I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. People were going to be in my house in a matter of hours, surveying, planning, working up an estimate and then getting started right away because I didn’t give a rat’s ass what the price was. Grabbing the few boxes I’d gotten on my own, I spent what was left of the evening packing up my bathroom, the personal drawers in my bedroom nightstand, and the junk drawers in the kitchen. Because the thought of strangers rummaging through hemorrhoid cream and douches, finding my dead gadget, and judging me on the quantity of old chargers, paper clips, and bite-sized Snickers in my junk drawer was just too much to bear.
Yeah, that was it. That was all that was bothering me. Being shoved out of my home was enough. It had to be enough. I didn’t have room in my head for the utter clusterfuckery of swirling emotion and physical frustration that now had a name besides Hot Guy. A name that in all the millions of people in the world, just had to be that one.
I sure could pick ’em.
At seven o’clock, my stomach was rumbling and coffee was no longer cutting it. There was nothing left in the fridge—a fridge I was leaving behind because I hated it and somehow that felt like I was sticking it to someone—and the cheese dip was gone. I had no bread, and all my snack food was already at the apartment. The moving organizer would be there in an hour. I surveyed my current status of faded T-shirt, cutoff sweatpants, and slippers, and made a snap decision.
Ten minutes and a bra and shoe change later, I was exiting the bakery drive-through with a dozen mixed donuts, justifying it as carb-loading. It was feasible.
The morning was brisk but not freezing. The sky was bright. It was so deceiving. It didn’t look like the kind of day that destroys worlds. Taking a detour by the park, the water from the pond sparkled and called to me. Suddenly, taking a few minutes of me time for donuts by the water sounded like a fabulous idea.
I parked, grabbed my hoodie from the back seat, hugged my breakfast box to my chest, and began my trek down to the water’s edge. Halfway there, the breeze picked up my hair and blew a draft up the open legs of my cutoffs. Okay, maybe it was a bit colder than I thought it was, and the wet grass that crunched under my sneakers didn’t appear to be a welcoming place to sit down. The gazebo that the town built over last summer and fall loomed to my right, and would probably be dry, so I veered off that direction.
Fail. It was wet, too, as was the pavilion.
I sighed, and my mouth watered as the warm doughy sweet smell wafted from the box I was hugging. The park wasn’t meant to be, I guess, but these babies certainly were. To heck with all this, I could eat them at home from the comfort of my soft, warm couch, if they even lasted the drive.
Just as I turned to head back to my car, however, a movement caught my eye off to the left. I did a double take as an old man in an expensive suit and a fancy cane made the far corner of the gazebo and sat on one of the steps.
“Oh, wait, it’s wet!” I called out, not wanting him to ruin his suit.
It was too late, as the man struggled down and landed, but he waved a hand as if it were an insignificant detail.
“Of no consequence,” he said, giving me a sideways look. “You aren’t cold in those pants?”
Did my shivering give it away?
“Yes, I didn’t think it through very well, I’m afraid,” I said on a laugh. “My need for something bad for me blinded me to everything else.” I turned to walk away, but my mom would have slapped me upside the head, so I held out the box. “Would you like one?”
The old gentleman laughed and shook his head. “No thank you, Miss Graham. I’m afraid I can’t eat those things anymore.”
I started to ask him why, when I realized he’d used my name.
“I’m sorry, have we met?” I asked, immediately realizing in that moment who he had to be. “Oh my gosh, are you Mr. Bailey?”
“Guilty as charged,” he said holding up two fingers in a Scout’s Honor pose. He changed it to a full hand to stop me when I moved forward to shake his hand. “That’s okay, I don’t shake hands if I can help it.”
I stopped short. “Oh, okay. You’re afraid of catching something?”
He chuckled and ran a gnarled hand over the knob of his cane.
“More of the other direction,” he said, then dismissing it by adding, “How is the field coming along?”
“Well, it’s January,” I said. “So it’s hard to say what production will be like, but we’ve prepped and fed and fertilized the soil and planned out the grid, so we’ll start planting late next month and I’m hopeful we’ll have a bumper crop in the spring.”
My mind was bouncing, I knew that. I was babbling, hoping to impress my benefactor, but how did he know who I was from just seeing paperwork? Maybe he had me investigated first. Maybe he had an office with photos of all his colleagues like a stalking serial killer. Or maybe I just needed to eat my box of sugar and chill the hell out.
