They stayed there like that for a long time, the room growing darker before he finally withdrew from her and moved onto his back, bringing her with him. She wanted to curl up to him, to wallow in the heat and comfort of him next to her, but it was time to tell him about the trip. Preparations had to be made by both of them to be ready to leave at six in the morning. She couldn’t wait any longer.
Kissing his chest, she said, “Let me up for a minute.”
“As long as you come right back.”
“I’ll come right back.”
He kissed her lips before letting her go. “Hurry up.”
“Always in such a hurry.”
“Only when you’re around.”
Her heart pounding with excitement, she used the bathroom and then went to find the packet she’d printed at work the day before. “Here goes nothing,” she whispered as she returned to the bedroom. Before getting back into bed, she turned on the bedside lamp.
Gavin winced from the sudden onset of light. He blinked her into focus. “What’ve you got there?”
“Your surprise.”
“Oh, I’d almost forgot about that.” He raised himself up on one elbow. “What is it?”
“Before I tell you, I want you to know that I did this for you because I think you’ll enjoy it and I want you to be happy. I hope you’ll like it.”
“I’m beyond curious.”
Her mouth was suddenly dry as she handed over the packet of papers that included plane tickets, pictures from the resort and information about their reservation.
He opened it, looked it over and then glanced at her, his jaw tight with tension. “What is this, El?”
“It’s a trip to Dylan’s wedding, all paid for and arranged. We leave in the morning.”
“You . . . You set this all up?”
“I did,” she said, swallowing hard. “And don’t worry about work. Your dad talked to Clinton, and he’s more than happy to cover for you next week so you can get away.”
“My parents know about this, too?”
She nodded. “So does Dylan. He was very excited about it and said to tell you how much it’ll mean to him to have you there for his wedding.” As she spoke, she couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t seem happy about the surprise. He seemed . . . less than pleased.
“I can’t believe you did this.”
“I thought it would be fun to get away from it all for a week, to go to your friend’s wedding—”
“I can’t go, Ella. There’s no way I can go.”
“What do you mean? I just told you, work is covered—”
“It’s not covered.” He got up out of bed and pulled on his underwear and then rested his hands on his hips. “Clinton is great, but he’s never been left in charge before. I can’t just walk away from my responsibilities for a week because you think it would be fun.”
“Gavin, let’s talk about it—”
“I’m really sorry. It was nice of you to do this and to think of me this way, but I can’t do it.”
“You’re closed down for the weekend. You could come for a few days. Surely your business wouldn’t fall apart if you missed a couple of days. I’m missing one of the biggest weeks of the year in the store, and it’ll be fine.”
“Because you have people to cover for you. I don’t have that.”
“Yes, you do!”
“So two weeks together and suddenly you know my business better than I do? Wow. That’s one hell of an accomplishment.” He turned away from her and went into the other room.
Frantic to salvage this disaster, Ella scrambled out of bed and pulled on a robe before following him into the living room, where he was getting dressed. She was shocked to see him getting ready to leave. “What’re you doing? Where’re you going?”
“I’m going home. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we both knew I would eventually, so it’s better that it happen sooner rather than later. You deserve someone who could receive an amazing gift like this with grace and appreciation. I’m not that guy.”
“Would you please stop and just talk to me? Tell me what’s really going on here.”
“I did tell you, but you don’t believe me when I say I can’t be away from work.”
“Okay, so we won’t go.”
“You should go. You spent all that money. You shouldn’t let it go to waste.”
“Go without you? To your friend’s wedding?”
“He’s your friend, too. You and your brothers and Hannah have known him for years.”
“Gavin, you’re being crazy. Why would I go to Dylan’s wedding without you?”
“Because you’ll be out all that money if you don’t go.”
“Please stay and talk to me.”
“What’s there to talk about? You’ve always wanted more from me than I’m able to give. This is the proof.”
“So that’s it? It’s over? Just like that? Because I tried to do something nice for you?”
“No, because you’re too good for me. You deserve better.”
“Gavin, I swear to God, if you walk out that door, don’t come back. You won’t be welcome.”
“I’m sorry, Ella. You’ll never know how sorry I am that I couldn’t make this work.”
With those words, he walked out the door, closing it behind him. As the lock clicked into place, Ella stared at the door, riveted by the memory of making love with him there. Her eyes filled with tears that she barely registered.
“What the hell just happened here?” It defied explanation. It defied belief. Never in her worst nightmares had she expected the reaction she’d gotten from him. She’d expected that he might be a little tense about work, but she’d thought that perhaps he’d call Clinton and go over everything with him and at least try to make it work.
But he hadn’t done that. He’d just said thanks but no thanks and then left. She couldn’t believe he’d actually left. There had to be more to this than work. But what was it and why wouldn’t he tell her rather than end a relationship that was making them both happy over a trip no one was going to force him to take?
It didn’t make sense. It didn’t add up.
Ella stared at the door for a long, long time before she turned and went into the kitchen to call his mother.
Gavin’s hands were shaking so badly he could barely drive. God, what had he done? It would be a very long time, if ever, before he forgot the shattered expression on her lovely face. He was a heartless bastard for letting this happen in the first place. That was where he’d made his first mistake.
