Chapter 47
forty-seven
Georgia
The house is as quiet as the first time I unlocked the door and walked from room to room, not looking too closely at what I’d just inherited or thinking too deeply about what it meant. This morning, my footsteps and the worn floorboards are the only sounds, but I’m walking sure and proud.
Well, maybe not sure.
It’s my last hour in this house, and the finality spins my emotions with uncertainty.
Saying goodbye to something you love—and the resulting sadness—is only natural, but what I didn’t expect was the feeling of gratitude.
This house is my connection to a past I might never have known about.
It’s what brought me to Shafer, where I learned how it feels to have friends.
It’s the place where I fell in love. It’s the reason I’ll go back home to New Jersey knowing I want to experience all of those things again.
I flip on the foyer light and slide the dimmer switch down.
The light’s barely visible in the morning sun, but if the new owners let themselves in when it’s dark, I want their first sight to be the cozy glow of the beautiful brass-and-crystal chandelier welcoming them home. I always loved that sight.
Tonight I’ll sleep at Maisy’s—one last night of being roommates—and tomorrow morning I’ll set out for Jersey.
I have a job starting in July, and I’ve scouted out an apartment not far from my new office.
It feels strange and unfamiliar and not at all like going home, but I’m used to that feeling by now.
The doorbell rings, surprising me. I hesitate at the sight of someone standing on the other side of the frosted glass; I’m not expecting anyone and not in the mood for a pop-in.
I never expected Cash Hartnell on the other side of the door, but here he is, and somehow it feels anything but surprising. Maisy would have told him the house had sold, and he was never subtle about his love for the place.
“Hey, Georgia.” His voice is uncharacteristically soft. I’d almost forgotten how broad his chest was and the way standing close to him made me feel safe even before he belonged to me.
I swallow, trying to compose myself. “Hi.”
“Sorry for coming by unannounced. Heard your time here in Shafer is almost up.” Without taking his eyes off me, he hands me a small white box with a purple ribbon wrapped around it. “I wanted to bring you a little something.”
“That’s sweet.” I take the box, flustered. “You want to come in for a minute?”
“You don’t mind?”
I step back to give him room. “Your talent is all over this house. You should have a chance to say goodbye.”
He steps inside and takes in a deep breath through his nose. “Still love that smell.” He turns around, absorbing the details of the foyer’s woodwork the same way he did the first time he saw the place. “The new homeowner’s gonna love that chandelier,” he says, a little spark in his eye.
“I think so too.”
“Any changes around here I didn’t get to see?”
“No, I didn’t do any more work after you…” Emotion pricks through my voice. “It looks perfect the way it is.”
He completes his scan of the room before settling warmly on me. “It does.”
Weeks ago, I came alive under that gaze; today, though, I only squirm. So much I should say, but I don’t have it in me to find the right words. Maybe someday I’ll see him again and I’ll have it all figured out. “You can walk around and take a last look if you want.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
My body longs to follow him. How many times did I walk these rooms at his side?
Trying not to touch him, then touching him but trying to act like it was accidental, then holding on to him because he was the best thing in my life.
These walls saw every stage of our relationship.
But I hold back, busying myself in the foyer by inspecting the fretwork for dust.
It’s only a couple minutes before he returns. “The place looks beautiful.”
I smile, so proud of what we accomplished together. “We did a good job.”
“So you’re really out of here.”
“Leaving tomorrow.”
“Shit. The end of an era, huh?”
The notion immediately steals my smile. “A short era, but yes. Definitely an era.” A four-month stretch with more happiness and tears packed into it than the entire previous decade.
“Well, I guess all that’s left to do is have you open your present.” Sunlight streams through the transom windows over the door, illuminating his eyes brilliantly. He nods at the box in my hand. “Go ahead.”
“Is this the opposite of a housewarming present?” I ask nervously.
“Something like that.”
My hand trembles as I tug at the silky ribbon. I’m scared of this moment—our last real one together—and I’m terrified of what’s inside the box, of what his parting gift could be. I don’t know what would hurt worse: something trivial or something so meaningful it feels like a stab in the heart.
