I smile right back at her, and it’s my first genuine smile of the day. “He would have loved it.”
“I’ve already gotten things in order, and the official listing goes up tomorrow. You know how real estate is around here. It might be a while before we find a buyer, but I wanted to tell you before the for-sale sign goes up. I know you love this place.”
The words sit on the surface of my mind but haven’t sunk in yet. I need to keep them there, or else I’ll break down. And there’s nothing else to break.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Mrs. Williams goes on. “I’ve been considering this or well over a year now but kept finding reasons to hold on a while longer. Seeing you happy was the final push I needed.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You love this place just as much as I do, and before…before I couldn’t do that to you, dear.”
I work hard to keep the tears from flowing. I was happy, and it all got swept away in an instant.
“You shouldn’t have put off retirement for me.”
Mrs. Williams looks around the store. “It’s been hard for me to let go. Bringing books to this small town was a dream of mine when I was a child.”
“Maybe the buyer will keep it as a bookstore.”
“Maybe. But not if they’re interested in making money,” she adds with a laugh and pats my hand. “You look tired, honey.”
“I am.”
“Busy getting in more bar fights?”
“You heard about that?”
Mrs. Williams laughs. “Who hasn’t? And I heard how that boyfriend of yours is quite protective of you.”
I can’t think about it or else I’ll cry. “He is,” I say and feel the switch flip back to where it was before I met Chase, back when I thought I was broken and incapable of feeling joy ever again.
A deep sadness comes over me, not because of recent events, but because this time I know that switch is never going the other way ever again.
Chapter 32
Chase
I sit on the rock looking out at the river. Sunlight reflects off the shiny surface, blinding me. My eyes water from the harsh light, my legs ache from sitting still, and my head pounds. Yet I don’t move. I stay here, hot, hungry, and uncomfortable with no plan to move.
I deserve this punishment and more. I fucked up. I didn’t just lose Sierra, I hurt her even more than she’s already hurting. My whole life has been filled with moments I’m not proud of, but I’ve never regretted anything like I do right now.
I want to make things right.
Blinking, I look away from the water and down at my phone. Sierra won’t answer my calls, not that I really expected her to, and hasn’t texted me back. I call her, and her phone rings once before she declines my call. My heart lurches at the sound of her voice, telling me to leave a message and she’ll call me back as soon as she can.
“Sierra,” I start. “It’s been over a day since I’ve seen you, and it already feels like a lifetime. I miss you. I’m sorry.” I close my eyes, imagining she’s in front of me.
“I got the scar on my back when I broke into a lake house in Utah to take a portrait that was supposed to go to the wife in the divorce. Her ex-husband wasn’t supposed to be there. I felt sorry for him. His wife married him for his money, cheated, and took him to the cleaners at court. He was no match for a fight, so I let him take one swing at me unguarded but didn’t see the broken piece of glass in his hand. He apologized after he cut me. I still feel bad for taking that painting to his ex.”
I hang up and stand, legs asleep from sitting so long. I shake out the pinprick sensation and go into the bar. It’s a typical slow Monday night. Josh is working and doesn’t need the extra help tonight. It takes a while to convince him to go home to his wife and kids. He feels bad since today was my day off, and only agrees once I tell him Sierra is busy tonight and we’re not seeing each other anyway.
I don’t approve of drinking on the job, but fuck it. The bar is slow and I fucking need it. I pour whiskey into a glass and down it. I haven’t eaten all day. My appetite has been gone since yesterday afternoon when Sierra told me to leave.
I add ice to my glass and more whiskey. I try to sip it slowly but pour it down my throat instead. I need to numb the pain. In no time at all my mind swirls and I lean on the bar, rubbing my forehead.
I can’t stay here without Sierra in my life. This town is too small. We’d run into each other and seeing her without being able to be with her would be worse than putting food just out of a starving man’s reach.
I’ll be reminded of Sierra no matter where I go in this Godforsaken place, making everyday hell on earth. Will seeing me do the same to her?
I bring the bottle of whiskey upstairs with me after I close the bar for the night. I drink enough to pass out, but not enough to keep the nightmares away. I wake at dawn fighting off the image of Sierra’s body floating in the river, lifeless eyes staring up at me. Her belly was large and swollen, and a baby cries from deep inside the forest. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get through the water to find the child.
Our child.
I don’t attempt to go back to sleep until I chugged enough whiskey to kill a whale. I wake up in the afternoon feeling like complete shit. The first thing I do is check my phone in case Sierra called.
She didn’t.
I stumble to the kitchen and get a drink. Then I shower and force myself to eat. I get a text on my other phone. It’s from Jax, and I forgot that I was still fucking pissed at him for the shit that went down Friday night. It seems like nothing now.
Jax: I know you said you were done, but I heard of a job in Jackson. 75k if you get it done in 24 hours
I look at the screen, reading his words over and over again. Not because I’m not getting the message, but because I need to occupy my brain. I shouldn’t take a job. I’m not even supposed to be working in the bar yet.
But I don’t care anymore.
The only thing I care about is Sierra. I drop the phone and march out the door. Giving up isn’t something I’ve ever done. I fight and I fight until I get what I want. Sierra isn’t mine for the taking, but I’m not going to walk away.
