11. Reese
Reese
Steaming coffee in hand, and the throbbing in my head has dulled to what I like to call a nasty migraine hangover from yet another attack last night, I scroll down the web page looking for jobs in and around Charleston.
Unfortunately, it seems there aren’t many places looking for a veterinarian at the moment.
Especially one who has absolutely no references for the past few years, since the last thing I will ever do is give Phil the satisfaction of spinning lies about why I was let go.
“Ugh. This is hopeless.” I set my coffee on the kitchen table and run both hands over my face.
“What is your plan, God? I know You have one, but I really cannot see it right now.” With my eyes closed, I take a few deep breaths, trying so hard to calm the stress-induced panic attempting to take over my life.
But between my mom’s health issues, my lack of a job, Weston owning half the ranch, and the absolutely knee-buckling attraction I still carry for him, I’m overloaded. I’ve barely even left the house this week, and not just because my head felt like a grape in the microwave.
A sharp knock on the front door has me shooting up in my seat. Aragorn looks up, ears perked as he waits for a cue. “Odd timing,” I mutter as I stand. Since my mom is in town, having lunch with some friends before she helps with the fall festival setup, it’s just my dog and me.
The quiet has been nice for processing things. Especially since I’m still reeling over that argument with Weston on Monday night.
“Did you ever even care?”
“Men.” I pull open the front door, shocked and delighted to see none other than Tessa Lane standing just on the other side.
Though I imagine she’s been Tessa Knox for quite some time now.
Guilt settles over my shoulders, heavy and familiar, because I should have been there when she got married.
I should have been strong enough to celebrate the start of her new life, even though mine was falling apart.
“Hey, Reese,” she says with a smile. “Can I come in?”
“Of course.” I push open the screen door and step aside so she can come in. “That’s Aragorn.”
“Hey there, buddy! You are so handsome. Yes, you are.”
As Tessa loves on my dog, it gives me a moment to catch my breath. The last time I saw Tessa was the day we buried Weston’s sister.
She straightens, her brown eyes so familiar. Though she has aged a bit, the kindness that was always there despite her nightmarish home life is still present.
“Coffee?” I ask.
“That would be great, thanks.”
“Sure thing.” I retrieve my mug from the table, then head over toward the pot to pour her a cup and me a fresh one. “Cream and sugar?”
“Yes, please. Just however you make yours. Caffeine is caffeine in my book.” She laughs. “I hope it’s okay I stopped in like this,” she says as she slides onto a chair in my mom’s dining room.
“Of course it is. It’s good to see you, Tessa.” I set two mugs down, then take my seat, pushing my laptop to the side as I go.
“You, too. Seems surreal.” She laughs nervously, and then it hits me. She’s just as uncomfortable as I am.
Rip the bandage off and get the awkwardness away. I gently tap both hands onto the table. “Okay, so first of all, I’m sorry. Let’s just get that out of the way.”
“Sorry?” Tessa asks, her brow furrowed. “Whatever are you sorry for?”
I sigh. “I should have been there for you. I’m sorry I left before your wedding.”
“How could you have—oh.” She laughs, her cheeks turning pink. “Reese, Zane and I didn’t get married until about two years ago.”
I can’t do anything but stare at her. How is that true? I was with her when she bought her wedding dress. I worked alongside her while she was saving up every penny to buy it herself. “What do you mean?”
She looks away for a moment, then takes a drink of her coffee. “Uh, it’s a long story, and not a pretty one.” She sighs and meets my gaze. “Well, here goes—I left before Zane and I got married. The night before our wedding, actually.”
I gape at her. She left? Why? “You guys didn’t get married? But why? You were so perfect for each other. What happened?”
“That’s the thing about perfection,” she says.
“I’d put us up on that pedestal, too, so when I realized things with us could never be truly perfect because of who I was and what I came from, I bailed.
I was terrified that Zane would be tainted by what was in my veins, so I removed myself from the equation.
I hadn’t seen or heard from him until he saved my life two years ago. ”
I hang on every word she says, trying to rationalize a world where Zane and Tessa were split for so many years.
“Now I’m doubly sorry. I should have been here for you through all of that, too.
Ugh.” I shake my head. “That must have been what my mom was trying to tell me back then. But I just didn’t want to hear anything about this place.