I place the ribbon on the table and lift the lid off. A cotton square lies protectively over whatever is inside. Underneath, all I find is a silver key. One I recognize.
Confused, I peer up at him. He’s returning the house key I gave him. Hurt washes through me, but I tell myself there must be an explanation because he wouldn’t be cruel enough to return my key and call it a gift. “This is the key I gave you,” I say, unable to keep the accusation out of my voice.
“It was.” He nods. “Now it’s the key to my new house. And I’m giving you a copy so you can get in anytime you want, just like you did for me.”
My mind spins. “I don’t understand.”
“That new homeowner who’s gonna love that chandelier so much? Here he is.”
I blink at him. He’s messing with me. “But—but my real estate agent said a young couple bought it. And your name wasn’t—”
“A brother and sister can pass for a couple if they want something bad enough.”
“You bought this house?”
“Surprise,” he murmurs.
I stare at him, and then a bewildered laugh bubbles out of me, and I cover my face. “I’m so confused, Cash.”
He pulls my hands away from my face. “Everybody says I have to let you go. You have your plans, you made your choice, and it’s not me.
But nobody understands us. They never have.
Nobody believed me when I said I knew you were meant to be mine from the first time I looked at you across the bar.
” His face radiates raw sadness, the playfulness he wore only a mask that’s dropped.
“Nobody understands that I can’t let you go.
But if I can’t have you, then at least I can have this piece of you.
” He raises his eyes to the room behind me before locking on me again.
“I can have this beautiful thing we created together. And I can hope that maybe someday, whether you want to own it again or you just want one more look inside, you’ll come back home, and I’ll still be here. ”
My heart drums inside my chest. “I can’t believe you would do that—for me.”
“I would do anything for you.” He clasps my hands between his. “I took a huge leap of faith, the kind of thing everyone else would say is another stupid Cash move, but you never saw me that way, so maybe you won’t see this as stupid either.”
“You just…you bought the house so I could come back and see it someday?”
He smiles. “Yeah, that. But you know I’m the kind of guy who dreams big, so maybe I had a few hopes beyond that.”
“Tell me.” Against my wishes, my heart surges with hope of its own.
“I hoped you’d understand how much I regret destroying us.
” He studies our hands before raising his gaze to me.
“When you finally let yourself need me, that was you loving me the way I’ve wanted you to since the beginning.
How I didn’t see that, I’ll never be able to justify.
I made you promises that I meant with every piece of my heart, Georgia, but I didn’t back them up when it really mattered because I’ve spent my life making decisions out of fear: fear for what would happen to my sister if I couldn’t fix everything.
I made you think you came second, and I’m sorry.
I’m going to have to live with that as the biggest mistake of my life. ”
Tenderness softens my voice. “You didn’t have to buy the house to prove that to me.”
“This house is everything, though, do you feel that? This place belongs to you. It’s you and your family and your memories. And it’s the place where I fell in love with you. I couldn’t let it go.”
“I feel it.”
“This house will always be standing here for you. If you need a friend. If you need a place to stay. If you want to come back to something you used to love.”
I want to fall against his chest and cry, but I fight instead to bring the words I owe him to my tongue. “What if I still love it? What if I’m going to love it forever?”
Hope flickers in his pale-green eyes. “It?”
Weary of the distance between us, I lean close and kiss him. “You. What if I’m going to love you forever?”
“Then love me. Please. Because I don’t have anything if I don’t have that love.”
“I never stopped loving you. I tried a hundred times in the last few months not to love you, and it never worked, no matter how many times I thought I was better off.”
“And I’m never going to let you think that again. You’re my number one forever, Georgia.”
Certainty fills me up. “I know I am.” I throw my arms around his neck, and he scoops me off the ground, wrapping my legs around his waist.
He kisses me. “So does this mean you’re staying?” Bright with excitement, his eyes lift to the room around us.
But I can only look at him. “I don’t know what it means,” I say, squeezing him tighter and resting my head on his shoulder. “I just know this is my home right here.”