Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Bea
“I feel bad I’m keepin’ you up,” Bax said while I snuggled closer to his chest.
I’d insisted on getting redressed just in case Athena came into the room, but now I remembered I’d locked the door so that wouldn’t happen. But still, I didn’t want a repeat of hurrying to help him get dressed while someone waited on the other side of the door.
“You probably have an early start in the mornin’.”
“Yeah.” I yawned. “But it’s fine. I’ll take a micro nap at lunch.”
He laughed softly. “What the hell is a micro nap?”
Assuming he could figure that out on his own, instead of answering, I blurted, “What was Candy like?”
I couldn’t help asking. Athena was such an amazing kid, and I wanted to know if she took after her mom.
But really, what I wanted to know was if Candy and I were anything alike.
If that was why Bax was attracted to me.
Candy and I certainly didn’t look anything alike.
And if we weren’t similar, then why was he attracted to me?
From the pictures hanging in his living room and the one I’d seen in his brother’s office, I knew Candy had been all tall, soft, curvy mom, and I was hard, short, and worn.
He wasn’t my type at all . He didn’t have a motorcycle or tattoos, he actually cared about his fellow human beings, and he was somebody’s father.
Maybe it was because he had a broken femur, but he was kind of a homebody.
I couldn’t figure out why I wanted him as much as I did, and even more now we’d slept together.
But I did want more. More sex. More cuddles and kisses. More everything.
The way his deft fingers stroked leisurely through the length of my hair was intoxicating, and if he leaned down one more time to kiss the top of my head, I was going to go insane and jump his bones again. At least the ones that weren’t broken.
He cleared his throat.
“It’s okay if you don’t wanna talk about her. I was just curious.”
“No,” he said. “No, I don’t mind, actually. It’s funny; I was just thinkin’ about what she’d think of you.”
“She probably wouldn’t like me.”
“I think she would’ve. She was sweet and kind-hearted and really smart, but she didn’t want to be in charge. She always wanted me to lead. But she didn’t like that about herself, you know? She always said she wished she had a stronger backbone.
“She deferred to me in practically all situations. She wouldn’t make a decision if she didn’t know what my opinion on an issue or a problem was.
It didn’t matter what we were talkin’ about: finances, business decisions, family decisions.
Even a lot of things about Athena. I guess I’d just assumed that when she became a mom, Candy would have that mama-bear thing.
You know? I mean, she did in some ways, but if there was a problem, she expected me to handle it. ”
“That’s a lot of pressure on you.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly, thinking. “We got together when we were still in high school, and back then, I didn’t know what I wanted.
I just knew I loved her. But now, if you asked me what I wanted in a partner, I’d say an actual partner .
Someone to help me make those decisions, to hash ’em out with me.
Weigh the pros and cons. Someone who brings strength to the relationship.
“Candy would’ve thought you were a badass ’cause you’re so strong and sure of yourself.”
“Hm.” It hit me as I thought about how he’d described Candy that it felt like he was hinting at something here. Was I elated he was describing me when he listed all the things he wanted in a woman?
Or did it terrify me?
“What?” he asked, anchoring his hand loosely around the back of my neck.
“It’s just that I think I’m this way because I got tired of havin’ no backbone. So maybe she and I were alike. But I got so fed up with men tryin’ to run my life and tell me what to do. Honestly, that’s probably why I’m the way I am.
“Growin’ up, I was a daddy’s girl, through and through.
But as much as I loved him, my dad seemed to think me bein’ his princess meant I wasn’t strong or smart or that I could make decisions, and I didn’t do a very good job of convincin’ him because I did whatever he thought I should.
I didn’t go to college because he said he needed me and wanted me to work with him at his construction company.
“It’s one of the things I wish now I could go back and tell him. I want him to know that, while I miss him and wish I could have him back in my life, I don’t need him.”
“He knows.”
I snorted. “What, are you about to tell me you believe in ghosts?”
“Naw. Not ghosts. But I think the people we lose stay with us, you know? In the background. In our dreams. They see us.”
I pushed up off his chest, spearing him with a doubtful look. “I never would’ve guessed you’d be into woo-woo nonsense.”
He shrugged, and his eyes drifted from mine. Was he embarrassed? “Maybe it’s what I need to believe.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, instantly feeling like the biggest ass. “I shouldn’t judge.”
