Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
MARGOT
Aweek of Briggs Holloway, and I've become a person I don't recognize.
A person who leaves the side door unlatched on purpose.
Who makes extra coffee in the morning knowing he'll be on my step by seven with sawdust on his forearms and some new structural crisis to address.
Who falls asleep with her face against a chest that smells like pine sap and wakes up with a hundred and ninety pounds of patient, quiet man wrapped around her.
We haven't talked about what this is. He doesn't ask.
I don't offer. He shows up, fixes things, kisses me in the kitchen when the coffee finishes brewing, and stays the night.
Every night. My toothbrush next to his at his cabin.
His flannel hanging on my door hook. Two lives bleeding into each other across forty feet of pine trees while neither of us names it.
It's terrifying. And good. Both at the same time, in a ratio that keeps shifting.
This morning, he's at the tree farm. Shearing season.
He explained the process yesterday while I sat on his porch editing a manuscript, Princess Buttercup on my lap, Tinsel at my feet.
How you trim the new growth in late summer to shape the tree for Christmas.
How the blade has to be sharp enough that it cuts clean without tearing. How a torn branch invites disease.
He talks about trees the way some men talk about religion. Reverent. Certain.
I'm on the porch with my laptop, three chapters deep in a romance novel that needs serious pacing help, when my phone rings. Portland area code. Which is strange because everyone I know in Portland uses my cell, not this number.
"Hello?"
"Margot. It's Daniel."
My stomach drops. Straight down, past my knees, into the porch boards.
"How did you get this number."
"Your mother."
Of course. My mother, who still has Daniel's contact in her phone because she adored him, who calls him on his birthday, who cried harder about the divorce than I did.
"What do you want, Daniel."
"I wanted to check on you. Your mom said you moved to some mountain town in Nevada. Bought a cabin?"
"I bought a cabin."
"Alone?"
"That's generally how it works when you're divorced."
A pause. He clears his throat. Daniel always clears his throat before he says something he's rehearsed. Seven years of marriage, I know every single tell.
"I've been thinking a lot about us, Margot.
About what happened. I know I wasn't present.
I know I checked out. But I've been seeing someone.
A therapist. And I've been doing a lot of work on myself, and I think we owe it to the years we invested to have a real conversation about whether we could try again. "
"No."
"Margot." He waits. "Please."
"No. Daniel. We are not having this conversation.
You did not invest in our marriage. You occupied it.
You were a tenant in a relationship, and when I finally asked you to leave, you didn't even put up a fight.
Remember? I said I wanted a divorce, and you said, 'Okay, that makes sense. ' You said it made sense, Daniel."
Silence on the line. Then another throat clear. "That's fair. I deserve that. But people change, and I've been..."
"Great. Change somewhere else. Don't call this number again."
I hang up. Set the phone face down on the porch railing. My hands are shaking. The manuscript on my screen blurs. Princess Buttercup lifts her head from my lap, ears forward, sensing the shift.
Daniel calling shouldn't rattle me this much.
He's not a threat. He's not dangerous. He's just a man who wasted my thirties and now wants to renegotiate.
But the timing is poison, because hearing his voice while I'm sitting on Briggs's porch, wearing Briggs's flannel, sleeping in Briggs's bed, drops a cold clarity into my chest that I've been avoiding for days.
I'm doing it again.
Same pattern. Different man. A decade ago, I built my world around Ryan Prescott, let him become the center of everything, and when it collapsed, I was standing in wreckage I didn't know how to navigate alone.
Then I married Daniel. Handed him the blueprint of my life and let him fill in the architecture.
When that collapsed, I drove three hundred miles to start over.
Fresh start. Independence. Building something with my own hands.
And within two weeks, I've handed my toolbox to a man I used to hate and let him rebuild my house, my schedule, and apparently my ability to be alone.
The porch. The pipes. The floor. The cat.
Every single problem I've had since arriving in Whisper Vale, Briggs Holloway has fixed.
And I've let him. Worse, I've started expecting it.
The seven AM knock. The lumber in his truck.
The quiet competence that makes me feel safe while simultaneously proving that I can't manage a single week without a man propping me up.
