ChapterThirty-Three
Ignoring her protests, Liz drove Bella to her store.
“Four weeks.” Liz parked the car and turned and stared at her. “It’s time.”
Even her therapist had hinted it was time, but Bella wished they’d all leave her alone. “I’m here, aren’t I?” Before this, her twice-weekly therapy sessions were the only things that had taken her out of the house and she liked it that way.
January had stayed surprisingly mild. The clear, bright day held no hint of threat, but her legs still shook as she climbed out of the car.
Liz took her hand and gave it a squeeze.
Signs of construction littered the sidewalk outside the store. Piles of lumber neatly stacked against the front window. A team unloaded sheets of drywall.
Stopping at the door, Bella couldn’t make her legs move.
Liz stood beside her. “We can do this. Just go in there, look around, and we can leave again.”
Bella took a deep breath. If it would get Liz off her back, she’d do it.
“This is your business,” Liz said. “You’ve put your heart and soul into it. Don’t let him take that from you.”
Bella’s heart thundered in her ears and she felt dizzy.
“Bella?” Matt appeared in the doorway. He wore plaster dust in his hair and a face mask balanced on his forehead like a horn. “You came.”
Matt still got down and dirty with his crews. He said the work soothed him and helped him think.
“Hey, Matt.” She put one foot in front of the other.
The last time she’d stood in her store, Adam had attacked her. It almost seemed like that girl had splintered off from the original Bella. When she could step back and be splinter Bella, it became easier to think about what had happened. Her therapist, however, wasn’t a big fan of splinter Bella. She never said anything, but nothing got the woman scribbling in her jaunty notebook faster. “I came to see how you were getting on.”
Matt glanced at Liz. “Good. We’re doing good.”
“Can I come in?”
With a grimace, Matt stepped aside.
Bella walked into her store and stopped. Matt had transformed the place. Standing braced for an onslaught of unpleasant memories, she suddenly wanted to laugh. The relief was sharp-edged. Nothing looked the same. The dreadful pink had all disappeared, along with the awful carpet. Even the smell of the store had changed.
“We’ve finished all the framing.” Matt kept pace with her. “Electrics are all in. We just need to finish the drywall, plaster, and paint.”
Under her feet, thick paper crackled. “Are the floors done?”
“Yup.” Matt smiled at her. “And you were right: The darker wood looks great.”
His smile reminded her so much of Nate that it hurt.
Nate had been a constant feature in her life over the last four weeks. He popped in and out a couple of times a day. Often, he stayed long enough to cook her dinner and then watched TV with her until she got tired enough to sleep. Some nights he slept over, but always he waited for her to ask, and other than cuddling, he didn’t lay a finger on her. Fortunately, he seemed to have recovered from the whole love thing. She was glad; she really was. Sure, she thought about those three words a lot, and how it had felt hearing them from him. But the words never penetrated past the surface fog that filled her these days. The thing was, she liked the gray. The gray surrounded her in a comfortable cloud. If light penetrated the mist, it came with a sharp pain she ducked from.
Bella ran her hand over the smooth pale oak shelves Matt had installed. Simple, classic, and deep enough to allow her to create piles of color. If she ever got around to ordering new stock. Her suppliers were waiting for her to move forward with her orders. She’d been sitting on placing those orders since the attack. Every time she fired up her computer, she ended up on social media sites. Hours of trolling Facebook, crying at some posts and railing at others. Just idly flipping through the details of other people’s lives.
Without being asked, Liz had taken over the internet business. She was really good at it, and Bella was considering taking her on part-time, but as soon as the thought formed, she allowed it to drift away again.
Some small part of her brain understood she was stuck, but she rather liked it there. Her therapist had been prodding her about taking action during the last couple of visits. And she would. But every time she came close to doing something—anything—she retreated again.
When Liz had come around this morning and bullied her into the car, it had almost been a relief, doing something without having to be the one to initiate the act.
Sliding open a new drawer, Bella brushed away wood shavings. She’d been so excited about filling these drawers with naughty lingerie. Stuff she kept for special customers. The sort of lingerie that would make a woman glow just knowing she wore it.
So many plans. Good plans she’d spent hours formulating, and around her, they faced off with her and demanded she finish what she had started. The construction in the store challenged her to get moving again. Bella’s chest tightened and breathing became harder. “We can go now,” she said to Liz.
