Chapter 44
44
He waits for her to say it.
To ask.
He doesn’t like the bitter taste of disappointment.
Odette cries when I tell her.
She tries to hide it, and over the phone, it’s easier. Only the odd sniffle gives her away as she insists Bloom will never be the same, but it’ll be just fine, and maybe I wouldn’t even notice if I wasn’t so well-versed in stealth crying.
Nova, on the other hand, doesn’t try at all. She weeps as she throws herself at me, warbling promises to uphold my floral legacy, and I laugh through my own tears as I squeeze my coworker-turned-friend tightly.
Aldo doesn’t cry. He huffs and puffs and acts all grumpy and affronted, but offers up his spare room in an offhand, non-committal way that I know is his version of begging me to stay, and when he hugs me, he clings.
I don’t live in Haven Ridge , he grunts in my ear. You don’t have to leave me.
I spend a long time explaining why I’m leaving to Chiara without actually explaining why, and I spend even longer fighting the urge to soothe that wobbling bottom lip by backing out of my plan entirely.
By the time I get to Hunter’s place, I’m a shell of a woman yet somehow, I manage to do it again—the too much thing. The ‘sneaking into his house in a pretty dress and cooking him dinner’ thing.
I’m struck with déjà vu as I watch a lasagna cook through the oven door, but I’m filled with dread for different reasons than last time. Because this time, I know without a shadow of a doubt Hunter wants me here—I know he wants me . What I don’t know is how he’s going to react when I tell him I won’t be here for very much longer.
A million scenarios jostle for dominance in my poor, fatigued mind. Will he be annoyed? I wouldn’t be surprised, and I wouldn’t blame him either. I imagine how I would feel if I told him I loved him, if I ended a marriage to be with him, and then, just a day later, he decided to haul ass out of town—I know, no matter how valid the reason, I would be crushed. I am crushed. This is not the way things were supposed to happen, it’s not how I was supposed to fall in love again. It wasn’t supposed to be so messy .
I wouldn’t change it though.
If he asked me to say, I’m pretty sure I would.
Of all my theories, though, that isn’t one of them.
Hands encircling my waist make me jump in surprise. Stubble scratches my cheek, soothed by a kiss that makes me slump backwards against a hard chest. “Thought you were gonna let me cook this time.”
And deprive my anxious hands of something to do? Yeah, right. Hunter would’ve gotten home to find my nails bitten right down to the cuticle.
Silently, I turn in his grip, rising up onto my tiptoes and wrapping my arms around his neck to hug him tightly. Too tightly, I think—a hand strokes down my spine cautiously, and I hear his frown as he asks, “What happened, honey?”
I was going to wait until after dinner. Soften him up with good food and better beer. But I take one look at his face, and I know there’s no chance of that happening.
Taking him by the wrist, I lead him to the sofa. At my urging, he sits obediently. I stay standing, backing up a couple of steps, because I know the second my ass hits that couch cushion, his hands will be all over me, distracting me, making it harder to get out what I need to say.
Fingers twined together in a nervous knot, I spit out the part I fear he’ll hate the most. “I went to see my dad this morning.”
Big hands curl into fists.
“Not alone,” I hastily add before he assumes the worst and flies out the door. “Jackson was with me. Nothing happened, I promise. I just needed to say goodbye. Because I'm done with him.”
Hunter makes a soft noise, his expression even softer. He reaches for me, but I evade, shaking my head. “But I realized I can’t be done, not really, if I’m here.” I drop my gaze to my hands, drop my voice to a whisper. “I’m leaving Haven Ridge. I have to. I’m so sorry.”
Other than the sound of my pulse pounding in my ears, only silence follows my confession. None of my hypotheticals come to fruition. As the quiet stretches on, that ever present dread spreads like poison ivy because what if the outcome I couldn’t bear to consider is happening—what if he doesn’t care? What if I’m on the verge of a panic attack, near tears, and he’s thinking woohoo! I’m free!
It’s my dad’s voice suggesting that. I know it is. It doesn’t make the idea any less penetrating, though. And when Hunter sighs, it burrows a little deeper.
I peek at him through my lashes, finding him sitting perfectly still, gnawing on his bottom lip. “Hunter?”
“Gimme a sec, honey.” With another sigh, he flops backwards, eyes shut as he runs his hands through his hair. “Tryna think of a response that doesn’t make me sound like a dick.”
Oh, God . He is relieved. He’s relieved, and he’s trying not to hurt my feelings.
Choking on a sob, I stumble back a step, and his eyes fly open again. My thoughts must be written all over my face because in an instant, he’s reaching for me, and he doesn’t let me escape this time. He reels me in by my hips, positioning me between his spread thighs as he palms the back of mine. “You hurt my feelings when you do that, you know? Assume the worst of me.”
