It had been a week since she’d walked out on me. Hard to think that last Saturday we’d been walking through the farmer’s market with Lane between us, and this week I was trying to pick up the pieces. Even Jessa was getting sick of me moping around. She’d even stayed over last night so I could go to trail supper, but when I got there, I just sat in the truck for an hour feeling sorry for myself before I turned around and came home.
“You need to get out today.” My sister tossed my keys toward the couch and glared at me from the other side of the room. “Take Lane to the swimming hole or something.”
I didn’t want to. Didn’t want to do anything besides sit on the couch and wonder why I’d sabotaged the best thing to ever happen to me.
“Holt.” Jessa came around to stand in front of me. “You can’t keep sitting here.”
“Says who?” I wasn’t feeling particularly open to having other people tell me what I could or couldn’t do. Especially when they were right.
She sat down next to me. Her voice softened. “Did you ever tell her how you felt about her?”
It was nobody’s business what went down between Calla and me, but Jessa was trying to help. Maybe that’s why I actually answered instead of blowing her off again. “No.”
“Well, are you going to?”
“It won’t do any good. The program she put in place secured funding for the school year.” I shrugged, unable to imagine competing against something like that. “Those kids need her. She’s probably better off without all this.”
“All of what?” Jessa wouldn’t let it go. “An incredible kid who adores her? A community that’s already carved out a place for her? A stubborn asshole who’s too scared to say the word love?”
That one hit harder than it should have. I wasn’t surprised my sister called me an asshole, but it caught me off guard to hear her toss out the ‘L’ word, even though that was exactly how I felt about Calla. “She was never gonna stay. This was just for the summer.”
“Says who?” Jessa asked, shaking her head. “Is that what you want? To keep living by what’s safe? What’s expected? To be the iceberg everyone already thinks you are?”
I didn’t answer. My throat tightened, making it impossible to utter a word.
Jessa crossed her arms. “You let that stupid Ex-List get to you. You’re not broken. You got hurt and shut down to protect yourself, but Calla’s not the one who hurt you. It’s not fair to let her walk away because you’re too scared shitless to tell her how much you care.”
Fuck. She made it sound so easy. Like putting my heart on the line wasn’t the most terrifying thing a man could do. The silence stretched, uncomfortable and heavy.
Jessa put her hand on my arm. “She didn’t need a perfect plan, Holt. She just needed to know she wasn’t the only one all in.”
I stared at my hands while regret washed over me. “She told Lane her dream was to build a camp. For kids like him. A place where they’d feel seen.”
Jessa’s eyes warmed. “That sounds like an amazing opportunity, and you have all the pieces in place to give her that if you want to.”
My head snapped up. “What do you mean?”
“That acreage you’ve been sitting on? Use it to build her camp. One that will make kids like Lane feel they’re a part of something where they’ll never be turned away. Prove she wasn’t wrong to believe in you.”
I wasn’t sure I was ready to let myself hope. “You really think she’d stay?”
“Only one way to find out.” Jessa picked up a stack of library books from the coffee table. “Why don’t you go drop these off and see if the library has any books on how to start a non-profit.”
Lane had been sitting on the back porch with Jack the Rabbit but came in at the tail end of the conversation. “Can we go to the library, Dad?”
I wasn’t always willing to listen to my little sister, but I was smart enough to take her advice when it mattered. “Yeah, bud. There’s something I want to talk to you about on the way.”
Jessa nudged me in the ribs as her mouth spread into a giant grin. “Go get her, Holt.”
“Go get who?” Lane asked as I herded him out the door.
I told him if he got buckled, I’d let him know who Jessa and I had been talking about. He needed to be all in as well if we were going to ask her to stay. My kid and I were a package deal, one that came with a lot of baggage that would need to be unpacked. But if she was willing to help, I was ready to start opening up and really let her in.
“So, you know how Calla had to go back to another job?” I started, not sure how to broach the subject of asking whether he’d be okay with her moving in permanently.
“Yeah.” His face fell, and his lower lip started to shake. “I wish she coulda stayed.”
“Me too, bud. What would you think about asking her to stay with us for good?” I checked the mirror to gauge his reaction. His eyes lit up like they did when he discovered a new-to-him dinosaur.