“Have you seen these rails?” Liz put as much enthusiasm as she could into the question.
Bella loved her for the effort. Dutifully, she walked over and admired the hanging spaces. “Very nice. Matt does excellent work.”
“This is all you, Bella.” Matt ran his large hand over the finish on the sides. “This was your vision, I’m just the jock with a hammer who made it happen.”
Her vision. Her plans. Her excitement. She could see them as a part of her life that stretched out in the past but didn’t seem part of her reality anymore. She smiled because he seemed to be waiting for some reaction. “It looks great, Matt.”
* * *
The outer door to Nate’s office slammed open and Matt charged in.
“Nate here?” Matt hadn’t seen him yet and he’d asked the question of Gabby.
She pointed to where Nate stood getting himself some coffee.
Matt turned, steam coming out of his ears. Matt didn’t get mad often, but when he did, it paid to give it some time and attention.
“Got a minute?”
It wasn’t really a request, and Nate nodded and motioned him into his office.
Heat rolling off him in waves, Matt dogged his heels.
Nate shut the door.
“What the fuck?” Matt pounded Nate’s desk so hard an empty paper cup jumped off. “What the fuck!”
Nate waited.
Matt pushed his hands through his dusty hair. “Bella came by the store.”
“Ah.” Nate’s chest throbbed in that special place that was all Bella. Day after day, he watched her walk through her life as if she wasn’t really a part of it. Her detachment cut deep into him each time he faced it, but he kept coming back around. Firstly, because that dispassionate ghost was his Bella, and secondly, wherever or whoever she chose to be, right beside her was the only place he wanted to stand.
Matt shook his head, clearly struggling to find the right words. “Is she always like this?”
“Pretty much.” Nate shrugged, as if it didn’t carve a trench through him. “She needs time to deal with what happened to her.”
“But . . . Bella.” Matt threw himself into a chair. The legs screeched on the linoleum floor. “Bella is . . . was . . . Bella.”
Nate almost laughed. How to put Bella into words? That stupid kid’s saying about sugar and spice and all things nice, that was Bella. Or that had been Bella. The woman walking around in a daze bore an uncanny resemblance to that soap bubble of pure light that used to drift around Ghost Falls.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Matt leaned his elbows on his knees. “It’s like she’s there but she’s not there.”
“I don’t think she is.” Nate moved closer to Matt, needing the connection with another person who saw what he did. “I think our Bella is locked down tight inside that shell. She’s scared to come out.”
“We have to get her back.” Matt glanced up at him. “I liked the old Bella just fine.”
“I loved the old Bella.” No point in pretending anymore. “I love this one too.”
Matt stared at him, frowning. “This is new.”
“Not really.” Matt was one of the few people he would bother explaining himself to. “I think some part of me always did. I’ve been running shit scared from that part for most of my life. At least since first grade.”
Matt gave a rueful laugh. “Now you see it.”
“I was never the brain in the family.”
“That’s bullshit, Nate.” Matt stood and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Almost as big a pile of crap as that chip you carry on your shoulder. You weren’t the black sheep either.”
“Ah, come on.” Matt must be suffering from early onset senility. “How many nights did you have to drag my sorry ass out of trouble?”
“I remember.” Matt’s grip tightened on his shoulder. “But you know what I saw?”
“Hit me.” May as well air all the family dirty laundry.
“I saw a kid who was hurting. The same thing old Sheriff Wheeler saw. A good kid with so much pent-up hurt he didn’t know where to go with it.”
He couldn’t quite buy that. “We all lost Dad. I was the only one who played up.”
“Really?” Matt snorted. “You have a selective memory. Were you the one who locked himself in the house for the first six months?”
Nope, that had been Mom.
“Or the one who tried to drop out of college and then, when I wouldn’t let him, failed a semester just to prove a point.”
“Eric did that?”
“Yeah, Eric did that.” Matt laughed. “Jo dropped out of life altogether and Isaac is still MIA. So next time you cast yourself in the role of family screwup, you might want to consider the competition. And then there’s me.”
“You?” Matt, who had turned down a full-ride scholarship to take care of the family after their father died and their mother turned mourning into a profession?
