Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Bower
Iwas shocked to see Mia back here. She had a fiancé back at home. If I was engaged to her, I wouldn’t let her out of my sight.
The vibrations from my axe splitting the log traveled up my arm, shaking my shoulder. I’d just sharpened the blade, and it cut through the dry oak logs like butter. The firewood stockpiles were chockful, but I needed to do something physical to keep my mind off her.
It’d taken me a week to recover from seeing Mia wearing that bachelorette outfit. It’d gutted me, knowing that someone had been waiting for her back home. A fiancé. Someone she’d said yes to marrying—someone she’d agreed to spend the rest of her life with.
Another log split into two pieces, falling onto the grass. I picked up the pieces and threw them onto the pile I was creating. My muscles cried out as I picked up another log to split. Good. I welcomed the pain—it meant I was getting somewhere, thinking of something other than Mia.
Ruby had made it seem like I had a chance. She wasn’t a fan of Mia’s fiancé, that was for certain. I’d fucking laid it out there with Mia, become more vulnerable than I ever had. She reciprocated by getting drunk. So drunk that I’d had to carry her out of the bar and back to her cabin.
Not that I’d minded it. She’d felt good in my arms and even smelled good after a full night of drinking. I’d tucked her in, hoping she’d wake up ready to take a chance with me, agree that there was something between us.
But she hadn’t.
I took a breath in, swinging the axe up and around, my hands sliding together as I brought the axe down—completely missing the log.
Shit. My muscles were fatiguing, but they weren’t tired enough to be missing the log completely. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d missed like that. I lifted my hat off my head and ran my fingers through my hair. She was getting to me.
Mia had left without saying goodbye. Just as I’d done to her all those years ago.
I couldn’t help but notice the irony. I’d left her for nine years, whereas Mia had left me for two weeks.
But it didn’t kill me any less. The not knowing had been brutal.
How Mia had done it for nine years, not knowing what had happened, I’d never know, but now I understood why she was so mad.
I’d sent her small packages over the years, but she’d never responded.
I wasn’t sure I would’ve either if I were in her position—but unfortunately, now there was nothing I could do about it.
Another log split in two. I threw the pieces onto the pile.
It was getting too tall—the logs on the side tumbling down each time I added new ones to the top.
I laid down the axe and got to work rearranging the pile so it would continue to support my diversion.
I wasn’t anywhere close to being finished.
During the second week after she’d left, I’d rebuilt my walls. I was good at that. I had Fort Knox built around me. It protected me, kept me from falling apart, showing those broken parts of myself to people.
So when I’d seen her standing there yesterday among the towels on the clothesline, I’d felt ready.
Ready to protect her from me. She didn’t need to deal with me and all my broken parts.
She had a fiancé at home to take care of her.
Someone who she must’ve been happy with if she’d gone back to him after everything I’d said to her.
I wasn’t enough. My words hadn’t been enough for her, and I needed to get over it.
I sucked in a breath as a wood sliver pierced through my palm. I brought my hand to my mouth and pulled it out with my teeth.
Now she was here, expecting to see me—expecting that I’d want to talk to her after I’d laid out my heart and she’d run from it. Mia hadn’t said anything to me before she’d left the other week. She’d hidden in her cabin as if she was scared of me—or maybe scared that what I’d said to her was true.
I had to get through one week with her here, in my space. I could dodge her for a week. The resort was big enough that we didn’t have to run into each other. I could do it.
You’re not going to unnerve me again, Mia Miller.
“B4.” Paused silence. Low grumbling. “B4.”
There still weren’t any bingos. This game was lasting for fucking ever.
I’d turned the crank, let the little balls fall out of the basket, and called number after number.
Still no bingos. It was only the first game of ten.
How had my grandmother done this week after week for thirty-five years? That woman was a saint.
“O69.” Paused silence. Subtle giggling. “O69.”
“Bingo!” someone called out. Thank God.
A man in swim trunks brought up his bingo card, balancing the chips on the surface. I glanced down at the chips in a diagonal line across his card. Good enough.
“Clear your boards.” The microphone screeched as I spoke into it, and everyone raced to cover their ears.
Caleb showed up at the lodge donning his tool belt, hammer hanging from his hip. “Dude, this is the worst bingo game ever.” I’d set up bingo right outside the lodge—that way I didn’t have to haul all the equipment across the resort.