“I never got the chance to thank you, by the way,” I said. “You gave me more than you know, taking a chance like that on me. Funding Wild Things and giving it a chance. You could have gone ahead with your leveling and made a bunch of townhomes and a lot more money.”
“Ah, I have enough money,” he said, giving a little finger flourish on the head of his cane. “And I know a good idea when I hear one.”
“Well, still,” I said. “I appreciate it.” I glanced around. “So—why are you…”
“Sitting in the park on a Saturday morning?” he finished, raising his look to me. Suddenly, there was nothing old about him. The drooping, wrinkled skin around his eyes was a farce in comparison to the razor sharpness of his gaze. He lifted a finger again in a sort of shrug gesture. “Why are you here?”
“Because I’m putting off going home,” I said. I hadn’t realized that until I said it, but there it was.
He raised an eyebrow. “Something bad there?”
I gave a smile I didn’t feel. “About to be.”
There was a little pause as he folded both hands on top of the cane. “Are you a spiritual person, Miss Graham?”
That was an odd question.
“I—think so,” I said. “I don’t really go to church, if that’s what you mean, but God and I kind of have a thing.”
Or we did. Lately, I’d felt like we were on a break from each other.
Mr. Bailey tilted his head. “I was never one for buildings, myself. Pretentious things with colorful windows and money plates—that’s human religion, not spirituality.”
I nodded. “Very true.”
“It can be anywhere,” he said.
“It can,” I agreed, still nodding, wondering where this ramble was going.
“Like a park,” he said. “Or a house. A car you can’t get into. Pain, betrayal, jealousy. The empty space inside you. A hearty laugh with a friend. Bad and good, life is spiritual.”
My nodding ceased with my lack of words. My right hand left the donut box to rest over my empty belly, my eyes burning, my heart jumping around like a ping-pong ball.
“Don’t give up on what you want,” he said, pushing slowly to his feet. I stepped forward to help, but up went the hand again. Standing completely erect, he raised his chin. “Have faith, Miss Graham.”
With a flick of his cane, I was dismissed, and he turned to amble slowly away, toward the Lucky Charm and the boardwalk surrounding the pond bearing his name. To where? One of the rowboats? I couldn’t imagine him rowing himself back across the pond to the woods, but then I didn’t see this entire conversation happening, either.
“I’m delusional,” I said under my breath, walking back to my car feeling more than a little shaky and not because of the cold. How could he have known the things he said? Was it just coincidental generalities I was reading into? “Good Lord, I’m having loony conversations with eccentric old men in the park now.” I glanced back over my shoulder, and he was nowhere to be found. “Yeah, not creepy at all.”
* * * *
It all happened so fast.
They came, they planned, they kicked its ass like Tasmanian Devils with packing tape. All around me was a whirlwind of markers and lists, and when it was done, I was left with stacks of perfectly organized boxes, numbered and scanned, with an app on my phone telling me where everything was. By Sunday morning, they were back to do the heavy hauling, moving my furniture and unneeded boxes to a storage facility, while transporting the ones I needed to live my meager existence to the apartment.
In less than a weekend, the house I’d called home for almost ten years was stripped of me, of Bart, of all the things that made it my haven.
Familiar voices filled my soon-not-to-be front doorway, as the last of my furniture exited, and I turned to see Micah stroll in, a painter’s cap on her head and a patchwork scarf around her neck, Thatcher following behind her. My heart filled with both gratitude and panic as she wrapped her arms around me in a giant hug, while I looked up into Thatcher’s face.
He stood there like a beautiful statue of comfort, worn jeans hugging his bottom half and a just-as-worn soft gray sweatshirt pushed up on the arms. His eyes took in my empty living room, devoid of any décor or life, and he let out a sigh as he looked back at me. Like he was trying to comfort me without touch. Give me something that Micah wouldn’t see.
“Y’all,” I said, pulling back and blinking back tears before they took over. “You didn’t have to come check on me. I’ve got this handled. Or—they’ve got this handled. All I do is point and throw random things in boxes and fill trash bags with stuff I’m getting rid of.”
“And I can help you do that,” Micah said. “I was coming anyway, but Thatcher showed up at my door insisting I bring him.”
The look shut down, as the walls went up.
“It’s what friends do,” he said, throwing a quick wink.
And boom, I was back in that apartment, hands and lips all over him, my fingers wound up in his hair as he mock-fucked me against the door. Heat flooded my face, and I averted my focus to a nonexistent piece of something on the bar before Micah started asking me about hot flashes.