My therapist in Portland would have something measured to say about this. Something about recognizing patterns versus pathologizing connection. About the difference between depending on someone and relying on them.
But my therapist isn't here. And my ex husband just called, and Briggs's flannel smells like him, and I'm sitting on a porch he built with wood from his farm, and panic is rising in my throat.
I close the laptop. Go inside. Change into my own clothes. Fold the flannel, leave it on the kitchen counter.
An hour later, Briggs appears at the side door. He's filthy from the farm. Pine needles in his hair, resin on his hands. He comes in the way he always does now, without knocking, like the door is his too. Grabs a glass, fills it from the tap Ray fixed last week, drinks it standing at the counter.
His eyes find the flannel. Folded. Returned.
"You okay?"
"Fine."
He studies me. That quiet, unhurried way he reads a room. Then he sets the glass down. "Something happened."
"My ex husband called."
His body goes still. "Daniel."
"He got my number from my mother. Wanted to talk about reconciliation."
"And?"
"And I told him no. Obviously." My voice is sharper than I mean it to be. "But it made me think."
"About?"
"About patterns. About the fact that I came here to figure out how to exist on my own, and instead I've spent two weeks letting you fix everything."
"Margot." He waits. "Please."
"The porch. The pipes. The floor. Princess Buttercup.
My entire existence in this cabin is held together by things you've done for me.
With your hands. Your lumber. Your connections.
I called Ray because you told me to. I met Holly at the bakery because your mother walked me there.
My cat only comes when you call her. My cat trusts you more than she trusts me. "
He leans against the counter. Arms at his sides. Waiting. Patient. God, always patient. It makes me want to scream.
"You keep fixing things."
"Your house needs fixing."
"My house isn't the only thing you're trying to fix."
His jaw tightens. "What does that mean."
"It means you show up every morning with tools and lumber and solutions.
You cooked me dinner. You held me while I slept.
You rescued my cat and you didn't ask for anything in return, and it's exactly what you did in college.
You decided I needed saving. You decided what was best for me.
You made yourself the answer to problems I didn't ask you to solve. "
The words hang in the kitchen. I hear how they sound. Unfair. Ungrateful. Aimed to wound. But they're already out, propelled by fear that's been building since Daniel's voice on the phone reminded me what happens when I let a man become the infrastructure of my life.
Briggs is quiet for a long time. His gaze stays on me. Steady, even when mine can't hold still.
"I'm not fixing you, Margot."
"Then what are you doing."
"I'm trying to love you."
The words land. Precise. Quiet. Delivered with the same economy he brings to everything, no embellishment, no performance. Five words with fifteen years of weight behind them.
My chest cracks open. Right down the center. Because I want to believe him. Every bone in my body wants to walk across this kitchen, put my hands on his face, and let him mean it.
But I believed Ryan too. Believed Daniel. Believed the story I told about my own judgment for fifteen years, and look where it got me. Alone in a cabin with a broken porch and a man who keeps showing up, and I can't tell anymore if that's love or control wearing a better costume.
"I need space."
His hands grip the counter behind him. Knuckles white. "Space."
"I need to think. Without you here. Without the flannel and the coffee and the seven AM knocks. I need to figure out if this is real or if I'm just... falling into the same pattern again."
"You think I'm a pattern."
"I think I've been letting men save me my whole life, and every single time, it's ended with me standing in wreckage. Confused about who I am without them. I can't do that again, Briggs. Not even for you."
He looks at me. Long. Measured. Then he pushes off the counter.
"If that's what you need."
"It is."
He picks up the flannel from the counter. Folds it over his arm. Walks to the side door. Stops.
"For what it's worth, the thing with Ryan in college? That's not what you think it was. I didn't try to break you up because I wanted to control your life. I did it because..." He stops. Swallows. "There's more to that story than you know."
"Don't." My voice breaks. I hold up my hand. "Please don't. I can't hear this right now."
He nods. Once. Opens the door. Tinsel is waiting in the yard, tail low, reading the room better than most humans.
"You know where I am if you need anything."
"I know."
The door closes behind him. Quiet. No slam. Briggs Holloway doesn't slam doors. He closes them carefully, the way he does everything, with deliberation and an infuriating respect for the structure of things.
