21. Heath
CHAPTER 21
heath
“ J unebug, talk to me,” I pleaded while we had a late breakfast together the morning after the farmer’s market debacle. She’d ignored my knocks on her door all evening and finally came to the kitchen around noon.
She sat across from me at the breakfast nook, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her eyes red-rimmed. I felt like shit. She’d been crying.
“Hey, I’m sorry about what happened and?—”
“What exactly are you sorry about?” Juno demanded.
Her question stumped me for a moment. “For you having to witness me losing my temper and…seeing Sable talk to your mother that way.”
She looked up at me, her jaw tight. “Really? That’s what you’re sorry about?”
I nodded, feeling uneasy as hell.
“I don’t even know what to say to you, Dad. ”
I blinked. “You can say anything to me, Junebug. You know that.”
“I can’t believe you did what you did and said what you did to Sable.” Her voice trembled.
Okay, what?
“Look, I know I should’ve talked to Sable in private. I lost my temper when I saw how she was treating you and your mother. I won’t stand for that.”
“Oh, you won’t, will you?” She sounded like a sarcastic teenager giving me sass. She never spoke to me like this. “Did you bother to find out what happened before you showed up and dragged your girlfriend away and then insulted her and embarrassed me in front of everyone?”
She had a point. I didn’t know what had happened, but I had Alexa’s version. She called last night to check on Juno and told me that Sable had fought with her, saying Alexa was hurting her business and was a lousy mother.
I felt my chest tighten. “Juno, I didn’t want you to see that?—”
“Too late,” she cut in, her voice rising. “I did see it. And it was awful. Mama was already horrible to her and me, and then you just piled on.”
Say what?
“Juno, it’s not that simple,” I tried to explain. “Sable was yelling at your mom. That is unacceptable.”
She slammed her hands on the table, startling me. “You didn’t even ask why! You didn’t care what Sable was trying to do. You just assumed Mama was right.” Her voice broke, and tears spilled down her cheeks. “Sable was standing up for me, Daddy. For me . And you treated her like garbage…well, why shouldn’t you? Mama called her trash and said that if I associated with her, I’d become trash, too.”
My nostrils flared.
She stood up, looking down at me. And that fucking hurt. I’d always been my daughter’s hero; now, she’d lost respect for me.
“Oh, and then Mama blamed her for stealing her husband and her daughter. When I asked her to stop it, she yelled at me and told me I had no loyalty or integrity and that I should be ashamed of myself. For what? For being a decent human being? For liking Sable, for thinking she’s cool? That’s when Sable spoke up. Otherwise, she was leaving. She wasn’t looking for an argument. That would be your wife . Why did you even start dating again if you’re still hung up on Mama?”
“Juno, I’m not hung up on your mother.”
“Then why are you defending her against Sable? Especially when Sable did nothing wrong. Do you know that Mama and Grandpa told everyone to boycott the Wildflower? Did you know that?”
No, I didn’t. And not because I hadn’t been told; Sable had told me, but I hadn’t believed it.
“Juno, your mother isn’t doing that. Okay?”
“ Not okay .”
Juno was angry, and I didn’t quite know how the fuck to handle her, handle this . I’d misunderstood the situation at the farmer’s market, this much I knew—and I’d treated Sable exactly how everyone else in this town did.
“What does that mean?”
Her expression was one of pure disappointment. “I love Mama. But I also know she can be petty, mean, and manipulative. I’m fifteen, and I know that. You’re forty-two. How come you don’t?”
“I’m not going to bad mouth your mother in front of you, Juno, that’s not proper.”
“Oh, but it’s proper to subject me to you humiliating a woman for simply wanting to protect me?”
I ran a hand through my hair. “I didn’t know that.”
“Because you didn’t bother to find out. Mama is trying to ruin Sable because she thinks you and she should get back together. Whenever she brings it up with me, I shut her down ‘cause your marriage is none of my business. But you made your relationship with Sable my business by having a showdown in front of me.”
Juno’s voice rose, and I couldn’t even ask her to keep it down and play parent because, right now, between us, she was proving to be the smarter one.
I hadn’t believed that Alexa or Daniel could actually affect the Wildflower. It was just the slow season, and maybe not all the changes Sable made had landed.
I closed my eyes as an epiphany struck. I didn’t want to believe it because I didn’t want the drama. I wanted to have companionship and sex with Sable. I didn’t want to share her problems—which was shitty of me, considering this problem was created by my ex-wife because of me.