I love her, and I know she loves me. I’m going to fix this.
I park in front of The Book Bag and go inside. The familiar dinging of the bell rings out when I step inside. The smell of books takes me back to the first time I walked inside and saw Sierra sitting behind the counter.
“Hi,” someone calls from inside the store. It’s not Sierra. “Can I help—” She cuts off when she sees me, and I’m not sure if it’s because she’s afraid of me like the rest of the town or if Sierra told her we broke up.
“She’s on her lunch break,” she says. “She just left but shouldn’t be gone too long.”
“Oh, okay.” So she’s afraid of me. Sierra hasn’t told her coworker yet. “I guess I’ll go.”
“I’ll tell her you stopped by.”
“No, I wanted it to be a surprise,” I lie and turn to go. Then I notice the red and white sign in the window. “The store’s for sale?”
“Technically, just the building. I suppose if the new owner wanted to keep running it as the store, they could.”
Sierra has to be devastated. She loves this place and what it has to offer the people of Summer Hill. I don’t want this taken away from her, and I wish I could convince her to ask her parents for the cash to buy it and make it hers. She’d never do that, and I respect the hell out of her for not falling back and relying on her rich parents.
“What’s the asking price?”
“A hundred grand, but between you and me, Mrs. Williams said she’s hoping for seventy-five thousand. It’s just enough to retire and have money left open to give to her son.”
Seventy-five grand.
If that’s not fate, I don’t know what is.
Chapter 33
Sierra
I look down at my lunch, moving my salad around the bowl with my fork. My stomach gru
mbles in hunger, but the thought of putting food in my mouth, chewing, and swallowing seems like too much effort. I flip a page on my Kindle and force myself to take another bite.
My lunch break is almost over, and I’ve barely eaten a thing. I make myself eat at least half the salad and toss the rest. My shift at The Book Bag is halfway over, and I successfully made it through the first part without breaking down or showing that I’m sad.
Or showing any emotion at all, really. That part of me is off, and in order to survive, it has to stay that way. It’s Tuesday afternoon, and I sat in the alley behind the store to eat my lunch. It’s hot and sunny today, just how I like it.
“How was lunch?” Janet asks when I get back into the store. She’s only here for a few hours today, helping me log everything in the store and to cover my break.
“Fine,” I say softly and immediately get back to work. Janet hands off her notes and takes off. I keep my mind busy by making a detailed list of every item in the store. Mrs. Williams might need it whenever the time comes to move.
Minutes before I close the shop, Janet comes back in. She left her phone in the break room and came back for it.
“Did your boyfriend ever come back?” she asks, looking down at her phone screen as she walks.
“Come back?” I echo.
“To the store. He came when you were on your lunch break.”
Chase was here. For me. “Uh, yeah. I saw him,” I lie.
“Good. All right, then, night, Sierra!”
“Good night.”
I lock the door behind her, mind going a million miles an hour. It’s clear Chase cares, and I want so incredibly bad to go to him. Is this something we can get past? Can I forgive him for betraying my trust? I’ll have to learn to trust him again. It might take time, but it’s worth it…right?
I mull it over the entire time I put back books, and I have to count the cash in the register twice because my mind is on Chase. Once the money is stashed away, I pull my phone from my purse and lean on the wall, sinking down onto my butt. My fingers tremble and my heart aches.
I have over a dozen missed calls and texts from Chase. I open the voicemails and listen to the first one.
“Sierra,” he starts and the sound of his voice does something to me. Calms me. Soothes me. Turns me on, even now. “There’s no excuse for what I did, and I can never say sorry enough. I kept listening to the messages because I wanted to know you were happy. It doesn’t make sense and makes even less after I met you. It wasn’t right to listen to words that were meant for another. The things you said…they were so beautiful. I fell in love with the Mystery Woman from her words alone. And then I met you, and I fell even harder. I don’t know how to make it right. What you said was personal…not meant for me. I want to make it up to you, and the best way I can think to do that is to leave you messages too.”
The voicemail ends and I play the next one.
“I liked to brag about how I wasn’t afraid of anything, but there is one thing that always freaked me out. I never wanted to die before I was buried.” He pauses and I try to figure out what he means. “I’ve seen too many people live but not be alive. I thought I was living because I took risks and was surrounded by a certain level of daily danger. But I was wrong. I never felt alive until I met you. And right now…right now I feel like I’m dead inside but my body refuses to die.”
I replay the message, soaking in every one of his words. I play the following one, which was left only half an hour later.
“When I was sixteen I purposely ate lobster so I could get out of a math exam I wasn’t ready for. I ended up in the hospital for a week and missed my junior prom. I would have been pissed, but my mom stayed with me most of that week I was in the hospital. It was the most time we’d spent together since she legally wasn’t allowed to leave me unattended. And when I looked at the test and saw those two pink lines, I knew you’d be a good mom, giving our baby everything I didn’t have but wanted from my mother. Any child you have will be lucky.”
I find myself smiling at his words, and my heart longs to beat against his. There are more messages. I play the next.
