The Winter We Collided: A Small Town Single Dad Romance (Ocean Pines Series Book 2)

by Victoria Denault

  She pulls out of my embrace and sighs again, running her fingers through her hair. Her gray eyes blink rapidly and her expression changes to something less angry and more remorseful.

  “I never said we were divorced.” Her eyes begin to water, and my heart pounds with uncertainty. Something is going on here, and I don’t know what it is, but I know I won’t like it. She turns away from me and walks over to the window. “Jackson can’t speak to Paul because he died.”

  I wasn’t expecting that. “I’m confused. When? After you broke up? Why did you never tell me that?”

  “No. He died when we were married. I knew you were assuming divorce. I’m sorry I didn’t just tell you the truth,” she says, turning away from the dark sea views and back to face me. She looks as broken as she sounds, and my heart starts to ache, but I’m also beginning to feel a twinge of anxiety. I feel like there’s a shoe that hasn’t dropped. “I’ve only been on a handful of dates since I’ve been widowed and learned early on telling men you were widowed at twenty-seven isn’t a great idea. Everyone wants to know how it happened and then they look at me like I’m this helpless, broken victim. And I didn’t want you to do that. So I stretched the truth at first.”

  I don’t care that she dodged the truth. I’ve got bigger secrets than that. “It’s fine, Chloe. Honestly.”

  She stares at me with disbelief. I take her in my arms and hold her tightly. “I’ve talked around the truth in my life too.”

  “We shouldn’t do that. Not with each other,” she replies, her head resting against my shoulder. “Not anymore.”

  “I agree,” I reply.

  “That’s why Jackson’s brother Paul is so angry I have the house,” Chloe explains. “He wanted to keep it in his family, and he doesn’t consider me part of that family now that Jackson is dead.”

  “How did he die?” I can’t help but ask. Do I want to know? Does it matter? Just asking the question somehow raises the hair on the back of my neck. I don’t know why. I don’t understand why my body is nearly vibrating with anxiety right now.

  “Car crash,” she says so softly I almost don’t hear it. She steps out of my embrace and I let her, my arms sagging at my side. “I told you I was in a car crash, well he was in the car with me. Driving. I use the word crash and not accident deliberately. Because what happened was no accident. A person made the decision to get behind the wheel with a blood alcohol level almost double the legal limit and drive into our car.”

  That shoe just dropped, only it’s not a shoe, it’s an anvil and it’s smashing my world to oblivion. I stand motionless, expressionless, helpless, listening to her. She turns back to the window for a moment and then back to me. “We’d spent the weekend in New Hampshire visiting Jackson’s other brother Denny and looking for furniture to fill the house with. We should have been on the turnpike. It would have been faster, but I wanted to take the long route because it was fall and the leaves were turning.”

  Fall. No. Oh God no.

  “It was early, too. I mean you don’t expect to be hit by a drunk driver at four in the afternoon. At least I didn’t,” she says in a trembling voice. “He was having some kind of bender I guess. The police told Paul and Denny later that the driver had been drinking with friends since he woke up that day.”

  We started with Bloody Marys at ten in the morning.

  “We were almost home,” she says and closes her eyes to the memory. “I remember seeing the sign for the town of Wells and told Jackson we should probably pull in somewhere and grab a bite because I was starving and…”

  At noon I decided we should head to a small hole-in-the-wall pub in Wells Beach. They never cut us off, and a lot of the local bars were sick of our shit and did. I drove Bryan’s truck the thirty minutes there, with three very strong Bloody Marys in my system, but it seemed like the better choice, because Bryan had four in his. We played darts and drank beers for a couple of hours until we graduated to tequila shots.

  “That’s the last thing I remember,” she continues, pulling me back from that nightmare from my past to the one I am currently living. “I woke up in the hospital in Augusta two days later. They had airlifted me there because they had the best trauma surgeon in the state. It was there I found out Jackson had died on impact. The driver did too.”

