Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Bash
The sun was already high in the sky by the time Gator and I were rolling down the dirt road that led to Pistol Pete’s farm.
Rain or shine, I showed up every Sunday no matter what. Pete was getting older, and there was always something that needed to be fixed around the property.
Today it was the fence line thanks to the Coastal-Bridge Development Corporation assholes.
Pete had no intention of selling, but that didn’t stop them. Every week they’d show up pulling more shit. This time they’d bulldozed right up to property line on the east side and fucked up the fences.
I was starting to wonder if their goal was to be such a drain on the old timer’s resources that he didn't have any choice but to give in.
Cyber and Frankie were digging into them, but unfortunately, Coastal Bridge was a big fucking company with deep pockets and political connections. So far, all our attempts to reason with them had failed.
As we rounded the final curve, the white farmhouse came into view. Gator revved his engine behind me and I glanced over at him, my brows pulling in.
“What the fuck?” I yelled over the rumble.
He couldn’t hear me, but that didn’t stop him from nodding ahead of us.
And that’s when I saw her.
For the first time in years, I felt like I could breathe.
There she was. Sitting in that old porch swing like she’d never left.
“Hattie.” Her name rolled off my lips like a prayer to the gods.
My eyes raked across every inch of her.
Long honey-brown hair catching the light just right, those impossibly long tan legs tucked up underneath her. She was wearing cut-off denim shorts and a soft pink tank top, and she had a mason jar of what I knew was Jean’s sweet tea clutched in her hands.
Pain I’d buried deep cut through me like a knife.
It’d been so damn long, but fuck me if she wasn’t a sight for sore eyes.
I’d seen the rumors on the television about her engagement being called off, but I hadn’t expected her to come back here.
Gator and I cut our engines at the same time, the sudden silence deafening. I pulled off my brain bucket and tried to get my shit together. But Christ, she was more beautiful than I remembered, and I remembered every goddamn thing about Hattie Lynn Jackson.
Eight years of trying to forget her and failing.
Eight years of telling myself I’d done the right thing.
Eight years of missing her so much it felt like I wouldn’t make it through another day without her—all of it disappeared with just one look at her in the flesh.
There she was. Whole and beautiful, and looking right at me.
“Holy shit!” Gator whooped, having recovered from the shock of seeing her a helluva’ lot faster than I had. Without missing a beat, he was off his sled and bounding up the porch steps two at a time. “Hattie Lynn Jackson!” he boomed. “Where the fuck have you been, girl?”
She opened her mouth, but before she could utter a word my best friend had her up in his arms, spinning her round and round, making the sweet tea in her hand fling everywhere.
“Drake Montgomery!” she shrieked, her voice full of laughter. “Put me down right this minute, you big oaf!”
Laughing his head off, Gator dropped her back onto her feet, holding onto her arms to make sure she was steady on her feet. “Damn it’s good to see you, Mad Hatter.”
My lips twitched. She was about to give him hell for calling her that and he damn well knew it.
“You know I hate when you call me that, Drake,” she grumbled, nose wrinkling adorably as she shot him a glare and shook out her hands that were covered in tea.
“Well yeah,” he smirked.
She was able to hold that fake glare for about two seconds before she started laughing.
That musical sound that used to make my chest feel too tight now felt like another slash across my heart.
How the fuck had I let her go?
“Can’t call me Drake anymore,” Gator declared, pointing at the patch on his leather cut with obvious pride.
Hattie leaned in closer to examine his patch, her eyes softening as she took it in. “Well, I’ll be. You went and joined the Kings just like your daddy.”
To my complete shock, Gator actually blushed. When we were kids, he’d always sworn up and down that he was getting the hell out of Odin the second he turned eighteen. He was going to see the world, make his fortune, and never look back.
Instead he was wearing the same patch his father had worn, living the same life in the same town.
It was funny how things worked out.
Finally climbing off my bike, I forced my legs to carry me up onto the porch. Each step felt like I was walking through quicksand, but I couldn’t stop myself from moving closer to her.
“Long time no see, Songbird.” The nickname rolled off my tongue like no time had passed at all.
