Don't Be Afraid

by C. A. Harms

  To my beautiful Angel

  I’m not sure how I’d missed the envelope before. With shaky hands I flipped the envelope over and loosened the seal, then lowered myself to the bed and unfolded it, my heart racing with the idea of what it held.

  You are the one woman who has held my heart from the moment I first saw her. There was no hope for me, no way I could deny the impact you had just from seeing you. You are gorgeous inside and out, and you are my heart and my everything.

  I’ve spent the last few months watching you grow with our child. The times when you thought no one was looking when you’d place your hands over your small stomach and close your eyes for a moment, and your lips would move like you were saying the smallest of prayers. Each gesture only made me fall in love with you all over again. You’ve always been beautiful to me, Sawyer. I’ve been mesmerized by the beauty those moments held.

  I know there will be so many things I’ll miss leaving this world, but knowing you’ll have our child to comfort you helps. Knowing you two will have each other is like a weight lifted off my shoulders.

  You’re an amazing woman, Sawyer. One built of strength and compassion. I know the future holds times where you’ll feel as if you can’t go on, but somehow through it all you’ll thrive. You’ll hold your head high and be the mother you were born to be.

  That emptiness inside you will heal, and one day I hope you’ll find the strength inside to live on without sadness or guilt. I know you don’t like to talk about it, but please know that I want you to find love again. The love you’ve shown me over the years is too powerful, too perfect to hide.

  Don’t be afraid to fall in love again, baby, please.

  I only ask that you do one thing for me. Don’t settle. You deserve the world, my angel, and I want you to find a man that sees this too. Because if he can’t love you the way I’ve loved you all these years, then, sweet girl, you aren’t living the life you deserve.

  You falling in love again in no way means you’ve forgotten me. I know you love me and that you always will. Our love was so great that what we’ve shared will never be forgotten. Just be happy, Sawyer, and live. You and Abigail deserve love and I want you to find that great love again. Be free and celebrate me. Don’t mourn me. And know that I’ll be forever by your side watching over you and Abigail. For you will both forever be my girls.

  With love always,

  Patrick

  I couldn’t breathe. Tears streamed along my cheeks and dripped from my jaw, and I did nothing to stop them.

  He was right. With time, I had found the strength to move forward, to live on. The idea of loving someone again didn’t terrify me as much as it had before. But reading his words and knowing he wrote them while he was probably only a few feet away from me both broke my heart and gave me strength.

  I don’t know how long I sat on my bed, holding Pat’s letter. I wasn’t even thinking about the people outside my room who were celebrating the life of the little girl Patrick and I created. I just needed this time.

  Chapter 32

  Gage

  “Well, look who’s back.” Eric stood from the chair in the small kitchen at the station and moved toward me. “Just to visit or are you back for good this time?” He leaned in and gave me a one-armed hug, slapping my shoulder.

  “I was thinking I’d stick around,” I offered with a chuckle. “I think if I’d decided to stay gone any longer, my mother would have killed me.”

  “Does the captain know?”

  “He knows and he’s still deciding if he’s got a space available for the man who left him for a long-ass extended vacation.” Captain Royce’s voice echoed through the kitchen of the station.

  I tossed a grin in his direction and found him struggling to hold back his own. “Vacations consist of long nights filled with drinks and relaxation, not days of sweat and exhaustion.”

  I’d intended to only be gone a month, that was true. But call me a sucker, I couldn’t walk away until the church was finished. After I’d called my father, he agreed to move what little I owned out of my small-ass apartment and into storage, then he spent a week on the couch when my mother found out. Poor guy paid the price for my choice, but he had big shoulders and took it like a man.

  I was proud of the work I’d done. Not only was the church I helped rebuild a place of worship, it also offered shelter for those in need. It even served as a daycare, and a place the homeless could come for a good meal once a week. People felt safe there, and during my time there, so did I. The work helped me clear my head a bit, and I was finally able to accept my feelings and understand that what my mother had said was true. I couldn’t run from them; I needed to face them.

  “I still have your place here, Gage,” the captain finally said. “I told you I would.”

  He and I had also shared a heart-to-heart one night after I’d sat in my motel room putting away one too many beers. I confessed my feelings for a certain blonde and fully expected him to tell me how wrong that was, only he didn’t.

  “Some people will always think it’s wrong, or that you planned to slip in and take Pat’s place all along. But you know differently, and at the end of the day, the only two who matter are you and her. The others will either be forced to accept it or stay the hell away. It’s that easy. If you live your life strictly by what those around you think, then you’re a damn fool, boy, because you can never please everyone. The world is full of heartless, judgmental, and ungrateful people. Live your life, Gage, and stop worrying so much about the things you can’t change. And stop running. You aren’t a coward.”

  He was a good man.

  “I expect you back here for the next shift,” he said firmly, trying to fall back into the role of an authority figure. “Or that position I’ve held for you will no longer be available.”

  I caught the grin he was trying to hide as he turned and walked back to his office.

