by Maisey Yates
She shot him a stern glare, then moved across the small room and into the kitchen. “I am going to make you a Bear family special.”
“I can’t wait. I imagine it’s tortilla based?”
“Yes. Because even now that is essentially the extent of my skills.” She took a large stack of flour tortillas out of the fridge and a bag of preshredded cheese. Then, she fished around until she found her sandwich grill.
She set about making the world’s most basic quesadillas, which the two of them ended up eating naked on the couch.
“I’ve been mad at you for a long time,” she said, chewing thoughtfully.
“I’ve been mad at me too.”
She nodded. “I’m not now. When I said I forgive you, I meant it.” She did—that was the most amazing thing. She actually felt lighter, as though the weight were more than simply metaphorical, but as if there had been a literal ton of bricks sitting on her chest for the past seventeen years and finally releasing it made her breathe easier. Made everything seem different.
“It was never the scars,” she said, the words costing her. “I mean, yes, I don’t love them. And, it did impact my self-esteem, I’m not going to lie about that. But men are men, and plenty of them made it very clear that they would sleep with me if I wanted to. Some of them were jerks. Some of them acted like I should be grateful for the attention. But some of them were fine. I was the one that made the scars a big deal.” She swallowed hard. “They’ve been the best suit of armor I ever could’ve asked for.”
“Rebecca…”
“No, let me finish. Maybe this is uncomfortable for you to hear. It’s kind of uncomfortable for me to say. But it doesn’t make it any less true. They weren’t…not an issue. But they weren’t the issue that I pretended they were. They’re not the reason that I was never with a guy. They’re not the reason that I had trouble making friends. But it’s the reason I gave to people. The reason that I gave to myself.”
“I don’t need to be let off the hook,” he said. “Not to this degree.”
“That’s not why I’m doing it. Trust me. I have no problem making you suffer, you know that.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I feel like things are changing though.” She knew what he meant by that. That he thought maybe her judgment was clouded because she was getting attached to him. Because of the sex. Well, she couldn’t exactly dispute that. But that didn’t make this revelation any less real.
Now that she had moved the rest of the junk out of the way. The anger, all of the blame that she directed his way… She could see inside of herself a little bit clearer. The break in the wall that had begun back in the store earlier with Jonathan was continuing now.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I mean, the way that I feel about you… What’s happening between us… It doesn’t change this. It doesn’t change the truth. There are a lot of things in life we don’t choose. I didn’t choose these scars. But I definitely have chosen how to use them. I’m smart about it. Aren’t we all? Like wounded animals. We figure out how to guard our pain.”
She swallowed hard. “Nothing ever hurt worse than my mother leaving,” she continued. “Nothing. But it was a lot easier to make you the villain there too. And I did. For a long time. I think Jonathan still does. Because if he doesn’t, then maybe it’s me, and I know he doesn’t want that. And if I don’t, then maybe it’s me too.”
“It was her,” he said, his voice rough. “It was always her.”
Those words settled uncomfortably inside of her. Because it was so easy for her to give her mother a pass. Because she had always let herself believe that maybe things were just harder for her. That maybe Jonathan was made of stronger stuff, that maybe Rebecca was too.
She had thought for a long time that it was because she was protecting her mother. Now, she thought it was just because she was protecting herself. Because behind all of that denial was a wall of rage so intense it might consume her completely.
“She left me,” Rebecca said. “She left me. When I needed her the most. It was never your job to stay,” she said, looking at Gage. “It was her job to stay with me no matter what. Because I was her daughter.” It took all of her strength then, not to double over and howl in pain. This was why she had shielded herself from the reality for all of this time.
But from the moment Gage had walked into town layers had started stripping away. Like an old house being stripped down to the studs, to what created it, to what really made it. Without all of the excuses and the renovations to hide the truth.
And now, finally, she felt like they were at the center of it. At the heart of it.
“I think I hate her,” Rebecca whispered, a tear sliding down her cheek.
Strong arms came around her, pulling her against his body. He stroked her hair, and the tender gesture only made her cry harder.
“I know I do,” he said, his voice husky.
“It felt good to say it,” she said, her voice muffled. “It doesn’t fix anything though.”
“Well, that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it felt good, right?” He tightened his hold on her. “It’s nice if you can feel good for at least a little while.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing? All those years on the road? Trying to feel good just for a little while.”
“I told myself that I was punishing myself. It sounded a lot more gallant than running away. Like I was denying myself something by being away from my family. But, you’re probably closer to the truth.”
“I was running away too. Just in place.”
The moment she said it, she knew it was true. She thought back to all the little birds that decorated her shop. How much she liked them. How much she had always identified with them. They could go wherever they wanted but they always stayed in the same place.
She realized that’s what she was doing. She was hiding right there in Copper Ridge, using it as an excuse too.
“You know what? It would’ve made more sense for me to leave.”
“You think so?” he asked.
