Chapter Seventeen
Five days have passed since Piper left town.
Tag was going out of his mind, not hearing her voice or being able to touch her.
He went over to Piper’s old house a few hours after she broke up with him.
He wanted to talk some sense into her, needed to tell her how much she meant to him.
Tag knew that if she would just listen to him, he could convince her not to let her fears rule her life.
Everyone had fears; he just needed to prove to her that happiness waited for her if she fought hers.
When he didn’t find her at her old house or her ice cream shop, he headed over to Sunny’s bakery, where he found Lorna.
She was giving Sunny a piece of her mind, her hands on her hips, yelling at the top of her lungs.
When she got to the part about Piper leaving town, Tag panicked.
“Piper left? Where the hell did she go?” Both women turned to face Tag.
Lorna’s face showed the tears she shed with worry about her niece.
Sunny groaned and smacked her head with her palm.
“This is just what I needed. Thanks, Pipe.” She looked towards the ceiling as if talking to a ghost. “I know where she went. I know that she is safe, but beyond that, I can’t tell you where she is.” Sunny locked her jaw, her stubborn attempt at keeping Piper’s secret.
“Just tell me where she is, Sunny. I’m her aunt. I have a right to know that the woman that I raised as my own is somewhere safe.” Lorna’s tears started anew. Sunny rounded the counter to put her arms around Lorna, who buried her face in Sunny’s shoulder.
“She’s safe, Lorna. She decided to go to New York to settle her grandmother’s estate. She just needed some time.” She looked at Tag as she spoke.
“Where in New York? Give me an address, Sunny,” he begged.
Tag could hear the heat in his voice, and he couldn’t hide his anger.
He needed to get to Piper. He wanted to be with her.
He said he would go with her if she changed her mind about settling her grandmother’s estate.
He felt like he was breaking another promise to her, even though he knew she didn’t give him a chance to be there for her.
He knew the demons that she was facing in going back to New York, and she shouldn’t be facing them alone.
But Piper shut everyone out. Tag knew that Piper’s refusal to let anyone in was her way of coping with her fears, but that didn’t make him hurt any less.
“Tag, I can’t tell you her address. I promised her when we were nine to never break the best friend code.
If she wants to talk to you, she’ll call you.
I won’t betray her.” Tag turned to leave the bakery, knowing that Sunny wasn’t going to give up Piper’s address.
He would just have to get it another way.
He growled as he pushed the door open to step out of the shop.
“Just give her a day or two, and she’ll come to her senses,” Sunny shouted after him. He didn’t want to sit around while Piper came to her senses, so he would do the only thing he could think of—he would talk to Torren.
Watching Piper walk away from him, leaving him standing in the middle of the road—broke him.
He wasn’t sure how to pick himself up and move forward.
Torren told him to go out and find another woman to forget Piper with, but that would never happen.
He should have known better than to go to his brother for advice on women.
Piper was the only woman he wanted, which was something Torren just didn’t understand.
Tag was back to square one, and he wasn’t sure what to do next.
After two more days of wallowing in his anger, Tag decided that if he was looking for sound advice, he needed to ask Aaron.
His best friend told him that he needed to get himself together and go after his girl.
That would be a whole lot easier to do if Tag knew where she was.
He was pissed that Piper walked away from him so easily without even looking back.
He was angry that she didn’t contact him, at least to let him know that she was still alive.
A part of him knew Aaron was right, but he let his stubborn pride and anger get in the way.
He decided to wait her out. Piper needed to come to him if she wanted him back.
He wasn’t going to chase her halfway across the country and beg her for another chance.
She was the one who broke up with him. She was the one who left him and went to New York—breaking his heart. She left him.
That same stubborn pride and anger were what got him through three more days without Piper.
It was time to get himself together and figure his shit out because if he was being honest, he couldn’t see his future without her.
She was the other half of his heart. Figuring out how to get her back was another problem.
When Piper dug her heels in, she wasn’t one to budge easily.
He needed reinforcements. God help him, he needed Sunny to help him figure out what to do about Piper.
If it wasn’t for Sunny’s persistence and butting in, they would have never gotten together in the first place.
If anyone would know what to do, it was Sunny.
The problem was getting her to give up Piper’s whereabouts without feeling like she was betraying her best friend.
Since Piper took off, Sunny came into his store every day to check on him.
At first, he met her concern with anger.
If Sunny cared about him, she would have told him where he could find Piper.
All he needed was an address, and he would be on a plane heading to her.
Tag could feel Sunny’s resistance wearing down.
Each day, she seemed to find it harder and harder to look him dead in the eye and refuse to tell him.
Today was the day—he was determined to find out exactly where Piper was hiding. God help him, Sunny was his only hope.
He walked into the town’s only bar and found Sunny sitting at a booth in the corner. She was about halfway through a plate of loaded fries. “Hey, you’re late!” Sunny was going for angry, but her smile gave her away.
“Yeah, sorry. I had to wait for Torren to show up at the store. Being on time isn’t his strong suit.” Sunny rolled her eyes and nodded to the seat across from hers. Tag slid into the booth and stole one of her fries. When the waitress came over, he ordered a burger and a beer.
“You look like shit, Tag.” Sunny looked him up and down disapprovingly. “Have you slept or eaten since she left? Each day you’ve looked worse and worse.”
“Barely,” Tag admitted. He ran his hands through his already disheveled hair.
