Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Holiday
Curling my knees tighter to my body, I pulled the throw blanket higher, tucking it under my chin and snuggling deeper into the squashy couch cushions, hoping this place would offer me the same calm and comfort that it always had in the past.
Before I bought One More Chapter and turned it into what it was now, this house had been where I went for comfort. For solace. It wasn’t so much the actual house as the memories that came from my time spent here that always made me feel better.
This tiny house was where I went whenever someone picked on me at school, or when I caught my date at the Homecoming dance making out with Kelly Martin beneath the school bleachers.
This was where I went for every major milestone in my life after the age of six, when I needed to just be.
To soak in all the good or push out all the bad.
That was why I was here now. I hoped it would work its usual magic on my battered and bruised heart. The problem was, it had never hurt the way it was hurting now.
I wriggled deeper into the back cushions, hoping to find the essence of the woman who lived here before.
With Gypsy and Marco gone and the main house empty, the silence was thicker than usual. I felt it pressing down on me, like it was trying to push my head under water.
It didn’t help that I’d turned my cellphone off and left it in my car, but the damn thing wouldn’t stop going off.
Lennix and Tanner had been blowing it up, then my brother Raylan had joined in, and I couldn’t stand the noise.
I was starting to rethink my decision when a knock sounded on the carriage house’s front door.
My head came off the arm of the couch, and I stared at the door with a frown, wondering who the hell it could be. I hadn’t told anyone where I was going, so no one should be knocking on the door.
I started to think my mind was playing tricks on me, and maybe I didn’t hear what I thought I heard, when another knock came. Only, that time, a familiar deep voice followed right after.
“I know you’re in there, Sunshine. Please open the door.
” My mouth dropped open, but the words got stuck in my throat.
“Baby, I know you’re in there. Please. Just five minutes, and if you don’t like what I have to say, I’ll leave.
I give you my word.” Another beat of silence followed, and while I tried to decide what the hell I was going to do, the next words out of his mouth sealed my decision.
“That’s fine. If you won’t answer, I’ll just sleep out here on the front porch.
I’ve slept in worse places. This’ll be nothing. ”
Blowing out a sigh, I tossed the blanket aside and climbed to my feet.
I didn’t bother looking at the mirror in the entryway as I passed, because I knew I had to look a real mess.
I’d cried off most of my mascara, and what was left was probably streaked down my cheeks.
I knew without having to look that my face was all red and blotchy, and that the tip of my nose was swollen to twice its usual size.
I was not a pretty crier. I used to envy the women in movies who all cried so femininely, a few clear tears dripping from their eyes, because that was so not me.
Twisting the deadbolt, I grabbed the knob and gave it a turn, pulling the door to the carriage house open.
The sight in front of me had a whole new wave of tears welling up in my eyes.
Tanner stood right there, across the threshold, looking ravaged.
His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was in disarray, like he’d been pulling on it in frustration.
His gaze was slightly manic, and I didn’t miss the way he was gripping the doorframe so tightly his knuckles were bleached white, as though he had to hold himself back from reaching for me.
“What do you want?” I’d been hoping to sound strong, but my throat was raw from crying, and the words came out sounding like I’d gargled gravel.
His brows fell, devastation washing over his gorgeous face. “Sunshine,” he croaked out. His Adam’s apple bobbed on a thick swallow. “Can—can I touch you?”
God, I wanted that so badly. That request caused new tears to break free and spill down my cheeks. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
Without my permission, he didn’t reach for me, but the war was written all over his face. “Holly, baby, please don’t cry. You’re tearing me apart.”
Didn’t he realize he was doing that very thing to me? I sniffed back the rest of my tears and cleared the roughness from my throat. “You said you wanted to explain, so explain.”
A flicker of hope flashed across his face so fast I nearly missed it. There and gone in the blink of an eye. “Can I at least come in?”
I didn’t know what it said about me that I couldn’t say no to that, but instead of questioning it, I simply stepped to the side to let him in.
The room suddenly felt like it shrank to half its size once Tanner was standing in it. It wasn’t only his physical size that took up so much of the space, his presence did as well.
Closing the door, I moved back to the couch and sat down at one end, tucking my feet beneath me, and wrapping my arms around my waist in a protective hold.
Instead of taking the chair across from me, he sat on the coffee table directly in front of me, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and bringing himself so close I smelled the fresh rain scent on his skin.
The heat radiating from him poured over me.
It was as if every aspect of him was everywhere, all at once. There was no escaping him.
“Who is she?” I forced myself to ask, even though I didn’t really want to know. If tonight had taught me anything, it was that the time for burying my head in the sand was long gone.
“She’s someone I knew back in DC.”
I swallowed down the lump that had formed in my throat and forced the words out. “A girlfriend?”
