Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Ben
B ec was fine.
Thank God.
I glared at Thatcher who had his arms crossed, his back hunched into himself as Bec all but yelled at us.
“Just because I don’t respond right away doesn’t mean I’m about to harm myself! Just because I have chosen not to return your calls…” She glared at Thatcher, her eyes so full of anger, I would have withered if I was him.
Which, he kind of was.
Hands on her hips, the dramatic pause lingered, and then she continued. “And don’t think I don’t know what you thought had happened. I am not suicidal. I am not even depressed. I am making some big life decisions, and I will thank you very much to mind. Your. Own. Business .”
Thatcher shook his head. He was visibly upset, not unusual when it came to Bec, but I was surprised by just how little he was locking it down. “We?—”
“I don’t want to hear how you’ve taken on the job of watching out for me. I don’t want that. I lost my brother, and I didn’t sign up for two more.”
She stomped her way over to the bar of her kitchen where she deposited her empty wine glass. She turned back to us and folded her arms, as though waiting for us to leave.
“You aren’t going to tell us about these big life decisions?” I asked, genuinely curious, and hoping we could move out of the fury and into a normal conversation.
“Definitely not.” Her chin jutted out proudly, just like Dillon used to do.
Good grief, he was an arrogant ass .
It was one of those moments where remembering made me smile and ache at the same time.
Thatcher took a breath, let it out, ran his hands over his face. “Bec, please?—”
“You need to leave. Now. And I will talk to you both at some later date when I don’t feel like the most likely result of our conversation will be my incarceration for murder.” Her voice still shook with rage.
“Okay, we’re going. But if you don’t call within a week, we’re coming back,” I said as a not-entirely-mock threat.
That made her dark eyebrows flash to her hairline. “You will do no such thing, Ben Holder. If I have to call your fancy little girlfriend and have her chain you down, you know I’ll do it. Do not mess with me on this. I will call you when I’m good and damn well ready, and you’ll be just dandy with that, clear?”
I let my brow furrow and tucked my lips between my teeth to keep from smiling. This was perfect. This was what I wanted to see—she was spitting mad, take no prisoners, Bec-with-a-vengeance, and she was fine. Not healed completely, but she was good.
“Yes, ma’am.” Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Thatcher nodding.
I moved to her door and opened it, but turned back to her. “You know we love you, and that’s why we’re here?”
Her shoulders slumped a little, and she looked me in the eye when she said, “I know it.”
Her eyes flickered to Thatch’s and held there, both of them locked in a moment I didn’t fully understand, but had begun to lately.
Thatcher clenched his jaw, and with a little nod to Bec, followed me out of her place.
He shut the door gently behind him, and we walked to the parking lot where we’d parked next to each other in the visitor parking area.
I stopped in front of my truck and surveyed him. He was lost in his own head. “You okay?”
He started nodding immediately, like that was the answer his mind had commanded him to give, but his mouth wouldn’t comply. “I don’t know, man.”
We’d promised to be honest with each other, and for him to say that much was truly saying something. He was one of the most positive, sunny-side up kind of people I’d ever met.
“I just got it in my head she was in trouble. I tried to talk to her when she got back from her trip at Christmas, and she blew me off, and then I couldn’t get ahold of her, and when you told me you hadn’t heard from her either, and Erin hadn’t seen her in weeks, I…”
“I know. And it wasn’t without some merit. It’s okay to be worried about a friend. But I wonder if you’re feeling?— ”
The sharp shake of his head, the bitter frown on his lips, stopped me short.
“Nah. No. Let’s not go there. Not now.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket and let them clink together into his palm. “I’ll see you at church?”
“Yeah. See you tomorrow.”
I climbed into my truck and strapped my seatbelt as he pulled away, then messaged Whit to let her know everything was fine. Thatcher barely braked as he left the lot, and a grim kind of smile settled on my face. This was all so messed up.
Whit suggested I come back over since we’d ended up finding Bec and resolving the issue (or more accurately, getting kicked out of her crappy apartment halfway between Fort Campbell and Nashville) more quickly than I could have hoped, and of course, I obliged.
The half hour drive back was full of questions about Thatcher and Bec, thoughts about Bec and whether she really was okay, and wondering what her life decisions were. She’d been stuck, paralyzed in the same job, the same apartment, since Dillon’s death. Erin had told me she’d asked Bec if she’d ever leave the area, and how she thought Bec was considering it. Would she finally leave, and would that signal an acceptance of her loss? I wanted that for her because I knew what it was to try and keep acceptance at bay.
When I reached Whit’s house, I felt bone weary in a way I hadn’t in a while. I’d managed to smile and feel good about leaving, had talked myself into being glad about Bec’s anger with us for banging on her door like we were FBI and she a hunted fugitive, but the farther away from it I got, the more drained I felt.
Whit swung open her giant door, a soft smile on her face, and I walked right into her open arms knowing there was truly no place I’d rather be.