“You—”
“Asking you to stay,” he cuts me off, kissing his teeth, “would make me a dick. Wanting you to stay makes me a dick when I know why you’re leaving. And I do want you to. You have no fuckin’ idea how much. But,” his hands glide upwards, up and and up until he’s cupping my cheeks gingerly, so careful of the ruined skin. “I want you to be happy more. Still gonna love you, honey. From a distance, up close, doesn’t matter. We’ll figure it out.”
Too many emotions to correctly identify even one roil behind my ribcage. “You make it sound easy.”
“It is. I love you. You love me. Easy.”
Easy . I huff as I slide my hands along his broad shoulders and around his thick neck, playing with the curls at his nape. “You know, you’ve told me you love me more times in the past day than I’ve heard in years.”
He shifts to kiss my arm, humming against my skin. “Figure if I say it enough, you’ll believe me eventually.”
“I do. Believe you. And I…”
He smiles softly. “I know.”
“I don’t think I can say it,” I admit quietly. “I think if I say it, I won’t leave.”
Pressure on the backs of my thighs urges me forward, and I let myself be guided to straddle his lap. I shiver as his hands slip beneath my dress to wrap around my bare waist, thumbs tracing my hip bones, and again when he presses his lips to mine, gentle but firm. “You tell me all the time, honey. Don’t need to hear it.”
A rush of purely selfish relief has me slumping against him. The urge to apologize writhes in my stomach, but I stifle it, knowing he doesn’t need that either.
“Where’re you gonna go?”
Honestly? “I have no idea.”
Knuckles graze my ribcage before fingertips kneads the knot between my shoulderblades. “If you find yourself in Georgia, my momma would like to meet you.”
I pull back to assess the sincerity behind his claim. “Really?”
The corner of his mouth lifts mirthfully. “She might track you down the second you cross state lines.”
“I didn’t know she knew about me.”
“I’m pretty sure she knew before I did,” Hunter rumbles, whatever that means, and I don’t get to seek clarification before he moves on. “When’re you leaving?”
“In a few days,” it feels so unreal and ridiculous and impulsive to say, but I need it to be like that, quick enough to give a girl whiplash, because quick means less time to talk myself out of it.
The chest beneath my palms rises and falls slowly, the sound that rattles within it almost… mournful. “We gotta do something before you go.”
I blame him and his warm, wandering hands for the dirty route my mind takes. “Yeah?”
Hunter hums as he touches every inch of my skin he can possibly reach, from the calves on either side of him to the slopes of my shoulders to the inner crease of my thighs where his touch makes me squirm.
My breath hitches as he slowly leans forward until our lips barely brush, bestowing the chastest of kisses. It’s a cruel tease, an infuriating taster of what’s to come, but when I try to speed up the process, a hand on my sternum gently pushes me away.
I make a disappointed, desperate noise that surprises us both, that makes him laugh. “Caroline,” he croons my name, a tease in itself. “Can I take you on a date?”
I offer to meet him at the ranch, but Hunter insists on picking me up. Through a text, he reminds me that he’s a gentleman, and a gentleman collects his lady from her front door.
I’m not sure a gentleman tells his lady not to wear panties, but hey, what do I know? It’s not like I have much room to talk; a real lady wouldn’t be waiting panty-less for her gentleman to arrive.
I hear his truck rumbling outside five minutes before he said he’d arrive, and I rush downstairs, but allow him the courtesy of knocking. When he does, I wrench the door open impatiently only to abruptly freeze.
He’s got a cowboy hat on. A chocolate brown Stetson that he tips in acknowledgement, his matching button-up shirt straining as his bicep bulges with the movement. Tucked into his jeans, it shows off the curve of his belly, but it’s the belt buckle that steals my attention, one that looks shiny and new, one with a floral freaking design etched on the metal. My gaze drops to clean boots, rises to the neckline of his shirt left unbuttoned enough to expose dark chest hair, and I find myself thinking I could die right now and be perfectly fine with this, with Hunter, being the last thing I ever saw.
There’s an equal amount of intense perusal on his behalf, eyes aflame, and it makes the several hours I spent critiquing every item in my wardrobe before settling on a white mini dress, embroidered with white-and-green flowers, seem worth it. I picked it out all by myself too—I asked for Lux’s help, but she was busy.
Running his tongue over his teeth, Hunter lifts a hand, wiggling a finger in a circular movement. Blushing, I oblige and do a little spin, showing off the sheer tulle fabric that ties in a bow at the middle of my back, and I wonder if it’s the sheer expanse of my skin on show or the obvious lack of a bra that makes him curse. “You fuckin’ kiddin’ me, honey?”