  I puked at the bar around three in the afternoon and got kicked out. Bryan was in the middle of a beer, so he told me to wait for him outside. I was barely able to stand up. I still had his keys, so I climbed into his truck…I remember nothing after that. I woke up four hours later in the hospital in Wells. My dad told me what happened. Everyone, including the cop who stared at me with disdain, said Bryan was the one who was driving. And the guy we hit was dead too. No one mentioned a passenger, a wife, though…. so it can’t be the same crash. It can’t. Oh God, it can’t.

  “What day did this happen?” My voice sounds foreign. Too thick. Too strained.

  “October tenth. Five years ago.” She stares at me, finally seeing what must be anguish on my face. “Are you okay?”

  How is this happening? It can’t be happening. Oh my God was I in the car that hit her? That killed her husband?

  “I don’t feel well.”

  She walks closer, reaches up, and places a hand on my forehead. “You don’t feel like you have a fever.”

  “I don’t,” I say. The tenderness of her touch fills me with guilt so strong I feel bile rise up my throat and I have to step away from her.

  Chloe takes the movement as a rejection, and now she looks as pained as I feel. “It’s a lot to take in, I know. I never should have avoided telling you about it. It’s just…I didn’t want you to look at me the way you’re looking at me now. With pity.”

  “I don’t. I’m not pitying you,” I argue and I think I might actually be sick. “Is Hale your married name?”

  “No. I never took Jackson’s last name, which was Turner,” she replies and her brow furrows a little. “Why?”

  Because my family never told me the name of the person we killed.

  “I just…I was wondering if maybe Jake worked the call,” I lie, and it feels like I’m sinking in quicksand. I’m being swallowed whole by my past. By mistakes I can’t take back, by guilt I can’t outrun. I managed to get ahead of it for a second there and saw my future, and now it’s submerging me again.

  “He wouldn’t have. It was in Wells,” she says, confused. “Logan, you look really pale.”

  “I should take you home,” I say suddenly and turn to the kitchen. “I’m going to box up the cake for you so you don’t miss out, and then I’ll drive you home. Can you blow out the candles for me, please?”

  I disappear into the kitchen before she can answer. There’s a tightness in my chest. I can barely take a breath. My palms are sweaty. I feel like every organ in my body is failing. I’m light-headed. Honestly, I don’t even think I can drive her home. I lean on the steel counter and take my phone out of my back pocket. With trembling fingers I text Finn.

  I need your help. Now. Come in the back door of the restaurant. 9-1-1.

  Chloe pushes on the swinging door and comes into the kitchen. “Logan, talk to me. What is going on? Is it everything I just dumped on you?”

  “I swear Chloe it’s not you.” I try to swallow but my mouth is desert dry. “I don’t feel well. I just…I—”

  The back door opens, and Finn walks in smiling. It’s an innocent, slightly excited smile. He thinks nothing is really wrong. Probably thinks I used 9-1-1 for some kind of dessert emergency like I can’t find the whipped cream. “Hey bro what’s so urgent you’d invite me back down here to eff up your date?”

  His eyes lock with mine and the smile on his face collapses. I put a hand to my stomach to sell it. “I don’t feel well at all. Can you drive Chloe home for me?”

  “But you live where I live,” Chloe says and her voice is a blend of confusion and concern.

  “I’m going to stay here until I feel better.” I am nothing but lies. “I promise I’ll
be fine.”

  I won’t. I haven’t been fine since that crash, and this revelation from her is the universe reminding me of that. Finn is laser focused on me. His gaze boring into me, begging me to explain somehow without words. I can’t, so I just give him a pleading look back. Don’t question me. Just help me.

  “He gets stomach issues sometimes,” Finn lies casually and shrugs. “He probably just needs some of those prescription antacids the doc gives him. It’s not a big deal.”

  Chloe looks from him to me and back again. “Logan?”

  I nod. “It’s true. I’ll be fine. But I know you came here with Aspen because I was supposed to drive you home, so it would be great if you could let Finn do it.”

  I walk to the prep station and grab a paper container and quickly cut a big piece of cake and drop it in. I close it and hand it to her, and then, with every nerve-ending in my body screaming and every organ feeling like it’s splintering into a thousand pieces, I force myself to smile and pull her into a hug. It’s a fierce hug, filled with words I can’t say yet and goodbyes that feel imminent. I hold her tight, inhale the scent of her shampoo, let my lips skim her cheek before finding hers in a fleeting kiss.

