Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
“How old were you when they died?” Boone asked her.
“Nine, but I was eight when Mom left us.”
“She left you?”
Maybe now, Boone would understand why she’d been going the extra mile with Sadie. She knew from experience how it felt to live without a mother.
“She and my dad had a whirlwind romance. Married three months after they met, and Lucy came along nine months after that.”
Boone grimaced. “I can’t help but recognize some similarities between your parents’ relationship and mine with Lena. Impetuous choices made in the heat of the moment.”
“That’s not always a bad thing,” Mila said, though she could tell her words were falling on deaf ears.
“So your mom wasn’t from Gracemont?” he asked.
She shook her head. “She was a photographer. She’d just graduated from college and was in the midst of a cross-country road trip. She was adventurous. Lucy takes after her that way.”
Mila had told him quite a bit about her sisters with Sadie and Boone during their shared meals.
She was extremely close to them, so they were one of her favorite subjects.
She supposed it made sense that they were close, considering they’d been orphaned so young.
That kind of devastating loss forged strong bonds.
“Mom and Dad were happy for quite a few years, but after a time, Mom’s wanderlust started to kick in. They fought a lot because Mom wanted us to move.”
“Where?”
Mila shrugged. “I’m not even sure that she cared where. She just wanted off the farm.”
“I guess your dad didn’t want to leave.”
“He and my uncle Rex were very much alike, both wholly devoted to this land. They hit an impasse, so Mom left. Packed her bags and hit the road the second we left on the bus for school one day. Dad was waiting for me and my sisters when we got home. He said Mom went on a vacation, but I knew she wasn’t coming back.
Lucy, however, hung on to that lie for months. She and my mom were very close.”
“You weren’t?”
Mila smiled sadly. “I was a daddy’s girl. At least, I was until…” Mila leaned back against the arm of the chair and stopped talking. She hadn’t meant to go into any more detail than she already had.
Of course, Boone prodded. “Until?”
She bit her lower lip, hesitating. “I’ve never talked about the year Mom was gone with anyone.
Not even my sisters. Nora and Remi were too young to really grasp what was going on.
Lucy and I… Well, without saying so, I think it was obvious we’d both picked sides.
Lucy wanted Mom back, and I was mad at her for hurting Dad. Because he…changed.”
“Changed how?” Boone clearly regretted the question the moment it slipped out, because she had to quickly look away, unwilling to let him see the tears she was fighting the very devil not to shed. “You don’t have to talk about this, Mila.”
She blinked a few times, beating back the sadness before turning to face him again. She’d come this far, and besides, strangely, it felt good to be able say these things aloud. She’d been carrying them around inside for far too long.
“It’s okay. It happened a long time ago.
I guess seeing you with Sadie…it’s made me remember things I haven’t thought about in years.
My dad was a hard worker. He loved getting his hands dirty, digging in the soil, caring for the vines.
Just like you. I would wait for him every day on the porch and the second he walked through the clearing, I’d run to him, and he’d pick me up and spin me around over his head.
Then I’d tell him about my day while he washed up for dinner.
He always called me his little chatterbox. ”
“Chatterbox, huh?” he asked with a grin.
“Back then, there was no shutting me up. I swear I was worse than Remi.”
Boone feigned a shudder, and Mila laughed.
“He told the greatest bedtime stories ever, making up the most outlandish tales about princes and knights fighting off fearsome dragons, or trolls, or even vampires to rescue their princesses. The stories were never the same, always fraught with drama and big battles, and we loved them.”
Mila’s smile faded. “After Mom left, he worked longer hours. My grandma and Aunt Claire started taking care of us, feeding us dinner, even putting us to bed some nights when he was really late. No more of his bedtime stories. He stopped spinning me around, and while I still told him about my day, it never felt like he heard what I was saying.”
“I’m sorry. That couldn’t have been easy on you.”
“Sometimes it felt like I hadn’t just lost my mother, but my father as well. So I spent the better part of that year furious at my mom, and overwhelmed with guilt because I didn’t miss her the way Lucy did. I thought I should, and that there was something wrong with me because I didn’t.”
“You were eight years old, Mila. That’s a lot for someone so young to deal with.”