Hattie flinched, and I immediately regretted opening my mouth.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice neutral as she bent to pick up her now-empty mason jar.
“We came to help Pete with the fence,” I said, shoving my hands into my front pockets, fighting the urge to reach out and pull her against my chest like I used to do every time she was near. “That Coastal-Bridge company tore it up when they were clearing their side of the property line.”
Gator clapped me on the shoulder, before looking pointedly at Hattie. “Don’t leave town without saying goodbye this time, Hattie Lynn,” he said with a wink. Then he took off around the side of the house towards the barn, leaving us alone on the porch.
Hattie turned back to me, and I watched her eyes rake over my appearance. I’d filled out since high school. The lanky boy she knew was long gone, and in his place was six feet of solid muscle earned from years of hitting the gym because I was restless.
Her cheeks turned pink as she looked at me, that familiar electricity crackling between us. The same energy that had always been too big to hide, too powerful to ignore.
“So...” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I, uh... I saw the headlines on TV. About you and the football player.”
Good riddance, I thought. She could do so much better than that douche canoe.
She could do better with me. After all these years, after everything I’d done to push her away, I still wanted her. I’d never stopped wanting her.
She looked away, her cheeks flushing deeper. “Yeah, well. That’s over.”
I should have left it alone, should have kept my mouth shut and just appreciated that she was talking to me at all.
But I’d never been good at keeping my thoughts to myself when it came to her.
“That’s too bad,” I lied through my teeth. “You seemed happy.”
She flinched like I’d slapped her, and I knew I’d said the wrong thing. Again.
“It was good seeing you, Weston,” she said, heading for the front door.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “You, too.”
I watched her walk away, every step like a knife to a heart that felt like it was bleeding out.
Fuck, I’d missed her.
I’d missed her so goddamn much that it was a miracle I was still breathing.
She haunted my dreams, but it was never enough.
In my dreams, she was mine. I could still touch her, still taste her on my lips–hear her when she laughed.
But the morning always came. I’d wake and she was gone, and once again I was left with nothing but the memory of what I’d thrown away.
Standing there, all the despair I’d felt when she left Odin hit me again all at once, and I felt like I was drowning.
I missed everything about her. Her smile that lit up my whole fucking world.
The way her hair always smelled like wildflowers and sunshine.
How her lips would twitch when Pete would explain something she already knew, but she’d let him talk anyway because she loved him too much to hurt his feelings.
I missed the way she used to look at me like I was her everything. I missed her so fucking much.
The screen door creaked open and out stepped Pete. He took one look at my face and shook his head. “Are you finally going to get your head out of your ass and fix this bullshit between you and my granddaughter?”
I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “She hates me, Pete.”
The old man shrugged, taking a long sip of the beer in his hand. “There’s a thin line between love and hate, boy.”
“I don't think that’s actually true,” I muttered.
“You don’t know shit about women if you think that,” Pete said with a snort. “That girl’s been carrying a torch for you since she was thirteen years old. Just because you hurt her doesn’t mean she stopped loving you.”
I wanted to believe him. Fuck me I wanted to believe him more than I wanted my next breath, but I’d seen the way she looked at me—or rather, the way she tried not to look at me.
“Come on,” Pete said, pushing off the porch railing. “Let’s go fix this fence. Maybe some manual labor will knock some sense into that thick skull of yours.”
I followed him out into the pasture where we spent the next two hours in the blazing Florida sun, replacing fence posts and restringing wire.
Pete kept up a steady stream of commentary about everything from the weather to the state of the economy, but I could tell he was working up to something.
Finally, as we were packing up the tools, he hit me with it.
“You know she's leaving in a few days.”
I stilled, a coil of wire still in my hands. “What?”
“Yep.” Pete’s eyes glinted with something that looked suspiciously like mischief. “Way, I see it. You’ve got time to change her mind.”
Short of kidnapping her and chaining her to my bed, I wasn’t sure I could get her to change her mind.
My brows pulled together. That might be an option. It had worked for Bane, after all.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to talk her around to giving me another shot to make things right, but I knew without a fucking doubt that I wasn’t strong enough to let her go again.