  “I’ll come see you tomorrow,” I say, and I’m gritting my teeth between each word so my voice doesn’t warble. I have medical training. I know what’s happening. I’m in the throes of an intense panic attack. She looks at me with wide eyes filled with disbelief and confusion.

  “I’ll grab a forkful of cake while you get your jacket,” Finn tells Chloe, who very reluctantly nods and walks through the swinging door back into the restaurant.

  As soon as she’s gone Finn turns to me, his face dark with worry. “What’s wrong?”

  “What’s the name of the guy I killed?” I choke out in a rough whisper.

  “You didn’t—”

  “Finn. Fuck. His name,” I bark, my voice still low but hard and thick with frustration. “Chloe’s husband died when he was hit by a drunk driver on October tenth, five years ago. October. Tenth.”

  As I repeat the date, the color drains from Finn’s face. “No. It can’t be.”

  “Name.”

  “Turner. First name John or Jack, I think. Maybe James. I didn’t memorize it. I didn’t want to,” Finn whispers back and I feel bile burn my throat like acid.

  “Finn?” Chloe calls from the dining area.

  “Go,” I manage to choke out. Finn looks like I’m literally ripping him in half by making him leave with Chloe when all he wants to do is stay with me and keep me from emotionally bottoming out. “Do not say a word to her.”

  He nods solemnly and disappears into the dining area.

  I dart to the employee bathroom and throw up into the toilet. I don’t know how long I’m in there, leaning against the wall with my eyes closed, sweat on my brow, limbs shaking, trying to take a deep breath and failing repeatedly. But suddenly I hear a gasp, and Terra is in front of me on her knees. “Logan. I want you to take this,” she’s holding up a small vile. “Take it now.”

  I reach out for it. “Put it just under your nose and inhale. I know it feels like you can’t but you can. Close your eyes and sniff.”

  I do what she says. It smells like lavender. It’s still impossible to inflate my lungs properly. I feel like I did that time when I was seven and accidentally swallowed half the ocean while body surfing with my dad. Terra gently puts her hands on my knees, which are bent, like a barrier between her and me. “I want you to remember your tattoo. The only way out is through.” Her voice is authoritarian but soothing. “Say it.”

  Why does she sound so far away when she’s right beside me? “The.. only… way out… is through.”

  “Keep saying it. Slowly. Over and over. Really hear each word.”

  “The. Only. Way. Out. Is. Through.”

  She squeezes my knees reassuringly when I say it again without a stutter or a pause.

  “The only way out is through.”

  “Try to take a deep breath between every repetition. Let yourself enjoy the smell of the lavender,” she says gently. “Again.”

  “The only way out is through.” I can take a much deeper breath now. Not as deep as I’d like but I definitely don’t feel like my lungs have collapsed anymore. “The only way out is through.”

  I feel like hours go by, and all I do is repeat those words and breathe in the essential oil. Finally though, I feel like I have a grip. Terra knows it too, and when I open my eyes, she’s smiling calmly at me. “You’re okay.”

  “I am.” I pause and think back to what triggered my panic attack. “Terra, I killed Chloe’s husband.”

  Her eyes widen in shock and then narrow with frustration. “You’ve never killed anyone in your life, Logan.”

  “Bryan hit Chloe and her husband Jackson. That’s who was killed in our accid…” I think of Chloe’s words. “Crash.”

  “I don’t know how that’s possible,” Terra says frankly, and the confusion is authentic on her eflish face. “No one said anything about a wife to me. Mom and Dad just said that a man was killed. It can’t be true.”

  “I know. But she just sat here and described the other side of the crash.” I swallow. My mouth is getting dry again. My heart is starting to beat harder and faster. “The location, date, and what she heard about the driver…it matches Bryan.”