I never thought of myself as a selfish man. I was giving. I took care of people. But right now, it was evident to me that I’d fucked up with Sable. Big time.
“I thought you were better than this.” Juno walked away from me and then added over her shoulder, “I won’t be home. I’m going to hang out with Bess.”
I didn’t know how to make it up to Juno.
After I dropped her off at her friend’s place, I went into town to get coffee. I thought, maybe I’d get some lunch…maybe go to the Wildflower and see if I could talk to Sable. Or rather, she’d talk to me.
After my conversation with Juno, the gravity of my situation became apparent, and it slammed into me at the coffee shop where Natasha was chatting with the barista.
“Yeah, make it triple shots. We overdid it last night, and we’re all hungover.”
“Natasha,” I greeted her.
“Well, if it isn’t Aspen’s favorite idiot,” she said loudly enough for everyone at the coffee shop to hear.
She turned and walked straight up to me. I braced myself. “Do you have any idea how badly you screwed up?”
I looked around. “Can we not do this here?”
“Why? Because people will talk? People are already talking since you decided to shit all over Sable in front of God and all of Aspen County.”
Okay, so she was pissed, and I did the thing everyone tells a man not to do. I said, “Look, I know you’re upset?—”
“Upset?” she cut in, her voice sharp. “Upset doesn’t cover it, Heath. How could you? ”
“She yelled at Alexa in public,” I argued. “What was I supposed to do?”
Natasha’s eyes flashed with anger. “Oh, I don’t know—maybe listen to Sable? Maybe not assume the worst just because my sister was involved? Maybe not rip her to shreds in front of half of Aspen?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but she wasn’t done.
“You let Alexa play you.” Her tone dropped with disgust…for me. “And you know what? I thought you were smarter than that. But I guess I was wrong.”
With that, she turned and stormed out, leaving me standing there with more eyes on me than I cared.
“Glad you got rid of her.” One of Daniel’s cigar-suited friends patted my shoulder as I walked up to the counter to order an espresso, maybe a triple shot. “Good, you showed that woman her place. I think it’d be best if she sold that business, packed up, and left. I know some investors who are interested in getting their hands on a local place like the Wildflower.”
I glared at the man. “Please don’t presume you and I are friends, which gives you the right to talk to me about what is my private business. And regarding Sable, she’s not leaving Aspen, not if I have anything to do with it.”
Shit! They were trying to run her out of town. What was next? Pitchforks?
God! Why had I been so stupid?
I had taken one of the best things that had ever happened to me, shit all over it, as Natasha just told me, and ruined said best thing in the process. All Sable had asked me for was kindness and respect. I’d given her neither. No wonder my daughter looked at me like I was dirt under her shoe. I had fallen in my esteem and my daughter’s, which was way worse.
“She’s not here,” Ben told me as soon as I entered the Wildflower. “And, read that sign” —he pointed to the one above the cash register— “it says we can decline to serve anyone we want, and I don’t want to serve your ignorant ass. So, get the fuck out of here.”
“Ben, I just?—"
“You know why I sold this place to her?”
I dumbly shook my head.
It was my day to eat crow—and a whole lot of it. I’d brought this on myself and deserved every bit of it. So, I had to let the people who loved and cared for Sable give me a piece of their minds while they metaphorically tore me apart.
“Because she has the purest spirit. People have treated her poorly, and yet, she smiles, she’s happy, and she keeps going on, trying to become the best version of herself. That’s strength. That’s courage.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You pretend to. You have no idea what this woman has had to go through. How could you hurt her like this?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Look, I know I handled it badly?—”
“Badly is the fucking tip of that iceberg,” he interrupted acidly. Ben Greyfeather was a calm man. An easy-going man. The Aspen Yoda, if you please. Now, he resembled Anakin Skywalker .
“I didn’t mean to?—”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. You got angry, and you hurt her in the ways you knew would wound her the deepest. You told her she deserved how she was treated. You told her she was to blame for how the Wildflower was doing—and let me tell you, she isn’t. It’s your wife.”
“Ex-wife,” I automatically corrected.
“Sounds like she’s your current wife, Heath,” Ben challenged, his tone sharp. “She’s got you by the balls. Why else would you side with her when she’s full-on out there going after Sable?”
