by Amy Knupp
Cole jerked his head toward his brother, met his eyes for the first time tonight, because what he said, that last bit…something about it resonated. Penetrated his thick skull. Rang fucking true.
Mason stood, tossed some bills on the counter, and grabbed his coat, then slapped Cole on the back. “It seems like Sierra could make the right guy pretty damn happy,” he said, then, “Don’t forget to text Mom,” and he turned and walked out the door.
There was no doubt in Cole’s mind that Sierra was the one woman who could make him pretty damn happy. He wanted to be the guy who could make her happy too, and he was starting to think maybe it was possible. Maybe it was time get past all his shit, enough to be the man she needed. Deserved.
Maybe, thanks to his brother, he could finally think his way through to that.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Four twenty-seven in the morning on Thanksgiving, or technically the day after, and Cole had yet to get a wink of sleep.
After Mason had left Sunshine’s, the crowd noise had become annoying instead of reassuring, and Cole had headed up to his apartment and his grumpy feline, who’d stalked Cole until he’d lain down in bed. The night was cold, with snow in the forecast, and Tito seemed to believe he was entitled to a share of Cole’s body heat.
The conversation with Mason had Cole drowning in thoughts, his mind spinning on topics he usually blocked out, hard topics. His dad, Sierra, his past, his fuckups, his future…
Four o’clock had been his tipping point. He’d been thinking about what Mason had said about their dad, about remembering the good stuff. Because Cole hadn’t ever done that, in the fifteen years since Harry North had died. And there was definitely good stuff. He’d felt compelled to crawl out of bed and throw on jeans, a sweatshirt, boots, and a coat, leave Tito snoozing on his pillow, and walk out of his apartment.
That had led him here, to an unassuming city park called Robins Park that was less than a mile from the house he’d grown up in. The park was surrounded on three and a half sides by houses, with a small parking lot on the fourth side that would hold half a dozen cars.
He climbed out of his truck, which he’d parked in the end spot, and looked out over the expanse of the park. There was the playground, the wading pool, the picnic shelter, the open field that was often used for soccer games, and the baseball diamond, none of which had changed much since he was a kid, with the exception of the playground. The baseball diamond was what had lured Cole out in the middle of this frigid night.
With a glance around at the surrounding houses to verify the entire world was asleep, he set off across the frozen grass. There wasn’t much to the diamond, and in fact, from the parking lot, it was easy to miss it altogether if you didn’t know it was there. There were no bleachers, no bases, no fences behind the plate or in the outfield. Just dirt patches in the appropriate places plus a bit of a pitcher’s mound. Rudimentary and not suitable for an official game, but good enough for a neighborhood pickup game.
None of that mattered. It hadn’t when he was seven years old and his dad had brought him here for his first father-son pitching lesson, and it didn’t matter now, because Cole was seeing it through seven-year-old eyes, when the field had seemed special, the distance between the mound and the plate—a rubber mat they’d brought with them—had seemed immense, and he’d been buzzing with importance and excitement and love for his father.
He strode to the mound and gazed off to the bare spot of dirt that served as home plate and the catcher’s box, overcome by nostalgia and memories. His eyes slid shut as he was engulfed by the past.
He could hear his dad’s voice, first on the mound with him—teaching him a beginner’s leg kick, gently pulling Cole back from his overzealous determination to do a full wind-up, explaining that would come later—and then from the plate, encouraging, coaching, praising, teaching, and catching for him. With a start, he realized he could recall his dad’s smell—a hint of aftershave beneath the mint of the gum his old man had chewed incessantly.
With his eyes still closed, the years washed away, and Cole remembered that summer day like it was yesterday. The heat of the sun on his arms, the smell of cut grass and mint, the distant sound of little kids playing on the playground at the opposite end of the park. His dad’s enthusiasm when Cole picked up the basics more quickly than expected. His encouragement, his patience, his pride. His love.
He’d always known his dad loved him. Had taken it for granted for sure. Even when Cole had gotten in trouble at school or at home, even when his dad had disciplined him, there’d never been any question about whether he was loved. And always, no matter how much of a shit Cole had been, there was forgiveness.
When he felt little bits of dampness on his face, Cole opened his eyes. It was snowing. The silent, gentle flakes started out sparse, but within a couple of minutes, they’d picked up in intensity. He looked up at the sky, and it was like a 3D optical illusion with all the flakes coming at him. He wasn’t a religious guy, but as he gazed upward, the concept of heaven crossed his mind, and he wondered if his dad was looking down at him.
He lay down on his back, right there on the nearly flat mound, his arms behind his head to cushion it, and felt it—a peace like he hadn’t known for ages, maybe hadn’t ever known. And he knew. There was no logic to it, but still, he knew—his dad was looking down at him, sending him a message. A dad’s love forgave, and he was forgiven.
Cole lay there, the snowflakes alighting on him like the gentlest kisses and then melting, and he soaked it in. The peace. The calm. The knowledge that he could stop hating himself for that one ugly argument. For everything in his past. Because it had nothing to do with today or tomorrow, unless he let it.
