Noah’s mother turns to take Anna May back into the house, but Jolene stays with us and waits for them to be out of earshot. Taking a deep breath, tears fill my eyes as I watch a world, a life, a dream I never knew I wanted fade.
“I still think he’s an ass,” Jolene huffs, which makes me laugh. “I’m serious. Sometimes my brother can be really smart, but sometimes he can’t get out of his way long enough to see what he is throwing away.”
I shrug. “It just wasn’t meant to be.”
I will myself not to cry but I fail miserably and Jolene pulls me in for a big hug.
“There is no way he’s marrying the likes of Rebecca Brown. I don’t care what he told you.”
She tightens her squeeze on me and I almost fall apart. But I straighten up as she lets go. It’s time to leave. Time to let go. Time to move on and get myself back into a life I had before I ever met Noah.
Gwen and Jolene exchange a hug, and I hear them murmur something about future plans, but my mind has already drifted off. Off to a world without Noah, and a reality I am not so anxious to get back to.
Getting in the car, and pulling out onto the gravel road, my heart aches as what’s left of the world we shared shatters. My life back on the West Coast seems dim and dull now.
“It’ll get better in time,” Gwen says as she turns on the radio. “It has to, right?”
I don’t answer, just look out the window at the beautiful Kentucky countryside as we drive into town. There is one more stop I have to make before boarding a plane in a few hours. One more dream I have to let go of, and that is a job I never thought I wanted in a small town I now find myself never wanting to leave.
Twenty minutes later, we pull up in front of the Bardstown newspaper. I look at the storefront and smile. A few days ago when I had accepted the job, all my hope was wrapped up in a career I could sink myself into if only my future hadn’t turned out the way it did. Now, having to walk in and face Mary, after accepting the position only to turn it down a few days later, my heart doesn’t have the strength to take the couple steps I need to walk in the front door.
“We don’t have much time, Eva,” Gwen says. “I can’t pretend to know what you are going through, but we’ve got to get to Louisville. The plane leaves in a little over two hours.”
Taking a deep breath I exit the vehicle. I glance back across the street and hope to see Noah standing out front of the fire station, laughing and carrying on like he had only a few days earlier. Like he did when I finally felt like all the pieces of my world were permanently coming together. But no one is there.
Walking the few steps up the curb and through the front door of the building, I look around before Mary catches my eye in her back office. She smiles and waves at me to come back. Swallowing hard, I begin to walk towards her office and hope she understands the magnitude of what I am about to turn down.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Noah
Coming back from a call about twenty minutes ago, I noticed Gwen sitting in the rental car across the street in front of the newspaper. Not able to take my mind off of who she was waiting on, and what might be going on, I now find myself hiding just slightly in the shadows of the fire station bay and watching to see when Eva might walk out of the office.
Although I know my heart can’t take it, I have to see her. I have to watch her walk out of my life. Maybe then I will be able to really believe this is over. Maybe then I will really accept the fact that she's gone months from now when my heart continues to drown in pain.
Rex walks out of the station and into the garage. It doesn’t take him long to turn and look at the scene unfolding in front of me. A nightmare I can’t turn away from. With a heavy sigh, he walks a few more steps and leans with me against the fire engine. “You know, it doesn’t have to be like this. You can have your cake and eat it, too.”
I glare at him. “Don’t you have a club to run somewhere? Why are you always here when I don’t need your bullshit advice?”
He laughs. “Ah, come on now. You know your life would be boring as hell if I were not around.”
Movement across the street catches my eye. Glancing back up, Eva emerges from the office and I catch my breath. I want to run to her. I want to stop her. To tell her that I am crazy. That what I said yesterday was the biggest damn lie I ever told in my life.
I have no intention of marrying Becky. Not now, not ever. But I had to say something. Something I knew would make her leave. I had to give her a reason not to stay. To move on and get back to a life full of possibilities and promises. Ones I can’t give her while I am tied to this place forever.
“I can’t believe you’re not going to go after her,” Rex fumes.
“We’ve been down this road before,” I groan pushing off the engine and walking across the room. “I chased her, and look where that got me.”
Eva’s laugh floats to me from across the street and pulls to somewhere deep inside of me. She talks to the woman I assume is Mary for a few minutes. Rex doesn’t say a word, just sits with me silently, watching my world walk away and knowing I am not about to do anything to stop it.
Shaking Mary’s hand, Eva opens the car door. She glances up my way, a glimmer of hope shines bright in her eyes. Since I am hiding in the shadows, she sees no one, and the look disappears quickly. She shakes her head once before turning back to say a few more parting words to Mary.
“I just have one question,” Rex says. “Do you honestly think, after everything you two have been through, that you can live without her? Because if you can, let her go. But if watching her walk away is killing you, now might be the only chance you’ll ever get to make it right.”
Something inside me snaps. My feet break out in a run. I cross the street quickly and almost get run over by a car in the process, which earns me a honk and a raised middle finger.
Eva looks across her left shoulder to see what happened and doesn’t even notice I’ve come up on her right side until I grab her arm and swing her towards me. Mary takes a few steps back giving us some space, although Gwen’s smart mouth can always be accounted for.