He was right. I intentionally, deliberately hurt Sable with the information she’d given me about herself because she trusted me. This wasn’t the person I was—at least, I didn’t used to be. But it was becoming apparent to me that I’d become that man, and now it was time to look at myself in the mirror and figure out how to fix what I’d broken—starting with myself.
“I regret what I said. I am so fucking sorry. If I could talk to?—"
“Doesn’t matter what you are,” he cut in. “What matters is what you did. And you proved to everyone in this town that Sable doesn’t deserve your respect, that she doesn’t belong. That she’s not worth standing up for.”
Everything he said was true, and the realization struck like a fist to the solar plexus. I wasn’t the kind of guy who let anger take the wheel, yet I had. The pressure of the past few days—the looming fear that things with Sable were falling apart—had built to a breaking point. And at that moment at the farmer’s market, it all coalesced into the shittiest thing I’d ever done to anyone in my entire life.
“She’s been fighting for respect her whole life, Heath,” Ben continued. “And you—of all people—should’ve had her back. But instead, you made it worse.”
“How do I fix it?” I whispered, desperate for a chance to do that.
“You can’t,” Ben replied simply. “She’s probably going to leave Aspen. I know she wants me to buy back Wildflower, and…she ran this place for a few months, and she did it damn well. But this town managed to fuck her up. You know what, I’m going to support her leaving Aspen. She deserves a fresh start.”
She can’t leave!
The panic I felt at the thought of losing Sable forever slammed into me like a runaway train, unstoppable and overwhelming. It told me everything I hadn’t been willing to admit—that somewhere along the way, I’d fallen in love with Sable. This wasn’t a fleeting kind of love but the deep, unshakable kind that terrified me. And instead of facing it, I’d run like a coward, hiding behind excuses and half-truths, convincing myself it was safer to keep things casual. But now, with the reality of her slipping through my fingers, I realized just how wrong I’d been. Losing her wasn’t just painful—it was unthinkable.
I went to Sable’s cottage on Monday night, hoping that would give her enough time to process my assholery so we could talk.
I knocked on the door, my heart pounding. I suspected it wouldn’t go well. I deserved for her to knee me in the balls.
After a long moment, she answered.
“What do you want?” she asked, her voice flat, her hand on the door so she could close it at any moment.
“Can we talk?”
She hesitated, then stepped aside, letting me in.
The living room smelled faintly of lavender like she did. It felt intimate, like stepping into a piece of her soul, and I hated how I wasn’t welcomed here any longer.
“I’m sorry,” I started, turning to face her. “For everything. For how I treated you. For what I said. I was wrong. About all of it.”
She crossed her arms, her expression cold. She tilted her head as if waiting for me to say everything I wanted to.
“I let Alexa get in my head,” I admitted. “I didn’t see what she was doing—not to you, not to Juno, not to us, not to the Wildflower. And I hurt you because of it. I don’t know how to fix this, but I want to try.”
She nodded as if listening intently to what I was saying.
“I’m so sorry, Bambi.”
She flinched at my use of the nickname I’d given her.
“I really am. Give me a chance to make this right. Please.”
She smiled weakly. “Are you done?”
I nodded like a fool.
“I have no forgiveness left in my heart to give to anyone, least of all you. ”
I opened my mouth to respond, but she kept talking, not waiting to see if I was even listening.
“I trusted you, and you broke it. You broke me.”
“I know and?—”
She raised a hand to silence me. “You said you were done talking. Are you?”
“Yes.”
“You know, all these years, despite all the bad stuff that happened in Aspen, I stayed. But this time…after what you did, how you hurt me, I’m finally leaving. I’m going to go away, find a new place to start over, learn from my mistakes.”
“Sable,” I managed to say, my throat tight, “you mean more to me than I can even explain. I know I messed up, but please don’t leave your home.”
She shook her head, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. “This place is not home. I have no home.”
I had done this to her. Guilt was a heavy burden.
“I fell in love with you,” she admitted, and I wanted to tell her I did, too, but I knew she wouldn’t believe me. Not now. I wouldn’t believe me if I were her. “And you shattered me. You finally did what no one else could do, not your wife, not Natasha, not Jack. Now, if you don’t mind, seeing you hurts me. So, please endeavor not to be around me again. Since I am leaving, it’s something you’re going to have to do only for a short time.”
She walked away, not even bothering to ask me to get out of her home.
I heard her lock her bedroom.
I stood in her living room, feeling lonelier than I ever had in my life.