“Yeah, me.” Matt punched his shoulder. The old guy still had some power going there. “I more or less hid out behind Dad’s company until it was almost too late. If Pippa hadn’t come into town and forced me out of hibernation, I might still be in there.”
Nate had never really considered things from that angle.
Matt shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m proud of you, Nate. If anyone knows how to pick yourself up and start over, it’s you.”
Goddamn. If Matt kept this up, they might both start bawling. “Shut up.”
“Good idea.”
“Bella will be okay.” Nate cleared the lump that seemed to have lodged in his throat. “She’ll be okay because I’m never giving up on her.”
* * *
Bella stuffed the invitation under a pile of paperwork sitting on her desk. It didn’t diminish the effect.
When Phi issued an invitation, she did it the old-fashioned way, through the mail and on her own stationery. A royal summons to Bella’s own store from the Ghost Falls royalty.
Matt had finished in the store three days ago, and still she hadn’t managed to go around and see the final outcome. People thought she avoided the store because of frightening memories, and Bella wished she could say they had it right. The real reason was much more embarrassing. She was hiding out from her life. She’d even deleted all her Dr. Childers downloads because she didn’t want to hear all that take-charge crap.
Her last visit to the store had almost broken through the gray nothing and she couldn’t risk that. Each day it got harder to stay numb.
Liz had eventually placed the orders for stock on her behalf and unloaded them into the storerooms. Bella didn’t even know if the right garments had arrived.
She wandered through to the kitchen and put some coffee on. Not that she wanted any coffee, but she needed something to do while she worked on her excuse for Phi. Unlike other people, Phi didn’t take no lightly. If you tried an excuse Phi didn’t think held water, the diva straight-up told you and then insisted you came anyway.
Phi clearly thought the time had come to open the store again because the invitation was to the grand opening of Bella’s.
Bella slammed her cupboard door closed. It kind of pissed her off that Phi had taken the initiative and decided to open her store for her. She detected the sly hand of Pippa in this. Why couldn’t Pippa mind her own business?
The smell of coffee reminded her how much she really didn’t want a cup.
Of course, if she got all irritated with Pippa, she’d have to start taking on a whole bunch of other people. Ghost Falls seemed to have decided as a town that Bella needed to buck up.
Outside, Noel shoveled Liz’s walk. When he was done, he would come over and do hers. Not because Bella had asked but because Noel had taken it on all by himself.
People didn’t get it. They all thought she should get on with her life and cheer the hell up. Cheer up! Bella made a retching noise.
She checked the time on the kitchen clock. Nate would be around soon to make sure she ate. Who knew all you had to do was get kidnapped by a psycho to get a man to pay attention to you? No matter what she said, what she tried to text him, Nate showed up at her door.
Like right now. His cruiser drew up outside her house and Nate climbed out. He took a moment to chat with Noel.
So ridiculously hot with the shadow of the day’s growth darkening the clean-cut lines of his face. Wind ruffled his dark hair with loving fingers. If she didn’t have this dead place in the middle of her, she might be getting all giddy with excitement around about now.
Nate spotted her at the window and waved.
A little something twanged through her chest. Could be indigestion for all she knew.
She opened the door for him and Nate trotted up the walkway.
“Hey, babe.” He bent and kissed her cheek. His frozen cheek pressed against hers as if they were a couple. “Have a good day?”
“Yup.” Because if she said anything else, he’d want to hear all about it. “And you?”
He pulled a face, shrugging out of his coat. “Spent most of it driving around the backcountry. Damn roads haven’t been plowed yet. Had to make sure some of the senior citizens made it through for their hospital appointments.”
She got him a beer and poured herself a glass of wine.
Nate cooked while she sat at the kitchen table. The conversation drifted from one subject to another. Small talk about his day, her day, things going on in town. This she could handle, even admit it was kind of nice. Not that she had much of a choice; any attempt to put Nate off failed dismally. He’d arrive anyway and barge his way into her house.
“I got an invitation today.” Bella watched his face to see if there was any reaction.
“Phi, I’m guessing.” He grinned and took a sip of his beer.
It was like a damn conspiracy. “Did you put her up to this?”
“I might have had a part in it.” He turned back to his cooking onions.
“Why?” She had a bunch of other questions, but she’d start with that one.
“Babe.” Nate glanced at her. “The store is done. It’s time.”
