4. Everly
4
EVERLY
There’s a knock on the library door around nightfall.
Owen enters the room. He rubs the back of his neck then stops himself. “Are you hungry? I made chili and cornbread. There’s enough to share.”
He frowns when I look up and he spots the tears on my cheeks. He growls, “What’s making you cry?”
“This book is incredibly sad,” I explain holding up the cover so he can see Nicholas Nickleby . “Why do you keep such a sad book around? You’ve made so many notes in it. You must have read it a dozen times.”
He blinks. “It’s my favorite. You want food or not?”
My stomach grumbles before I can tell him no. I don’t really want to eat with Owen, but I definitely want some food.
He nods as if it’s been decided and steps from the room. He returns a few seconds later with two bowls and a plate piled high with buttery cornbread muffins.
He sets the food on the table between us, and I turn in my chair, twisting around so I can face him. At least, it’s cozy in here.
“Why is it your favorite book?” I ask hesitantly when he’s seated and blowing on a bite of his chili.
He seems to consider the question. “I like his idealism, his belief that his choices can make life better for those around him.”
I wouldn’t have imagined that this mountain man is an idealist. Or at least, I wouldn’t have imagined him as someone who admires them. But I keep that thought to myself. It seems like every time I open my mouth around Owen, I send him away.
A few uncomfortable beats of silence pass between us before he finally clears his throat. He sets his bowl down and says, “My people skills are damn rusty. I’m not used to being around others.”
I frown at him. “It’s no excuse for being an ungracious host.”
He laughs but the eruption of noise sounds more like a bark. “No, it’s not.”
He crosses his legs at the ankles and stares into the fire. “Not long after I joined the military, I was recruited by a government agency. I’ve spent most of my adult life on solitary missions in remote locations. No contact with other human beings for months, fuckin’ years at times.”
“I bet it was really hard. I mean, I don’t have any friends or anything. But at least at school, I get to be around other people. I can hear the chatter, the sound of people doing normal, everyday things.”
A pang goes through me. I’d gone away to film school with this idea that I would be able to fit in and finally find my place in the world. But even there, I’ve struggled to belong.
He tilts his head, studying me. “Shit, I have trouble believing a girl as beautiful and bubbly as you doesn’t have her damn pick of friends.”
My cheeks warm at his words. Beautiful and bubbly. I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in a long time.
I debate telling him the truth then decide he’s been honest with me tonight by sharing his story. I can be brave and do the same thing. “Not when you’re the sick girl. Other girls invite you out but when you’re always canceling at the last minute or you’re in the hospital while everyone else is out partying, you get left behind.”
It’s one of the harder parts of having a chronic illness. So many days, I feel like I’m missing out on my own life. In the moments I do feel well enough to do something fun, there’s no one to hang out with.
I force a smile I don’t feel. “Sorry. I know. There are babies born with congenital heart defects and kids that are battling cancer. Here I am bitching about my life when so many others have it worse than me.”
A nurse gave me that lecture when I was eight years old. It was time to toughen up, she told the scared little girl in the hospital room who just wanted her mom.
Owen takes my hand in his much bigger one. His touch is warm and gentle as he strokes his thumb along the back of my knuckles. “Fuck that kind of thinking. Their suffering doesn’t negate yours. It’s not a competition about who suffers more or worse. Suffering is still suffering and it fuckin’ hurts.”
“Thank you.” I sniff, grateful he said that.
Sometimes, the hardest part of having a chronic illness is that everyone expects you to be the strong one. You’re supposed to be better and wiser because you’ve experienced more.
You’re meant to be the happy patient, the inspiration that everyone else can look up to. The problem is that this role leaves you no space to simply be human, to have sad days and angry days and lonely days.
I try to fight a yawn and fail. My eyes are heavy from the day spent reading and my belly is full of good food. More than that, I feel at peace sitting here with Owen while he holds my hand.
“Let’s start over,” he says softly. “I’ll be a better host tomorrow.”
I snuggle deeper into the chair and close my eyes. “I don’t want you to be nice to me just because I’m sick. That doesn’t make me feel good.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he answers. I don’t have to open my eyes to see the sincerity on his face. I can hear it in his voice.
