I had this sweatshirt, and he had a photograph.
That wasn’t a photograph that he kept tucked away in a drawer. He must’ve held it as many times as I’ve held this sweatshirt. The edges were worn, and the image was discolored.
Except when our reminders started to fade, I tried desperately to move on… I focused on my career, stuck to my life’s plan, and ignored how hollow I was inside.
He tattooed permanent reminders of me on his skin so he wouldn’t forget.
I wanted to erase him, and he refused to lose those pieces of me. I didn’t even let him show me all of them.
He doesn’t get to make the choice this time.
I have to see him.
I snatch my keys off the kitchen counter, and I don’t slow down when I realize how hard it’s raining outside. I jump in my car, pedaling down on the accelerator.
My windshield wipers work overtime as I struggle to see through the dark downpour, but I don’t stop.
Second Chance Sanctuary is ghostly dark when I pull through the gates. The house is barely lit, and the lone floodlight by the barn is casting light on the streams of water coming down.
I still don’t hesitate, jumping out of my car to bust into the garage. I stand there catching my breath, inhaling the thick scent of oil and gasoline, but he’s not here.
The garage is empty.
I look down at my dingy slippers for the first time and my soaked clothes. His dress shirt is molded over my body, sticking to my skin. I can’t go into the bunkhouse like this.
“Liv?”
I spin around, startled by a voice that doesn’t belong to Jensen. Lochlan is standing in the doorway with soaked hair dangling over his concerned forehead.
“Do you know where Hayes is?”
“Is he expecting you?”
“No.”
He scrubs his hand over his chin. “If he’s not here, he’d only be in one other place, but you’ll have to follow me.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Hayes
Inever planned when I’d become a homeowner. It was always a goal I had in the back of my mind, but my place was at the sanctuary. I had no reason to leave.
But when a future I wanted desperately was dangled in front of my eyes, I knew my time in the bunkhouse needed to come to an end.
The property next door to the sanctuary had been abandoned and then taken by the bank after years of illegal comings and goings. Lochlan spent hours crunching numbers, trying to figure out a way he could purchase the property himself to expand the sanctuary, but more so to eliminate the potential of getting new bad neighbors. Seedy shit happening next door to his bears is too risky.
Three-quarters of this property borders his, and now I’m his new neighbor.
Unfortunately, the house is in major disrepair. It’s not just a fixer-upper; it was nearly condemned and demolished.
I had no business taking on such a project, but it felt like the right thing. I’d finally have a place of my own, and I could ease some of Lochlan’s burdens after years of him easingmine.
That alone made it worth it, but I’ve still been cursing like a sailor every time a floorboard gives under my foot or something new starts to leak.
I’ve had a lot of time this week to submerge myself in the mess.
I’ve taken my frustration out with my hammer and worked myself like a dog instead of thinking about Liv.