She wanted to throw her wine at him, but it was wine, and she wanted to drink it more. “Because you decided it’s time.”
“Maybe.” His tone got wary. “You have to open the store, Bella.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” She knew she was being childish, but this assumption that she could just pick up her life where Adam had ripped it up really got under her skin.
Nate flipped off the burner. “Bella . . .” He crossed his arms and gave her the sheriff face. “That renovation cost you money, and every day the store stands there is costing you money.”
“So this is about saving me money?” Hell, if he wanted to go there, she would so go there.
“No.” Now he gave her that tone that said he was exercising all his patience. “This is about a lot of things. One of those things is money.”
“Does it occur to you that I don’t need your help?”
“No.” He snagged the bottle and refilled her wine. Then went right back to cooking. “And I think we’ve been through this before.”
Bella scowled at his back. They had been through this before and she’d lost every single one of those times too.
“Isn’t it against the law to force yourself into someone’s house?”
Nate stirred something that smelled great. “Not if you’re cooking them dinner.”
His glibness made her want to smack him. Like everyone else, Nate thought she could pick up her life where Adam had torn it apart, sew together the tattered ends, and be back to the way she was before. None of them understood. “Why do you care?”
Nate turned and looked at her. Really looked at her, and she dropped her head to dodge the way he saw so much. “You know why.” The toes of his boots moved into her line of vision. “But just in case you’ve forgotten, I’ll tell you again.” Nate crouched at her feet. His lion gaze held her captive. “I. Love. You.”
Like arrows, the words pierced the comfortable gray, and Bella came back swinging. “No, you don’t. You just think you do.” She had to get away. His eyes, his face, the sincerity demanded stuff from her. Made her feel. Bella stood. Why did they all insist she start feeling again?
Nate pressed her back into her chair. “I love you.” He caught her hands and held them firmly. “When I saw Adam standing over you with the scalpel, it all crystalized for me, but I loved you before then.”
“No.” She needed to hold on to being numb. Everything hurt less that way. But light forced its way into the gray and a sob caught in the back of her throat.
“Yes.” Nate kissed first one palm and then the other. “I might even have loved you when I used to stomp on the things you made in the elementary-school sandbox.”
“They were sand cakes.”
He slid his hands to her hips and held her still. “I might even have loved you when I nearly asked you to prom.”
“You did?” He must be making this up.
“I did.” Nate winced. “I changed my mind at the last minute because I was scared of your nana, and she was there the day I came around to ask.” He wiped a tear from her cheek.
When had the tears started? All she knew was that the cold inside her was retreating, tickling, prickling, and hurting, like when you walked into the warm after the cold. “You can’t have.”
“Maybe it was better this way, because I wasn’t any good for you then. I wasn’t even any good for you when you dropped your dress in my hands and strutted your hot ass away from me. Only I quit fighting it then.”
“I didn’t strut.”
“Babe!” He chuckled. “You worked it. And it slayed me. All this time I’ve been pushing you away, telling both of us I’m not the right man for you, when all along it turns out I was only being a coward.”
She so wanted to believe him, but she held back. Doubting. Not trusting herself to know what was good for her. Bella shook her head. He needed to stop saying this stuff to her.
Nate cupped her cheeks in his rough palms and she had no choice but to look at him. “Yes, Bella. I was scared and uncertain and running away from you. I hurt you in the process and I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you for that. But when I saw you in that room, it all became clear. I didn’t realize I loved you at that moment; I just realized I’d been dicking around for so long, it had almost cost me you.”
“I can’t.” Couldn’t so many things.
Nate nodded slowly, his beautiful eyes sad. “I understand. I pushed you away for so long, and then Adam. You’re not ready.”
“I may never be ready.”
“I’ll take that chance.” He kissed her, softly and undemandingly. “Because if there’s even a possibility you’ll change your mind and trust me with you, it’s worth it.”
* * *
“Darling!” Bella held the phone away from her ear as Phi bellowed down the line.
“Hey, Phi.” All day she’d been hiding in her house, but that hadn’t prevented Nate’s words from last night following her from room to room. Try as she might, the detachment kept evading her. She felt sad and mad and scared and hopeless—and then hopeful, and then it started all over again. She’d even caught herself with a smile on her face as she read a text from Nate.