“It’s bingo. How’s it supposed to be fun?” I covered the microphone in hopes that the few guests playing wouldn’t hear. They were already grumbling about having to clear their boards.
“I went to so many bingo games with my grandma in Boca Raton when I was younger. Those games get wild. Grandmas flipping each other off. Grandpas throwing their walkers down the aisles. Shit’s intense.” Caleb paused, taking in the current game. “This…sucks.”
“If you’re such the bingo professional, be my guest.” I waved Caleb over to the microphone. Best of luck. It was a tough crowd of twelve.
Caleb unfastened his tool belt, letting it fall to the grass. “Hello, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, giving a bright grin. “I’m Caleb, and I’ll be taking over as bingo caller for the rest of the afternoon.”
An errant “Whoop!” came from the crowd. I snapped my head up to see who it was, but I couldn’t find the traitor. Everyone sat up straighter in their seats. Caleb had their full attention with two sentences. He started calling out numbers, a charismatic quip following each one.
I was horrible at this. I knew it, the guests knew it, and Caleb and Dean couldn’t stop giving me shit about my “lack of enthusiasm.” I should’ve hired an event coordinator to run these things. It wasn’t for me.
My grandmother had run all the resort activities since I could remember.
Grandpa had cut her off last year when she’d mixed bleach with the dye instead of water for tie-dye T-shirts.
There wasn’t anyone else to run all the activities that kept families coming back year after year.
Grandpa wasn’t interested, Dean and Caleb were busy in their respective roles, and I couldn’t put that kind of responsibility on Chloe this far into her pregnancy.
It left me, struggling to run all the events my grandma had run every year with ease.
“Bingo!” a voice called out from among the bingo players.
“Can the beautiful blonde please read off her card?”
I automatically looked up to see who this beautiful blonde was. Maybe it’d take my mind off a different blonde I couldn’t stop thinking about.
My eyes widened as Mia stood up from behind a guest and started calling out numbers and letters. I hadn’t seen her there in the back row, hidden behind the guy in front of her.
Caleb had always been a charmer. I’d seen him flirt with the ninety-year-old grandmother who was a guest here last week. He was harmless, didn’t even see it as flirting. It was his way of being friendly. Still, him calling Mia beautiful irked me in a way Caleb had never irked me before.
“B2.” Mia tried to hide her smile as she read the last number of her bingo win.
“That’s it, folks. Clear your cards,” Caleb announced. The crowd grumbled.
“What do I get for a prize?” Mia called out. She was still standing there, looking right at me.
“Uh, what do we do for prizes, Bower?”
We usually didn’t do prizes for bingo. Winning was enough for most people.
Mia wasn’t most people. She knew it too. She stood there looking at me with those chocolate-brown eyes, waiting for an answer.
“A Popsicle,” I said.
“Hey! I didn’t get a Popsicle!” the man who’d won the last game protested. What was it with the entitlement of people on vacation?
“All the winners can get a Popsicle from the freezer inside the lodge,” I said into the microphone.
A few cheers came from the crowd. I patted Caleb on the back, ready to let him take over completely. I had other shit to do that didn’t involve placating the egos of resort guests.
He stepped back a few steps from the microphone so it wouldn’t pick up his voice. “We’re handing out Popsicles to the winners now?”
“She asked for a prize. Was I supposed to say no?”
A laugh broke out from the bingo crowd. It was Mia, laughing with her fellow bingo winner, probably gloating in their mutual Popsicle victory.
My teeth clenched together. It wasn’t the sound of her laugh or even the fact that she was laughing.
It was that I hadn’t caused that sound to come from her throat.
I used to be the one that made her laugh.
“Jeez, dude. You just tensed up. Are you all right?” Caleb followed my eyeline. “The beautiful blonde, eh? Are you finally over that Mia girl?”
I’d probably told Caleb too much about Mia when we’d served together.
He’d always been talking about Chloe, and when the nights had gotten long, I’d share stories about Mia.
It’d become clear after the fifth, seventh, twentieth time I brought her up that I was smitten with her.
There’d never been another girl I talked to him about.
Caleb had only known Mia. He probably knew just as much about her as I did.
“Mia!” Ruby’s voice had always been louder than Mia’s. She never was concerned about who heard her. “Lunch! Mom made pasta salad!”