Chapter 15
fifteen
. . .
Bridger
I’d just arrived back from the city after a busy day of meetings. I split my time between my office in San Francisco and my home office, which was where I preferred to work.
Less people.
Less distractions.
I dropped my briefcase on the barstool in the kitchen, then glanced down to see Emilia’s business card sitting there on the counter.
I wondered if she had thick skin, and if she’d be able to push past her mother telling her that this was a terrible idea.
I hadn’t ever experienced that type of negativity from my family. I had parents who supported me every step of the way as I built Chadwick Enterprises into a billion-dollar corporation.
Hell, they’d stood by me through every mistake I’d ever made.
Drunken fights. Even one that led to an arrest in college that almost ended up with me being kicked out of school permanently.
But they always stood right beside me.
I didn’t like the way her mother had spoken to her.
I dropped the card back down on the counter when my phone rang.
“What’s up, Bert?” I asked when his name flashed across the screen.
“Just wanted you to know that Emilia’s car was dropped off about twenty minutes ago at the Vintage Rose. It’s all fixed up, and it has a new set of snow tires. I’ll have your truck ready by tomorrow.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it. Just send over the invoice for everything.”
“You got it,” he said, and we ended the call.
I glanced around at my house, taking in the bare walls. I had a large couch in the center of the great room, with a coffee table in the middle. What more did I need?
Easton and Henley had met with me this past weekend and asked if they could throw their wedding here. They wanted to put up a large tent in the backyard and do a big outdoor ceremony on the river.
They’d mentioned using the interior as a place for the bride and groom to get ready with their wedding party.
I wondered if they were hinting that it needed to look a bit more lived in.
But why the hell would guests care about the interior of my home?
The doorbell rang, and I groaned because I wasn’t expecting company, and I still had more work to do tonight. I tugged the door open, and my shoulders immediately relaxed at the sight of my mother standing there.
It had started snowing again, and she stepped inside. “Hey, I was hoping you were home from work.”
“Yeah, just got back a little while ago,” I said, helping her take her coat off. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, I made your favorite chicken marsala for Dad and myself tonight, and I thought I’d drop some off for you. I figured you hadn’t eaten yet.”
Ellie Chadwick could give any TV sitcom mother a run for her money. She was everything one would wish for.
As good as it gets.
Mind you, I didn’t know my biological mother, her sister—but from what I’d been told, she would have been just as amazing.
I’d never know.
It was a weight I carried with me all the time.
Being responsible for the loss of someone’s life was not something I’d ever been able to shake off, even if I didn’t share that with anyone else.
I’d ruined more lives the day I was born than most people do in a lifetime.
“You drove all the way here in the snow to bring me dinner? And you didn’t bring Dad? I’m guessing something is up.” I smirked, because I knew this woman well.
She set the bag down on the counter and then walked over and wrapped her arms around me. “Maybe I just wanted to come over and hug my son.”
I knew where this was going. As soon as the month of December rolled around, we were both aware of what was coming next. It was something I’d always shared with my mother, separate from my siblings. Separate from my father, who I was also very close to.
But my mother grieved for her sister every single year on the date of her passing, and I think I was the one person who felt that heaviness along with her.
So, it was something just the two of us experienced every single year.
“Come on, let’s go to the table. I’m starving. I’ll eat and we can chat.” I motioned for her to follow me, and of course she immediately took the food out of the bag and put it on a plate and slipped it into the microwave. I poured myself a beer, and she opted for sparkling water.
She set my plate down on the table, and we took chairs across from one another as she glanced around the great room, as if she hadn’t been here a hundred times since I’d moved in.
“Bridger.”
“Mother.” I mimicked her serious tone before digging into my chicken and groaning when I took the first bite.
My mother was the best cook on the planet. No doubt about it.
“You’ve got the most beautiful home in Rosewood River. You’ve got more money than you know what to do with. When are you going to put some stuff on the walls and make this house a home?”
“It is a home,” I scoffed. “Do I need stuff on the walls to make it a home?”
“You need more than a couch. It’s so beautiful. What in the world are you waiting for?”
“It’s not really a priority,” I said. “It works for me. I’ll get around to it at some point.”
“Listen, with Henley and Easton getting married on your property, it’s the perfect excuse to get the interior done.”
“Are they getting married in my living room?”
“Sweetheart, a wedding is a big deal. People will be coming in your house to use your restrooms. Not to mention the fact that everyone in town talks about this place, and they’ll be dying to get inside to see it.”
“Let me get this straight. I’m going to offer my home for them to have their wedding, and probably trash my backyard, and I also have to decorate my interior for them as well?” I made no attempt to hide my irritation.