“What do I do, Sunny? I can’t get her out of my mind.
I know she said not to follow her—hell, she said a lot of things.
I just—I need her.” Tag felt like he wanted to cry; he needed to get himself together.
Admitting out loud just how much he missed Piper only made him even more miserable.
“She’s turned off her phone, and I can’t reach her either.
It’s like she’s just disappeared from the face of the earth,” Tag whispered.
Sunny took a sip of her water. “I’m not sure what to do. I do know that I have never seen Piper happier than when she was with you. She needs you, Tag. I don’t give a fuck what she told you. She was letting her fear talk, not her heart.”
“What are my options, Sunny? She won’t answer any of my phone calls, and she is half a country from anyone who cares about her.
” Tag took his beer from the waitress and drank down half of it.
“We just need a plan. One that will knock Piper on her ass and show her what a jerk she’s being,” Sunny said.
Sunny finished off the rest of her fries and shoved her plate to the side.
“I say you get on a plane, Tag. New York is gorgeous in the summer, you’ll love it.
” Sunny leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms over her tiny frame.
“Sure, Sunny. I’ll just jump on a plane and fly to New York.
” Tag took a big bite of his burger and groaned.
It was the first real food he had had in days.
“I’ll just wander around the city shouting Piper’s name.
I’m sure I’ll find her in no time.” Sunny laughed as Tag took a swallow of his beer to wash down his burger.
“Oh, Tag, when your sarcasm shows, you sound like Torren. I won’t hold that against you, though,” she promised.
She ordered Tag another beer and herself a burger.
The girl could pack away some food. Sunny leaned forward, almost as if she had a secret to whisper to Tag.
He found himself leaning towards her, waiting.
“I know where Piper is staying, and I know her grandmother’s address.
You’ll just need to stake out the building until Pipe shows up.
She has a meeting scheduled with a real estate auction company in two days.
I bet you’ll find her at her grandmother’s apartment that day.
” Tag dropped the rest of his burger on his plate.
“Why make me suffer, Sunny? Why didn’t you tell me all these days ago?” He motioned for the waitress. He couldn’t waste precious minutes sitting around with Sunny when he could be spending his time persuading Piper to come home with him.
“Pipe needed time, and frankly, so did you. You were angry and grumpy for days. I know Piper probably wasn’t in much better shape than you were.
You two belong together, but that doesn’t mean that everything is going to be easy.
You expected Piper to forget all the pain that she experienced, fall in love with you, and live happily ever after.
Well, that’s not Pipe. She’s been through more shit than anyone I’ve ever met.
You both have. You just need to figure out a way to live with your crappy pasts and make each other happy now and in the future.
” Tag sat back in his seat, weighing Sunny’s words.
She wasn’t wrong. He thought he could fix Piper, but she didn’t need fixing. She just needed to be loved.
Shit. “I’m in love with her, Sunny,” Tag almost whispered. Sunny laughed and reached across the table to take his hand, squeezing it in hers.
“I know, you dumb giant. I’ve known that for a year now.
It just took both of you a while to catch up.
I’m pretty sure she feels the same way about you, but I’ll let her tell you that.
You’re just going to have to be patient with her while she figures it all out.
Whatever you do, Tag, just don’t give up on her.
She’s one of a kind.” Tag pulled Sunny’s hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it.
“Thanks for being such a good friend to both of us,” Tag said. Sunny blushed, slapping Tag’s hands away.
“Enough mushy shit, just go get our girl!” Sunny ordered.
For the first time in more than a week, Tag felt hopeful.
He paid their bill and kissed Sunny on his way out.
He needed to pack a bag and book a flight to New York.
He was going to claim the woman that he loved, whether she was ready for him or not.
Piper wasn’t sure how much longer she could stretch out her stay in New York.
She went through all her grandmother’s belongings and decided to keep only a few items—mostly family pictures and a few sweet figurines of angels.
She loved angels, and after reading the letter, she felt that maybe that one connection was enough to find some common ground.
She tried not to think too much about her grandmother’s words.
She lived the exact opposite life that Agnes hoped for her.
Would her father want her to find love? She knew that her parents loved her and that they loved each other.
They were always touching and kissing in front of her, usually to her squeals of “gross”.
Would they have wanted that for her? Was she so consumed with losing them that she forgot to live?
She arranged to meet with the estate auctioneer this afternoon, and then she would be finished with her business in New York.
She would never really get used to being wealthy, so she was choosing to ignore her newfound money.
Sure, staying in one of the ritziest hotels in New York was nice, but she was determined not to let it change her.
She needed to go back to Colorado and figure things out from there.
She needed to face her friends and family to apologize for just leaving.
She also needed to face Tag—she owed him an apology, too.
She needed him to know that it wasn’t his fault.
When she left, she blamed him for doing his job.
He was good at it, too. Being in the adventure business was a part of him.
She couldn’t imagine him not hiking up the side of a mountain to save someone if the situation arose.
How could she ask him to give that up? She would be asking him to give up who he was, and she wasn’t willing to do that.
He shouldn’t have to change for her to accommodate her fears.
It was time for Piper to face the darkness that had consumed her for so long.
She needed to do it for her parents, Lorna and Sunny.
She needed to do it for herself to find the happiness that her grandmother spoke of.
The time for being a chicken was over. Piper greeted the doorman at Agnes’s apartment and took the elevator up to the penthouse.
She would have her meeting, and then she was going to find a way to take her life back.