Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Zane
I took Andi back to the cottage and, at her request, left her there to gain some normalcy back to her day.
Did I want to?
Fuck no.
But it was her call. Her choice. And me giving in, even though I really wanted to stay, was all part of showing her how she was holding the reins on this crazy ride called life.
“I’m okay,” she said, but I didn’t love the wobble in her voice or the way she tilted her chin up like she was trying to convince me she really meant it. It didn’t work. I was nowhere near convinced but I wasn’t about to push her on it. Not today.
“You don’t have to hover, cowboy,” she murmured, brushing her thumb once against my jaw before rising on her toes to press a kiss to my mouth. “We know today’s chaos didn’t stop with the Camaro, so you should probably go check on your aunt and see how her diner fared out.”
I swallowed down the instinct to object and slid my palms along her arms in one slow pass, wrapping my hands around hers and giving them a gentle squeeze before moving them to her hips. “You sure?” I asked, sliding my thumb into one of her belt loops.
She nodded. “Positive. Norah and I have a ton of boxes to unpack. It’ll…
” She sucked in a breath. Forced a smile.
“Keep my mind occupied.” With a light tug at the front of my shirt, she pulled me down for one more quick kiss and then nudged me toward the door with a soft pat to my side.
A foot of space found its way between us, and not because of me. “Go where you’re needed.”
The knot that had formed in the center of my chest twisted, making my heart feel like it was wrapped up in barbed wire.
I wanted to be needed here.
Andi must’ve seen those words written all over my face, because her expression softened. “Hey,” she murmured, catching my wrist and letting her thumb trace over my uneven pulse. “I’m not pushing you away. You know that, right?”
I nodded, even though something about all of this made my insides feel raw. “I know.”
“Good,” she added, closing that space and giving me a real smile this time as her head tipped back to meet my gaze. My arms wound around her, plastering her to me. “Now lose the resting cowboy face and go help your aunt.”
I felt my eyebrows snap together as I looked down my nose at her. “Resting cowboy face?”
“That’s what I’m calling this trademark scowl of yours.” She touched her finger to that creased space between my eyebrows. “I promise I’m not kicking you out for good. And, if I were, I definitely wouldn’t be letting you borrow my borrowed truck.”
Despite everything, a breath of a laugh escaped me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She nodded and continued, leaning into me just a little more and letting her voice drop into something softer and more…conspiratorial. “And later, when you come back to return my borrowed truck, maybe we can pretend today didn’t happen and break in my new bed.”
I fought back a disbelieving laugh, or at least I tried to. I just couldn’t believe that this woman was standing here after having the rug ripped out from underneath her again and trying to make me feel better about giving her space. A huff of air fell from my lips against my will.
“Is my proposition funny, cowboy?” she asked, amused yet slightly confused.
“What’s funny,” I said, “is you deflecting. Again.”
Her lips parted—clearly caught but not offended. “I’m not—”
“You are, princess.” I dipped my head and brushed my nose against hers. “That’s your trademark move. Throw out something sweet and distracting so I stop looking at you like you’re about to fall apart.”
A tiny burst of air hit my mouth from the laugh she expelled. “Does it work?”
I grinned and sealed my lips to hers. “Every damn time.”
Two miles later, Belle’s diner came into view.
It looked…better than I expected. It was a little strange seeing the parking lot with only three vehicles—her mid-sized SUV, my mom’s Suburban, and Red’s old square body truck—but then again, half of Tarnation looked like a ghost town thanks to childish shenanigans.
Everyone was too busy cleaning up toilet paper and eggs and repairing mailboxes to be doing anything else.
I pulled into the gravel lot and parked off to the side, far enough to keep me and the truck out of spray range since Red was currently blasting egg gunk off of the front windows with a power washer. The smell was a special kind of rank, and I wasn’t trying to carry that around with me.
“Well, would you look at that,” Belle shouted out as I rounded the corner of the diner and crossed the back lot where she and my mom were tossing filled garbage bags into the dumpster. “Just like a damn blister, showing up when all the work's done.”
“Damn, Belle,” I said, huffing a sarcastic laugh. “Don’t you usually reserve those insults for Luke?”
She heaved an exhausted sigh and threw another bag into the dumpster. “Sorry, hon. I’m just tired from picking toilet paper from my bushes and grumpy from smellin’ raw egg for the past couple of hours.”
“Try having it hit you in the face,” Red grumbled loudly, walking the spray gun over to the base and resting it in the holder before shutting it down.
“Is this the last of it?” I asked, grabbing a bag from the ground and tossing it into the dumpster.
“Last of the paper and shells,” Belle said as I tossed in another bag. “The south window still needs another spray because someone—” she shot a look at Red “—refuses to admit he missed a spot.”
Red shook his head and walked over to the side of the diner to disconnect the hose. “I didn’t miss a spot. The sunlight’s just hitting it wrong.”
Belle narrowed her eyes. “Keep it up, Harland, and the palm of my hand’ll hit you just right.”
His laugh rang out from across the yard as my mom and I tossed the last two bags in the dumpster.