  “Oh, and that apartment I was telling you about will be ready by the end of the week,” he hollered just before he shut his door. Thank God, because though I love my mother, the idea of living under the same roof for too long was already giving me anxiety.

  “I was wondering how long you’d be in town before you came over and said hi.” Perry leaned back in his recliner and lifted his beer to his lips. As he eyed me over the bottle, I felt like an adolescent again. I remembered all those times he’d lectured Patrick and me when he caught us doing crazy shit. He’d tried to be a hard-ass, but at heart he was one of the boys. Next to my own father, he was the most understanding man I’d ever met.

  “Sorry, I, uh, got busy and meant to stop by, but….” The excuses rolling around in my mind weren’t the truth. I’d been avoiding the Coopers since returning because facing them was hard. Their son, and my best friend, was gone, and here I was having feelings about the girl they’d watched marry their son.

  “But you’ve still got some crazy idea that makes you feel like you can’t face me.”

  I looked him straight in the eyes, feeling a little taken aback by his words.

  “What?” he said finally, leaning forward as he lowered the footrest, then stood. “You still think after all these years that I don’t know you well enough to figure out what you’re thinking? It also helps that your mother and my wife can’t keep their conversations down. I’ve heard all about these unsettled thoughts in your head for the last few months.”

  I swear my mother gossiped more than anyone else I knew.

  “Boy, you’ve had your mother a mess. Had I not known about the good work you were doing in Arizona, I would have been on the first flight out there to drag your ass back here myself.”

  I averted my stare and focused on the space between us at my feet.

  “So what is it, you think you’ve somehow betrayed him? Like you’d planned it all from the beginning?”

  I shook my head, still unable to look at him. “I never meant for it to happen.”

  I looked up at Perry and saw he’d moved closer. “No one in
their right mind would pin something like that on you. No one could have truly known this would happen.” He walked toward his desk in the corner and opened the top drawer before turning back to face me. “But I think somehow he did.”

  “What?” My mind raced at the idea that Pat could have thought of me as a threat. That he’d passed thinking I’d felt something for his wife all along. My stomach plummeted and nausea hit me hard.

  Perry paused only a few feet away from me as he looked down at the envelope in his hands. “Patrick gave me two letters and asked me to hold on to them until I felt the time was right.” His lips pursed and his nostrils flared as if he were fighting off emotions he desperately wanted to hide. “One was addressed to the man who has chosen to love Sawyer. That one is a lot shorter than the other and is pretty much a warning.”

  The idea of someone touching Sawyer or holding her infuriated me, and I knew I had no right to have those feelings.

  “And the other was addressed to you, the man he trusted with his girls.” He turned the envelope to face me, and that was exactly the way it was written on the front in penmanship I recognized. To the man I trust more than any other. My best friend, Gage.

  “Like I said, I think he knew”—Perry held out the envelope—”or at least he hoped things would play out a certain way..”

  “I don’t understand.” My voice was a hoarse whisper and the pain of grief in my chest rose to my throat.

  He pushed the letter a little closer. “Read this, and then you will.”

  When I took the letter, he turned and walked from the room, leaving me alone in the house Patrick grew up in.

  I needed a few minutes to gain the strength to read it, but as I did, my eyes filled with tears.

  If what I feel in my heart is true, I already know who’ll be the one to hold dear the two most precious people to me. There’s no one I trust more, Gage. There is no one I believe to be able of loving my family the way I could, other than you. Because I know how much love you have to give. You’re loyal and honest. The best kind of man.

  Just love them, please, every second of every day. Make sure they know they’re loved. Make sure they feel it. Treasure every smile they share.

  I’ll be honest, I’ve sat here for hours thinking of all the things I wanted to say to you. In the beginning a hundred different demands and even threats rolled around in my mind. I even got angry, I won’t deny it. The idea of any man touching the woman I love with all my heart and even more than that is hard to accept. She’s mine. From the moment I first saw her, I knew she would be, and I never thought I’d be faced with the idea that she’d be with someone else.

  But after the anger subsided, I was left with the demands, but not the threats. So this is me demanding that you be good to her. Sawyer is an amazing woman and she deserves an amazing life. She deserves to wake up every morning to the sounds of a man telling her that she’s his world. She needs to hear that you love her, that without her you would feel empty. If you can’t do those things, then I was wrong and you aren’t the man for her.

  But if you can, cherish every moment with her. Understand that those times are a gift, one you should feel honored to receive.

  She can be difficult at times, stubborn even, but it’s all part of the package. Yet you already know this. You’ve seen it firsthand. A piece of advice: don’t ever laugh at her when she’s angry, because that will only lead to a night on the couch, and trust me, sleeping by her side is so much better.

  If you’ve chosen to love my wife, you’ve also chosen to love my child. This is hard for me to talk about with you, maybe even a little harder than allowing you to love Sawyer. She’s felt my love, and she knows how much I adore her and how much she means to me. However, my child will never have that from me. Being a father was always one of my biggest dreams. So many nights I thought of what it would feel like to have my child look at me as if I was their hero. I dreamed of playing outside with my son, watching him grow and hearing him laugh. I dreamed about a daughter who was a mirror image of her mother, looking up at me as I leaned in to kiss her good night.

