Holding the door tight to my body with my foot, I cross my arms over my chest and wait to hear her out.
“We’ve come so far,” she pleads. “What do I have to do to prove it to you? I’mherenow. To stay. The last few years weren’t enough? Having a baby with my husband, reviving the entire town wasn’t enough to prove to you that I’m here?”
Pulling my eyes up from the weeds invading my garden—haven’t had as much time lately to tend to it—I squint against the setting sun behind her and tell her what I’m really afraid of. “Dunno. Maybe you can’t? Maybe I’ll always think you’ve got one heel out the door.”
She pulls back, this noise somewhere between a scoff and a whimper in her throat, before retorting, “So you’re saying I gave you abandonment issues? Yeah, Dad gave me those too. Join the club, Lex. I blame him for that, for both of us. And for losing Wyatt. For everything really.”
“Dad was only a half an hour away,” I shoot back, my voice rising, hand pointed in the direction of his house, not like she’d know that. “I’m the one who stayed!” It’s almost a bellow, hand smacking my chest.
She gasps, but it doesn’t temper my anger.
“I never left this town, even when it was shitty, back before it was cute enough for influencers to put up on Instagram. I was here during the worst years!Inever left!”
I’m screaming now, and I think tears might be involved, but I don’t slow down. I can’t. It’s been clawing at me for almost three years now. If I don’t let it out, it might eat me alive.
“Mom didn’thaveto call me to tell me she had terminal cancer, because I was fucking there when she was diagnosed. I was holding her hand at the appointment, Rory. Dad left. You left. I’ve been here the whole fucking time.”
Rory’s eyes water for at least the third time today—possibly more than I’ve seen in our entire adult lives—and she gathers her composure, but she doesn’t run this time, which is something, I guess.
“You don’t think I’m sorry?” she whispers the words, wet with her grief.
“Sorry doesn’t fix the past.”
My dad sighs, like he knows that’s true, but Rory is so focused on me, she must not hear him beyond the door.
“How about my actions?” Her shoulders pull back and she straightens taller. “Have my actions not shown you that I love you? That I’m sorry for hurting you, and Mom, and Wyatt?”
“You know what might help?”
I straighten up myself, watching her eyes cloud over in confusion, not sure where I’m going.
“If you listened to someone else’s apology. Let’s see your actions at work when it’s something you don’t want to do.”
The foot that’s been holding the door open releases it, and I extend my leg to push it open so she can see my living room, and the man who fathered us standing in it.
The one she hasn’t come face to face with in fifteen years.
“Hi, Dove.”
TWENTY-ONE
WILDER
The walk through downtown back to my place isn’t relaxing like it usually is. When residents smile, wave, and ask me about tomorrow’s special, I smile through clenched teeth and pretend like everything is normal.
Like my veins aren’t frosting over by the minute at the thought of the danger I left behind coming to this town and getting the people I care about involved in something they never should’ve been exposed to.
All I can do now is get out before it blows back on them.
Turn myself in, take whatever deal they offer me, and make sure no one ever thinks to look into a little town nestled in the mountains called Smoky Heights.
Even if it’s where my heart will be the whole time.
I was ready for the change of scenery, but I never expected to fall for its charm the way I have.
The gorgeous stretch of downtown, framed by those blue and purple mountains, the pink sky behind them. It’s straight out of a painting.
Every storefront on this two-block stretch, as ridiculous as the names are, they’re places run by people with a passion for what they do, making others happy day in and day out. Whetherit’s a cup of coffee, a scoop of ice cream, finding their next great read, the lives here aren’t glamorous, but they’re real.
