Chapter 29 Sebastian
SEBASTIAN
I’d been dozing off on the couch when her call came.
She had never sounded like that before. Nasally, erratic, anxious.
I’d considered begging her to stay on the phone with me while she drove over.
Or hell, getting in my truck and meeting her wherever she was because it didn’t seem safe for her to be behind the wheel.
What the hell had happened?
In record time, less than half an hour, the crunch of tires on gravel sounded down the driveway. Before she even parked the car, I was in the threshold. She stepped out, but the first thing visible was the potato covered in fluff that bolted around her front bumper.
“Hey, Honey,” I called.
Her big ears pointed toward the deep blue sky speckled with snowflakes and stars. Tongue flapping out of her jaws, she raced toward me and barreled up the stone stairs.
I bent down to greet her but kept my eyes on Gwen. She wore a pair of jeans and a tattered Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt with a baggy zip-up hoodie, trekking slowly up the steps. Each move she made was weighted by some invisible force. Like something sat heavy on her shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” were the first words out of her mouth. “I’m so sorry for bothering you. Showing up like this. I know it’s late.”
When would she realize that I didn’t care what time of day it was? If she needed me, I would be there. For anything, anytime, anyplace.
“Don’t be sorry.” I straightened up with Honey’s leash in hand. “What’s going on? Is everything alright?”
Now only a few strides away, she wiggled her brows but didn’t meet my gaze. Her eyes flickered over the estate. The stone walls, the turrets, the fountain in the center of the wraparound driveway.
“I get why you kept this place,” she said. “It’s really pretty. Has this whole classic, goth vibe to it. Kinda dark, kinda gloomy, but classic and regal and—and it’s not you.” A half laugh escaped her. “Like, not at all the style I thought you’d be into. But it’s nice. Really nice.”
“Dark and gloomy is the vibe I get too.” I lifted the bag that hung over her shoulder while her gaze wandered. “But yeah, not my taste. Lizzie can decide what she wants to do with it when she’s old enough.”
Gwen still wouldn’t look at me. Too busy admiring the sculpted winged babies around the arched doorway. Gently, I caught her cheek. She jolted at the cold temperature, then relaxed into my touch. Our eyes finally met.
The whites of her blue eyes were red as roses. They were almost as puffy and swollen as her lips. Her pink nose watered, and she sniffled.
Something was wrong.
Something awful.
And I was who she came to.
I traced my thumb along her cheek. “What’s the matter, Gwen?”
“I, um—” A sharp breath cut her off. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I came here. It’s late, and you were probably getting ready for bed, and—”
“And I’m here.” Keeping my voice soft, I held her face just a little tighter. Enough to make sure she knew I wasn’t letting go. “I promised you I wasn’t going anywhere, and I meant it. Don’t apologize for cashing in a check I gave you. What’s going on, Gwen?”
Her eyes softened. For the first time, beyond any doubt, I saw tears form across them. Like that was the greatest thing I could’ve ever told her.
Had she ever had this? Someone she could count on? Someone who didn’t just tell her they were there for her, but proved it?
She spoke, hardly above a whisper. “Delilah. My friend Delilah, she’s dead.
They think it was a suicide, but I know it wasn’t.
Someone killed her. And—and I don’t know.
I thought I wanted to be alone, but my chest is so tight, and my head won’t stop pounding, and I can’t stop thinking about everything she’s not gonna get to experience now.
Everything she’s missing. All the dreams she had, all the goals she was working toward, it’s all gone.
She’s gone. I’m never going to see her again, and, and—I just wanted to see you.
Simone told me I could call her, but I didn’t want to be with her right now. I wanted to be with you.”
My mouth dropped open, eyes as wide as the fields that stretched on my left and right. It took playing that over a few times in my mind before it registered. I hadn’t processed all of it, not that the grief was mine to sit in any way, but I heard the important parts loud and clear.
Gwen was hurting, and she needed me. She wanted me to be the one who held her and comforted her, and for someone who asked so little of everyone else, who never asked for help, that was the greatest honor.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, twisting my arms around her waist. I didn’t need to pull her in.
She collapsed into me. Her fingers were like vice grips around my back.
She grasped me so tight, as if the two of us were hanging off a cliff, and I was the one who held the rope.