Before I can respond, he drops my hand and stands.
“Time for bed,” he says, scooping me up into his arms. He lifts me easily and the feeling of being weightless in his strong embrace is even more cozy than reading in front of the fire. I burrow into his chest and inhale his spicy, masculine scent. He smells like home.
He sets me gently in the bed, pulling the covers over my body. He hovers over me for a few long moments, like he doesn’t want to leave. His presence makes it easy for my tired body to find rest.
I’ve almost drifted to sleep when he reaches for a strand of my hair. He tucks it behind my ear.
“I like you,” he confesses so softly that I barely hear the words. I wait for him to say more, my heart pounding. But he doesn’t. He turns to leave the room and I already miss his big looming presence.
“Then why are you mean to me?” I can’t quite hide the hurt in my voice. I keep my eyes shut, afraid of the emotions I might see on his face. For someone who likes me, he sure has been hot and cold.
“Because falling for me would be the biggest fuckin’ mistake of your life,” he answers as he turns off the lights.
Owen
Fuck, this is not how things were supposed to go. I just meant to feed her dinner. I didn’t mean to sit there and tell her about my past or bond with her. She’s sunshine, beautiful and warm. But my soul is stained with blood and darkness.
There are sins I can never atone for. Even if they were done in the name of serving my country and protecting those at home, I’m still a damn monster. Truth is, I deserve the darkness that haunts me. I deserve the nightmares, the flashbacks, and the unrelenting loneliness.
I’ve earned every moment of my pain. But she hasn’t. She is sweetness made to suffer by this cruel world. She’s lonely and aching for companionship.
I’m not fuckin’ stupid enough to think I can find a permanent place in her heart. Still, maybe while she’s here, I can ease some of her pain. I can bandage her aching wings, remind her that she was meant to soar.
The floorboards creak, alerting me to her presence and I turn from my spot at the living room window. I’ve been watching the snow fall and thinking about this woman. The one who makes my gut churn and my dick hard as steel.
“Good morning,” I say. My people skills are buried deep down. But for her, I’ll dig them back up again. I’ll give her what she needs while she’s here.
She smiles at me but there are dark circles under her pretty green eyes. I heard her moving around the cabin last night. I thought about going to her a million times and finally forced myself to retreat to my attached workshop.
Thankfully, the space is soundproof so she couldn’t hear me taking my cock in my hand like a damn teenager who has just discovered internet porn. She couldn’t hear me panting and whispering her name as I came.
She turns to gaze out the window, stepping closer to me. I catch a whiff of her hair that’s pulled back in a high ponytail. I want to lean over and pull the band from it, watch those curls cascade down her back when she’s wearing nothing but a smile. Fuck, these are not things I should be thinking about when I’m around her.
“Are you worried about something?” I ask. It’s probably the wrong question. Still, I can’t deny that there’s something in me that wants to right all the wrongs in her world. If things were different, she’d be my queen and I’d be her warrior. I’d conquer the world just to lay it all at her feet.
She shakes her head and I’ve already decided that I hate it when she lies to me. I want her to trust me enough to tell her truth, even if that truth is difficult or not what I expected. But those are not the kinds of demands I can make. Not when we’ll never see each other again after this snowstorm.
“Do you like outdoor activities?” I ask, unsure if she can go into the snow. I don’t want to do anything that would worsen her condition.
A wolf howls in the distance and she gives me a wry smile. “Not if it involves being eaten by a wild animal.”
For a moment, I imagine I’m the predator she’s talking about. I’d love nothing more than to lay her out and feast on her for hours. I’d learn to play her body in a thousand different ways until her moans and whimpers were a symphony. A symphony only I would ever hear.
My cock presses painfully against my zipper at the image and I mentally will him to go down. I might want her with an ache so deep it’s in my very bones. But I won’t let myself corrupt this beautiful ray of sunshine that fate dropped into my life.
“I have an idea of a fun outdoor activity,” I say because I definitely need to get her outside. Outside where there is cold and snow. Outside where I can’t undress her.