Chapter 45
Payson
I find him on the back porch when I come out, leaning against the railing with a glass in his hand, looking out at the tree line. I notice he changed his shirt, and I look away as he turns around. He hands me the glass, and I take it walking up beside him. “Ask me,” he says.
“Ask you what?”
“Whatever has been running through that mind of yours since we got back.” I take a sip of the liquid. Bourbon, why doesn’t that surprise me.
“I have nothing to say.” He looks at me sideways. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I reply. “Payson.” The way he says my name in that low sultry voice has goosebumps breaking out along my body. Traitor.
“I want to know why,” I finally say. “The truth.” He sets his glass on the railing and turns to face me fully, one hand still resting on the rail.
“Vivian came to me,” he says. Her name echoes in my ears.
“She came to you?” I ask, confused.
“Yes.”
“And did what exactly?”
He rakes his eyes over my face before speaking. “She said if I stayed she would finish what she started.” He paused and let that hang in the air between us for a minute. “She’d already gotten close once, and I was barely able to get there in time. I wasn’t willing to risk it a second time.”
I set my mug down on the rail and grab ahold of it with my hands, trying to hold onto something to keep from falling.
“She was the one who sent those men,” I say quietly.
“And you…” I shove my hands into his chest, causing him to take a step back.
“She threatened to kill me, and your answer was to leave.” I shove him again.
He grabs my arms, pinning them beneath his firm grip. “My answer was making sure you were safe. She gave me her word that you wouldn’t be harmed if I left.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make.”
“It was my decision, because you were mine. You’ve always been mine.” I thrash around in his grip.
“Let go of me,” I spit at him, my voice cracking. I pull in a breath through my nose and tilt my chin to meet his. “You just left, and I didn’t know why and you made me think….” My throat closes around the rest of it.
“Payson…”
“DON’T! I loved you.” The words come out before I can decide whether I’m ready to tell him my truth.
“I loved you, and you left me. I spent so long trying to figure out what I did wrong.” My eyes burn with unshed tears I refuse to let him see.
“Do you have any idea what that does to a woman? To love someone and then just….” I rip away from him, pointing a finger at my own chest because it’s the only way I know how to describe where the pain stayed.
“To carry that around with you for years and never knowing.” He doesn’t say anything.
I’m not sure he can. “She threatened to kill me,” I say, barely above a whisper.
“And you made a deal with her to walk away from me to keep me safe…and you never once thought about how that would affect me.” “No,” he says, and I can tell he’s lying. “You would have told me to stay.”
I look at him. “Yes,” I answer. “I would have.”
“And I couldn’t risk that.” His jaw tightens and his eyes start to become glossy as he runs a hand through his hair.
“She nearly killed you once, Payson, I wasn’t going to stand there and love you in plain sight and be the reason she kept trying to kill you.
” He shakes his head and a single tear escapes.
“I made a choice. A bad one. I know that. I’ve known that every single day since I made it, but I would do it all over again before I’d let something take you from me.
” I can’t stop the tears from falling down my face.
I wipe them away quickly and look to the trees to breathe.
I don’t look at him. I can’t. Not with this much of me already out in the open for him to see right now.
“I kept waiting,” I say with a shaky breath.
“That’s the part I hate the most. I waited for a long time, Ledgar. ”
“Pay...”
I hold my hand up and take a step away and he stops. “I’m not finished.” My voice wavers and I don’t try to contain it anymore. “I was so angry at you, and I missed you at the same time…and the worst part,” I say softly, “is that I still do.”
I hear the way he sucks in a lungful of air, like what I said is something he was hoping to hear.
He shifts a little closer, cautiously watching my reactions, and I let him, turning to face him.
“I know,” he tells me, keeping his voice low and rough.
“There aren’t enough ways for me to say I’m sorry and it be big enough.
Not even close.” Tears steadily fall and I hate it.
I hate that I’m standing here on his porch, crying, letting him see me fall apart and I hate even more that a part of me that I have kept locked up and starved for a long time just wants him to hold me and not let go.
“I want to be done with you,” I tell him, barely getting the words out.
“I told myself that I would never have anything else to do with you every single day since you left and I can’t.
” Sobs escape me and I quit fighting myself.
He reaches out wiping away the tears that keep falling with his thumbs and kisses my forehead.
“I know,” he whispers against me, swallowing. “I know.”
I suck in a breath that shakes my body as I breathe.
“I don’t know how to forgive you,” I hiccup.
“I want to. God, a part of me wants to forgive you so much it hurts. But the other part wants to beat the shit out of you for hurting me, and I’m so damn tired of hurting.
” He doesn’t try to answer that, just pulls me close, wrapping his arms around me.
“The bathroom,” I whisper after a moment, changing the subject. He pulls back just enough to look at me, not even trying to pretend he doesn’t have a clue what I’m talking about.
“He sent me something you drew up, said he wanted my opinion on it, that you came up with it one night and never did anything with it. He said it was your best work, and more like you than anything you’ve ever created.”
Another sob escapes my throat, and I hiccup. “How did he get it?” I ask.
“Griffith.”
I laugh a little at his reply, shocking the both of us. The soft chirps surround us as the afternoon starts to settle in. “I’m not ready,” I say. “I need you to know that. I’m not sure I ever will be.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” he says. “But in time, you will.”
“You sound so sure.”
He laughs, and I feel the corner of my own mouth pull up before I can stop it and press my lips together. “You’ll see,” he says.