Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
Poppy
The door opens and Storm walks in, coming right behind the bar and into my space.
He brushes back a strand of my hair. “To bed for you. Shep and I will finish this.”
There’s something in his eyes that confuses me, like he’s both frustrated and happy, content and agonized, all at the same time.
“Are you okay?” I whisper.
He sighs softly. “Yes and no.”
“Rain?” I ask.
His mouth hitches up. “You’re a psychic now?”
“No.” I touch his cheek. “But I did overhear you guys arguing this morning.” My heart pulses, because the pain in both of their voices, the anger and hurt and frustration…
I decide I hate Norm Harrison even more than I previously had.
“I’m fine,” he says. “We’re fine,” he adds when I start to protest. “Probably better than fine. I feel like we’re finally getting somewhere. It’s just…” A sigh. “We’ve lost a lot of time.” Regret ripples through his expression. “I’ve missed out on a lot of time with you and Holly.”
Guilt sits heavy on my lungs.
Because he’s right.
“I’m not going to waste any more of it.” He cups my face in his hands. “I swear it, Poppyseed.”
“I know you do.” I cover his hands. “I believe you.”
His eyes go gentle.
“I’m just sorry you missed so much,” I whisper. “I wish I’d—” Losing Storm hurt. Add in losing Sully and my parents…
It was easier to focus on what I did have.
And to keep it close and safe.
But Holly deserved better.
And maybe so did I.
“None of this is your fault,” he says fiercely. “None of it.”
“None of this is your fault either,” I tell him just as fiercely.
“Right,” he murmurs.
But I can tell he doesn’t believe it, not really.
“Storm,” I begin.
“Bed.” He brushes his lips over my forehead. “Shep and I will finish this and lock up.”
“And when are you going to stop beating yourself up?”
“When are you?” he counters.
Annoyingly.
Because the regrets are swirling around my mind too.
I wrinkle my nose.
He grins, kissing the tip of it. “Not that easy, is it?”
“Fuck, you two are adorable.”
We turn as one, see that Shep is watching us—no, he’s more than watching us. He’s got his phone up and he’s snapping pictures.
“Yup,” he says, flashing us the screen. “That’s so going to make the cover of the Cedar Hollow Gazette.”
Storm jerks, like he’s going to throttle his teammate.
And for the first time, I consider not stopping him.
Too bad, he stops himself, sighs, and shakes his head with the beleaguered bemusement of a man used to dealing with Shep’s shenanigans. “I so can’t wait for you to get a taste of your own medicine.”
“Who me?” Shep asks with the innocence of a man who believes his own bullshit.
Or is clinging to it, anyway.
“Yes, you,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “I can see the headline now—TOWN FLORIST LEVELS COCKY DEFENSEMAN.”
“Eh”—he shrugs—“I can take The Enforcer.”
Storm snorts.
I laugh outright.
Then I brush my lips over Storm’s stubbled jaw. “See you upstairs?” He nods, so I move over to Shep and give him a quick hug. “Holly’s going to be up bright and early, so keep the Shep-nanigans to a minimum please.”
“I’m gonna need a T-shirt with that.” A beat. “STAT.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re incorrigible.”
“No,” he teases. “I’m Shep, remember?”
Another roll of my eyes, another sigh. “Goodnight, Shep,” I call as I walk to the door. “And consider your apology officially accepted.” I type in the code.
“You sure you don’t need another part-time bartender?”
Laughter bubbles in my chest, but I keep it contained as I pull open the door and head upstairs.
The first thing I do once I’m inside the apartment is check on Holly.
She’s sleeping, arms and legs akimbo, blanket almost puddled on the floor, her stuffed “Gerald” tucked under one arm.
Heart squeezing—because, God, I love my little girl—I tuck her properly into bed, pat Gerald on the head, and then I go to the bathroom. Even with only one good hand, it doesn’t take long for me to wash and moisturize my face, to brush my teeth, then to go into the bedroom and tug on my pajamas.
But I don’t crawl under the covers and go to sleep.
Instead, I go over to the closet, climb on top of my dresser, and reach up on tippy-toe—
“What the hell are you doing, Poppyseed?”
I freeze. Then glare at Storm over my shoulder. “Don’t do that!”
He’s at my side a second later, lifting me down like I weigh nothing. “You already have a broken arm,” he grumbles, bringing me to the bed and setting me on the edge of the mattress. “Are you trying to get a broken leg too?”
“I was fine.” I sniff, even as part of me melts at his concern—bossy and grumpy as it is.
It’s been a long time—hell, maybe it’s never really been a thing, having someone take care of me.
“What?” he asks. “Did I hurt you?”
“No. Not at all,” I add when concern drifts into those stormy gray eyes. My heart squeezes because I know what I was toying with a week ago is real, is true.
I’m in love with Storm Harrison.
And I always have been.
“Pop?” he murmurs.
“Will you grab that box from the shelf for me?” I ask, and maybe my heart should be pounding, maybe I should be panicking.