So long as she didn’t let me go, she’d survive. “I’m so sorry, Gwen.”
We stayed there for a while, just holding one another in the entryway. Gwen was so disoriented, she didn’t seem to notice how cold her hands were becoming.
I ushered her inside and asked if she was okay.
She shrugged and shook her head, which I took as answer enough.
Not that it would make much of a difference, but I offered her a drink or something to eat, and she declined both.
Swallowing hard in the entryway, she glanced around and asked if there was somewhere she could lie down.
“Oh, right. Yeah, we can go to the living room if you want. The couch is better for aesthetics than comfort, but—”
“Could we just go to your room?” Those big doe eyes turned up to mine, almost embarrassed to have asked for the simplest of necessities.
But it was good she asked, because I wouldn’t have offered that. There was a certain suggestion that came with inviting a woman into your bed. Now wasn’t the time to make that move.
Since she asked though, I gestured up the winding staircase. “Yeah, of course.”
I stayed at her flank, guiding her left and right through the mansion’s maze. Gwen made lighthearted quips, saying things like, “I’d get lost in this place without you,” and I hated that she was right.
This thing was enormous for no good reason.
Every ornate detail, no matter its beauty, made me grit my teeth.
Aside from the obvious, pretentious display of wealth, there were too many bad memories here.
I couldn’t wait for Lizzie to grow up and decide to live in it or sell it.
I already had a good nest egg in savings to buy or build something else.
But I didn’t say that, because I doubted Gwen cared. She just wanted to distract herself from the bigger thing on her mind.
When we made it to my bedroom, a quiet gasp dropped into her chest. Standing between the cherry French doors, she scanned every inch.
The twelve-foot coffered ceilings, trimmed in the same stain as the doors and wainscoting.
The silk wallpaper above it. She had wanted to lie down, but she practically ran across the hardwoods for the second set of French doors, wrought iron with windows that opened onto a balcony and overlooked the Rocky Mountains.
“You just wake up to this every single day.” She cupped a hand over her mouth and stared out at the view. “Like it’s no biggie.”
Honey was already at her side, wagging her tail, glancing between Gwen and the patio.
“Don’t let her out there.” I carefully clicked the bedroom doors shut behind me. “I can get a little gate for her, but the gaps between the banister are too big. She’d fall right through.”
Gwen bent over, grabbed Honey’s leash, and gave me a big grin over her shoulder. “If I hold onto her, can we check it out?”
I laughed and gestured through the glass doors. “Go ahead. The knob’s a hundred years old so it might stick .”
Her smile reached her eyes.
My God, the things I would do to keep that smile across her lips forever.
With Honey’s leash around her wrist, Gwen spun the lock and shimmied the knob. As she pulled the door open, snow spilled onto the wooden floors.
Honey backpedaled. So did Gwen.
Pressing her lips together, she awkwardly scratched her head. “Maybe not the time of year for this. Do you have a towel?”
“Don’t worry about it.” I walked that way and sat on the ottoman at the foot of the bed. Realizing that was alright, Honey yanked against her lead, bolted to me, and hopped up beside me. “You wanted to lay down, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but I made a mess. I can’t just leave it for you to clean up.”
I didn’t mind cleaning up her messes. “You can. Seriously, just sit down.”
“I would, but…” She thumped the French door shut with her hip, then propped her hands on them. Taking slow, careful steps through the room, her gaze traveled all over. “This doesn’t feel like a relaxing kind of bedroom. This feels like a museum.”
“Not exactly my taste either.” Stroking my fingers through Honey’s fur, I gestured to the Chesterfield by the window, then the bed. “Furniture is comfy though.”
“None of it?” She gestured to the canopy bed behind me. “Not even that?”
“I appreciate the craftsmanship.” The hand-carved floral details adorning the spindles, swirling upward to the square headers at the top. The brass rings that held the black linen that swayed between them. “But I’m pretty sure this frame is worth twenty grand. That’s insane.”
Blushing, she did that simultaneous shrug-nod thing again. “I guess.”
I squinted her over. “You like it, don’t you?”
The blush didn’t fade, but a smile touched her lips. “I kinda love it, actually.”
“If it’d fit in your cabin, you could have it.”