I stand in my kitchen. Alone. The hose still running from his spigot through my window.
The tap he arranged to fix. The counter where he kissed me yesterday morning while the coffee brewed.
Princess Buttercup sitting on the windowsill, watching him walk through the trees, and for the first time since I arrived, she doesn't purr.
The silence is loud.
My phone buzzes.
Layla:
How's the mountain man situation? Still enemies to lovers or have we progressed to the good part?
I stare at the screen.
Me:
We progressed. And then I ruined it.
Layla:
What happened???
Me:
Daniel called. And I freaked out. And I accused Briggs of trying to fix me. And he said he was trying to love me. And I told him I needed space.
Layla:
Oh Margot.
Me:
I know.
Layla:
Was he trying to fix you? Or was he just being a good person?
I put the phone down. Pick it up. Put it down.
Me:
I don't know. That's the problem. I can't tell anymore.
Every man I've ever trusted has either betrayed me or disappeared.
Ryan cheated. Daniel checked out. And Briggs?
Briggs ruined my relationship in college and now he's in my kitchen fixing my pipes and telling me he loves me and I don't know if I'm falling for the real thing or just repeating the worst mistake of my life for the third time.
Layla:
Babe. Has it occurred to you that maybe this one is different?
Me:
They always feel different in the beginning.
The rest of the evening is terrible. I edit the manuscript.
Can't focus. Every third sentence I write a note about dialogue pacing, then delete it because my own dialogue was a disaster today.
Princess Buttercup won't leave the window.
She sits there staring at his cabin, tail flicking, meowing softly at nothing.
"I know," I tell her. "I miss him too."
She gives me a look that makes clear she holds me personally responsible.
At nine, I make tea. Stand at the counter. Through the grimy window, his cabin glows. Warm light in every room. The woodstove chimney sending smoke into the cold night air. His truck in the driveway. Tinsel on the porch, chin on paws.
He's right there. Forty feet. The same distance he's been since I arrived. Close enough to see. Too far to reach.
My phone rings again. Portland area code.
"I told you not to call."
"I know you did." Daniel's voice. Softer this time. More practiced. "But I really think if we just sat down and talked..."
"Daniel. Listen to me. Do not call this number again. Do not contact my mother for my information. Do not send emails, texts, letters, or carrier pigeons. We are divorced. It's final. It made sense, remember? Those were your words. Live with them."
A long silence.
"Okay. If that's what you want."
"It's what I want."
I hang up. Block the number. Delete the call from my log so I don't have to look at it.
Then I sit on the floor of my kitchen, back against the cabinet, legs stretched across the tile, and I cry. Hard. Ugly. The kind of crying that comes with sound effects and a runny nose and the total collapse of every wall I've built in the past year.
Not because of Daniel. Daniel is finished. Has been finished since the morning he said "that makes sense" and poured himself coffee while I stood in our kitchen holding divorce papers.
Because of Briggs. Because he said he was trying to love me, and I sent him away.
Because he started to tell me something about Ryan, something that sounded important, something I wasn't ready to hear, and I shut it down.
Because I'm sitting in a cabin that works now, that has running water and solid floors and a porch you can walk on, and every piece of it was built by a man who closes doors carefully and doesn't ask for credit.
And because some small, terrified part of me knows the anger wasn't really about him.
It was about me. About the woman who keeps picking men who fix things, who make decisions, who take up so much space that there's nothing left for her to build on her own.
Daniel did it with money. Ryan did it with charm.
And Briggs does it with his hands, with lumber, with a quiet competence that makes me feel both safe and dependent in equal measure.
I wanted so badly to be the woman who could do this alone. Who didn't need the seven AM knock. Who fixed her own floor.
Instead, I'm on the kitchen tile with mascara on my wrists and a cat who thinks I've made the worst decision of my life.
Princess Buttercup climbs down from the window. Crosses the kitchen floor. Settles in my lap. Purring. Heavy. Warm.
Outside, Briggs's porch light clicks on. It stays on. Burning into the dark. Visible from my kitchen window.
He left the light on. For me.
I cry harder.