The time with her had been amazing—the best days of his life—but all along he’d been waiting to fuck it up. He’d known he would. He couldn’t tell her why he didn’t want to go to the wedding. He’d never told anyone why he’d taken a step back from his brother’s friends after Caleb died.
How could anyone understand what he barely understood himself?
No, he’d done the right thing. He kept telling himself that over and over again on the lonely, dark ride home. For a brief moment he thought about driving out of town to a place where no one knew him so he could get drunk in peace.
But he rejected that idea and headed home, where he had plenty of whiskey and could tie one on in the privacy of his own space.
He pulled up to the cabin and went inside where it was cold and dark. If only his fucking hands would stop shaking, he thought as he built up a fire in the woodstove. When his legs would no longer support him in a squat in front of the fireplace, he fell back to the floor, coming to rest against the sofa.
“What the fuck did I do?” Her face . . . that incredibly beautiful face and the way she’d stared at him as if he’d lost his mind . . . The memory of that would haunt him forever. How could he have done that to her? He couldn’t bear to think of the time, effort and expense she’d gone to in order to surprise him, only to have it spit back in her face because he was a pathetic loser who couldn’t find his way out of the swamp of grief and regret his life had become.
Leaving had been the right thing to do.
No, his heart cried out from its painful post inside his chest. It had not been the right thing to do. He’d barely survived one day and one night without her, and now he’d sentenced himself to the rest of his life without her all because he was too much of a coward to confront the truth?
“God, what did I do?” He sat on the floor and ran his fingers through his hair over and over again, wishing he had the courage to go back and face her, to try to explain, to make her see. But she’d told him he wouldn’t be welcome back if he left, and she’d meant it.
He’d finally pushed her too far. He’d finally managed to push her right out of his life.
A knock on the door brought him to his feet, his heart leaping in the hope that it might be her, that maybe she’d come after him one more time. But it wasn’t Ella. It was his dad, and he didn’t look happy.
“Let me in, Gavin.”
“This isn’t a good time, Dad.”
“I’m not leaving until I talk to you, so step aside and let me in.”
Gavin recognized that steely tone in the colonel’s voice and knew he was staring defeat in the face. He stepped aside. His dad walked into the house and went straight to the fridge, where he retrieved a beer. He held it up to ask Gavin if he wanted one.
Gavin shook his head. He wasn’t at all sure he could keep it down. “What’re you doing here anyway?”
“Ella called Mom.”
Gavin sighed, imagining that conversation.
His dad took a drink from his beer. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“You want the whole list or just the top ten?”
Bob put the beer down on the counter and ran his hand over his mouth. Gavin couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen his dad so agitated. Well, yes he could . . . He’d looked just like this on the worst day of their lives. Gavin felt a tinge of shame at having driven him to that state again.
“I’ve let this go on far longer than I should have,” Bob said in the tone he used to save for his sons when they tried to step out of line, which was usually every day.
“You’ve let what go on?”
“You and your bullshit. Do you know what it did to your mother to hear you’d gotten arrested in a bar fight at thirty-four years old?”
“Do you even know why I got arrested in a bar fight?” Gavin had never spoken about the incident with either of his parents. In fact, he’d harbored a tiny hope that they hadn’t heard about it.
“Does it matter?”
“It fucking mattered to me or it wouldn’t have happened. The guy I fought with said we wasted our time in Iraq.”
Bob blew out a deep breath, his shoulders sagging under the weight of his own grief. “I’m sorry. I would’ve hit him, too.”
“Despite what you think, I’m not out there looking for trouble.”
“And yet it keeps finding you anyway. How could you turn down Ella’s gift of the trip to the wedding? How could you do that to her, son? That girl loves you. Anyone can see that. Hell, even you have to see that.”
His heart ached so badly. It had only ever hurt that badly once before. Gavin rubbed his hand over his chest, wishing that were all it took to ease the ache. “I see it,” he said.
“Then why? Why would you do this to her?”
“I told her I couldn’t go to the wedding, and she did this anyway. I don’t know what she was hoping to accomplish.”
“She was hoping to blast your head out of your ass and get you back into the land of the living where you belong! Dylan is one of your best friends! He has been since you were in elementary school. He’s getting married. He wants you there. That’s where you ought to be. If I can see that and your mother can see it and Ella can see it, why in the name of God can’t you see it?”
“He’s not my friend. He was Caleb’s friend.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Gavin. Is that what this is about?”
Gavin had never, in all his life, heard Bob Guthrie drop the F word. That was enough to shock him so profoundly he could hardly recall the question his father had asked him. But then he remembered. “No, it’s not just that.”
“Those guys love you as much as they loved Caleb. Everyone can see that but you. Why is that?”
“He was the heart and soul. I was just along for the ride. I was always along for his ride.”
“That is so not true. You have no idea how important you were to him if you can say something so stupid. Without Gavin, there’s no Caleb. You gave him his swagger and made him into the badass he became by challenging him on every bit of bullshit that came out of his mouth from the second you could first talk. Your mother and I used to call you the ballast. You kept the ship from rolling over under the weight of his personality and his ego. You were the yin to his yang.”
