afford it, so it became another source of contention.”

  “How often does he drive by?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve not seen him drive by, but I’m not really watching for him.”

  “The divorce has been finalized for a few months, but have you seen him since then?” When I hem too long, he says, “Tell me, Delilah.”

  Trust. Honesty. Security. No secrets. That’s what love is. “He came by the other day. It was the first time since I saw him at the courthouse.”

  Steepling his fingers together, he runs them up the bridge of his nose, struggling to contain his rage, but trying his best. This I can relate to. “He’s a fucking dead man already, so be honest with me. You didn’t burn the cobbler, and you didn’t break your mom’s plate. That’s when he was here, wasn’t it?”

  I feel ashamed that I didn’t handle myself better that night. Will Jason see how weak I really am and leave? “I told him to leave. I don’t think he’ll be back.”

  “He’ll be back. He’s obsessed with you, but I also think he’ll be back because I am. He hates los
ing, but to me, it’s as if his whole world revolves around securing that victory.”

  “He needs to hold it over your head.”

  “We won’t let him.” The vein that was bulging at his temple eases, and he asks, “Why didn’t you tell me that night at my mom’s?”

  “I knew you’d be upset.”

  “Not with you.”

  I cross the yard and lower my voice. “I knew you’d go after him, and I don’t want you getting hurt because of me.”

  The laughter comes from deep within, too big to hold inside. “Trust me, baby, he can’t hurt me.”

  “He’s volatile. Angry and possessive. He’s an alcoholic who makes everyone else pay the price for his failures. He’ll start a fight with you.”

  “Let him. I can handle Cole Cutler.”

  “Things are finally starting to settle down with him.” I pause and look away momentarily. He knows me too well and can spot when I’m lying, so I try to hide my eyes, but I can’t hide forever, and I have to share my worries with him now. “Don’t start a fight with him. Promise me,” I plead.

  “I promise I won’t start a fight with him, but I will finish one, once and for all. This has been going on too long. It’s time to put an end to it.” Pulling me into an embrace, he hugs me and then dips me. With my head resting in his hands, and my heart on the line, he says, “And I promise you right here, Delilah Noelle, I’ll give you the ending you deserve. The one we’re owed.”

  He kisses me slowly as if we have all the time in the world. Maybe it’s possible for us to find the peace we’re both searching for. It sure feels it when we kiss like this.

  When I’m lifted upright, he adds, “There are so many things I want to make right, that I want to make you proud of me for, that I want for us in this life. Thank you for giving me the chance.”

  His lips take mine, crashing our hearts, our love, our bodies together in a frenzy of passion. He gives all of himself in this kiss, and just like the first time I kissed him, I fall madly, head over heels in love with this man. It’s easy to promise my life to him with words, but we’re deeper than that. It’s not about the words or confessions, sins or pasts.