Chapter Eleven #2
I declined it once more and picked up my supplies, then I went to the bathroom and scrubbed the toilet to a sparkling white shine. The mirror and counter gleamed after a polish. The floor was spotless and the air smelled like bleach.
I cleaned.
And the phone rang.
Over and over and over, until finally, as I was stripping the bed, it stopped. There were days like this. Days when I’d get twenty calls in an hour. Others only one in twenty-four.
I tensed, waiting for it to buzz again, but when it didn’t, I breathed.
The stress of the day was building behind my temples, and I lifted my hands, rubbing at the ache.
“What’s wrong?” I jumped at Knox’s deep voice.
How many shocks could a heart take in one day? I felt like I was in a haunted house with a creepy clown jumping out at me after each corner.
“Nothing.” I waved it off.
“Memphis.” He strode my way, stopping close enough that the scent of his spicy soap hit my nose.
God, he smelled good. Today, there was a hint of lemon too. Maybe he’d been making lemon meringue pie. It was my favorite.
“Talk to me.”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just a headache.”
“Close your eyes.”
“Knox, I’m fine.”
“You’re a horrible liar.”
I huffed a dry laugh. How many times had Oliver told me the same? Though he’d been the king of lies, so compared to him, everyone was merely an apprentice.
“You ran away from me earlier.” He inched closer.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said, squaring my shoulders and raising my chin. If I didn’t have confidence, I’d have to fake it. “I think it’s best if we stop this, whatever this is, before it goes any further.”
His eyes narrowed and those blue eyes saw straight through the facade. Damn. “Why?”
“Drake.”
“Look . . .” Knox ran a hand through his hair. “About what I said yesterday. I was just being honest. But I didn’t tell you the truth so you’d push me away.”
“If we tried this and it didn’t work, you’d lose him.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I know what’s on the line, Memphis. But I’m standing here anyway.”
“I still don’t think it’s a good idea.” Another lie that made him frown. “Drake has to be my focus.”
“Did I ask you to take him out of focus?”
“Well . . . no.” I couldn’t imagine Knox asking me to forsake my child.
He raised his hands and I tensed, sure that if he kissed me again, I’d crumble. But he didn’t cup my face and lean in like he had on Halloween. He rested the heel of his palms on my cheekbones so that his fingers could rub small circles on my temples.
It was heaven.
And hell.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered, my eyes falling closed so that I didn’t cry.
“Why?”
“I don’t want to let Drake down. I can’t let him down. I’m all he has.” I had no backup plan. Failure was not an option.
And I was scared too. That was the whole truth.
I was hanging on by threads most days. I gave Drake all my extra. If Knox made me fall in love with him and then we fell apart, I would fall apart. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to mend another shattered heart.
Knox was quiet for a few moments, the circling of his talented fingers never stopping.
“Yesterday, I told you about the hardest part of my life. I told you about my first-worst day. I told you about the woman who destroyed me. I’m not asking you to tell me about Drake’s father.
But I’m promising you that if you want to give me that trust, I won’t betray it. ”
When I opened my eyes, his piercing gaze was waiting. He was so gorgeous it almost hurt to look at him. I wanted to tell him about Oliver. If there was anyone who would take care with my secrets, it was Knox.
But . . .
I stayed quiet.
“You want to stand on your own. I get that, honey.” His fingers shifted away from my temples to thread into my ponytail. “Standing on your own doesn’t mean you have to be alone. There’s a difference.”
“But Drake—”
“Don’t use him as an excuse because you’re scared. You wanting me doesn’t mean Drake has to suffer.”
He was so . . . right. So damn right.
Knox’s hands fell away, returning to his sides. “Figure out what you want. You know where to find me.”
And then he was gone, striding out of the room, leaving behind only his words.
What did I want? Did it even matter? I couldn’t afford dreams for myself.
And Knox . . . he was a dream.
The rest of my day was spent cleaning alone with Knox’s words to keep me company. It wasn’t a best day. But it wasn’t a worst either. The weight of the day sat heavy on my shoulders as I trudged to my car and drove to the daycare center.
I walked into the nursery, desperately wanting to hold my son, but as I scanned the room, I saw no Jill. And no Drake.
“Um, hi. Where’s Drake?” I asked the woman changing a baby. It was the same girl from this morning, young like Jill, with strawberry-blond hair.
“Oh, he’s not here.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Jill had to run a quick errand and she took him along.”
“Excuse me?” What. The. Fuck.
“She just lives next door.” The woman pointed to the wall. “She’ll be back in a minute.”
“Okay,” I clipped and plucked his diaper bag from his hook. Then I waited, arms crossed over my chest, foot tapping on the floor as I counted the seconds ticking by on the wall clock.
Three minutes and forty-one seconds later, the back door opened and Jill came inside with Drake on her hip. Her smile faltered for a moment when she spotted me.
I crossed the room and took Drake out of her arms. “Hey, baby.”
He started crying, like he did every day, and reached for Jill.
Like she had done to me this morning, I twisted and pulled him out of her reach when she tried to touch his hand.
“I’d prefer it if Drake wasn’t taken out of this building.” I walked him to his car seat and put him in, working the straps as fast as my fingers would move.
“Oh, okay,” Jill said. “I didn’t think it would be a problem. We were just next door.”
I didn’t trust myself to speak another word, so as Drake fussed, I clicked his buckle, looped the diaper bag over my shoulder and walked out the door.
The moment his seat was clicked into its base and I slid behind the wheel, my phone rang.
I checked the number and hit decline. One hundred fifty-five calls in the two months I’d lived in Quincy. Since I didn’t have to worry about daycare calling and there wasn’t anyone I wanted to talk to anyway, I shut the damn thing off.
Drake’s crying stopped by the time we hit the highway.
And that’s when mine started.
I was so tired. Mentally. Physically. But mostly, I was tired of being alone.
All my life, the women in my family had been at the mercy of the men who kept them. My mother. My grandmother. My sister. I’d broken that cycle by coming to Montana.
If I let Knox or anyone help, wasn’t that like taking a huge step backward? What happened when I depended on him?
Except I couldn’t keep going like this. I needed . . . help. Admitting that, even to myself, made me just cry harder.
The tears fell in a steady stream as I turned onto Juniper Hill, winding my way down the lane. The lights were on at Knox’s house, casting a golden glow into the night. His truck was in the garage.
I parked and took out Drake, planning on going upstairs and making myself a dry and depressing peanut butter sandwich for dinner. But my feet carried me across the gravel to Knox’s front door.
He opened it before I could knock. His gaze tracked a tear as it dripped down my cheek.
“I want to not feel so alone. I want my kid to smile when I pick him up from daycare. I want Drake to have a normal life, and I feel like this is so far away from one, I can’t even see which direction to start walking.
I want you to kiss me again. I want to never eat a peanut butter sandwich again. I want—”
Knox silenced me with his lips, banding one strong arm around my shoulders while the other lifted Drake’s car seat from my hand. His tongue dragged across my lower lip as his soft mouth pressed into mine.
Before I was ready for it to end, he pulled his lips from mine, but his arm stayed tight, pulling me to his chest. “There’s one want granted. What else do you want?”
I leaned into him and told him the terrifying truth. “You.”