Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
TRACE
T he wet grass soaked the bottom of my slacks as I walked through the long grass. I was supposed to be at the office right now preparing for yet another meeting, but for some reason, I was here instead. There were so many reasons why I shouldn’t be. First and foremost, I was technically trespassing. I’d been here so many times before, though. It had been the spot I always came when life got too much for me as a kid.
Our refuge.
I hadn’t been here in years. It didn’t feel right after everything that happened, but I needed it now. I needed that sense of calm only this place had ever given me.
Picking up a stone, I rolled it in my fingers as I stared out across the still pond.
At twenty-eight, I was supposed to have my shit figured out. Yet everything still felt like such a mess. I’d made so many mistakes, and my life was in complete chaos. It wasn’t just Chelsea. It was everything. And I was goddamn tired of it all.
Maybe it was the deal and the pressure of what it meant for the town. No one else saw it yet, but my father had raised his concerns with me before I went to college. The more I dug into my business degree, the more I realized how right he was.
Willowbrook was dying, and no one was even aware of it yet.
We were a small town. People came and left, and life went on at the usual pace. But that was part of the problem. We had an expanding aging population, and the younger generations were leaving to seek a brighter future in the city. It wasn’t sustainable, and this was how small towns died.
We needed an injection of not just capital but residents, and the best way we could see to do that was to make Willowbrook an attractive tourist spot. We were lucky that the land was so beautiful around here. We just needed something to draw them in.
Hence, the deal that was keeping me up at night with its impossible logistics. The cost of failure was unthinkable, but right now we were hanging by a thread. Frustratingly, it wasn’t even the investors which had been surprisingly easy. It wasn’t hard to sell the dream of Willowbrook. The land, on the other hand, was a different story. Getting together enough land in one location to move ahead was the kicker. It wasn’t easy to persuade people to part with something that had not only been in their family for generations but was their home. It went against what we were trying to accomplish, and needless to say, it wasn’t sitting well on my conscience.
As the frustration built inside me, I pulled back my arm and launched the rock into the pond. A sigh left me as I watched the ripples spread across the surface. So many memories revolved around this one spot, and none of them had been bad because Delaney was here with me.
I scuffed my shoes through the dirt as memories of the past flooded me, and I turned from the pond to keep walking its perimeter.
It wasn’t quite the same here now. I’d thought it would settle me like it used to, but the magic it had once held was no longer there. Or maybe it was because I was alone this time. Perhaps that was the difference. I’d never been alone when I’d come here before.
I’d thought seeing Booker would help with the chaos in my mind, but for the first time in a long time, it made it worse. Book got out of the family and started his own life. He’d seen the thing that made him happy and walked straight toward it without ever looking back.
Why couldn’t I do that?
A scoff burst out of me because I knew the answer straight away. I couldn’t do it because I didn’t have a dream for the future anymore. I was stuck in the dream that someone else had made for me, and while there were days when it felt like my own, there were also some days, like today, when the loneliness reminded me that it wasn’t.
But how was I supposed to go from where I was now to what I wanted, if I could ever figure out what that was? I couldn’t turn my back on the town, not when I knew what I did. Willowbrook had done so much for me. The people had always been there for me when I needed them. Maybe sacrificing my happiness for the next few years was how I repaid them for that. It couldn’t last forever, right?
Marrying Chelsea had been the single worst decision in my entire life. In fact, I’m not even sure it had been my decision now that I was looking back on it. How pathetic was that?
Neither of us had been happy. I didn’t even think we were in the beginning, either. It all just seemed to happen because that was what was expected of us. Then, once it was done, and the unhappiness had grown into resentment, all we did was psychologically torture each other like we were looking for some kind of blame.
My eyes skated over the all too familiar bank, finding the old willow tree that I’d spent so many hours sitting beneath.
With her.
This was my happy place.
And I could just imagine her sitting there now. Delaney. The girl who had once been my everything, and the ending of that single most perfect thing in my life had sent me spiraling into the chaos that followed.
I watched as her fingers drifted through the grass as she leaned back against the tree, staring out across the water. The light reflecting off the water lit her up with a soft glow. She looked so lost in her thoughts. Delaney loved this place so much. She said she felt close to her mother here because it was as close to heaven as she could get while she was still breathing. There had been times of the day when I’d felt it too. That golden hour as the sun was setting when everything just seemed to glow. The way it glistened on the water in the perfect silence of the pond.
I turned to look at the horizon, the sun already making its way into the sky for the morning. Maybe I should come back later, watch the sunset, and feel the magic just one more time. Perhaps that was how I’d find my center once again.
But then I turned back to our tree.
And she was still there.
Except she was different from how I remembered her.
Older.
Sadder.
My feet were moving before I even considered what I was doing. It had always been like this between us. Delaney was this impossible force of nature that drew me in until I begged for her to never let me go.
As I moved closer, I saw the tears that streaked her cheeks, and my breath stalled in my chest. Even in her sadness, she was more beautiful than I remembered. And just like always, every thought in my mind fled me, every crushing doubt and fear evaporated into nothing.
Because there was nothing in the world but her.
