Chapter twenty-one Willow
Chapter twenty-one
Willow
“Willow? What are you doing here?” Katrina walks into my office at seven in the morning, shocked that I’m not in Carrington Cove. But it might also be my lack of makeup, my puffy eyes, and my athleisure outfit that cause her shock.
“I need to work.” I start shuffling papers around my desk, looking for a file that I’m sure was here when I left. But Katrina’s hands come down on mine, stopping my search.
“Willow. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” My bottom lip trembles but I reach up and pull it away from my face to keep it from moving more. “Totally fine,” I say in garbled words.
“Not to sound insensitive, but you sound like Ross from Friends right now when he’s had too many margaritas.”
I release my lip and focus back on my computer. “No margaritas for me. I’ve just been driving for the last six hours.” My fingers start to dance over the keys on my keyboard, even though the damn computer isn’t on.
“You left Carrington Cove at one in the morning?”
“Yup. My company needs me. This is where I’m meant to be, not down there.” My bottom lip trembles again. “Not there.”
Katrina sits on the edge of my desk as my body threatens to break down again, but I’m surprised that I still have tears left to cry.
I’ve been having periodic cry fests all night as I drove, stopping along my trip a few times to cry and charge my car so that I didn’t crash or end up alone on the side of the road.
If it weren’t the time when normal people would be sleeping, I would have called Shauna, but I didn’t want to wake her if Hudson was resting.
“Turns out you’re just as good an actress as you are a CEO. Who would have thought?”
The words Dallas spoke to me before he left echo in my mind for the thousandth time, along with his texts, but I shove them down and turn my computer on instead. “I just need to work. That will make everything better.”
Katrina stands, wary as she stares at me. “Okay...if you say so. I’ll be right outside if you need anything, all right?”
“I’m fine,” I repeat, mostly to myself, watching her leave before focusing back on my computer, eager to find something to distract myself from the turmoil in my life right now.
Let’s just hope this works.
***
“Willow?” A hand meets my shoulder, startling me awake.
I shoot up from my desk, a paper glued to my cheek by my drool, only to find Katrina standing right at my side.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“About two hours.” She pulls the paper from my face and sets it to the side of my desk. “You should go home.”
“I don’t have a home,” I reply, feeling the effects of last night hitting me again.
“You don’t have your apartment here anymore?”
Sighing, I stand from my desk and grab my purse. “No, I do. I just…”
“I don’t know what happened down there, Willow, but it’s nice to have you back.” Katrina smiles politely, but it doesn’t meet her eyes.
“It’s good to be back,” I lie before leaving my office and heading out to my car, driving to some place besides my apartment so I don’t have to be alone again because that’s the last thing I want right now.
***
“Mandy?” I call out as I walk through the front door. The house is quiet, but then the sound of a cupboard shutting in the kitchen has my feet moving in that direction.
“Willow?” Mandy walks around the corner, clutching two cups of coffee. The woman who is the closest thing I have to a mother smiles in greeting, extending a cup that I gladly intercept from her hand. “How are you doing?”
“That is a loaded question,” I reply with a sigh as I follow her to the couch, depositing my purse on the floor before taking a seat in the cushioned chair across from her.
My lack of sleep is catching up to me, and even though I really should try to rest, I called her as soon as I left the office.
She might be able to help me work through everything I’m feeling because she’s one of the only people in my life who actually knew my parents.
She knows how much their deaths have affected me.
My next call is Shauna, but I need sleep before I talk to her.
Mandy moves her long, light brown hair that’s streaked with grays behind her shoulders and then settles in. “Well, let’s hear all the details then. You didn’t sound like yourself on the phone.”
“Believe me. I don’t feel like myself at all right now.”
Mandy was my mother’s friend from college who ended up being my guardian along with her husband, Jason, when my parent’s died.
I was nine when I finally asked why I looked nothing like them, and that was years after they divorced, but that’s when my entire world felt like it truly came crashing down.
Growing up without your parents is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. But knowing they chose to put themselves in a dangerous situation that ended up costing them their lives is a detail I still can’t seem to get over, even thirty-two years later, and especially after these past few months.