Mom shook her head with a smirk and dusted her hands off on her jeans, hitting me with a concerned but knowing expression. “How’s Andi holding up?”
I shrugged, reaching for the dumpster lid and lifting it before letting gravity pull it the rest of the way closed. It settled with a jarring rattle.
“Best she can,” I replied and left it at that because it wasn’t my place to speak for her.
“That girl’s been through a lot,” Belle said, sharing a look with my mom before her eyes landed on me in a way that made me think of a warning shot. “You both have.”
Yep, shots fired.
I shook my head. “This isn’t about me.”
“It is, a little bit,” Mom said, her nose wrinkling as she lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug.
My eyes darted between all three of them. “When did this become an intervention?”
“When you decided to show up after all the work was done,” Belle said, matter-of-factly. “Now, hush up and listen.”
What the hell? I looked to Red for back-up, but he just stood there, rubbing his palm over his beard-covered jaw with an expression that clearly urged me to do as the crazy lady insisted.
“It’s not so much an intervention as…” Mom said, pausing as she seemed to arrange her next words carefully. “...seizing a rare opportunity to talk to you alone.”
“A rare opportunity to talk to me alone?” I echoed, growing more agitated by the second on how they were dragging this out—whatever this was.
“You and Andi are stuck like glue these days,” Belle elaborated. “Makes it hard to share concerns.”
“Concerns?” I went on the defense, and the tone of my voice didn’t hide it. “Concerns about what? I thought y’all liked Andi.”
“We do,” Mom swiftly added, sensing my frustration. “We adore her. But our concerns aren’t about her, sweetheart. They’re about you.”
A swooping sensation went straight through my middle. “What about me?” I asked, slower but still defensive.
“Zane, you’re a man,” Belle said.
Silence fell between the four of us, lingering longer than it should have for a statement as obvious as that, and I started to wonder if I was supposed to agree.
“And men are preprogrammed to want to fix things,” Belle finally added.
“It’s written all over you that you want to fix this for her,” Mom said, a million times softer in her approach than my aunt’s.
“Because I do,” I said.
“We know that,” Mom said, “but we want to make sure that you’re wanting to fix things for the right reason.”
I couldn’t help myself and looked between my mom and her sister like they’d lost their minds. “And there’s a…wrong reason?”
“There is when it’s done out of fear,” Belle said.
I felt my eyebrows pull together. “Fear of what?”
Mom looked at me with that steady patience she was annoyingly good at. “Fear of losing her, son.”
Realization washed over me like a bucket of ice water. “Do not compare this shit or her with Brianna.”
“We’re not comparing the two women,” Belle said, softer now but still in her own unapologetic way. “We’re talking about you.”
“Oh, for shit’s sake,” Red said, scratching his beard before tugging at the back of his neck like he was trying to crack it.
“I’m tapping in because y’all are taking way too long to get this out.
” He looked at me with a sigh. “Zane, you’re a good guy who’s been kicked in the teeth before.
And, sometimes, when a man gets hurt bad enough, he starts confusing effort with safety.
Do more. Hold tighter. Control what you can so nobody slips through your damn fingers again. ”
Belle murmured, “Harland,” but he kept going, softer now but still direct.
“You can’t fix Andi’s life to make sure she stays in yours.”
And if that wasn’t a motherfucking kick to the gut.
“You don’t do ‘hurt’ in small doses, sweetheart,” Mom said. “And when someone you love is struggling? It scares you. Makes you think you have to fix the whole world so you don’t lose them.”
“That’s all we’re trying to say here,” Belle said. “We just want you to check your reasons.” Her eyes fell on me then, watching me closely. “You want to fix it? Fine. Just fix it in a way that lets her fly, not in a way that cages her in.”
I stood there in stunned silence, wondering where the hell the three of them got off on telling me that I was…God, caging her in because I—what? Wanted to be the guy who fixed things for her instead of breaking them?
But then my mind started replaying all the little ways I’d tried to protect her.
Jumping in when guys got too handsy at the bar.
Going behind her and resaddling Dolly during riding lessons.
Kissing her to let her feel something safe after that scare in the barn.
Playing the hero and carting her out of the fairgrounds when the fireworks got to be a little too much.
I hadn’t done any of that for me. I’d done it for her.
But now—thanks to these three—I wondered if every little “helpful” thing I’d done was…
a safety net of my own making. What if my desire to fix things wasn’t always about giving her freedom or simply protecting her, but about…
goddamn it…about wanting to be needed? Needed so much that she’d—I felt like I was going to be sick—never leave me.
I hated that thought—hated myself, too—because it stung.
Because every time I stepped in, even with the best of intentions, it had been because I feared losing her in some way.
Because I knew how it felt to be abandoned.
And that fear didn’t whisper. It shouted—rationalizing all those times I thought I was just being protective when really… I was just holding on too tight.
I loved her. God, I loved her so fucking much and the last thing I wanted was to fix things in a way that caged her. And somewhere between that short drive back to the cottage later in the day, it clicked. I knew exactly what I needed to do. Something that truly showed her she wasn’t trapped.
Not with me.
Not anywhere.
Not ever again.