“Feeling better?” I asked her.
“Much,” she said. “No more pizza for me for the foreseeable future.”
“Did Jackson make it home okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Micah said, frowning at Thatcher then back at me. “Oh, were you still there when he bolted?”
“I was—um—yes,” I stammered. “I had just gotten both boys settled in and was about to leave myself when Jackson decided to take off,” I said with a smile.
I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at him. My body was doing enough reacting as it was.
“Well, he was fine,” Micah said. “but it was stupid. If I would have been there, I’d have made sure he didn’t leave,” she said with a pointed look at Thatcher.
“I tried,” he said, giving her the same look. “But you know what? I’m done babysitting. If he wants to jack up his life, that’s on him. Strings are cut.”
“Yeah right,” Micah muttered. “Like strings are ever cut with you. Anyway, look!”
She held up her left hand and clamped her mouth closed, nearly bouncing on her toes.
“Yes, please look,” Thatcher said, moving closer, his voice rolling over me like sweet warm honey and sending my heart rate into spasms. “I’ve hit my quota of squealing with her.”
“Oh, Micah,” I breathed. It was square cut and surrounded by tiny deep blue sapphires, in an antiqued setting. Different and gorgeous and as unique and beautiful as she was. “It’s stunning.”
“I know,” she squeaked. “Oh my God, when I finally stopped puking, I totally rocked his world.”
“Too much information, thank you,” Thatcher said.
Lord, if she only knew what had gone down in the apartment I still hadn’t been back to, it would have been way too much information for her. Right now, standing this close to him, remembering his touch and his heat and his mouth, it was nearly too much for me.
“Sorry,” she said, flipping a hand his way. “So, what still needs doing? We’re here to help.”
“Nothing, really,” I said, turning in a circle. I had on leggings and a T-shirt and a long flowy jacket that I felt like I could hide inside. Which I needed very much today. “I’ve been back and forth to the storage unit to give them access. Mom and Drew are at the shop letting them in the apartment and Mom’s probably overseeing like a sergeant.” I pointed at the door where they’d come in. “That was the last of the furniture, and all I have is my personal last-minute suitcase to throw in my car, and do the final walk-through…”
The last words choked in my throat, and I turned to clear it. Micah threw her arms around my shoulders from behind and hugged me.
“You’ve got this,” she said. “And you’re not alone. Not ever.”
I chuckled through the tears that burned my eyes. “Don’t I know it,” I said. “My mother is now going to be cleaning my bathroom.”
Micah laughed in my ear and we swayed back and forth for a minute.
“Okay, let’s do this,” she said, swiping under her own eyes. “Let’s go pack up your suitcase.”
We did that. Thatcher walked around with the movers to make sure all was gotten, and then grabbed a broom from the corner and swept up. I watched him from the corner of my eye as Micah chatted about randomness, not really hearing her. He was breathtaking. And not just in the physical way, although obviously there was that. He was heart palpitating. But also, he was just—so damn solid. Normal. Dependable. Real.
That word kicked around in my head for an uncomfortably long series of moments before I pushed it away into the nether regions of my brain. Thatcher Roman may be real, but he was also forbidden fruit. I couldn’t have him, no matter how amazing things felt when we were together, and no matter how much the universe seemed hell-bent on putting super magnets in our paths. Everywhere I turned, he was there.
I blinked when suddenly he truly was there. Standing over where I knelt by my suitcase, duffel bag, and wallet, holding a piece of paper in his hand.
“They need you to meet them at the storage place,” he said, “to close it up and all and sign this saying you’re good with everything.”
I stood and took the paper with its cold black letters formed into words and numbers, folding it into quarters and tucking it into my wallet.
“They’ll email you the final,” he said.
“Okay, thanks,” I said over the growing boulder in my throat.
Micah came in from the back hall and I smiled the best I could. I needed them gone. I had to do this. I had to walk through each room and tell it goodbye, and I was going to break, I could feel it pressing down on me. The last thing I needed on top of that was their pity and Thatcher witnessing my impending ugly cry.
“Y’all can go,” I said. “I just have to check everything over real quick and meet the movers, and then I’ll be—over there.”
“Why don’t we bring these,” Micah said, grabbing the suitcase and bag. “I’ll drop them off at the apartment, and see if your mom needs a break or anything.”
“Thank you, that’s sweet,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Thatch, I’ll drop you at the house, you don’t—” Micah began.
“I’m gonna stay and ride over with Gabi,” he said. “Go ahead.”