  Now that gift is yours.

  Please love my child. Please tell them I wanted to be their father. Make sure they know that even though I’m gone, I’m still with them. Protect them and love them more than they could have ever imagined being loved.

  I mean it when I say I love you, Gage, and knowing they’ll have you in their lives gives me the peace I need to move on.

  Let go of the guilt I know you feel, and live. Don’t be afraid to give them the amazing life I know you can. Please, brother, take care of my family.

  I had never felt so raw in my life. So many thoughts and emotions ran through me that I had no idea how to deal with them all.

  “I don’t think he could have chosen anyone better to entrust his family to.” I looked up as Luann spoke to find her and Perry standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen. Tears glistened on her cheeks as she smiled back at me. “He knew you’d love them like they needed to be loved.” Her words only magnified the ache inside me. “I think deep down we all knew.”

  “The other letter,” Perry added with a sly grin, “is just a warning to anyone else, saying he should step out of the way for his best friend, Gage.” My heart lurched again and I gripped my letter just a little tighter. “He knew.”

  Chapter 33

  Sawyer

  “Where did the ball go?” I sat on the ground near Abby as I held my hands up, looking around on the ground before me. I couldn’t hide my smile when Abigail mimicked my actions. It was adorable how her eyes widened and her little mouth formed the perfect O, her body spinning around in circles.

  “Uh-oh,” she said in a serious little voice as she kept looking, only now she was staring at the sky as if the ball was somehow floating above. Just when I thought she’d give up, her little gaze locked on the bright yellow ball resting against the side of the barn only a few feet from us. She beamed and giggled, and I scrunched up my nose as I tried not to cover my ears. When Abby grew excited she squealed so loud I swear it could almost break glass. And yet, instead of running toward the ball, she began jumping up and down, giggling and shrieking.

  “Get it,” I encouraged her, and that was all she needed. Her little legs moved so fast that she stumbled and fell to the ground before she reached her destination. I froze, thinking if I didn’t make a big deal of it, she wouldn’t cry, only I was wrong. Her happy squeals immediately turned into those deep screeching cries I hated to hear.

  I hurried to Abigail and scooped her up. She didn’t have a mark on her, but she was still scared. “It’s all right, sweetheart.” I rocked her from side to side. “Mommy’s got you.”

  “Ball,” she cried as she reached out, her head still buried against my chest.

  “I’ll get your ball,” I assured her as I bent down, grabbed it up from the ground, and held it close to her side. When her little arm encircled it and her breath shuddered, I smiled because she was the sweetest thing ever, even through her tears.

  “Ball,” she whispered as she looked up at me, her tears slowing. Those big sad eyes and her pouting lips made my heart ache every time.

  “Yeah, baby girl, that’s your ball.”

  I squeezed her little body to my own and breathed her in. That sweet baby-fresh scent of her shampoo mixed with her lotion had such healing powers during times when I felt down.

  Deciding it was time to go inside, I walked across the lawn toward the porch with Abby tucked safely to my chest. She’d long forgotten the fall and was now completely focused on the ball in her hands. I envied her. I wished I could shut off my own emotions so quickly.

  As I reached the bottom of the stairs that led to my back door, I heard a car approach. When I looked up, my heart felt like it jumped into my throat, and I stumbled in surprise at the sight of Gage’s silver Tahoe driving toward the house. The windows were strangely dark now. He must have tinted them since I last saw his car.

  I wanted to r
un for the house and hide behind the safety of my closed doors, but I couldn’t force my legs to move, not even when he opened his door and climbed out wearing a pair of aviators that hid those mysterious eyes of his. Not even when he offered a hesitant wave and walked toward me.

  I stood there frozen as so many different emotions coursed through me—anger, frustration, and even thankfulness.

  “Hey.” I’d known him long enough to sense the nervousness in his voice. He was just as unsure as I was right now. “She’s gotten so big,” he said with a small smile as his gaze roamed over Abigail slowly.

  “You missed her birthday.” I hadn’t meant to sound so rude, and the instant the words left my mouth, I regretted them. Sadness filled his eyes, though he attempted to hide it. I had so many unanswered questions. Part of me wanted to believe that Gage wasn’t the amazing man I thought he was, but I knew better. “But the work you were doing meant something to you, so I understand the need to stay gone for so long.”

  My poor excuse for making things right didn’t fool him. Just when I thought I’d said enough, my damn mouth kept going, digging me further into a hole. “Though a phone call would have been nice on occasion.”

  “I’m sorry. Yeah, it did mean something, not only to me but to the people I helped. But she means more, and so do you.”

  For the first time since we’d met, an uncomfortable silence settled between us. Gage and I had always found a way to make each other talk, laugh, or, hell, even cry if we needed to. But distance had grown between us, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it.

  Abby wiggled in my arms. “Down,” she said in that determined little voice of hers. “Down, down.” It was like her version of a chant.