Chapter 9
chapter
nine
Hope
I wake to sunlight, which feels like a trick.
After a night like that with all the drama and then the subsequent progression with Griff and me. Now though, there’s actual sun slanting through the gap in the curtains, laying a warm stripe across the wreck of my sheets.
The house is quiet in the good way, the after-the-storm way. The birds are chirping overtime this morning because the ground is soft from all the rain and the worms are easy picking.
I reach over, feeling the sheets next to me. But Griff is gone. Judging from the coolness of the sheets, he’s been gone a while.
And here comes the doubt. Right on schedule, the old familiar voice, the one I’ve spent years trying to stifle, rears her ugly head to remind me that of course he’s gone. Why would he stay?
If the sun has been out for a while, then the roads will be clearing soon if they haven’t already.
He’s the sheriff; he’s got a whole flooded county to put back together.
He’s got damage to assess and probably a meeting with the mayor or something.
Maybe even a call to the governor if the damage is big enough it requires state funding.
All reasonable explanations for him just disappearing.
But the voice doesn’t stop at reasonable. The voice keeps going. That was the storm, Hope. That was two people trapped in a bubble with nowhere to be. Emotions had run high. Defenses were down and you started it with your self-love session.
Last night he was a man who couldn’t get home. Now he can get home. Now the sun’s up and the water’s down and last night doesn’t have to mean anything more. Don’t you dare be greedy about it.
I sit up. I pull the duck robe on. I catch myself already doing the thing. Already smoothing it over, already reaching for the armor, already rehearsing the light, breezy, no big deal voice I’ll use when I run into him in town.
I’ve gotten so good at that voice. I could give lessons.
Except.
Except I’m standing in a kitchen that still smells like coffee and cinnamon and him, and there’s a plate on the counter with exactly one snickerdoodle left on it.
Last night that man told me I was the most capable woman he’d ever met and that he’d been driving past my house just to see my lights were on.
And some new, stubborn, storm-forged part of me plants its feet and says, quietly: No. Not this time. He doesn’t get to just walk away without an explanation. I’m not letting him off the hook.
My phone rings.
Unknown number. I almost don’t answer, because unknown numbers are never good news, and I’m already braced. But something makes me swipe it.
“Hello?”
“Hope.” That voice. Low, gravel, unmistakable, and doing something to my knees across phone lines. “It’s Griff.”
“How did you… how did you get my number?”
“I’m the sheriff. I have resources.” A pause, and I swear I can hear him almost-smiling.
“Took me twenty minutes at the station this morning to run it down. You realize that watch of yours has been calling my phone, but never once had you called.” A breath.
“Fixed that first thing. Before the road reports. Before the coffee, even, and you know how I feel about coffee.”
I’m gripping the counter. “Griff. Is everything okay? Is there—did something happen? Is it the road, or—”
“No.” His voice is firm and gentle. “That’s the whole point, sweetheart.
Nothing happened. There have been no alerts, no alarms. Nobody’s on the ground, nobody’s fallen off a ladder, the county’s dry and boring and fine.
With the exception of some trees down and some missing garbage cans and trampolines. ”
I hear him exhale, and when he speaks again his voice has gone rough around the edges.
“I’m not calling to check on you to make sure you’re okay—though obviously, I want you to be okay.
I tracked down your number and I dialed it, on purpose.
Because I wanted to put your number in my speed dial.
Because I want to be able to call you for literally no reason other than to hear your voice. ”
And every wall I was about to rebuild comes to a screeching halt. The proverbial bricks are in my hands, and I set them down.
“You called me,” I say, stupidly, “on purpose.”
“On purpose. I’m going to keep doing it, too, so brace yourself.
And Hope?” His voice drops. “Last night wasn’t the storm.
I need you to hear that in the daylight.
I figure there’s a chance you might be second-guessing things since I left without waking you.
But that was only because I knew I’d be coming back as soon as my shift is over. ”
“Just making yourself at home, are you?”
“Precisely. I chose you when I was trapped, and I’m choosing you now that I’m not. That’s the part I couldn’t get to last night, so I’m getting to it now.”
My eyes are stinging. The one snickerdoodle on the plate goes blurry.
“Okay,” I whisper. And then, because I’m me, because the sunshine’s coming back online: “For the record, I was fully prepared to give you the light breezy see-you-at-the-feed-store voice this morning. I had it locked and loaded. You just ruined a very good pity spiral.”
His laugh comes down the line, warm and real.
“Good. I’ll ruin all of ‘em. It’s my new hobby.
” Then, casual, like it isn’t the whole rest of my life: “Now. I’ve got two coffees going cold in my truck—yours is light and too sweet with cinnamon on top.
I’ve had a theory about that for a while and I intend to test it.
I’m sitting out on Farm Road 12 watching the water recede from the lower of the two crossings.
Give it twenty minutes and I’ll be at your house.
” A pause. “You going to let me in when I do?”
I’m already at the window, watching and waiting to see that Bluebonnet County Sheriff truck heading down my drive.
He came back. Not because a watch called him. Not because anything went wrong.
Just because he wants to.
“Sheriff Meadows,” I say, and I don’t bother hiding the wobble or the grin, “you get up that driveway, and I will let you in every single time.”
“That’s my girl.” I can hear the smile in it, full-blown now and I can’t wait to see it in person. “I know it might be too soon to admit this, but Hope, I love you.”
I release a watery laugh. “It’s not too soon for me. I love you, Griff.”
“Alright, Sunshine. I’m coming home.”
Sunshine. No one has ever given me a nickname before. I decide on the spot that I’m keeping it—the name, and the grump who finally gave it to me.