“Well, they didn’t say that, but I’m saying it. And the answer is yes. Do you want me to decorate it for you?” she asked.
“Hell, no. I don’t want to have fourteen ‘Live, Love, Laugh’ signs hanging on my walls. I don’t need a home full of positive affirmations. Nor do I want to have eight million throw pillows that are always in the way.”
She raised a brow. “A few positive affirmations might do you some good.”
“Not happening.”
Her gaze softened. “You’re so much like her sometimes. I mean, not the grumpy part, but the opinionated part. She knew exactly what she wanted, all the time. She always made fun of my decorating being a little too busy. She had a more classic style. Clean lines, simple yet elegant.”
“You still remember how she decorated all these years later?”
“Of course I do. And I think about her even more right now.”
“I know you do,” I said. The anniversary of my mother’s death, which also happened to be on my birthday, was right around the corner. My mom died giving birth to me. Just two weeks before Christmas.
Apparently, my mother told everyone that I was a Christmas miracle.
She’d tried for quite a while to get pregnant, suffering two miscarriages before me—and then she died during childbirth.
Christmas fucking miracle, my ass.
Leave it to me to make her wait years for a child, only to have her lose her life trying to bring me into the world. And my father, who clearly resented me, found someone else to raise his kid and never looked back.
“It’s healthy to talk about it, Bridger.” She gave me a look, as if she was waiting for me to argue with her.
“You can talk about it as much as you need to. You know that.”
“I’m talking about you. This is always the time of year that you shut down. I say we approach it differently this time. Let’s start talking, so it doesn’t build up.”
I forked some mashed potatoes and popped them in my mouth. “You guys are always riding my ass for being too closed down. It’s not like it’s only during this time of year. I didn’t know her. I’m sad for your loss, because you’re my mom and I love you.”
Her eyes watered, and I hated to see her suffer.
It was hard for me to put into words the guilt that I felt. Sadness about the death of a woman I never knew. Sadness over the pain that it caused the woman who’d raised me. Sadness over the fact that I’d caused so much pain to so many people.
I’d learned to be cautious about who I let in.
I’d always been instinctually guarded, even as a child. Long before I could comprehend the damage I’d done.
Like I’d known the hurt I was capable of.
“Sweetheart, you know what I mean.”
“Listen, I’m here for you. You and I will go to the cemetery just like we always do, and we’ll leave flowers for her at her grave.
And I’ll be there for you. It’s the least I can do.
” I shrugged. “But I can’t pretend to be someone that I’m not.
I don’t need to talk about everything I feel.
Hell, maybe I’m just incapable of feeling anything. ”
A single tear ran down her cheek, and she swiped it away.
Fuck.
I was making things worse.
“I wouldn’t change one thing about you, my love. You are the reason that I survived all those years ago, do you know that?” Her voice shook as she reached across the table and squeezed my hand.
“I highly doubt that.” I smirked. “According to Dad, I was a pain in the ass toddler.”
She chuckled, her eyes wet with emotion, her lips turning up in the corners. “You were an amazing baby, and a terror toddler.” She squeezed my hand. “And there has never been one day, one minute, one second since you came into the world that I didn’t love you more than life.”
“I love you, too.” I didn’t say those words often. They’d always been reserved for my family. Mostly my mom and my dad, and occasionally my siblings.
“I know you do. You look so much like her.” She sighed. “She’d be so proud of the man you are. She had this snarky side to her, and you definitely got that from her.”
“So, I’m a bad decorator and I’m snarky?” I said, my tone laced with humor.
“Absolutely.” A loud laugh escaped her.
“I’m sorry you’re hurting. I wish I could take it away,” I finally said, knowing she needed something from me.
Something deeper than me saying I felt nothing.
Because I obviously hated seeing her suffer.
“You take it away every single day, Bridger. It’s like I got to keep a piece of her with me when you came into the world. The very best piece of her.”
“Seems like a cruel joke to me,” I said, blowing out a breath.
“Nothing about you coming into the world at the most difficult time of my life is a cruel joke. You are the biggest blessing, my boy. My world is so much better with you in it.”
Jesus. This kind of emotion was a lot for me.
I was a man of few words.
I didn’t like to overthink things.
I didn’t like to go deep.
I didn’t like to see the people I loved hurting.
I wanted to fix it, and this was something I couldn’t fix.
So all I could do was sit here and listen, which was painful in a way I couldn’t explain to her.
At the end of the day… I didn’t feel like a blessing to my mother.
I didn’t feel like her world was much better with me in it.
But I wouldn’t tell her that, because that would just hurt her more.
And she’d had enough pain for a lifetime.
All caused by me.