It made it too hard. I told her that I didn’t want to hear anything about this town or the people in it. I am so sorry.”
Tessa leans forward and takes my hand. “What happened with you, Reese? You talk about Zane and me being perfect. But you and Weston? You guys were an absolutely beautiful love story.”
Tears prick the corners of my eyes. It’s been two decades of holding this inside. Of clinging to secrets because I was too afraid of what might happen to me if they saw the light.
But maybe it’s time.
After all, she told me her hard truth. Maybe if I share mine, it’ll be easier to carry.
“It’s not a good story, either.”
“Then you’re in good company to share.”
A tear slips down my cheek, so I wipe it away and bring one leg up onto the chair so I can wrap both arms around it. “Weston and I were going to have a—” I take a deep breath. “A baby.”
Tessa’s eyes widen, her understanding expression morphing into shock. “A baby? Really?”
I nod. “Long story short, I let myself be convinced that, if I didn’t take him to bed, I would lose him.”
“That’s not Weston.”
“I know that now. Honestly, I think I knew it back then, too. But stupid teenage girls do stupid things sometimes.” I swallow hard.
“Afterward, we were just lying there in the silence, and Weston told me that he loved me but that he didn’t feel right about what we’d done.
He told me that he wanted to marry me and do everything in the right order. ”
The memory is still so clear in my mind. That instant fear that I’d lost him anyway, followed by this intense love that promised I never would.
“I found out a couple of weeks later that I was pregnant.” I wipe another tear from my eyes, afraid to meet Tessa’s gaze. “We got married shortly after that.”
“Married? As in—really?”
I nod. “We went to the courthouse in Charleston. We were on our way back to tell everyone when Anastasia called and said she and Violet had been in an accident.”
I meet her gaze now, and I see the horrifying memory play out over her expression, too. She was right there alongside us during the loss, helping Zane and Anastasia as best she could.
Weston had been so broken even before he’d found Violet and Anastasia in those woods. He dropped me by the house so I could get their mom, then went out to look for her. Four hours later, the coroner was driving away with her body.
The entire night is a nightmare I relive far more often than I’d care to admit.
“Oh, Reese.” Tessa reaches out and takes my hand.
“I lost the baby a few days later. The stress, I think.” The tears are flowing faster now, and the lump in my throat is impossible to swallow. “It’s been a long time since I talked about this. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Your mom?”
I look at Tessa and shake my head. “Aside from Weston and Pastor Reeves, you’re now the only one who knows.”
Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears, and she sets her mug aside to pull me in for a hug. “I am so sorry, Reese. I don’t know how I didn’t know. How did I not see what you were going through?”
“We were all so occupied with the aftermath of what happened to Violet.” I sniffle, and Tessa pulls back to take her seat again.
“Weston was never the same, and I felt like I’d let him down, you know?
When I told him—” I close my eyes. “He just sat there, staring straight ahead as though he couldn’t process even a drop of additional grief.
So, after we buried Violet, I left and filed for an annulment.
I abandoned him when he needed me the most.”
“Oh, honey. You were dealing with it, too.”
“I should have been stronger.”
“Stronger? Reese, you lost your baby and your husband in the blink of an eye. Yet here you are, still standing.”
“Not because of me.” I shake my head. “I ran so far from everyone and everything. I turned my back on God, my anger pulling me under. And then about a month later, I felt Him there with me. He picked me up off the ground.”
“God does that.”
I smile softly. “Yeah. What’s funny is that it wasn’t until I hit the lowest part of my life, my pain an endless ocean ready to drown me, that I really understood faith.”
“That’s a feeling I know quite well.” Tessa takes my hand. “Have you talked to Weston about it since?”
I snort. “Weston isn’t in the mood to talk. I tried a few days ago, and he threw it back in my face.”
“Really?”
I take a deep breath. “Fine, I might have approached him poorly. It was a long day, and I was dealing with a migraine. But I honestly have no idea how to talk to him.”
“Weston is stubborn,” Tessa says softly. “But he’s still a good man, Reese. Zane has told me stories of their time in the Navy, and—”
“Zane was in the Navy, too?”
She nods. “They were Navy SEALs. Them, Garrison, Sawyer, and Ryker.”
“Sawyer—that’s Anastasia’s fiancé?”
Tessa nods again. “They were pretty elite, too. Worked for a government agency up until right before Zane and I got married.”