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TJ laughed shakily. ‘Oh, like I’m about to have a heart attack.’
‘Hospital?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘TJ—’
He braked. Before she could keep arguing, he leaned over and stole the words from her lips with a kiss that left her breathless. Her heart slammed against her ribs once. Her hands rose to his face, taking the kiss deeper.
He broke it first, but he didn’t pull back, just rested his forehead against hers, his rapid breath tickling her face. ‘Before I kiss you, I always tell myself it can’t be as good as I remember. But then you tear through me, Skye, and I can’t wrap my head around the fact that it wasn’t as good as I remember – it was better. You’re like a disease of the blood, one that can’t be cured, one that I can’t live without.’
His words settled her. ‘If you’re trying to distract me from my misery, it’s working.’
TJ grinned. He shucked his head, said, ‘Come on,’ and then got out of the truck.
Skye followed.
It was only once she was standing in front of the house that she noticed it was closed up. The windows were boarded on the outside. The front garden was somehow both overgrown and dried up.
‘Where are we?’
‘Well, that depends on you.’ TJ roped one arm over her shoulders and pulled her against him.
Skye froze. ‘What do you mean?’
‘If you like it, I’m planning on buying it.’
Her head snapped back to look up at TJ’s face. ‘What?’
He shrugged. ‘I never bought my own place because I was on the road for most of the year. But us, living with my folks and your mom is …’
‘Smothering.’
‘A little,’ TJ replied. He shifted, so that he was standing in front of her. ‘I know what pulling out of the season cost you.’
Skye’s eyes watered just thinking about it. ‘I couldn’t leave my mom after what I did …’
‘I know. And I know how much selflessness it took, especially considering your mom’s not in a place to realize what you sacrificed for her, let alone appreciate you for it.’
‘She’s punishing me.’
‘It feels like that,’ TJ said cautiously. ‘But I think the truth is that she just doesn’t know how to function without the parameters your father always forced on her. It’s like releasing a prey animal raised in captivity into the wild, Skye. She’s scared and lost and has no survival skills. Give her time.’
‘I resent her.’ It felt good to finally say it, even though the guilt and shame that followed sank through her like a bag of stones. ‘I resent her. And then I feel like a shitty person for resenting her.’
‘That’s normal given what you went through. You finally got your life to a point where you were going after what you wanted. And you worked so hard for so long – only to have to give it up to take care of a parent who could never really do anything to help you. Do you know how few people would do what you did?’ He kissed her forehead. ‘Be kind to yourself.’
Frustrated with her self-pitying mood, Skye walked off to look at the house. ‘I keep telling myself there’ll be other seasons, other NFRs.’
‘A lifetime of them,’ TJ affirmed from behind her. ‘And, on the plus side, now we have the year to plan our wedding.’
Skye grinned. It had become a joke between them, only this time her, ‘How many times do I have to say it? You can’t tell me, you have to ask,’ died when she turned around.
TJ was down on one knee in the dirt.
He looked around the land, said, ‘I figure this way, we’re far enough from my folks that we won’t feel smothered. But close enough that I can still help my dad out at the farm when we’re not on the road and they can pop by and check on things here when we are.’
Skye’s heart stilled. She couldn’t have known before this moment that home was not a place but a person. But as she looked at TJ, pale and sweating with nerves and pain, there was no fear, no insecurity, no flashing warning signs.