“Now listen, darling,” Phi yelled. “Pippa and I are engaged in a brouhaha.”
“Oh yes.” Bella braced for where Phi went next. The word brouhaha brought that smile creeping back.
“Pippa is being stubborn,” Phi said. “Not there, Mathieu. How will I get the fur rug underneath that? Sorry, Bella.” Phi took a deep breath. “Mathieu has no sense of style.”
“Where are you?”
“At your wonderful little shop, of course, darling.” Phi chuckled. “Tomorrow night is your grand opening after all, and we have so much to do.”
Excitement tried to wriggle through, but she stamped on it. “Listen, Phi, about that—”
“That’s why I’m calling,” Phi said. “Pippa keeps trying to interfere with my decorating scheme. I need you to tell her that the purple will be divine.”
Bella went a bit light-headed. “Purple?”
“Yes, purple with gold accents because one color is so blah. Darling, it’s sublime.” Phi sighed. “The shop is so dreary with all this cream. The purple is just the thing to make it pop.”
Facing the annihilation of her elegant, understated décor she’d chosen to showcase the clothing, Bella had to sit down. Surely Pippa wouldn’t let Phi do it. “Why must it pop?”
“Because, darling, we need some more drama in here. Just a moment,” Phi yelled on her end. “Drape the gold lamé in great swaths, Mathieu. Swaths! I’m back,” Phi said. “I know you’re going to love it. Anyway, see you tomorrow, darling. Make sure you wear something purple to match the decorations.”
Bella stared at the dead phone in her hand. She should leave them to do what they wanted. She hadn’t sent any invitations, set the date, nothing. They could just carry on.
Purple? Purple!
Dear God.
Bella snatched up her keys. Damn it, she didn’t want to do this. But, even more, she didn’t want Phi turning her store into a purple hell.
Annoyed at herself, she drove too fast to the store. Part of her hoped Nate would pull her over for speeding and she could vent some of her ire on him.
Foiled when she arrived uncontested, she marched into the store with her pissed-off flag flying high.
“Oh, hello, darling.” Phi waggled her nails at her. “Nice . . . um . . . sweatpants.”
Okay, she could have changed the sweatpants and food-stained T-shirt, especially with everyone staring at her. But, holy crap, the store looked amazing and there wasn’t a trace of purple anywhere. Wood floors, crystal chandeliers, taupe silk curtains for the fitting rooms, walls painted a warm off-white. Garments in jewel-bright splendor framed by the discreet elegance all around them.
“Well?” Pippa strolled over to her and flung an arm about her shoulder. “What do you think?”
“It looks amazing.”
“I know.” Pippa jostled her. “My honey did good by you.”
Her store. Bella ran her fingertips over the smooth finish of the wooden service desk. “He sure did.”
This was her store. Not the candy-pink nightmare she’d babied along for years now. Her dream had come to life. Something trickled through her that felt a lot like anticipation, with a touch of pride. She’d done this. Along with a lot of help.
Matt stood beside Pippa, his gaze keen on her.
“It’s perfect,” she said. She didn’t have any other words, only a hard knot of emotion stuck in her throat. While she’d been recovering, her friends had completed her vision for her. “It’s exactly as I imagined it.”
“So . . .” Nana stomped into the store. “Are you happy now?”
Happy? Seemed like an odd concept, but standing in her store with her friends all beaming at her, she came perilously close, so she nodded.
“How much did this cost us?” Nana fingered the silk drapery.
“Me,” Bella said. “It’s costing me. Not us.”
“Huh!” Nana drifted over to a rack of dresses and flipped through them. “These aren’t bad.”
“Not bad?” Pippa snorted. “You’re looking at dress magic right there.”
“Did I get it right?” Liz appeared in the doorway to the storeroom. She indicated her sprayed-on skinny jeans and bedazzled sweater. “Because I’m not exactly the best person to be ordering for you.”
Bella flipped through the hangers. Liz had done great. More than great. “You nailed it.”
Liz grinned and fanned her face. “Whew! Because it scared the shit out of me to do those orders. Mainly, I ordered stuff I thought would make me look old.”
Noel arrived clutching two champagne bottles. He looked at Liz first. “Did she like it?”
“She liked it.” Liz winked at Bella.
“Good.” Noel gave his shy smile. “Then let’s all have a drink to celebrate.”