It’s only been weeks since Storm came back into my life and upended everything I thought I knew.
Maybe I should still be worried he’ll leave again.
That he’ll leave me, leave Holly, leave this town and our life behind…
But my heart knows that’s not true.
Because he loves me too.
“Which box, Poppyseed?” he asks, already standing by the closet and looking up at the shelf.
“The one with the pink lid.”
He stretches, his tee lifting—giving me a glimpse of those glorious abs I admired this morning while he “swam” in his back yard—and snags the box, carrying it over to me.
“Sit,” I order gently when he sets it on the bed.
Questions in those gray eyes.
But he obliges me and sits.
I open the lid and know the moment he realizes what’s inside when his body goes stiff.
Gently, I pull out the memory book and open the cover.
“Holly Abigail Baker,” he murmurs, running his finger over the words I’d written six years ago. “You named her after my mother.” He looks up, his eyes shining with emotion.
I nod. “Seemed fitting that she have a piece of you too.” My mouth hitches up. “Aside from your eyes, of course.”
He exhales shakily. “Pop,” he begins, his face so gentle I know I’m going to lose it if I don’t focus.
“Let me give you some time back?”
Another slow, shaky exhale.
Then he nods.
So, I turn the page.
“Fuck, she’s beautiful,” he rasps.
I laugh. “Sully always said all babies are ugly.” The outrage on Storm’s face has me laughing again. “I know. I felt the same way. I yelled at him right there in the delivery room.”
“Good,” he grumbles, turning the page.
“Of course, then he held her and Holly had him wrapped around her little finger, and she was the most beautiful baby in existence.”
This time he scowls as he says, “Good.”
I point at one of my favorite pictures. “Clover took this.”
“You look incandescent.”
“I was,” I murmur. “And scared out of my mind. I’d carried her, pushed her out, but they were just going let me take her home?” I shake my head, chuckle. “I wasn’t qualified for that!”
His lips twitch. “I can imagine.”
I bump his shoulder with mine. “I bet you can, what with suddenly having a six-year-old and all.”
He runs his knuckles over my cheek. “Show me more?”
I flip through the pages, showing him the ridiculous amount of baby pictures I took of our daughter—sleeping on my chest, smiling in her bassinet, at the park with Gerald and the rest of the mafia in the background, strapped to Sully’s chest as he stood behind the bar, mixing drinks, Clover and Daisy, Clem and Blossom fussing over her on the rug in the front room.
I chronicle her rolling over and her first steps (which quickly became her first run), the first time she went on a big kid swing and her first summer camp at the Pioneer Museum.
Storm laughs when he reads the sign I made her hold up in the kitchen before her first day of school.
Name: Holly Abigail Baker
Grade: Kindergarten
Age: 5
When I grow up, I want to be: Gerald
“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” he asks.
“Why do you think she likes bubblegum ice cream so much?” I tease.
More laughter and it keeps coming as I show him a packet of hair from her first haircut (and describe how she was not a fan), as I tell him about my first parent-teacher meeting and show him her first report card (high marks in everything except sitting still during circle time).
“I seem to remember another person getting wiggly during the same time,” I tease.
He grins as he flips through the rest of the contents. “Never did have much patience for reciting the alphabet and singing songs.”
“Or for math tests.”
“God,” he says, “Clem’s mom’s math tests used to be brutal.”
“I hear Clem’s are harder.”
He shudders. Then touches my cheek again. “Thanks for showing me this.”
“I have loads more pictures on my phone,” I tell him as we pack up the box. “I’ll share them with you.”
“Thanks, Poppyseed.”
Now I touch his cheek. “Anytime.”
He slips the lid on, stands to put the box back onto the shelf.
But as he stretches a piece of paper falls out of his pocket.
No. An envelope.
We both reach for it.
“Don’t,” he whispers. My brows fly up, but I freeze, holding his stare until he exhales, shakes his head. “It’s from my dad. He left it with his will, apparently.”
“What does it say?”
“I don’t know.”
“You haven’t opened it?”
“I’m tempted to burn it,” he says ruefully. “He left Rain one too.”
“What did Rain’s say?”
A dry laugh. “You think my brother and I talked about our feelings?”
“Is anger not a feeling?” I counter.
He snorts as he picks up the letter, turns it over and over in his hands. “You got me there, Pop.” A sigh. “But I doubt Rain opened his either. Hell, I don’t even know why I kept it.”
I do.
And it’s the same reason I’m not scared anymore.
Because Storm cares—despite all the darkness and bad memories, the hurt and pain, he cares.
I just hope that whatever’s inside the letter won’t hurt him all over again.
“Can I?”
He hesitates, only for a second.
Then he presses the envelope into my hand.
And my heart rolls over for him all over again.
The trust he just put in me…
I carefully take the envelope and tuck it into my nightstand. “It’ll be there,” I tell him softly. “When you’re ready.”
He’s quiet for a long moment.
Then he tucks me into bed, wraps me tightly in his arms…
And I make sure he doesn’t wake up alone.