Cherry agreed with a nod. ‘Of course.’ Sean’s family had been through so much. She hoped that, even though their marriage was a mess, she could bring some value before she left. It was the least she could do for this beautiful bunch of people who had welcomed her so freely.
Chapter 20
Sean
Back at Sean’s house, he pulled a beer from the fridge and held the bottle out to Cherry.
She took it, grateful for the cool touch and the promise of more edges softening. ‘Thanks.’
‘Have a drink with me, yeah?’
‘Okay.’
Sean sat on the couch, and she plonked down next to him.
‘So,’ she said, ‘Tennessee, huh?’
‘Aye.’
‘What’s all that about, Butler?’
‘What that’s all about is, I needed to get out of Kinshore. Wanted a change.’
‘I thought you loved it here.’
‘I do love it here. It’s very much home. But I’m also kind of bored cooped up – no pun intended. I needed a new challenge, and the opportunity to do a year’s exchange at a cooperage in Tennessee came up. So I went for it.’
‘And it’s still on the table?’
‘Aye. As long as I pass the visa interview, I go next year, and an American lad comes here.’
‘Well, you should definitely go.’
He searched for something in her eyes – that her encouragement was fake, perhaps?
‘Nothing holding you here, is there?’ she added.
God, Cherry, what is wrong with you?
‘Nope, I suppose not.’ Sean slugged back a large mouthful of beer. ‘Certainly not a woman.’
You deserved that.
Between them, his words hung like a wrecking ball.
‘That was one reason I decided to leave,’ he said. ‘I was pretty fucking lonely here. I can keep myself going like the Duracell bunny, but I want someone to come home to at night, to sleep next to. To love. You know?’
Oh God. His honesty cracked her open, pulled her heart out from her chest and screamed at it:What the hell are you doing?
‘I get it.’ She did. That was what she needed, too. And where would she get it from, if not Sean? If she walked away from the love of her life to protect him, the odds were high that she’d end up alone. No one else compared to him, and the reasons for leaving him would still stand with any other man.
‘Because I’ve a lot of fucking love to give to the right woman,’ he added. ‘To give to my wife, actually.’
Cherry’s lips quivered. She knew he had that love. Of course she did. Sean’s ability to love oozed out of him; it was one of the things that had drawn her to him. If only she could find some way of them moving forward together, but she couldn’t see what that was.
‘I know you do.’ She swigged her own beer, scratched atthe wet label, tearing a strip through it with the rounded edge of her nail.
‘And if you can’t come with me then Tennessee is a tentative.’ Sean layered on more acute, endearing honesty. ‘In case that isn’t obvious. Because you make living here entirely different. We might not hang out all the time, but I really, really like having you around, and even if I went, I’m sure we could find a way to make it work. Anything is possible.’
