Chapter 14
Destiny
“Nothin’ dries as quick as a tear.”
~ Grandma Dixie
Twenty-eight days. That was how long it had been since I’d woken up in an empty, JJ-less bed. Six hundred and, hmmm, about seventy six hours since JJ had disappeared from my life…again. A month since I’d heard his voice, felt his touch, lost myself in his eyes.
He hadn’t called. He hadn’t texted. He hadn’t e-mailed, Facebooked, Twittered, Instagrammed, or SnapChatted.
He’d just left.
The sun still rose every morning and set every night, but my world had stopped spinning. The bank had turned down my loan application, but I felt numb to it. Not a tear had been shed after Mr. Crawford had given me the bad news. My lack of emotions went both ways, too. Bud had finally put air conditioning in at the Spoon, and I’d barely even smiled.
Over the last week or so, I’d started thinking that the night I’d spent with JJ was just a figment of my imagination. That I’d fallen asleep before I’d gone to the fireworks and woken up the next morning naked and sore because my dreams had been that realistic. It sounded crazy, but that honestly made more sense than the possibility that, after the night we’d shared, JJ had been able to walk away and not look back.
If he were the old JJ—the person who, up until he’d shown up at the Spoon a month ago, I’d believed him to be—then yes, sure, he could have done that. Heck, I would have expected him to. But not the JJ I’d gotten to know over the Fourth. Not the JJ who had dedicated songs to me. Not the JJ who had told me (with a borrowed line) that God had been showing off when He’d made me. Not the JJ who had whispered how much he loved my body, how good I felt, how good it felt to make love to me. And it hadn’t just been words. He’d spent the entire night proving it to me again and again.
Five times. That’s how many times we’d had sex. Or “made love,” as JJ had clarified when I’d referred to the act as anything else. Three times in bed, once in the hallway, and once in the shower. Each time had been better than the last. So, why? How could he have just gone back to his life and not even given me, given us, a second thought?
The stone beneath my tennis shoes was slippery as I walked up the steps to the wishing well in the middle of the town square. My soles squeaked loudly with each step I took, in sync with my chest rising and falling, as I attempted to catch my breath after my morning jog.
I was here to do my Monday morning wish ritual that had started on my way to school in first grade. I hadn’t studied for the spelling test, so my very first wishing well wish had been that I’d get a good grade, anyway. Which, shockingly, had happened—but not the way I’d expected.
When I’d gotten to school that day, our teacher had been out sick and the test had been postponed, so his absence had afforded me the time I’d needed to study.
For years, I’d carried around a guilt that felt like a backpack filled with bricks because I’d been convinced that I’d caused Mr. Hedges to get sick. That load had gotten a lot lighter, in high school, when I discovered that Mr. Hedges had quite a tendency to tie one on over the weekends and was notorious for taking sick days on Mondays.
Over the years, I had only wished for things that benefited myself a handful of times. Mainly, I used my wishes on the people I knew and loved. For five solid years in middle school and high school, every quarter that had splashed into the well had been for Cara—when she was first diagnosed, and then when she was fighting for her life.
But now she was officially in remission. Harmony was good. And Gram was doing great. So, today, I was going to selfishly use my wish for me.
The few times I had used my wish for personal things, they’d always worked out. But I thought part of the reason that might’ve been was that I was never very specific. My first wish had taught me a lesson. Things happen in ways you’d never expect them to. So I always got right down to the core of what I needed and simply asked for that.
I stood running my thumb over the ridges of my quarter as I stared at the still water of the well. Then I took a deep breath in a futile attempt to clear my cluttered mind and quiet my thoughts. Of course I wanted to wish for things to be different with JJ, but that ship had sailed. At this point, I just wanted to get through my day without constantly thinking of him and crying myself to sleep every night.
I wasn’t trying to obsess over him. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was just that, for the past month, every time I’d turned around, a different Briggs brother had been in my face. Except the one I’d wanted to be there, that is. At least one, usually two, would stop by during my shifts at the Spoon. Every shift. I saw them when I got to work, when I left work, and even on my evening runs.
I had started growing a little paranoid but calmed myself down by pointing out that Wishing Well was a small town and maybe it had always been that way and I just hadn’t noticed. There weren’t that many places to eat. And my evening runs were on fairly high-traffic (by Wishing Well standards) paths. So it was extremely plausible that these Briggs sightings were nothing new. It was just that, after the unfortunate events of the Fourth (yes, that was how I was mentally referring to my time with JJ), the Briggs brothers stuck out like sore thumbs to me because each one of them had something that reminded me of JJ. Trace and Travis had his smile. Sawyer had his eyes. Beau had his frame. Cooper had his voice. Jackson had his hands. And Wyatt had his nose.
There were just so many of them that they were impossible to avoid.
I blinked back emotion as my thoughts catalogued the similarities DNA had blessed—or cursed, depending on how you looked at it—the Briggs boys with, and tears filled my lower lids. When a single sad drop slipped down my cheek, I wiped away the physical proof that I seriously needed to get a grip. Hopefully, this wish would be the first step in that direction.
Sniffing, I straightened my shoulders with a renewed sense of determination. I was stronger than this. I wasn’t going to let one weekend, one perfect, mind-blowing, life-altering weekend derail my happiness or my life. So, if I couldn’t avoid the constant reminders of it, then I would focus on the only thing I had control over. Me and my reactions to them.
Closing my eyes, I whispered shakily, “I wish the raw pain and heart-breaking emptiness would go away.” Then I tossed my quarter into the well. I opened my eyes in time to watch it splash and ripple the serene surface of the water.
The tiny waves hypnotized me as I stared down at them. I lost track of time until a familiar, deep voice sounded behind me, snapping me back to the now.
“What’cha wish for?”
What the… No. Way.
My stomach dropped like a block of cement in a pond and my heart was suddenly lodged in my throat. I had to be hearin’ things. Rocking back on my heel, I shifted my weight and pivoted in a half circle. Lifting my head, I blinked twice as I tried to swallow past the large lump in my throat.
JJ Briggs was leaning against his truck, casual as could be, wearing the black Stetson I hadn’t seen on his head since before he’d left for college.
My lips, my limbs, and my brain went totally numb. Was I imagining this?
A cocky grin tipped his lips. “I bet I can make your wish come true, Pip.”
Pip. Nope. This was real. He’d never use that name in one of my fantasies.
“What are you doing here?” My voice was so small that it shocked me that it had traveled the short distance between us.
Holding up a single gold key on a silver key ring, he said, “Just picked up the key to my new house from Mrs. Jenson.”
Jan Jenson was the only realtor in Wishing Well, so it made sense that, if he’d picked up a key, it would be from her. But that didn’t come close to answering all the questions swimming in my head like sharks in a pool filled with chum.
“Your new house?” I was happy that my tone was stronger than it had been moments before.
“Yep. I’m moving home.” The smile that spread on his face was bigger than the Kool-Aid man’s.
Oh s-h-i-t.
My stomach flipped more times than a car rolling down Critter Peak.
“You’re what?” Clarification seemed like my only move in this emotional chess game.
“Moving home,” he repeated.
I opened my mouth, then shut it. Opened it again with every intention of speaking, but when I was unable to produce any sound closed it again. I was officially stunned.
JJ was standing in front of me. Live and in person. In Wishing Well.
Jefferson James Briggs was moving home.
Checkmate.