Chapter 57
RIGGS
“Ithought you were kidding,” I say, shooting her a smirk across the dark interior the car. “No fuckin’ way someone sane would actually put raisins in chocolate cake.”
“I never kid about chocolate cake,” she deadpans. “How was it? Sera said it was terrible.”
“Terrible is a compliment. It was an affront to everything good and natural in this world,” I tell her, just as serious. “No wonder June came crawling up to our table when she saw us sitting there.”
“She did not crawl,” Gemma laughs, her pretty face splitting on a wide grin.
“Okay… maybe not,” I concede while my chest is tightened by the look of her.
“But she definitely sidled.” June pounced as soon as she saw us sitting at one of the tables in the back, making small talk for all of thirty seconds before she began begging Gemma to come back.
She offered her a raise. She offered her unlimited paid vacation time.
She offered her first dibs on whatever waitressing shifts she wanted—as long as she came back and baked for her.
Gemma told her she didn’t want to come back as a waitress and she didn’t want a raise.
She wanted forty percent of whatever June made on her baked goods.
June nearly had a heart attack but after some negotiating, they settled on thirty. Gemma starts back next week.
“So, is that who came to see you today?” I ask because even if I am trying to give her what she wants, that doesn’t change the fact that when it comes to Gemma, I’m just about as jealous and possessive as they come.
“Yes.” She shoots me a sheepish look while she pulls into the driveway. “She brought me potpie and we visited for a few hours before she had to pick Scarlett up from the bus stop.”
Thinking about the styrofoam container of potpie in the back seat, I laugh.
“I didn’t realize you were so into potpie,” I tell her, a reminder that as much as I know about Gemma, there are still things about her that surprise me.
She’s been living an entire life without me and I have no one to blame for that but myself.
I suddenly don’t understand how I’ve managed all these years without her.
How I’ve walked and talked. Breathed and slept without her next to me.
And I realize just as suddenly that I haven’t.
Gem’s been with me. Following me. The memory of her clinging to me like a bur.
Killing the engine, she pulls her keys out the ignition. “Bathtub potpie is one of my guilty pleasures.”
“Bathtub potpie…” I look at her, chest going tight again. “The dirty fork graveyard on your bathroom floor makes a lot more sense now.”
“I’m good for an occasional bathtub cobbler too,” she tells me with another one of her wide grins. “Of course, I won’t say no to a good chicken enchilada cass?—”
“I love you.”
When I say it, Gemma falls quiet, her brow puckered slightly like she isn’t sure she heard me right.
“I love you, Gem.” Going for broke, I reach for the hand resting quietly in her lap. “I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you my entire life.”
Shaking her head, Gemma squeezes my fingers on a sigh. “Riggs?—”
“Don’t tell me I don’t. Don’t tell me I’m just saying it because I regret what happened today or because I’m trying to do the right thing or because I want you to change your mind about what comes next,” I tell her, cutting off whatever she’s about to say.
“Because yes—I do want you to change your mind, and doing the right thing by you is the only thing I’ve ever wanted—but I don’t regret it. I don’t regret a fucking thing. ”
Hand still squeezed around mine, Gemma looks at me, tears swimming in her beautiful hazel eyes. “I love you too, Riggs.”
I can hear it in her tone, even if she doesn’t say it out loud.
But that doesn’t change anything.
I want to argue with her. Force her to admit that she’s wrong.
That it changes everything but I can’t, because while it might change everything for me, her life remains the same.
She’s still who she was before I showed up on her doorstep.
Having me here hasn’t fixed anything. Hearing me finally admit the truth is too little too late.
“Gem—”
“It’s late. Let’s get the car unloaded and get inside,” she says, squeezing my hand again before she lets it go, as if the last five minutes never happened.
After we got the car unloaded and groceries put away, I sat out on the deck while she sat at the kitchen table with her phone, scribbling furiously in an old notebook.
Instead of asking her what she was doing, I left her to it.
Pulling a beer from the six-pack we just bought, I take myself out onto the deck and listen to the rush of the river, just beyond the trees.
Sometime after midnight, after one beer had turned into three, I look over my shoulder to see her prepping my bed for the night.
Deciding I can’t avoid it anymore—that I can’t let her avoid me anymore—I wheel myself back inside.
Stopping at the foot of the bed, I watch her for a few moments before I find the courage to say it.
“I’m sorry,” I say while she arranges and rearranges the pillows on my bed.
“About earlier. It’s exactly what you said you didn’t want from me and I did it anyway.
” It’s a lie. I’m not sorry and I wouldn’t take it back if someone put a gun to my head.
But love is a promise and I promised not to make those to her.
“It’s okay.” She gives me the kind of smile that tells me she’s lying too. “I think maybe?—”
“Will you stay?” I ask, wheeling myself closer to where she’s standing. “With me. Tonight. Will you?—”
She hesitates, but only for a moment before she answers. “Yes.” Giving one of my pillows a final fluff, she drops her hands. “I’ll go upstairs and get ready for bed and come back down.”
