Chapter 3 Piper #3
I turn around for a second to grit my teeth. Ouch. Refusing him makes it so damn obvious that feelings are there, which—for the record, they are not. The only feeling stirring inside of me is rage. He shouldn’t be back here.
And the fact that he wants to do well by his boss is concerning.
It means he’s planning on sticking around for a while…
At least for another six months.
I glimpse my skeleton house from afar and realistically weigh up my options. Motel rooms are expensive to book even upfront. It’s gonna cost at least a couple hundred bucks for Sonny and me to stay tonight.
The money could be a drop in the ocean two days from now when the insurance comes through.
But the money is no guarantee. It’s sensible for me to take up Caleb’s offer, just for one night.
In the morning, with a clear head, I’ll ring up the stove company, give them my lie in full and hope for compensation. And then I also have home insurance.
But until I see the money in my bank, I shouldn’t make any rash decisions.
“Fine,” I say, turning back to Caleb to get his reaction.
He doesn’t give one.
I add, “On one condition—we stop by the toy store first. I promised Sonny a new Boeing plane.”
Caleb raises his dark eyebrows. “A Boeing, ey? You promise big, Hart.”
I’m not the only one who promises big…
But at least I follow through with mine.
With Sonny occupied in the back seat with Boeing number two, I try to relax and mentally prepare for the rest of the afternoon.
Although it’s hard to relax when you have God’s literal favorite sitting next to you in the driver’s seat smelling of pheromones and nostalgia.
He still smells the same all these years later.
Caleb somehow convinced me to leave my car behind and let him drive us to his place.
Sitting this close to him in his truck, all I wanna do is sink into his touch and surrender for a while.
I’m willing to cross moral boundaries to lie in bed with him for an hour and make up for lost time.
But it’s a bad idea. I was young and naive before, and thought happy ever afters were guaranteed when in love.
Nineteen-year-old Piper was very fucking mistaken.
“Here we are,” announces Caleb, backing into the drive with ease.
A reverse park like that would take me at least a few tries.
I undo my seat belt and hobble out to help Sonny out of the back seat. He clutches the plane and looks up at Caleb’s house with astonishment.
Same.
They really must pay firefighters well out here.
“It’s a fixer-upper,” Caleb states, slipping the house keys from his pocket.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“That’s because it’s been my project for the past two months.”
“So, just to confirm—you’ve been living in town two whole months, and this is the first time I’m seeing you? The town is—”
“Small, I know,” he says, cutting the conversation short to walk across the lawn.
He hasn’t yet carved a path between the front door and the drive, but the well-cut grass makes the long walk up to the porch quite pleasant.
I grab Sonny’s hand. I have a higher chance of losing him in this huge yard than I do in any house fire, considering that he’s already eying up the perimeter. Great place to play aviation. The distance from drive to porch is probably not much less than an actual landing strip.
“Stay by my side,” I murmur to him. “I need you to be on your best behavior, okay?”
“This place is huge!” he exclaims, and I fight the urge to agree with him in case Caleb overhears.
How dare he come back here after nine years of nothing—with a house and more acreage than me? Does he actually know what it’s like to lose?
I step in through the front door and remind myself that he never had any real feelings for me. He wouldn’t have left so suddenly if he did.
“Wow!” Sonny says, loosening his grip on the toy plane. “I like it.”
Don’t get too used to this rustic heaven, I feel like saying to him. We’ll be out of here in a few days, tops.
“Decent setup you have here,” I say. Silence would just show him that I’m jealous as fuck.
His house is not just unburnt, but cool as hell, and looks even more impressive on the inside than it does on the outside. The walls are finished with polished planks of wood that give it a real country feel.
“Cool,” Sonny says as he admires it with me.
“This way.” Caleb guides us into the next room with an air of sheepishness about him.
That, I can understand. He wasn’t exactly planning to welcome me back into his house.
Or life.
“I was trying to tell you earlier that I have a—”
“Hey.” A girl’s head pokes out from around the wall of the living area.
And I swear my heart does a backflip.
He has a…?
“Ellie,” he says, introducing Sonny and me to his daughter.
“This is Piper and her son, Sonny…” He allows a pause, clearly caught up on the play on words that I still find amusing, even today.
“They’re gonna stay here temporarily, upstairs in the two spare rooms. Their house sadly burned down yesterday. ”
Sonny hides the toy plane behind his back and straightens up. “Ellie,” he repeats. “The new girl.”
“Not anymore.” She pouts, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s been two months.”
“Ellie,” Caleb interrupts, softly nudging her side. “Go and say hello.”
Turns out it’s not just me who obeys Caleb whenever he gives an order.
Ellie takes off from the wall and offers me her hand. In a polite, clear voice she says, “How do you do?”
Taken aback is an understatement.
Caleb chuckles uneasily as I accept his daughter’s hand. A daughter who belongs to another woman…somewhere.
My heart clenches, but I force a smile for the very well-behaved girl introducing herself.
“Nice to meet you too, Ellie.”
Her hair is the same midnight black as her father’s. But she definitely didn’t inherit those freckles from him.
I have freckles, but I think I’d know about it if I’d given birth to a daughter.
Which means the freckles were inherited from her mother—another kick in the teeth, another reminder that times have changed.
I gulp and watch as our two children smile at one another with vague familiarity. Caleb watches with me, and just so happens to catch my eyes at the same time.
I sink back into nostalgia and let the pain slowly tear across my chest. It makes the fire yesterday feel unimportant.
What the hell have I walked into?
The fire was one big mistake. Even more now that I have to live with the ex-lover I never stopped loving.