When he eventually sat up, still warm inside from the memory of his dad’s love, the ground around him was covered with a dusting of white, and the park had a magical feel to it. Pulling his legs into his chest, resting his arms on his knees, he breathed in the cold freshness of the air and felt invigorated by it. As if it infused him with the power to move forward, to let go of the bad stuff from his past.
He let out a low laugh at himself, realizing he’d always had that power but just hadn’t wanted to move on. Hadn’t wanted to let things go. He hadn’t had a big enough reason, a strong enough motivator.
He wanted a future with Sierra, wanted to be the man she wanted, needed, deserved. Up until now, he’d been fighting with that, telling himself that wasn’t him, but…it could be. He had some work to do, some truths to wrangle with, some actions to take. But he had two things now that he hadn’t had before—clarity and determination.
Now he just needed a plan.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The only thing black about the Friday after Thanksgiving for Sierra was her mood, and really, gray or blue was probably a better description of it.
No, she thought, there was still some black, some anger as well as melancholy and loneliness, because, when you got down to it, Cole was an idiot. He was stubborn and blind and too hard on himself and…
Dammit, she loved that idiot.
And thinking about him was doing her no good whatsoever.
She’d pushed her crew hard earlier in the week in order to enable them to take today off, but now that she’d had a full day looming over her with no family obligations, no work obligations, and nothing to do, she regretted it, for her sake. Her guys definitely deserved the extra time off, but it left her with too much time to think. That’s why, at five forty-five p.m. on a day that half the known universe took as a holiday, she was still tucked in her office at the Dunn & Lowell headquarters, her laptop on the table in front of her and the space heater purring a few feet away. Because, as Kennedy had pointed out, Sierra did love her job, and pathetically, that was all she had to focus on right now. She thought she deserved credit for making it until mid-afternoon before she’d hit the office. Now she was deep into get-stuff-done mode.
Good thing, too, as she needed to see if she could book about one mo
re project before Christmas now that they wouldn’t be involved in anything related to the Eldridge mansion. That meant upping the marketing efforts stat, and she and Kennedy had come up with a way to do that before she’d gone home last night. Sierra had just gotten off the phone with her radio ad rep, having increased her ad spend for the next ten days.
She also needed to get back to working on the first quarter of next year, filling up their schedule, as it was currently a little light on projects. Those would come, she knew, but she intended to do what she could to encourage them. Of particular interest to her was a bed-and-breakfast just outside of town that was looking for a gut job. Sierra had met with the owners a couple of days ago, had toured the property, and aimed to get the meat of the proposal down on paper this evening for her next meeting with them on Tuesday.
Not five minutes after she’d pulled up the photos of the property on her computer, she thought she heard a noise in the other room. But she’d locked the door when she’d come in, so she didn’t think too much about it, as it was probably the wind. There was a good two or three inches of snow on the ground, and the wind was on a tear.
When something tapped on the window right behind her, though, she nearly jumped through the ceiling. Because that wasn’t the wind. That noise sounded like it was made by a human.
Her heart racing, she stood, glanced around at the room as if it could tell her what to do. Her phone was in her pocket, and she pulled it out in case she needed to call the cops. The tapping came again, tink tink tink tink on the glass, and yeah, that was a person.
It was dark outside and she had the overhead light and a lamp on, so if she tried to look out the blinds, she would see nothing, and whoever was out there would see her clearly. After flipping the overhead light off, she went into the next room over, the darkened meeting room, and peeked between the blinds toward the area outside her office window. Sure enough, there was someone out there, and her mouth went dry and her grip tightened on her phone.
It was too dark to tell who it was or what they were doing, but what could they be doing other than trying to break in? Which would be stupid, because there wasn’t much of value in here. The workshop in back contained thousands of dollars of tools and equipment, but the priciest thing in here was probably the copy machine, and who wanted to steal one of those? She didn’t have a safe, didn’t deal in cash—
“Sierra!”
She let the blinds slip back together as she identified the male voice that sounded all too familiar. Or was she imagining it? Surely Cole wouldn’t—
“Sierra, it’s me. Let me in!” he yelled, still talking to the window in her office.
What the hell?
Apparently he would.
She didn’t know whether she wanted to kick him for scaring the crap out of her, yell at him for being an idiot in general, or calmly, quietly let him in and hear what the hell he wanted, as a tiny kernel of hope took root in her heart.
Instead of heading straight for the back door, she went to the window in the main room, on the opposite side of the building, and stole a glance out at the driveway. The sight of Cole’s familiar blue truck had her heart rate picking up yet again, no longer in fear. She hurried into the kitchen, dimly lit by the fixture over the sink, and to the side door. When she opened it, no one was there, and she vaguely heard him tapping on the window in the other room again.
Idiot.
“Cole!” she yelled into the brisk evening air, her breath clouding into vapor and the wind making her shiver. “Hello?”
Though she couldn’t see the back side of the building from the doorway, she could hear his footsteps crunching across the snow toward her.