Delaney.
She turned to look at me as I stopped mere steps from her side. A part of me was afraid to say anything, like bursting the bubble of silence would see her fade away and slip through my fingers once more.
Her rosy lips parted in surprise, and so many emotions flowed through her eyes as she stared up at me. She didn’t move even a fraction of an inch as she locked eyes with me. Not to brush her beautiful auburn hair away from her face. Not even to wipe the tears from her cheeks. For a second, a flicker of pain crossed her features as she registered who it was that stood before her, and I hated that I was the one who had that effect on her.
“You came back,” I whispered.
I didn’t know why I said it, and that pain was there in her eyes again. I wanted to punch myself for how it must have sounded to her.
“My dad died.”
Her tears flowed quicker as the words tumbled from her lips, and she curled in on herself like the pain was more than she could bear. I moved to her side without a moment’s hesitation, dropping to the ground and gathering her up in my arms as I pulled her tight against me.
She stiffened for a second at my touch, but then as the sobs tore out of her, she clung to me, her arms circling my neck as she held on tight. And I clung to her just as fiercely. Holding together all the pieces of her as she let the grief consume her.
My lips fell to the top of her head, and I breathed her in as I rocked her gently in my arms. I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve her, but even the self-hatred coursing through my body couldn’t tear me away from her right now.
She was back.
She was in my arms.
And I’d not felt like I’d finally found my home since the last time I’d set eyes on her ten years ago.
After her tears had finally dried and her breathing had returned to normal, I didn’t let Delaney go. My mind was racing, trying to find any possible excuse to keep her in my arms.
Letting Delaney go the first time was the biggest mistake of my life, and even if that decision hadn’t haunted me out in the open all this time, it had lingered in my subconscious, reminding me of what could have been at every possible moment. I’d done so much wrong when it came to her, and I had no idea how I was going to fix it. If I even deserved a chance to fix it. All I knew was that I had to find some way to make it right. Even if I didn’t deserve that second chance with the one woman who had ever really occupied a piece of my heart, I was still going to try to have it.
This was it.
She was it.
The change I needed. The second chance I’d been looking for.
But it wouldn’t be easy to prove to her that I wasn’t the boy she’d left behind. That I was a different man now.
I felt the change in her as soon as she realized what we were doing and who she was doing it with. Her back straightened as every muscle in her body seemed to tense. Placing her hands on my chest, she gently pushed me away. I didn’t want to let her go. I needed any excuse to keep her where she was, but I knew that wasn’t the way. It wasn’t how I’d be able to persuade her to give me another chance.
“I can’t do this,” she muttered as she gently extracted herself from my arms.
As Delaney stood up, dusting off her jeans, she kept her eyes on the pond like she couldn’t even bear to look at me.
“I didn’t know you still came out here.”
“It’s the first time since…” I couldn’t end that sentence. Couldn’t look back at what could have been not when she was here now, back in my life.
“I have to go,” she hurried out, turning her back as she started to walk away. “This…this isn’t a good idea.”
It felt like she was taking my heart with her. The panic flared to life inside me at her slipping through my fingers once more.
I wasn’t ready to lose her again. Not yet. There was so much we needed to talk about.
“Delaney!” I jogged to catch up with her, even though I’d seen her flinch when I called her name. “Please…let me see you again. We should talk.”
I had to make her understand. If she’d just give me a chance to talk, to explain. I knew she’d felt it a moment ago. Felt everything just how it used to be. We could have that back. We could try again. I just needed to persuade her to give me a chance.
“I don’t know.” She hesitated. Her eyes cut to me as I kept pace at her side, but I knew her nearly as well as I knew myself. She was considering it.
If I was a better man, I probably would have let her walk away. She had a life somewhere. One she’d built without me. I couldn’t bear for her to walk back into it until she’d at least heard me out.
“Please, Delaney. It doesn’t have to be now. When you’re ready. But please. Please let me have a chance to talk to you before you leave again. There’s so much I want to say.”
Her shoulders tensed, and for a moment, I thought she was going to deny me. It wouldn’t matter. I’d find another way. But then she sighed, and that one little sound filled my heart with hope.
“I’ll be in town for a while to arrange the funeral. I can try to make time.”
I pulled my business card from my jacket pocket immediately, feeling like an idiot as I handed it to her, but I didn’t have the same number as I did back then, and I couldn’t let there be even the smallest possibility that she wouldn’t get in touch.
As she reached out to take it, I held firm, part of me not wanting to let this moment end. “Please call me, Laney. Please…just…I know I don’t deserve this but…”
But what? I had no excuses for myself. No reason to give her other than knowing she was my only chance at happiness. That she was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and I let her slip away. There was so much that I should have done differently, and as all the excuses filled my mind, I recognized them for what they were…selfishness.
My shoulders dipped as I finally released the card, and she silently slipped it into her pocket. She didn’t say anything as she turned and walked away back to her old house, and I stood there watching her every step. I didn’t deserve her forgiveness or her presence in my life, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to fight for it.
Delaney James was back in Willowbrook.
And I didn’t know if I’d survive her leaving me again.