“If you asked me a year ago if I believed in love, I would have laughed. The last thing I thought I’d find when I came back here, was a reason to stay. Maybe that’s the reason for all of this, and I keep thinking about the reason I came here, and how our paths crossed. I came here because my dad died. Loss brought us together, and it’s crazy how something so beautiful—even if it was short lived—came out of the darkness. Maybe we were always meant to be.”
Tears fall from my eyes and I get up, yanking my purse from the shelf behind the counter so fast it catches on a hook and knocks down a box of cleaning supplies. I hastily shove them back and race to my car, driving as fast as I can to The Mill House. My heart is beating outside of my chest.
Chase hurt me.
He didn’t mean to, but he did.
Yet that doesn’t mean we need to walk away. We can start again, right? My fingers shake when I get out of the car.
Chase isn’t working tonight, and Corey hasn’t seen him. I go up the stairs, taking two at a time, and knock on the door to the apartment. When Chase doesn’t answer, I try the doorknob, surprised to find it unlocked. Chase always got on me for not locking my doors.
“Chase?” I call and step inside, feeling along the wall for the light. Right away, something is off. The air conditioner isn’t blowing out freezing cold air. “Chase?” I hold my breath, waiting for him to wake up and rush out of the bedroom.
He doesn’t.
I set my purse down on the kitchen table and cross the room, going into the bedroom. The bed is neatly made, and all of Chase’s personal items are gone. I whirl around desperate to find something that proves he’s still here.
Then I see it, leaning up against the large windows in the living room. Chase’s phone. Jake’s phone. My heartbeat echoes in my ears and my hand shakes as I pick it up. I hit the home button, and see there is one missed call and a voicemail. Chase set this up for me to find.
I start to feel sick as I unlock the phone and open the messages. All my old voicemails have been erased, and the only message left is from three hours ago. I don’t recognize the number, but I press play anyway.
“Sierra,” Chase starts. “Hopefully you found the phone and knew to listen. I know you will, as weird as that is. It’s a feeling, I guess. I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you. All I ever wanted was for you to have your happy ending, but I’m starting to think you won’t get that with me around. I still love you. I will always love you. I promised you that I would, and I’ve never broken a promise.”
The message ends and I press the phone to my ear, waiting for more. There has to be more. Because if not, then that was goodbye.
“No,” I whisper, and my words turn into sobs. Chase is gone. Moved on to the next town, searching for somewhere to call home. I fall to the ground, crying. I cry and cry until there is nothing left. Until I fall asleep. I wake at dawn, cold and stiff from lying on the ground. I sit up, and movement outside the window catches my eye.
It’s the deer. She’s creeping toward the shallow part of the river for a drink, and she’s not alone. Her baby is close behind, curiously sniffing at the water. I watch them, transfixed, and know seeing them is some sort of sign. I just wish I knew what it meant.
“Hey,” Lisa says and apprehensively steps into my bedroom. She’s holding a coffee and has brought me one every morning as a peace offering. It isn’t working. “Rob told me he was on patrol this morning and saw you leaving Chase’s house wearing the same clothes you had on last night. Does that mean you guys—”
“No,” I snap, and pull the blankets tight around my shoulders. I don’t have to be at work until later this afternoon, though right now I’m not sure I can go at all. Getting out of bed is too much effort. I have no energy. No drive.
“But you were at his house.”
“He wasn’t there.”
“B
ut you…what do you mean?”
I sit up. “I mean he wasn’t fucking there. He’s gone!”
Lisa’s face breaks and I almost feel bad for snapping at her. “He’s coming back, right? He has to.”
“Why would he?” I shake my head. “You all have made it abundantly clear he’s not welcome here and I…I…I pushed him away.”
“No. Don’t you dare blame yourself. Call him. Tell him you miss him and he’ll come back. I promise you, he will.”
“I can’t. He left his phone. The messages are all gone. He left it so I could see he really did delete everything.”
“Sierra,” Lisa says and sets the coffee on my dresser. She climbs into bed and puts her hand on my shoulder. “Let’s not fight. Be mad at me later, okay? I just want to be here for you.”
“Okay,” I say and the anger leaves me, immediately replaced by raw, painful grief. I cry into my pillow, and Lisa tries to soothe me by running her hand over my hair. She wears rings on every finger, and they catch on loose strands, which pull and snap.
“You’re going to be late for work,” I hiccup.
“That’s okay. Being with you is more important.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and steady my breathing. “I’m okay.”
“You’re not, and it’s okay to not be okay, Sierra.”
“I know. And you’re right. I’m okay enough for you to go to work though. You’ve been late enough this summer already.”
“Yeah. Write-ups for being tardy don’t count. If they did, I would have been fired years ago.” Lisa hugs me. “I don’t want you being alone. Maybe we should get your mom or your sister to come over. Even Gran.”
I shake my head. “No. I’ll call Scott. I haven’t talked to him in a while anyway.”
“He’ll try to get you to fly out to Orlando again,” she says with a half-smile.
“Maybe I’ll go.”
Lisa squeezes my arm. “A change of scenery is nice sometimes. Are you sure you’re okay by yourself?”
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