“It’s okay.” He shrugged and his eyes found mine again. “It does sound kinda nonsensical when I say it out loud. Now come back down here. I like snugglin’ you.”
He pulled on my arm gently, and I cuddled against his chest again, tucking myself into the crook of his arm and laying my head right where I’d wanted to since I’d first seen him without a shirt, like his chest was my very own nest. I kissed below his clavicle, and he sighed.
“How did she die? I started workin’ for your brother after she’d already passed, and Brand rarely mentions her.”
Bax stiffened beneath me. “Aneurysm.”
Suddenly, I felt like that young, unsure teenager again who wanted my daddy to talk about my mama. Oh, how I’d missed her, but I saw in my dad’s eyes that just the mention of my mama’s name made him ache. It had made my dad angry because he couldn’t have her.
Sometimes I wondered if it was my fault, if me wanting to keep my mama’s memory alive had been the reason I lost my dad to hydrocodone.
After he broke his back, he’d needed the pills at first, but very quickly it became easy to see that he felt more than physical relief when he took them.
They allowed him to be numb. To forget all he’d lost.
“I’m sorry. Forgive me. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s okay, really. It’s good practice for me. Athena tries to talk to me about her mama, but it’s…”
“Painful,” I said, finishing his sentence.
He was quiet and still for a minute, but then he went on. “It’s easier now to talk about her. After it happened, I couldn’t say her name without imaginin’ what she went through that day, you know? If it hurt. If she was scared. If she thought about the b?—”
He cut himself off, and that rigid feeling was back in his muscles.
“Thought about what?”
“… Athena. If she thought about Athena in her last moment.”
“I’m sure she did,” I said, yawning. I covered my mouth, and Bax kissed my hair again.
“He couldn’t talk about her, but my dad told me once that after my mama’s car accident, before she died in the hospital, I was the only person she talked about.
Honestly, he loved her so much that I wondered if it made him jealous.
“But Candy knew Athena was in good hands. She knew you’d be the best dad, even if you had to do it without her.”
The silence between us after that was a little uncomfortable. Bax’s body never really relaxed. I wanted to talk more, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open much longer.
“Go to sleep now, sweetheart,” he whispered, kissing my head once more and caressing my hair. “You’re tired, and you got mountains to conquer tomorrow.”
With my Yeti full of hot coffee, I managed to sneak out of the house before Athena woke.
Rye had already showered and left before I came tiptoeing down the stairs, and Bax still lay in peaceful dreams upstairs. When I left him, his arm lay spread across the bed where I’d slept all night. Maybe in his dreams, he was still holding me.
Steamy breath punched out in front of me when I snorted at myself as I stepped onto Bax’s porch into the cold air. What a sappy fuckin’ thing to think, Bea.
Darkness lingered outside, but morning light clawed at its edges on the eastern horizon, so I wasn’t super freaked out about bears anymore.
And besides, the closer I drove to my cabin, the more I could hear other trucks and the crews arriving for work, so I wouldn’t be caught alone.
And if a bear wanted to hang out with a bunch of construction dudes, more power to him.
At least they were all bigger than me, so the bear would probably eat them first and I’d have time to grab my nail gun.
“Mornin’,” Clay said when I parked and got out of my truck.
Lo and behold, Jensen hadn’t quit, and he hadn’t complained after our first little run-in, but he wasn’t super chatty with me either.
I didn’t expect we’d skip hand in hand to go get manicures together, but he could see that cabins nine and ten were much closer to the HVAC stage than they were yesterday morning, so he knew I was right.
His silence was as close to hearing him say “I was wrong” as I was going to get.
And I was fine with that. I’d never been under the false impression that I could change men’s ideas about women with words.
It was action that made people like Jensen believers.
“Mornin’,” I responded to Clay, stifling a yawn. “I just ran up to the main house for coffee.” Lie. “Let me grab the plans in my cabin. I need to change real quick,” I said, looking down at the leggings and sweatshirt I still wore, “and then I’ll meet you back out here.”
If he had any suspicions about my tawdry nighttime activities, Clay didn’t let on. “Good deal,” he said, and he leaned back against his tailgate as steam rose from the top of his Thermos when he screwed off the lid and took a tentative sip of his own brew. “I’ll be here.”