“Alright.” Even though I’m sure she’s lying, that she’s going back upstairs to hide, I let her go.
Rolling into the bathroom, I brush my teeth and get ready for bed, telling myself that I won’t scream myself hoarse like I did last night.
That if Gemma decides not to come back, I’m going to have to accept it because I’m the one who fucked it up this time.
Clicking off the light, I angle my chair and lock my wheels, preparing to transfer myself into bed, when I hear the pocket door slide open behind me.
“Colt texted,” she tells me while she circles the bed.
“He’s going to bring Janet back in the morning.
” Climbing beneath the covers, she watches me while I get myself into bed.
As soon as I’m settled, I reach for her.
Pulling her into my arms, I lay flat on my back, her cheek pressed against my shoulder.
We’re quiet for a long time, looking at the stars overhead, before she speaks.
“Mrs. Wilson told me they sold their house,” she says, drawing lazy circles on my chest with the tip of her finger. “Same day it hit the market. Cash offer—twenty percent over asking price and an extra ten grand to pay for moving expenses if they can be out by Saturday.”
“Jesus,” Looking down at her with a frown, I shake my head. “That’s a motivated buyer.”
“Yeah.” Nodding her head, she makes a sound in the back of her throat.
“She’s already hired movers. They’re going to come in and spent the next couple of days packing up the house while she and Mr. Wilson fly to Seattle, Friday morning.
When I asked her if they sold to a creeker, she wouldn’t say.
She looked guilty as hell, so it has to be.
No one around here has that kind of money, just laying around. ”
“Jensen said there have been land developers creeping all over the river for the past few months,” I tell her, giving her a recount of what Jensen and I talked about last night. “He said he’s had several offers for the Mill.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” she says. For a second, we’re both quiet. Both lost in thought, before I ask. “I’m sure the lot of them have been circling this place since Dent died.”
I have no doubt that she’s right. According to Jensen, they’ve been moving quietly toward pushing Barrett off the map, ever since Clearwater assumed voting control over the council.
“How much do you owe?” I don’t expect her to tell me. Gem has always been stubborn. Too stubborn to ask for help. Too prideful to take it. This is her problem to solve. Her home to save.
But she surprises me.
“If I subtract what the VA is paying me, a little over six thousand dollars,” she confess, pushing the words out like she’s afraid they’ll get stuck in her throat if she lets them linger.
“I still have three weeks,” she says, offering the information without making me ask.
“But the profits I’ll make from June’s will come too late. ”
I could pay it for her tomorrow but she wouldn’t let me and if I did without her permission, she’d never forgive me. “Ask June for an advance,” I suggest. “I’m sure, given how desperate she is to get you back in her kitchen, she’d give it to you.”
“You saw that place tonight,” she says, shaking her head. “It was deserted—I’m willing to bet June’s even more under water than I am.”
She’s probably right. June is desperate. If things were going well at the diner, she never would’ve agreed to Gemma’s terms. Before I can fuck everything up by asking her to marry me again, Gemma lifts her head and smiles at me. “But I have an idea on how I can make the money.”
“Then do it,” I tell her without hesitation. “Whatever it is, do it.”
“It might not work,” she tells me. “And if it doesn’t, I’ll end up in an even bigger hole than I’m already in. I’ll lose this place for sure.”
“It’ll work,” I tell her plainly because it has to.
“You don’t even know what my idea is,” she says, quirking her light brown brows at me.
“Doesn’t matter,” I say, running my hand up her arm to grip her shoulder. “I know you. I know what you’re capable of.”
Flashing me a wobbly smile, Gemma rests her cheek on my chest again. “I’m a minimum wage waitress, with a mountain of debt, in a town with three stoplights,” she says like maybe I forgot.
“I know exactly who you are, Gemma Rae Pierce,” I assure her, angling my head to press a kiss to the top of hers. “I’ve always known… it’s probably why I’ve wasted so much time running from you.”
It’s a confession I didn’t realize the truth of until I said it out loud.
Gemma is a force of nature. Proud and determined.
Capable and so goddamned stubborn there’s absolutely no hope for me.
Once her mind is made up, it can’t be unmade—and no matter where she is now, no matter what she’s given me—Gemma made her mind up about me, a long time ago.
And I have no one to blame for that but myself.
“Gem…” It comes out reluctant and rusty because she hasn’t said anything in a while and I’m beginning to worry that I did it again.
Made her another promise she doesn’t want.
One she’s sure I won’t keep. Looking down, I find her eyes closed.
Her hand still on my chest. Her own moving in the slow, steady rhythm of sleep.
Dropping my head back onto my pillow, I look up at the stars until they begin to blur before I finally close my eyes, so sleep can take me too.