What?
The question was on her face, too.
“What? Why?” I asked, hoping that didn’t sound too panicked.
“Because I’m not going to leave a woman here alone in a vacant house, at the mercy of anyone who might be paying attention,” he said.
“Really, I’m okay,” I said.
“Really, it’s not up for discussion,” he said.
His tone said he was serious, his expression agreed, and even Micah shrugged and gave me a this-is-how-he-is look.
“Can’t argue with this one once he gets set on something,” she said. “And he already has that taste of the big protector-slash-fake-boyfriend going from the other night at Rojo’s,” she added with an elbow nudge at him. “So, you may as well let him go with it.”
“Fine,” I muttered. “I just—”
“Let’s start with the kitchen,” he said.
Micah left with my stuff, and I walked slowly through each room, checking cabinets, closets, the built-in drawers, the back patio, my bedroom and bath, what had been my craft room and storage, and finally the extra bedroom I put off till last that had always been earmarked for a child since we’d bought the place. The one I’d fantasized decorating as a nursery so many millions of times.
I’d held it together so far, as we made small talk throughout the spaces, but here I went quiet, and he seemed to intuit why.
“If you want to go check the backyard one more time,” I said, one hand on the doorframe, “I’ll meet you up front.”
Please give me a minute, my thoughts cried. Please.
“I’ll be right back,” he said after a pause.
I nodded and took a long, deep, relieved breath as I walked in and the quiet surrounded me. It had always been me and my future baby in that room. When we bought it, I had starry-eyed dreams of where the crib would go. Where the rocker would go—the one we’d of course find in an antique place and refinish and give a new home. When we started actively trying, I’d sometimes come have my morning coffee on the little love seat I had in there, and imagine him or her playing on the floor or reading a story in my lap.
It was the room of dreams, until it was the room that hurt to look at, then it was the room that shall not be opened for a while until it became the room of all the crap. It was easier to ignore what it was if it was stuffed to the gills with useless things I didn’t want to see.
Now, however, it was hard to look around at the original emptiness and not see the promise of dreams come true that Bart and I imagined all those years ago. I ran my finger along the wall, and my walls crumbled.
Suddenly, it was too much. I pressed my palms against the window frame and choked on the loss. Parenthood. My marriage. My home. The very fucking floor beneath my feet. The sobs snatched at my breath as I blinked hot tears free and tried to focus on the little stunted pecan tree in the backyard that never could quite catch a break. I knew how it felt. I hated the poor pitiful me feeling that washed over me, but in that moment it was winning. It was suffocating me.
Strong arms wound around my middle from behind, just as my knees gave up the fight.
“No!” I gasped, stiffening. I choked on another round of tears. “No, I can’t do this!”
“Yes, you can,” he said, his voice soft above my ear as he held me tightly against him. “It’s okay, let it go.”
“No,” I repeated, shaking my head.
“Gabi—”
“He wins!” I yelled, spinning on him so we were face-to-face, my voice going hoarse and disappearing into sobs that threatened to swallow me whole. “If I give in—if I—let myself feel this—” I cried, hiccupping through the words, “then he wins.”
His image swam before me in a sea of hot tears. Big, strong, wanting to fix this. Wanting to protect me. Wanting to shield me. I didn’t need shielding. I didn’t need him. I pushed back, out of his arms, and he didn’t fight me.
“Letting him turn you inside out by holding it all in is giving him the victory, Gabi,” Thatcher said, keeping the new space between us. “Get rid of the poison he left you with. Get mad, scream, give it hell, do whatever you have to do.”
I wrapped my arms around my own middle, wishing that could hold it all in, that I could reel it back to the point before I lost control and lock it back down. It was out and wild and free, however, like a live water hose under pressure.
“Screaming won’t—solve anything,” I choked out, hating the lack of control in my jerky breathing.
“You’d be surprised,” he said.
“Just—just go,” I whispered, closing my eyes as a fresh wave of tears came out, accompanied by a feeling of loss so overwhelming it was hard to breathe through it. “Please, Thatcher, just let me—get myself—together, and—”
“Scream.”
He leaned forward and said it into my face.
“No.”
“Do it, Gabi,” he said under his breath, his eyes hard and focused on mine.
“Stop it!” I yelled.
“You getting mad?” he said, his face closer, taunting me.
“At you!” I yelled again. “Leave me alone!”
“Quit giving him the power,” Thatcher said. “Tell him what you think!”
