Chapter 8
Zane
Every muscle in my body was screaming by the time I pulled down the gravel drive, and I was glad for it.
Pain was useful. Pain kept a man focused on the present instead of on the things he couldn’t have.
After a full day running a chainsaw, my shoulders felt like someone had driven railroad spikes through them, and still the ache in my chest hadn’t budged a single inch.
I’d worked the crew hard today. Harder than usual. And man, I’d wished Amos still worked for me. Because he would’ve distracted everyone with his stupid jokes.
Instead, their moods had soured right alongside mine.
Today I hadn’t been a good boss.
My headlights swept across the yard as I turned in, and I saw it immediately.
Her SUV was still parked right where it had been this morning.
I sat in the truck for a moment, staring at it.
I’d been so certain she’d be gone. I’d believed it with such certainty that I’d been constructing it as a reality hour by hour while I worked, building it up like a wall so that by the time I got home I’d be ready for the haunting silence that follows a woman like Mallory Carpenter out the door.
But she was still here.
I didn’t know what to do with that, so I cut the engine and got out, taking the steps two at a time.
The aroma of a pot roast, rich and savory, greeted me the second I opened the front door.
Then Mallory appeared from the kitchen.
She was wearing one of my flannels. It was hanging unbuttoned, and every inch of her gorgeousness was right there in front of me.
She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life, and it made my chest hurt so bad I almost couldn’t stand it.
“You’re back,” she said, leaning against the kitchen doorframe with one bare foot crossed over the other. “Dinner’s ready if you want it.”
I grunted and pulled off my boots.
She moved to the counter and handled the roast as if she’d been cooking in my kitchen for years, cutting generous slices and loading up a plate for me with potatoes on the side.
The flannel shifted every time she moved. I watched the side of her breast appear and disappear as she reached for the serving spoon, and on any other night that would have had me out of my chair and across the kitchen in about four seconds flat.
Tonight it just felt like the universe being deliberately unkind.
“I wasn’t sure you’d still be here,” I rumbled.
“Do you want me to leave?” Mallory dug into her roast.
“No.”
“That’s a start.”
Yeah, I was being an ass, wasn’t I? Mallory didn’t deserve my bad mood. It was just so damn hard to think about losing her. I knew I was shutting her out before she could.
But I still had tonight with her. And however many days before she packed up and moved on. I wasn’t helping to sway her decision in my favor, acting like a grumbly mountain bear.
I should be wooing her. Flowers and shit. Declarations of love.
Maybe even asking her to stay. That might help.
But I couldn’t get myself into that state of mind right now. I was too busy feeling the grit of loss scrape across my heart. It was ragged and bloody at this point.
“It’s a good house,” she said softly.
“Yup.”
She looked down at her plate, a tiny frown on her lips.
We ate the rest of the meal in silence, my eyes watching the candle flame flicker on my old kitchen table. She’d rummaged around and found it somewhere, along with a tablecloth and the good china my mom had insisted I took when my grandmother passed away.
And all I could think about was that Mallory made a kick-ass pot roast, and how cruel it was that she could make this place feel like a home in the space of a single afternoon.
When the plates were empty, I planted my hands on the table and looked at her directly.
“Is this a farewell dinner?”
“Do you want it to be?” She met my eyes without flinching.
“I’m asking you a question.”
“And I’m asking you one back.” Her chin lifted slightly. “Do you want me to take the job, Zane? Or is there something else you think I should do?”
My heart thumped in my chest, louder than usual, making a cacophony of itself.
“Did you take the job?” I growled.
“No.”
Cautiously, I asked, “Did you turn it down?”
“Not yet.”
She was watching me with those eyes that had been unraveling me since I was twenty-one years old, and I wanted more than anything in the world to tell her exactly what I thought she should do.
Stay. Stay in this house. Sleep in my bed. Cook in my kitchen. Let me love you the way I’ve been wanting to love you since before you ever left this town.
Instead, I picked up my glass of water.
“That’s your decision to make,” the words scraped out of me. “Not mine.”
She held my gaze for a long moment, and frustration flickered behind her eyes. Then she sat back in her chair and looked toward the hallway where the growth chart was.
“Did you ever want kids?” she asked quietly.
The question landed somewhere I wasn’t expecting, and I stared at her across the candlelit table as a sharp, bewildering twist of pain shot through me.
Why would she ask me that?
What possible purpose did that question serve when she had forty-eight hours to accept a job in Chicago?
Every sign pointed to her walking out of my life the same way she had the first time.
It felt almost cruel. And Mallory had never been cruel a day in her life, which meant I had no idea what she was doing.
I did the only thing I could. I stood up and stalked out of the room. I didn’t make it two steps up the stairs before I heard her chair scrape across the kitchen floor behind me.