Gavin had never heard these things before, and each revelation left him reeling.
“Nothing in my life has ever made me prouder than the deep friendship you two shared. You were more like twins than any twins I ever met. My very first thought upon hearing he’d been killed wasn’t for me or your mother or Hannah. It was for you. I simply couldn’t imagine one of you without the other.”
“Dad . . .” Gavin needed this to stop before he completely lost his shit. This was the last thing he could bear to face tonight after he’d already royally fucked things up with Ella.
“I’ve watched you wither away over these last few years, becoming a man who bears no resemblance whatsoever to who he was before that day. I’ve watched you bury yourself in your work to the exclusion of your friends and even your family at times. I’ve stood by and let you do your thing because who am I to say how you’re supposed to grieve your only sibling and closest friend? But I will not stand idly by and watch you sabotage your relationship with that lovely woman because you can’t get out of your own goddamned way. I won’t let you do it.”
“Too late,” Gavin said glumly. “I’ve already done it.”
“It’s never too late.”
“This time it might be.”
“You need to go over there and fix this, Gavin. If you think you’ve suffered over Caleb, you haven’t seen suffering until you lose the woman you love forever. How’s it going to feel to know she’s out there somewhere, married to someone else, having his babies and living her life with him while you’re still here mired in your own shit, wishing for something that’s never going to happen?”
The picture his father painted of Ella happily married to someone else scared the living hell out of him. It had been his greatest fear in all the months before they got together—that she would finally meet someone she liked better than him. “You think that’s what I’m doing? Sitting here wishing Caleb would come strolling in the door like he owns the place just like he used to?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, I’m not. I know he’s dead. I know he’s not coming back. I know Homer’s dead and Hannah’s remarried and you and Mom are up to your eyeballs in the inn and everything is going along swimmingly for everyone. I get it.”
“So you’re pissed off that everyone has moved on except for you? You honestly think your mom or me or Hannah will ever truly move on and get over what happened to him? If that’s what you think, you ought to spend a few nights at home so you can see how little sleep I get since my son died because he was stupid enough to follow in my footsteps.”
“Dad . . . That’s not true. He was doing exactly what he wanted to do.”
“Yes, he was, and I know that. I know it all the way down to my bone marrow. But guess what? It still hurts like a son of a bitch anyway. I miss him every damned day. I wake up every morning wondering how I’m supposed to get through another day without him out there somewhere, living his life. Sometimes I like to imagine what he’d be doing now. I always picture him with a bunch of kids trailing behind him, caught up in whatever magic he’d be creating that day.”
When Gavin raised his hand to his face, he realized it was wet with tears.
“And don’t think I can’t remember what an ornery son of a gun he could be, too. Most contrary person I ever knew. Half the time I wanted to knock his block off for being so mouthy and opinionated. The rest of the time I wanted to bow down in awe to him and you, the two amazing human beings your mother and I somehow managed to raise. The two of you together were the most perfect thing in my life, son. Watching you try to carry on without him has been the toughest part of this for me—and your mom.”
Gavin wiped his face, mortified to have broken down in front of his father but riveted by the things he’d said.
“Seeing you with Ella, seeing you happy again, your eyes sparkling with delight the way they used to when he was alive . . . I said to your mother after dinner the night you brought her over the first time that maybe here was someone who could fill at least part of the void, if not all of it.”
She had filled the void, and he was only just now realizing that.
“You can’t let her get away, Gavin,” Bob said, his tone considerably softer now. “You can’t. I honestly fear that if you do, you’ll never get over it.”
His father’s words landed like an arrow full of panic in the vicinity of his battered heart.
“I don’t want to go to that wedding.”
“Why not? And do not say because Dylan’s not your friend.”
“He is my friend.”
“Then why, Gavin? Why, why, why? I talked to Clinton. He was thrilled to be in on the surprise and promised he’d do everything he could to keep things running smoothly here while you’re gone. You have no good reason not to go.”
“I have a very good reason not to go.”
“But you’re not going to tell me what it is?”
“No.” If he told anyone, he would tell Ella. For some strange reason, he thought she might be the only one who would actually understand.
“That lovely young woman went to a lot of trouble and expense to do something nice for you. If you let that go to waste, if you walk away from her, you’re a fool.”
“I guess I’m a fool then.”
“I’m disappointed, Gavin, and I don’t toss that word around lightly.”
“I’m sorry to have disappointed you.”
“Just remember one thing . . . Nothing can’t be fixed. Nothing.”
Gavin didn’t argue with his father, who squeezed his shoulder on the way past him. Some things couldn’t be fixed, no matter how badly you might want to.
“I might be disappointed about this, but I always love you. I’d never want you to think otherwise.”
“Love you, too, Dad.”
After his father left, Gavin thought about what he’d said and realized that he had to try to make things right with Ella. He couldn’t leave it like this. Even if she never forgave him for not going on the trip, he had to at least try to explain why he couldn’t go. He grabbed his jacket and was out the door a minute later.