“Of course. I’ve always talked about how everyone here feels sorry for me, treats me like I’m special—or broken—because of my scars. All the men here know me. And that makes it hard. So I could go somewhere and make myself a stranger. A place that doesn’t have my history. But then… How could I use it?” She laughed. “My family doesn’t have any kind of great reputation, and I still stayed. Being a stranger somewhere would be an asset to me. I wouldn’t be the abandoned, scarred daughter of a single mother. But, out there on the road you’re not Nathan West’s son. That doesn’t help you at all.”
He stiffened. “Well, that was part of it. I didn’t want to be Nathan West’s son. Not anymore. Not when I realized what all that meant.”
She swallowed hard. “I would have been tempted.”
“Tempted to do what?”
“To stay. To use all of the power. It’s a ‘get out of jail free’ card. I’ve never had one of those. I mean, aside from my scars, which I used as best I could. That’s what most of us do. We take the hard stuff, and we use it to our advantage. I know that your dad isn’t great, but you could have used that.”
“That’s the problem,” he said. “That’s exactly what I would’ve done if I had stayed.”
He leaned in, kissing her, hard and rough, cutting off the thread of the conversation. She had a feeling he did that on purpose.
But the kiss was hot, and sure, and it filled her with the kind of deep, sweet warmth that touched her in hidden, freezing places inside of her that had been cold for so long she had forgotten they could be anything else.
So she let him change the subject. Because she liked this one so much.
When they parted, they were breathing hard. He pressed his forehead against hers, looking at her, his dark eyes intent on hers.
She lifted her hand, tracing the deep grooves by his mouth. This man, her monster, was quickly becoming her very favorite thing and she wasn’t sure what to do with that. It t
errified her. Though, at least now she had an idea why.
It was the losing him, that was the thing that would hurt.
But she’d spent the greater part of the past seventeen years dwelling on pain in order to prevent herself from experiencing any more. She was going to let that rest. At least just for a little while. Something was happening. Something was changing.
He was changing her.
She wanted that too much to stop now. No matter how bad the impact of losing him might feel.
She supposed that should be terrifying. To the Rebecca she had been a few hours ago, it would have been. Depending on someone, admitting that she needed him in any capacity, would have been devastating.
She wasn’t afraid of it now, and she couldn’t quite pinpoint why.
“Are you going to stay tonight?” She tried to phrase the question casually, even though there was nothing casual about the way she felt. Her heart was rambling around her chest like a frightened mouse.
“Your bed is a little bit short for me.”
“Actually, I think you’re a little bit tall for my bed. Mattresses are a pretty standard size, Gage. You’re the one that exceeds normal parameters.”
“Was that a compliment?”
“Probably,” she said, a smile tugging at her lips in spite of the fact that part of her was pretty sure he was just trying to make excuses to put some distance between them.
She didn’t really think he was more distant now than he had been before. She was the one who was drawing a little bit closer. She was the one who had a little bit less armor than she had in the beginning. That was why she felt it now.
She was the one who had changed. It wasn’t him. So, she could hardly take it personally now. That was what she told herself.
“I should probably go home,” he said.
She waited for him to issue an invitation for her to come with him, but he didn’t. She let the silence hang, for just a little bit longer than was natural. She was kind of pathetic.
“Okay,” she said, trying not to reveal any disappointment.
He got dressed, and once he was completely covered up she felt silly sitting there naked. Like suddenly she fully realized that she’d been naked when before it had just felt right. A full, Garden of Eden situation happening right in her living room.
“Okay… I guess… I’ll see you tomorrow when I come by to check on the horses.”
He reached down, plucking her up off the couch and pulling her against him, kissing her. A wave of relief rolled through her. “See you tomorrow.”
It wasn’t exactly what she had wanted, but it was better than she’d thought she was going to get.
“Okay,” she said, “tomorrow.”
After he left, she settled onto the couch, and she felt a little bit happy that he had left. It was probably a good thing that she had a few moments to spend alone with her thoughts. It had been a hell of a weird-ass day.
She took a deep breath and got up, pouring herself a glass of wine, then pacing the length of the room.
She just walked for a moment, going over everything that had happened. She had forgiven him. She really had. It had released something inside of her. Had allowed her to let go of something she had been holding firmly in place for more years than she should have.
It made her think about her mother, about that wound inside of her that had been left behind when she had left. It was the big one, the one that she had never wanted to look closely at. The one she had never even wanted to take steps to heal because that would mean acknowledging that it was there in the first place. She didn’t want to do that. It was too difficult.
But, now she knew it was what she had to do.
She looked over at her phone, chewing on her lip. It was probably a bit soon to call Jonathan. It wasn’t like she was going to spend the rest of her life not speaking to him. But he might not answer. This might have been the last straw. Maybe it was the excuse he needed to finally cut ties with his needy younger sister.
Along with the acknowledgment that she was afraid of being left came some more crystallized thoughts about fear of abandonment than she would like.
She took a long swallow of wine, then picked the phone up. She opened her call list, and found Jonathan easily. He was the last person who had called her.