  Terra can tell my body is quickly moving toward another panic attack. She squeezes my knees again. “Breathe. Inhale the lavender. The only way out—”

  “Terra, there is no way through this.” I push her hands off my knees and manage to stand up. I feel disoriented and lightheaded. I start out of the rest room and into the kitchen again. She follows right behind me.

  “If she was in the car…if it was her husband…I can’t get past it. She sure as hell won’t be able to. She has scars all over her body. I was in the car with the person who did that to her. If I was sober…if I didn’t get so drunk I passed out, I could have stopped it. But I don’t know if I would have. Maybe I would have still gotten in the car with Bryan. Or worse, I might have been driving.”

  I grab a clean mug off the dishwasher belt and stumble toward the sink. My hand trembles as I fill the glass with water and take a long sip. Terra looks just as distraught as I am, but she manages to sound calm. “Logan, one step at a time. We aren’t even a hundred percent sure. Let’s figure this out step by step.”

  “We had something special,” I say. “I’ve never felt this way about a woman. Never. Not even Bethany. Chloe feels like a piece of me I didn’t know I was missing. She’s never going to talk to me again if I tell her this truth. Not now. I thought maybe…I was going to tell her and she would understand. Now I have to tell her and watch it break her heart.”

  Terra shakes her head, still unwilling to see the truth. She pinches the bridge of her freckled nose and sighs. “I don’t understand. We gave his family two hundred thousand dollars. How is she struggling for money? If she was married to the guy in the car, why does she still have a mountain of medical bills?”

  “I need to talk to Dad. Now,” I say. I march back into the restaurant and grab my jacket.

  Terra runs after me. “I’m going with you.”

  25

  Logan

  “We didn’t want to make things worse.”

  I stare at my dad with so many horrible emotions pulsing through my body I don’t even know where to begin. He suddenly looks older than he ever has, standing there in his Celtics t-shirt and gray plaid pajama bottoms. Every wrinkle and crease on his weathered face is amplified by the grimace he wears. His hair is askew. His eyes pained. My mother sits at the kitchen table a foot away, robe pulled tightly around her, wringing her hands on the oak table. “It didn’t make sense to tell you there had been another person in the car Bryan hit. Declan said you would feel so guilty you’d try to find out who she was and apologize, but she didn’t know about you. No one did but the police and his brother. And we thought it was best to keep it that way.” />
  “Declan,” I repeat his name, and now, sadly, it makes sense. “This was his fucking idea?”

  “Logan, we were all not thinking straight. Your ma was so distraught. I was livid and goddamn broken seeing you in that hospital bed. And then you woke up so confused. You had no idea you’d even been in a car wreck. When you found out what happened, they wanted to put you on suicide watch you were so distraught.” Dad’s voice is rough and thick with pain. “I just wanted to get your ass into rehab. It’s all I could think. I had to help you. Declan dealt with the police and the family. I tried to keep you and your mom from falling apart, and Terra and Finn worked on finding the best possible addiction center for you.”

  “We were trying to do the right thing,” Ma says and blinks back tears she refuses to shed. “Declan was trying to do the right thing.”

  “It doesn’t feel that way,” I reply sternly, and she sighs.

  “Well, I still stand by our decision,” Ma says, and her hand goes to the tiny silver cross on her neck. “I prayed on this. I still pray on this. I still feel in my heart we did the best for you in that situation. And we thought we were helping that man’s family. Helping that woman. If you had known there was a survivor in the car, what would you have done?”

  “I don’t know,” I reply and my panic attack is now rage. I’m furious that my family held this from me. “I will never know. I wasn’t given the chance to figure out what I would have done. But I’ll tell you what I wouldn’t have done. Fall in love with a woman I was involved in almost killing.”

  My dad’s fists slam into the thick wood countertop he’s leaning against, and Terra and my mom jump. “Logan Hart Hawkins, for the last fucking time, you did not kill that man, and you did not injure Chloe.”

  “Dad I know you hate to hear it, and I hate to say it, but I had driven drunk a hundred times before,” I reply, my eyes watering to the point that my vision blurs. “If Bryan had woken me up instead of driving off, maybe I would have been the one behind the wheel. And I can’t say without a doubt that if I was conscious I would have stopped him from driving.”