“No,” he answered vehemently. “Not a girlfriend. She was never that. It was only ever casual between us. We’d both gone into it knowing that. She tried to make it more, but I was clear that wasn’t going to happen. I eventually ended things for good when I caught her taking pictures of me.”
My brows winged up in shock. “What kind of pictures?”
“In some of them, I’d just gotten out of the shower. In others I was only wearing underwear.”
A chill worked its way down my spine. “And you didn’t know she’d taken them?”
He shook his head, and all of a sudden, my blood began to boil.
“She said she wasn’t planning on doing anything with them, but I didn’t believe her and made her delete them.
Good thing too, because one of her friends met my teammate at a bar a few weeks later and told him Sandra planned to try to sell them to the highest bidder. ”
What a bitch! I was suddenly mad I ran out of the bar the way I did. After hearing this, I wanted to track her down and rip all that red hair out.
“But, I don’t understand. If you two aren’t together, what was she doing here? And why did you kiss her?”
“I didn’t kiss her,” he insisted. “I know it must have looked that way, but I didn’t kiss her, Sunshine, I swear. I was shocked to see her. I froze for a moment and she took advantage of that. She kissed me, but I swear to you, I didn’t want it, and I stopped it right away.”
What he was describing started to make sense. He had been the one to step away, I’d seen that with my own eyes. Looking back on it now, I realize that, while they’d obviously known each other, I didn’t see any indication that he was happy to see her.
“I don’t know how the hell she found out where I was, because I sure as hell didn’t tell her.
And I know none of my teammates would either.
After you ran out, I told her if I ever saw her face again, I’d file a restraining order.
Then your friend Lennix had security throw her out.
I didn’t hang around to make sure she left.
The only thing I could think was that I needed to get to you. ”
He reached out then, taking my hands in his, swiping his thumbs across the backs of them.
“You have to believe me, I would never do anything to hurt you. Seeing the look on your face after she kissed me . . .” He trailed off, giving his head a shake as his eyes grew red all over again.
“Fucking killed me, Holly,” he said, the words coming out hoarse and raspy, like his throat was coated in sandpaper.
“I never want to see that look on your face ever again, and sure as hell never want to be the cause of it.” His fingers squeezed mine tighter. “I’d rather lose a goddamn limb.”
My tongue came out, swiping across my lip before tugging it between my teeth. At my silence, desperation sparked in his gaze, setting that amber ablaze. “Say you believe me. Please, Sunshine, you have to believe me.”
I felt the pieces of my heart knitting themselves back together, but even with the heartache easing, the fear was still there, as real as ever. “I believe you,” I whispered.
I could practically see the relief coming off him as his shoulders slumped and his head dropped forward. “Thank you,” he rasped, his gaze returning to mine a second later. “Thank you, baby. Can I hold you now? Please?”
I barely finished nodding when he moved.
His strength still blew me away. The ease with which he lifted me off the couch so he could take my place, depositing me in his lap was unreal.
As soon as his familiar warmth wrapped around me, every ounce of tension swept from my body, and I melted into him.
Warm tears filled my eyes and dripped against his shirt.
“Hey.” His fingers pressed beneath my chin, forcing my face out of the crook of his neck. “What’s this?” He swiped his thumb beneath my eye, wiping my tears away. “Why are you crying, baby?”
I sniffled and pulled in a breath, searching for the courage to say what needed to be said. There was no more putting it off. It was time.
“I’m really scared.”
He looked like I’d just punched him. “Of me?”
Reaching up, I cupped his cheek and shook my head. “No. Never of you. But the way I feel about you terrifies me.”
His brows pulled together. “Why?”
It was now or never, so I decided to rip off the Band-Aid, get it over with so I could deal with what came next.
“Because I’m in love with you,” I admitted quietly. “I’m in love with you, and you’re leaving. And I know that when you do, it’s going to crush me.”
Tanner’s eyes flared wide and his mouth opened to form a perfect O. I sat frozen in his lap as I watched him process what I’d confessed. Then the man did something I wasn’t expecting and smiled the most beautiful, brilliant smile I’d ever seen on him.
My face pinched into a frown and I narrowed my eyes, feeling salty all of the sudden. “Why are you smiling? This isn’t the time to smile. I poured my guts out to you, and you’re smiling like the freaking Joker.”
“Are you kidding?” Dear god, he looked downright giddy. “The girl of my dreams just told me she’s in love with me, and you expect me not to smile?”
“Wha—”
That was all I got out before he slammed his lips down on mine. The kiss was hungry and possessive. It lit my body up like I was the sky on New Year’s Eve, and I was incapable of stopping it.
“Just so you know, I’m in love with you too.”
Until that very moment, I didn’t realize that words had the power to heal someone completely.