Joining my hands together behind my back, I rock back and forth on the soles of my brown, Western-style boots. “Do I look okay?”
Hunter blinks. He laughs incredulously, and then he’s on me, proving how okay he thinks I look with a kiss way too indecent for the very public doorstep of a store on Main Street.
He nips my bottom lip as he pulls away, growling something about deserving a prize for his incredible self control, and, with a real gentlemanly hand on my ass, he escorts me to his truck. I smile like a dopey, lovestruck fool when he helps me into the passenger seat, kissing my knuckles before closing the door, leaning in the open window to kiss me once more.
“You’re so fuckin’ beautiful, Caroline,” he murmurs against my mouth.
Before he can retreat, I lock my hands around his neck. “You’re beautiful too, you know.”
If I didn’t know any better, I’d call his smile shy . “You think?”
Our foreheads brush as I nod.
His lips graze my cheek. “Thanks, honey.”
In the back of my mind, I make a mental note to tell him that more. A whole lot before I leave, and especially after I’m gone. He should hear it—he should know it. Plus, I like the red dusting the apples of his cheeks too much not to coax it out more often.
As he climbs in the driver’s side, I don’t ask where we’re going. I figure he wouldn’t tell me anyway, and it doesn’t take long to recognize the route to Serenity. A questioning frown earns me nothing, so I sit back and enjoy the drive I won’t get to embark on all that many more times. Or I try to, at least; it’s a little hard to concentrate when you’re dying of anticipation.
That shifts to confusion, though, as I squint at the sunset-painted horizon. “What’re we doing here?”
Hunter just squeezes my thigh, looking almost nervous as he parks outside the building that once sheltered us from a sudden downpour, the place where this, we , really started. He taps my thigh before exiting the truck, jogging around the hood to open my door.
The last wildflower blooms of the season tickle my calves as I approach the old structure that looks a hell of a lot less imposing when strung up with tiny, twinkling lights. I glance at Hunter, my lips parted in a silent request for an explanation, and he gives me one in the form of a hand on my lower back guiding me inside Hell.
Except it isn’t Hell. Not the Hell I know, anyway. The towering amalgamation of wood rot, dust, and neglect has undergone a drastic renovation, cleared out of most of its broken, dilapidated interior. Instead of dirt particles, music floats through the air, curling around me in greeting. More lights hang between the rafters, helping the setting sun illuminate a scene I can’t quite believe I’m seeing.
Flowers. Everywhere. Everywhere everywhere, so many kinds, stuffed in every nook and cranny, coating the ground like a quilt, threaded through the gaps in the walls, and I laugh at the sight—the ridiculous, wonderful sight. And in the middle of it all lies a picnic blanket, a woven basket sitting on top of it, a beautiful bouquet of orange daisies and red roses on top of that.
Awestruck, I turn in a slow circle, taking it in with blurry eyes before coming to a stop facing Hunter.
Ridiculous, wonderful Hunter.
Hands cup my cheeks, a thumb swiping away a tear that manages to sneak past my defenses. “Don’t worry. Got rid of the critters.”
I choke on a watery laugh. “You did all this?”
“I had help.” A half-smile, a knowing smile, lifts his lips. “You’ve got so many people who love you, Line.”
Arms wrapping tightly around his waist, I bury another sniveling warble in his chest, whispering my gratitude.
“You like it?”
“It’s perfect.” I sniff. The nicest thing, the best thing, anyone has ever done for me. “It’s the perfect first date.”
He strokes from the crown of my head to the ends of my hair where it brushes the middle of my back. “Real cute that you think this is our first date.”
It takes me a confused moment to realize what he’s talking about. “They weren’t dates.”
“No?” Hot breath tickles my ear. “Two people who like each other doing something they enjoy together? That’s not a date?”
I pull away, opening my mouth for a rebuttal.
A tut quickly cuts me off. “Tell me I didn’t like you, honey. See what happens.”
Warmth coiling in my lower belly, I almost do just to see how, exactly, he follows through on that threat. I decide against it, though. Resting my cheek against his chest again, I decide to just enjoy this, now, him , while I can.
“I miss you and you’re not even gone yet,” he whispers against the top of my head as we sway gently to the music, and I almost do something rash. I almost ask him to come with me, as outrageous as that is. Outrageous, yet I want it anyway. I want it so fiercely—I want more of these moments, these lovely, perfect moments, but I can’t. I won’t. It’s selfish, and he hasn’t been selfish, he hasn’t asked me to stay, so I won’t ask him to leave.
We’ll have a moment like this again. I promise myself we will.
That doesn’t stop me from savoring this one, though.
From pocketing this as my favorite, my best, bright side.