“Hey,” he said as he came around the corner. “Finally.”
“What’s going on?” she asked, suddenly wondering if something bad had happened, if his mom—
“Can I come in?” He opened the storm door wider, his breath also coming out in visible puffs.
Sierra backed up to let him in, then walked farther into the kitchen to put space between them. Cole shut both doors and locked the heavy inside door, then leaned against it, shuddering from the cold.
“What are you doing here?” Sierra asked, crossing her arms over her chest as she tried to decipher his intentions. He didn’t seem like there was an emergency or bad news, though he definitely looked like he hadn’t been sleeping, based on the dark shadows under his eyes. Now that she looked at him fully in the light, though, she couldn’t help but notice that, under his winter coat, he was wearing something she’d never seen him wear before—khakis and a button-down shirt. And he had shaved recently, which made her fingers itch to touch his sandpapery jaw.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Why didn’t you text me instead of nearly giving me a heart attack?”
He grimaced. “Sorry about that. I went old-school, tried knocking on the door, but apparently you didn’t hear it.”
“I was kind of in my zone. What do you need to talk about? Why are you dressed like that?”
He stepped away from the door, came closer, and Sierra wanted to touch him so badly, to run her hands up his chest as if she hadn’t walked away from him a few days ago. To ensure she didn’t, she pushed off the counter and headed to her office, where she could sit with the table in between them.
Except when she got there, she couldn’t bring herself to sit. The heater was still pumping out blessed warm air, and she stood in front of it, letting it blow on her feet.
Cole sauntered in, pulled out the chair that used to be his usual one from the table, and instead of sitting on it, sat on the table itself.
“I knew I’d find you here,” he said. “Tried this first, even before your apartment.”
“Why?”
“Because I figured you’d be work—”
“I mean why did you track me down, Cole?” she said impatiently. Her nerves were stretched taut as he took his sweet time explaining himself.
He exhaled and looked suddenly nervous, flustered. She’d never seen him like this, not even at Kennedy’s wedding, when she knew he was uneasy and felt out of place.
“I’ve been thinking about everything you said Monday night,” he said. “Pretty much thinking about it nonstop since Monday. I was up all night, turning things over in my mind. Mason helped me realize some stuff and…” He shook his head. “Forget all that. Come over here.”
Sierra frowned. Her spot in front of the heater was only about four feet away from where he sat. She wasn’t sure she trusted herself to go closer.
“Please?” he said, and there was a plea in his eyes, along with something else, something she’d never seen on him before. An openness, as if he was laying himself bare.
That or she was being stupidly hopeful.
He held a hand out in invitation, and she studied the part of his body she knew so well—okay, one of the parts she knew well. His hands had always looked so strong and capable, even before she’d gotten involved with him. Long fingers, work-roughened skin, so much skill and talent…and yeah, she wasn’t just talking about with a hammer or a power tool.
With a minute shake of her head at herself, she bit down on her lip, a reminder to keep herself in check. She took one step toward him, unable to deny that look in his eyes, and when his hand remained outstretched, she eyed it, met his gaze again, and tentatively placed her palm on top of his. He closed his fingers gently around hers and tugged her closer.
“Hear me out,” he said.
“I’m listening.”
“The other night you said you loved me. Did you mean it?”
“That’s not something I would say unless I meant it,” she said, feeling vulnerable, trying to take her hand back, but he held on firmly.
“Good,” he breathed out. “I didn’t want you to say it Monday, because I didn’t think you should love me.”
Sierra narrowed her eyes at him.
“But that was Monday,” he rushed to say.
“And today?”
There was a catch in her chest. “You’re in love?” She couldn’t help the grin breaking through as she said it. “With me?”
He laughed out a nervous exhale. “Of course with you.” He pulled her into his chest, wrapping his arms around her, and Sierra breathed out fully for the first time since she’d identified him in the snow outside her window. He buried his face in her hair and sucked in a slow, deep breath. “I love you, Sierra.”
She closed her eyes and savored every bit of him, the words he spoke, the clean, arousing scent of him, the familiar feel of his muscular chest beneath her cheek.
Cole pulled back enough that he could look into her eyes. “I’ve never said that to another woman. Never wanted to. Still didn’t want to on Monday, but”—he pressed his forehead to hers, grinning—“you got me. Whether you want me or not, you got me, and I know that telling you how I feel is one thing, but I also know that your concerns were justified, and that’s what I’ve been thinking about.”
“All night.”
“All damn night. I had a lot of ground to cover, and though I’m not about to suggest I could be fixed in one night, I did figure some things out, came to some decisions.”
“That you’re okay with loving me?” she said, needing to hear it yet again.
“That’s one thing.” He blew out his breath. “There was a lot, stuff about the past, about my dad, about the future. I want you in mine, and I’m doing everything I can to think forward instead of backward.”
“Like forgiving yourself?” she asked.
“Something like that. I’ve come to see that that one night, that terrible fight didn’t define what my dad thought of me. I know he loved me, and I loved him, no matter how much stuff I screwed up. And there was a lot.”