Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
Aspen
“It’ll mean more when you tell her about your mom. She was one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known.” A flash of her smiling at us the last night I saw her comes to mind. She died not long after our visit to her in hospice, her fight with cancer finally taking her away in the night.
“She was.” He nods, contemplative in the silence that follows before he shakes his head. “I’ve got a wedding gift for you.”
“A wedding gift? Bishop, you already got me so much. I can’t imagine what else I need.”
“Just wait and see.” He urges me to be patient before he crosses the threshold between our rooms, returning with a wrapped box. He sets it on the small dining table at the side of the room and nods for me to open it.
I peel back the carefully tied ribbon and the neatly taped white and gold wrapping paper to find an expensive bottle of whiskey and a set of tumblers inside.
“You recognize the brand?” he asks.
“I don’t think so. Should I? Is it your favorite?” I rack my brain for memories I’ve locked away.
“You could say that.” He smirks. “It’s the one we borrowed from your dad’s liquor cabinet that one night in the bunkhouse.”
“Oh god. I remember the whiskey, but I didn’t realize we had such expensive taste or remember us having the audacity to steal something like that from my dad.
” I stare down at the bottle, my heart fluttering at the thought of the two of us sneaking off with this so many years ago.
My father’s lecture would have been legendary if he’d found us.
“Seemed like the kind of night that was worth the risk, seeing as I was leaving the next day.”
“Right.” I rub the heel of my palm over my sternum. My heart still hurts thinking about it. I cried myself to sleep for weeks afterward, convinced I’d never see him again and worried he could die if he was deployed. “I was so miserable without you.”
“So was I.” He nods back to the box. “Keep going.”
My brow furrows as I set the whiskey down on the table and look back at him before I reach into the box.
Sure enough, there’s a tin at the bottom.
One of the old kinds that allegedly had cookies in it once, but I’d only ever seen stuffed with ribbons and thread at my grandmother’s house.
I pull it out and set it down next to the whiskey.
“Open it.”
I pry the lid open, careful not break a nail.
I had them done specifically for today, painting them a shade of red to match the lingerie I purchased with him in mind.
Not that I have any intention of going through with showing him.
I can’t. The stakes are already so high.
If I break my own rules again tonight, there will be nothing holding us back.
And right now, I worry rules are the only thing holding us together.
The metal seal is tight, and it takes me a moment to finally get it to slip free of its grip.
When I do, I uncover a box filled with envelopes.
My name is handwritten on the front of each one, the address of the ranch written below.
All of it’s in Bishop’s handwriting. I lift one of the letters out to find another, and another, and another.
The whole stack is full of letters, the envelopes ranging from white to a darker, aged cream color. My heart skips a beat.
It can’t be.
“What’s this?” I ask. I need him to tell me.
“Letters I wrote to you. Every year on your birthday, and some in between when I had too much to say or too much to drink and couldn’t wait until your birthday to tell you.”
“You never sent them though.”
“I couldn’t. I wanted to. But…” He trails off into a heavy silence for a long moment.
But he didn’t want to send them when he knew I could have moved on.
That he didn’t want to know if I had. That he still had no intention of coming home.
“I thought you could read them if you want. A few of them are open, but I haven’t seen most of them since I wrote them.
So I’m not sure what’s in all of them, but I thought you’d at least get my honest thoughts over the years. ”
“I didn’t get you anything. Other than the cake, I mean. I’m so sorry,” I lament. I feel awful. I’m the worst wife in history.
“You’re fine. I didn’t expect anything. This isn’t much anyway.”
“I had them box up and freeze a few pieces of the cake for us. So we can have some next year. You know traditions and all.” I feel oddly sentimental right now, and I shift on my feet under the weight of it.
“I’m just glad you think we’re gonna be getting along well enough to want to celebrate next year.” He grins at me.
“You liked everything, right? The dress? The cake? You’re sure? You can be honest.”