She sighed heavily. He had never done anything to deserve all of her fear and distrust. He had always been there. Even if he was surly, even if he showed his affection in his own way, he loved her.
She pressed the number, waiting as the phone connected then began to ring. She closed her eyes, anxiety building inside of her while she waited for him to pick up.
“Hello?” He answered. And she knew that he knew it was her. Because he sounded too grumpy to be responding to a stranger.
“Hi. I know you’re still mad at me.”
“Yep.”
“That’s fine. I just want to know… Do you know where our mother is?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
WHEN REBECCA BEAR showed up on his doorstep bright and early, bundled up against the December chill—her dark hair hidden beneath a knit cap, her cheeks rosy from the wind, the tip of her nose bright red—Gage felt like he had been gut punched. He had been expecting her to come to the property, but he hadn’t expected her to show up at his door.
Apparently, he needed adequate warning before he came into contact with her. He had most definitely needed a warning for last night. For how it would make him feel, for the distance he would need afterward.
It was a strange thing, to come into possession of something he had told himself he’d wanted for a long time.
To know she was okay. To find some form of forgiveness for his transgressions.
But he had it now. And he found there was still something missing.
Damned if he could figure out what it was.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“Good morning,” he said. “You’re up early. And you’re wearing mittens.”
“It’s cold.”
He had never thought of mittens as being erotic. Suddenly, he wanted her to press her mittened hands against his chest. That was just weird. But, that feeling, at least, he had a name for, and had a handle on. He could deal with being horny for her. It was the rest that concerned him.
“What’s up? You look impish.”
She crossed her arms and bounced slightly. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”
He reflected on some of the other times she had come to the door. On how tense things had been. The aura of anger that usually wrapped itself around her. It wasn’t there. Not now. She seemed different. Easy. And it wasn’t just down to this specific interaction with him.
It was something that went deeper.
“You can come in. But you do have to give me a kiss first.”
He expected her face to contort in irritation. Expected her to scoff at him. Instead, she leaned in easily, as though closing the distance between them were the most natural thing. Then, she put those mittened hands on his face—and damned if he wasn’t right, that was erotic as hell—and pressed her lips to his.
When she parted from him, her cheeks were even redder, and this time he knew it wasn’t from the cold. “Now can I come in?”
“Okay.”
He moved to the side, and she brushed past him, removing her hat, scarf and gloves quickly. “I talked to my brother last night.”
“You did?”
“He’s still mad at me. It wasn’t about us.” She said that casually too. As if the two of them being an us was natural. “But I asked him if he knew where our mother is. He does.”
“I thought she’d… Disappeared or something.”
“She left us. And she doesn’t see us. But, I’m not all that surprised that Jonathan kept tabs on her. I just never wanted to know. I spent a long time kind of pushing all of that to the back of my mind. I spent a long time making you the bad guy because it was easy. But I’m not doing that anymore. I’m kind of confronting things.
And I want to keep doing it.”
Something shifted inside him when she said that. He supposed forgiveness meant he wasn’t the villain anymore. And that was even harder to wrap his head around. “Go on.”
“If you aren’t busy today… I want to drive down to Coos Bay and see my mom.”
“Are you going to…call first?”
She shook her head, her dark hair swirling around her face. “No. I just thought I would go. But, I want you to come with me.”
She was willing to drive a couple of hours south to go and see her mother, and he hadn’t even physically gone to see his father since coming into Copper Ridge. Hadn’t seen his mother. It galled him. And, something else that she said scraped against something inside of him that he was trying to ignore. The fact that he was throwing a whole bunch of things in front of issues he didn’t want to deal with either.
“I can go down with you. Is the shop closed today?”
“I have a couple of teenagers that come and run it for me a few days a week. I asked one of them to fill in today. I just don’t want to wait. I want to do this, or I’m going to lose my nerve.”
“What are you going to… Say to her?”
“I’m going to ask her why she left.”
She was bright eyed and hopeful, looking at him just then. It killed him to see her like that. At least that sharp-eyed, angry Rebecca he’d met when he arrived in Copper Ridge was insulated against hurt. This one? She was opening herself up to it. It made him want to grab her, shake her, ask if she was crazy. “Rebecca, you might not want the answer to that question.”
“I know I don’t. Because there isn’t a good one. There just isn’t. There isn’t an excuse for leaving your children like that. But I need to know. I just need to do this. I’m spring cleaning my soul.”
“It’s December,” he pointed out.
“It’s metaphorical.”
“And you think this is the best way to what… To change things? To heal things?”
“I can never heal the scars on the outside. But it may not be too late for the ones inside.”
He looked down at her, at the hope in her eyes, and he hoped like hell that what she was saying was true. For her. Because he knew it was too late for him. Knew that it was too late to do any real redemption. Maybe that’s what was bothering him. He had her forgiveness, and while it mattered, while it meant something, it didn’t come with the fix that he had always hoped it might.