“It was—” She stopped, because the only word she could think of was hard. She couldn’t minimize how difficult that time of her life was, but she felt guilty, sitting here unloading nearly two decades’ worth of emotional baggage.
“It was difficult,” he answered for her. “You don’t have to pretend for my sake. I’d prefer it if you didn’t. But I’m confused,” Boone continued. “You said your parents died in a car accident. Did your mom come back?”
Mila squeezed her hands together, wringing them, because this was where the story got tougher. So tough, she debated not telling it because once she did, the pain she’d buried all those years ago would be revealed, the vein cut open.
Boone reached out and placed his over hers, grasping and holding them tightly. “Take a breath.”
She did as he suggested, then she took another.
He smiled. “Good girl.”
The nervous flutters in her stomach instantly stilled as a wave of calm washed through her.
She swallowed deeply. “One night, I was talking to my dad while he washed for dinner. He’d come home on time that night, and I was thrilled because I hadn’t seen him for three days straight.
No matter how early I got up, he was always out of the house before then.
That night, I was trying to make up for lost time, talking a mile a minute when he sort of… exploded.”
Boone frowned. “What’s that mean?”
“He told me I needed to stop talking so much, that I needed to stop constantly being under foot because I annoyed people. Then he said he was tired and just wanted me to leave him alone.”
“Mila,” Boone started.
“I skipped dinner that night. Dad didn’t bother to call for me or try to drag me to the table. I don’t know if that’s because he was still mad or because he felt bad for what he’d said. I cried myself to sleep and by the next morning, I set my mind to being quieter, less annoying.”
“Mila, I don’t think that’s what your dad wanted at all. He was clearly struggling with your mom leaving and he took it out on you. What did he say about it the next morning?”
“Nothing. I didn’t know at the time that he was stressed out because Mom was coming home the next day. She’d filed for a divorce, and the two of them were going to sign the papers.”
“He did talk to you about it, though, right?”
Mila blinked several more times, but a few tears escaped anyway. She tried to wipe them away but Boone beat her to it, brushing them with his thumb, his hand caressing her cheek so sweetly, she leaned into the touch.
They stared at each other without speaking for a few moments, and Mila resisted the desire to shift toward him, to kiss him.
Boone shook himself free of whatever spell had fallen over them first, moving back a few inches. “Tell me the rest.” From his tone, it almost felt like he was mentally preparing himself for what came next. She was touched that he cared so much.
“When I got home from school that afternoon, Grandma was there to watch us. Mom and Dad had gone to the lawyer’s office—not that I knew that until later. I guess they were planning to sit us down over dinner to tell us about the divorce, but…”
“But?”
“Nora had ridden the bus to a friend’s house. Mom and Dad picked her up after their meeting with the lawyer. On the way back up the mountain, they hit a patch of black ice and the car ran off the road, hit a tree head-on.”
“Nora was in the car?”
“Yes. She wasn’t hurt badly—just some scrapes and bruises and a nasty bump on the head—but she was trapped for several hours. Mom and Dad were… The police officer said they were killed instantly.”
Boone flinched. “She was in the car with them for hours?”
Mila nodded, unable to continue, the lump in her throat too thick.
Boone took her hand again, to hold it, she assumed. Instead, he tugged on it, pulling her toward him and wrapping his arms around her.
Mila accepted his hug. Actually, she sank into it, because she needed it so damn bad. Closing her eyes, she breathed in Boone’s masculine scent.
Cedar and bergamot with the faintest overtone of tomato and garlic from the pizza sauce.
She hadn’t intended to share so much with him regarding her parents. Not because it was a secret or because it was difficult to talk about, since everyone—family and friends—already knew what had happened.
What she’d never told another living soul was the last conversation she’d had with her father.
Realistically, she knew Boone was right. That her dad had been on edge and if he’d had the opportunity, he would have apologized and made things right.
But he died before he could do that, and for too many years afterward, his words stuck, and the wound refused to heal.
She suspected her grandparents had blamed her newfound quiet disposition on grief, but that emotion was only one small part of why she’d changed so drastically after her parents’ deaths.
Mingled with the pain was also a lot of anger toward her mother, whom Mila blamed for basically everything, as well as shame.
Mila had swum in an ocean of it, hating that she’d disappointed her dad by being too loud, too chatty, too annoying.