“I loved them.” He swallows, and his Adam’s apple bobs with the effort, his head dipping down before his lashes lift and his gaze meets mine again.
“Today could have gone any which way, and as long as it ended with that ring on your finger, I was gonna love every moment. You could have been naked up there or in a pair of old jeans and a T-shirt. Wouldn’t have mattered.
I just wanted it to be something different from before, a reset or a new chapter.
I want a chance with you, Jones. Assuming that you can find it in your heart to forgive me once I earn your trust back. ”
“I’m trying, Bishop. I promise you that I’m trying to find forgiveness in my heart. It’s on my mind every day. But when I say it, when and if I’m ready to move on, I want both of us to know it’s because I’ve well and truly forgiven you and not because I said the words when it was convenient.”
“As it should be.”
“Are you going to forgive me someday?”
“For what?”
“For not begging you to stay when I had the chance. Or telling you it was you I always wanted. For marrying him after everything and letting him raise your daughter. I know you say all the right things most of the time. But sometimes, the way you say it or the way you look at me, I feel like some part of you is still angry at me.”
“I wish you had said more about how you felt back then. But I know I didn’t make it easy on you. I was holding back, and no part of me is angry at you for doing the same. But yes, sometimes I have regrets about it. I wish we’d both done things differently. But that fault is at my door. Not yours.”
“It’s just… You deserve someone you don’t have to apologize to all the time for the past. If I had met you today or tomorrow.
With none of the hurt in our past, I’d be head over heels for you in an instant.
Probably running to the altar after a month.
At most. The man you are now… I’m proud of who you are. I’m glad you’re Fallon’s father.”
“I don’t know what to say to that, honey.” He looks down at his boots, clearly shied by my honest assessment.
“You don’t have to say anything. I just want you to know.” I slip my hand under his chin and slowly lift it, forcing him to meet my gaze. “I see you, Fallon Bishop Bradford, and you’re a good man.”
His eyes search mine and then fall to my lips.
“Do your rules allow for a loophole where I get to kiss you on our wedding day?”
“You already kissed me on our wedding day.” The way I feel right now, a kiss could light all my rules on fire and this room with it.
“Wedding night then.” His lashes lift, and the look behind them makes it impossible to say no.
“Just one.” I nod. “Chaste. Sweet.” I follow up my permission with a warning to keep us from overrunning the guardrails.
He closes the small space that’s left between us then, his lips on mine before I can fully take in the motion, stealing my breath away in the process. My heart erupts into a staccato beat, racing just as fast and erratically as my thoughts.
I want him. I can’t have him. I need this man. And I should stay far away.
Rules were made for a reason. I can’t afford to fall again. I have to be the adult in this room, but I’m so desperate to be eighteen again, drinking whiskey out of the bottle and kissing each other like it’s our last night on earth.
Just like we are now.
I tear myself away, needing air so I can think straight.
He seems almost as shocked by his behavior as I am by mine. His hands lift from my waist, where he grabbed me and pulled my body against his.
“I should go.”
“You should go,” I agree, even though I hate to do it.
He takes one step back and then another, turning to grab the door before he pauses.
“Goodnight, Jones,” he calls back over his shoulder before he disappears into his own room.
I lock the door behind him. Because I don’t trust myself if I don’t have the reminder. We need the safety of the door for both of our sakes.
It’s a sentiment that lasts an hour and two heavy pours later. I’m nearly drunk on this whiskey. I haven’t even bothered to take off the dress I wore for the wedding. Apparently, I’m a lightweight, and these letters aren’t helping matters.
My head is spinning, and my heart has barely slowed since the kiss.
Then there’s all of his history spread out in front of me.
Page after page of it. Each one of them is a little more heart-wrenching than the last. But I can’t help myself.
I’m speeding through them, desperate for every little morsel of the old Bishop I can get, wanting to understand him, and wanting to know the person he was when we didn’t talk.