“Nothing. It’s nothing.” She waved off my concern. “I’m just really, really happy for you. That’s all. You deserve all the good things. Nothing but the good things.”
I didn’t know what I’d done in a past life to earn the friends I had, but there wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t grateful for each and every one of them. As I pulled my best friend into a tight hug, I had to blink fast against the burn starting behind my own eyes.
I didn’t think I had any tears left after the night before—it had been an emotional rollercoaster, to say the least—but apparently I was wrong.
“Have I mentioned lately how much I love you guys?” I looked at the small group that had gathered around me—Lennix, Merritt, Ivy, Rae, and Naomi—and remembered how lucky I was for the support system I had. And the women who were with me were only the tip of the iceberg.
“The feeling is more than mutual,” Rae replied from the comforts of the overstuffed chair closest to the register, her feetpropped up on the ottoman with a bag of chocolate covered raisins resting on her swollen belly.
Merritt braced her elbow on the counter and rested her chin in her hand. “So where do you guys go from here?”
A blush heated my cheeks as I told them everything Tanner and I had talked about the night before. “Well, he said he’s retiring from the league, and he’s moving to Hope Valley to be with me.”
“Holy shit!” Lennix squealed. She had gotten a handle on her weepiness, and now her eyes were wide and full of something that looked a lot like glee. “Blane is going to lose hisshit.” My friends all burst into laughter. “I can picture his face when he finally realizes how badly he fucked up. It’s only a matter of time before it hits him that he’s engaged to a raging harpy, and he’ll never have another chance with you because our girl here has leveled way the hell up.”
I couldn’t lie, I kind of liked that idea myself.
“We talked a bit about what he wants to do after his retirement, and he’s thinking about coaching. There’s a youth league in this county, and he likes the idea of helping little kids discover their love of the game the same way he did.”
I went on to tell them about his mom and his former coach, and there was more than a little swooning happening in the shop. And I was right there with them.
They hung around a while longer, sharing in the happiness that was swelling so big inside of me that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to contain it. They finally left a little while later, and I spent the rest of the day moving through the shop like I was floating on air. I was in such a good mood, I didn’t think it was possible for anything to bring me down.
I should have known there was another shoe hovering above me, waiting to drop.
The worst thing about it was that the blow came from the one woman who was supposed to have loved me and my siblings above all else.
I’d made it through most of the day without thinking about her. That dark, miserable cloud was always hovering in the background, waiting to cast a shadow on the life I’d built for myself.
The texts started coming in. Picture after picture of Tanner and me together. Having lunch at the diner. Walking hand in hand out of Muffin Top. There were even pictures of us inside the Tap Room. I didn’t know if she’d been the one to take them or if it had been the asshole who trashed my apartment all those weeks ago, but as I scrolled through them, a slimy chill slithered down my spine. Because I knew what was coming.
Sure enough, there was a message that followed the photos, and what it said chilled me to my bones.
See you landed yourself a whale. Now I know you got money. Two hundred grand, or I sell these pictures to whichever gossip site’s willing to pay the most.
My lungs squeezed tighter as I read the words over and over. I remembered everything Tanner said about the people in his past who only came into his life because they wanted to use him for his money and fame. Even his own father. And I refused to let my mother do the same thing.
With shaking hands, I stuffed the phone in my back pocket and grabbed my purse from under the counter. “Denise, would you mind covering for the rest of the day? Something’s come up that I need to take care of.”
My manager looked at me, her brows pinching with concern as soon as she caught the look on my face. “Of course. Do what you have to do. We’ll take care of things.”
I shot her a grateful smile, then hustled out of the shop. My mind ran through a thousand different scenarios of how Tannerwas going to handle the fact that I’d been keeping this secret, and none of them ended happily.
My stomach was in knots and my heart was racing when I pulled up to the cabin. Tanner must have heard my car coming up the drive because he was already standing on the porch as I climbed the front steps. The smile on his face slowly melted when he caught sight of my expression.
He moved to me, taking my face in his hands. “What’s wrong?” His brows slammed together, worry filling his eyes. “Is it another migraine?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not that.” I swallowed, trying to soothe the sudden dryness in my throat. “Can we go inside? There’s something I need to tell you.”
I couldn’t sit still.I paced the length of the living room as Tanner read through all the texts between me and my mother. The silence filling the cabin was slowly suffocating me, and with each second that ticked by, the anxiety tightening my muscles grew worse. By the time he finally looked up at me from his place on the couch, it felt like an eternity had passed.
“I’m so sorry.” The words spilled out without any prompting from my brain. “I should have told you about this from the very beginning. Or at least once you told me about your father. I wasn’t trying to keep secrets from you. I just...” I had to stop, the lump forming in my throat making it hard to speak and even harder to breathe. A burn of tears wanted to come, and I struggled to keep them at bay. Shame washed over me, coatingmy skin like a sticky film as I dropped my gaze to my feet, unable to meet his eyes.
“I didn’t want you to know that was the kind of person I came from. I didn’t want you to think less of me,” I finally admitted, speaking my worst fear out loud for the very first time. The words came out rough and jagged, like they were being ripped from my throat.
For such a big guy, he moved with surprising stealth. One second he was on the couch, and the next he was standing right in front of me. The feel of his fingers beneath my chin gave me a jolt, and I jerked my gaze up to meet his.
“Sunshine.” A smiled spread across his face, and at the sight of it, I took my first full breath since that text came through. “There’s nothing you could do or say that would ever make me think less of you.”