“Stop!” I cried, pushing at his shoulder.
“Scream.”
“Shut the fuck up!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
“There you go,” he said, his eyes flashing, moving into my space. It felt like he was using up all the air, I couldn’t grab a full breath. “Do it—”
“Shut up!” I screamed. “Shut up! Just go to—” I wanted to tell him to go to hell, to leave me alone, to get the eff out of my house, but the sheer agony of saying my house would have put me in the ground right about then. The torture of it all washed over me like an acid bath, choking me, contracting my stomach, stealing my words, stealing my breath, and all I could do was let out a scream of frustration. Over and over, I shrieked and wailed, my fists curled tight over my eyes, sinking back against the wall and sliding down it.
I gasped for air as wave after wave of pain wrenched at my chest, my gut, my heart. I hadn’t done this. In all the time after we found out I was sterile, after Bart cheated on me, left, even after the divorce—I’d cried, but not like this. Not pull-my-soul-out-and-stomp-on-it ugly crying like this. This was down and dirty, snot inducing, eyes puffed out like an alien kind of activity, and now that the flood gates had been opened, it was on.
“I—can’t—I—can’t—” I sobbed, gulping for air.
“I’ve got you,” Thatcher said, sitting next to me and pulling me into his lap.
“I wanted it more than he did,” I said, my breaths hitching. “He got over it faster when we were told I couldn’t. Said it didn’t matter.” I drew in a shaky breath and sobbed it back out. “Then he gave me up for that—crotch rocket, and now—she’s giving him—” The rage that flooded my veins stole the oxygen from my lungs and I gulped more in. “He’s getting it anyway,” I wailed. “He destroyed me, and there are no consequences.”
One hand stayed around my middle while the other one stroked my hair, and all I could do was unload every emotion I’d ever had since what felt like the beginning of time.
Eventually, I had to dry up. The law of nature said that I had to run out of water, and after what felt like days, I finally did. Left to whimper and try to open my very swollen eyes, I was down to the little hiccup residual gasps, as spent and exhausted as if I’d just run a twenty-mile course. With leg weights. Dragging sandbags.
Thatcher never faltered and never spoke, holding me against him and letting me cry, his fingers combing through my hair. He felt solid and warm, loving and sexy and oh so real, and I didn’t even have the energy to panic about that.
“Thank you,” I said finally, my voice husky and croaky.
He squeezed me tighter against his chest and kissed my hair.
“No place else I’d rather be,” he said.
I chuckled, sounding like a strangled pig. “You live on the wild side.”
“Feel better?” he asked, his words warm against my hair.
“Oddly, yes,” I sniffed. “How did you know to do that?”
“I’ve been there,” he said. “I’ve been left. Waylaid. Had my pride ripped away.”
“I can’t imagine you screaming,” I said, trying to clear my throat.
He took a deep breath and let it go. “There was some yelling,” he said. “My version might have included punching things.”
“Ah.” I tried to do facial repair, but there was no hope for redemption. I tucked my face against the softness of his sweatshirt, and closed my eyes as I breathed in his smell. An aroma I’d only just learned two days ago but would know now in my sleep.
“Can I ask you something?” he asked.
I groaned. “I don’t know. Will it break me again?”
“It might.”
I took a deep, shaky breath and let it go. “Okay, shoot.”
“This would have been your nursery, wouldn’t it?”
I shut my eyes and counted to five, breathing him in to stay calm.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his lips against my hair.
“It is what it is,” I said, even though those words had always felt empty to me.
“I kind of understand that pain,” he said. “Not for the same reasons, but Misty—my ex-wife—she played me on that. Said she wanted kids, too, but never stopped taking birth control.”
I sighed. Women who didn’t know how lucky they were just pissed me off.
“Oh, man.”
“Yeah, it was a big blow up when I found out, and she confessed to not wanting a family—” He stopped short as if that was still a hot wound, and I reached up to squeeze the arm that was holding me. “That was hard for me for a really long time, so I can only imagine what it’s been like for you. He didn’t destroy you, Gabi. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. Stubbornly, obnoxiously so.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. I moved my fingers along his arm, not believing I’d let my guard down like that with him, surprised at how easy it felt, with how good this was. Like I could live right here in this man’s arms. “Today, I wouldn’t be able to say no to you, Thatcher.”
Thatcher’s hands moved in my hair and around my waist, hugging me to him again. His lips were soft against my temple.
“Today, I wouldn’t ask.”