Two journalists seeking the thrill of televised war, my parents ventured overseas to chase fame and a story, and left me back home with their friends, who ultimately ended up raising me upon their untimely deaths.
Mandy and Jason didn’t tell me all the details right away surrounding how they died. But when I got older, they gave me the brutal truth.
I don’t really keep in contact with Jason anymore, but Mandy and I have remained close.
In fact, she feels more like an older sister to me than a mom most of the time.
No one in my life has ever seemed to fill that gap, this hole of not knowing where I came from or all of the memories I lost with my parents being gone.
And the older I got, the more comfortable that hole became, until the letter from Mr. Sheppard showed up.
“I got a letter about two months ago from a man that knew my parents,” I start, filling her in on what led me to Carrington Cove. When I tell her about the details of the letter and who it was from, I watch the goosebumps pebble on her skin.
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it.”
Her mouth is hanging open for a few seconds before she finally clears her throat. “I…I honestly had no idea about any of this, Willow,” she says, pleading with her eyes for me to believe her.
“I figured. You’ve always been pretty honest with me.” I shrug, focusing my sight on the cup of coffee in my hands.
She nods, bracing herself for me to continue. “So you went down there…”
“Yes. I had to meet with his attorney that sent the letter, and that meeting left me with an even bigger surprise.”
“What did he say?”
“The man left me a house.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “A house?”
“Yup.” I take a long drink of my coffee. “It’s old, and needed a lot of work, so I’ve been working remotely down there for the past two months, overseeing the renovations. The house was finished this week, but…”
She narrows her eyes at me. “But what?”
I shake my head, thinking back to the conversation with Dallas last night, how close I was to having a future I wanted with someone.
Finally. “There’s something about that place, Mandy.
It’s right on the beach. It has vacation home written all over it.
Even just standing on the front porch and looking out over the ocean… I don’t know…”
“Are you thinking about keeping it?”
“This week I decided I would.” I meet her eyes. “Because I also met someone down there.”
“Oh.”
Smiling even though thinking about Dallas makes my heart ache, I say, “His name is Dallas. He’s a former Marine who now owns a restaurant and bar. He’s stubborn and bossy, strong and funny, and…”
“You want to be with him.”
My lips start to tremble again. “I did.”
Her brow furrows. “Did? What happened?”
“His dad is the man who left me the house. The house Dallas has wanted for years but had no idea it belonged to his father. Last night he found out his mother and I had been keeping the truth from him.”
“Oh my.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “I take it things didn’t end well then…”
“No, they didn’t.”
Mandy studies me from across the living room. “You know, Willow. I get why you are the way you are—”
“And what way is that?”
She smiles softly. “Closed off. A workhorse. Impenetrable.”
“Okay…” I bite, feeling defensive almost instantly.
“You are that way because it allows you to maintain control. You’re the one who gets to make the decisions about what you do, where you go, who you see. But this is one decision that was made for you, and I can tell it’s rattling your resolve.”
I huff out a laugh. “That’s putting it mildly.”
“When’s the last time you took a vacation, or any time off work for that matter? When’s the last time you felt like this about a place? When’s the last time you let yourself fall in love?”
“Never,” I admit in a whisper.
“Exactly. And just those few months away have seemed to lighten your aura.”
I cock a brow at her. “Is this something new you’re into that you didn’t tell me about?”
She laughs. “No. I’m just saying your energy is different. I can tell you’re conflicted, but it’s almost as if it’s not just irritation that has you in knots. It’s the fact that you want to be there with him, but don’t want to want that.”
Damn. She hit the nail on the head.
“All of me wants that, Mandy. But it’s just so inconvenient with work and he was so angry with me…”
“Most things that change our lives are inconvenient,” she counters. “But like you said, you want that life for yourself, so you’ll figure out a way to make it happen. When people care about you, they get upset with you sometimes.”
“But Dallas walked away and now I’m not sure where we stand.”
Just those few words have tears building in my eyes. And I don’t ever allow myself to cry in front of people, even Mandy. But I guess that’s changed, too, because I’ve never cried this much in my life.
He walked away. The second things got hard, he abandoned me.
Just like my parents did.
This is why it’s easier to be alone.