When It Was Us

by Larissa Weatherall

  “Anna, baby, I just need a minute.”

  Drew threw his hands up in frustration. “What the hell could you possibly have to talk to her about?”

  “I need to talk to my wife!” he yelled.

  “Ex-wife,” Drew corrected.

  Mason sighed, looking straight into Anna’s eyes. “I never filed the papers.”

  Chapter

  Twenty-Two

  Anna

  “What?” Drew and Anna both said in unison.

  “I never filed the divorce papers.” Mason reached for Anna’s hand, but she stepped back, heart racing and head spinning.

  She grabbed her phone from her purse on the entry table. “But I have them. They’re sitting right here in my email.”

  “Did you even open the email?” Mason asked.

  Did she open it?

  No.

  The little red dot still sat next to the unread message titled I’m sorry. The email and attachment appeared in her inbox a few weeks before she started at Yoakum Ridge. She cried herself to sleep instead of reliving the worst day of her life. She hadn’t brought herself to read it.

  Anna signed his papers, and the only thing she’d asked was not to be involved in ending their marriage. He was supposed to do this one last thing for her, and she thought he had. The papers were in her inbox. Weren’t they?

  “Read it,” Mason begged.

  Her eyes squeezed closed, then she opened them and unlocked her phone. After navigating through her email, she found the one in question. She clicked to download the file, and every bit of air left her lungs when their wedding photo appeared.

  Anna looked up from the phone, searching for answers on the face of the man she’d once pledged to love, honor, and cherish.

  Mason nodded at the phone, and she began to read.

  Anna,

  I’m sorry. I’m more sorry than I could ever express to you for all the mistakes I’ve made. I hate that I hurt you, and that it took me so long to send you this message because I know at this point, after you saw the papers and likely heard what I’ve been doing since, you probably wouldn’t speak to me in person. I want you to know how much I regret ever having Mike draw up the stupid papers. Once I had them in front of me I couldn’t bear the thought of you ever signing them. But you did. You found them and you signed them and I was so angry you were giving up even though I had no right to be. I’m a piece of shit, but I love you, Anna. I want my wife back.

  Yours always,

  Mason

  “Sonofabitch,” Drew mumbled under his breath. He turned and left the entryway. Anna’s stare followed long after he disappeared around the corner. She wanted to run after him, for him to know how much she loved him. But what she had to do was turn around and face the man standing under the porch light.

  “You’re still my wife,” Mason said softly, reading her like a book as he always had. He shoved his hands in his pockets but never took his eyes off her.

  “I haven’t been your wife for a long time. Mason, I don't understand.”

  Mason’s gaze traveled in the direction Drew left and then back. “Can I please have a few minutes to talk to you? Away from here.”

  Her heart pounded to the point of dizziness. “I need a minute.”

  “I can do that.” Mason reached to touch her cheek but pulled his hand back with a sad smile. He turned and walked down the driveway to his car.

  Anna closed the door and leaned against it. She tried, but failed, to bring her breathing back under control.

  She needed answers from the one man who could give them, but leaving this house and the man in it to get those answers might rip both of them in two.

  Pushing off the door, she stepped into the living room. Drew sat on the couch, elbows resting on his knees, face buried in his hands.

  She sat next to him, but he didn’t look up.

  “Drew?” she whispered, very gently brushing her fingers through his hair.

  “Yeah.” He sighed but continued to look down.

  “I…” There were no words for this. No words for her to say in this moment to soften the blow she was about to give.

  Drew raised his head and met Anna’s gaze. Another piece of her heart shattered away with the hurt staring back at her in those chocolate depths. He ran a hand though his hair and cleared his throat. “I thought you said he asked for the divorce.”

  “He did. I thought he did. I found the papers when I went to our house, and I signed them.”

  His hands scrubbed over his face. “Then why didn't he file them, Anna?”

  “I don't know,” she shouted, frustrated. “I signed them. I thought it was over.”

  Drew sucked in a breath, eyes wide. “It's not?”

  “That's not what I meant.” She took his hands in both of hers, wishing more than anything she didn’t have to say the words she knew would crush him. “Drew, I…I need to go talk to him.”

  “You need to do what?” he yelled, pushing to stand and pace in front of her.

  “Drew, I’m still married. I have to deal with this,” she tried to explain. “I have questions only he can answer. I have to face it.”

  His face and jaw clenched in anger, his eyes glassing over with tears and defeat.

  “I’m coming with you,” he insisted. “You’re not doing this alone.”

  “Drew, I have to. I need you to trust me. Please.”

  He shook his head from the doorway of his bedroom, then stared down at the floor. Anna stood from the couch, her heart begging her to stop with every step she took away from him. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt from her bag while Drew stood with his back to her. She grabbed her purse from the entryway table, trying and failing to stop the flow of tears down her cheeks. With a shaking hand, she reached to turn the knob.

  “Wait!”

  Drew rushed around the corner, cupping her face in his hands. He kissed her, long and hard. His hands moved past her butt to her thighs, lifting and pushing her into the door as her legs wrapped around him. His lips slowed to a tender rhythm over hers like he was memorizing them, afraid they might never meet again.

  Drew pulled back slightly, kissing her forehead. He wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs.

  “Anna, I will fight for you. I didn't fight hard enough back then, but I'm fighting now. I'm not willing to accept losing you again.” There was no waver to his voice, only strength and the determined spark in his eyes she knew so well.

  She leaned her forehead against his. “I love you, Drew.”

  “I love you too,” he whispered, his breath now at her ear. “Sunshine, please come back to me.”

  Anna opened the door and turned back. “You were going to propose?”

  His gorgeous crooked smile melted her as he pulled a ring from his pocket. “I’ll wait for you, Sunshine. I’ll wait as long as you need me to.”

  She bit her lower lip, closing the door behind her.

  Drew wanted to marry her.

  But she wasn’t free. Not yet.

  Sucking in a few deep breaths that did nothing to calm her nerves, she walked to Mason’s car. He leaned across and opened the door.

  “Thank you, Anna,” he said as she sat in the passenger seat. “How about we go to the park?”

  She nodded in answer, hoping and praying there wouldn’t be anyone there to start a gossip storm of epic proportions. She needed to have this conversation, and she couldn’t do it staring at Drew’s front door.

  The silence on the drive bordered on physically painful. Mason nervously twisted the steering wheel with his hands. She bit the inside of her cheek while running down the list of questions spiraling around in her head. He pulled into a spot and walked around to open her door, but she’d already gotten out. He sighed, walking over to a picnic table facing the water. Anna took the seat next to him, and they both stared out at the river.

  When she couldn’t stand the silence anymore, she snapped. “Why didn't you file the papers?”

  “Because I
still love you.” His voice was soft and sad, not the confident man she’d always known.

  “I thought it was over when I found those papers sitting there on the kitchen counter. You were moving on…you…you dated her.” It wasn’t a question. She already knew the answer.

  Mason pulled in a shaky breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yes, I dated her but only after you signed the papers. I was so angry at you for giving up on us.”

  “They were your papers! If you didn’t want a divorce, if you didn’t think that was where we were headed, why would you…” The mental images Anna had of him and Mia sleeping together brought a scorching pain she’d never forget, but when she found out he dated her, the hurt turned to pure rage.

  “You threw your wedding ring at me, Anna!” he shouted. “You never took it off before, but you left it sitting in front of the fireplace and left. I had Mike put together the divorce papers, but I planned to sit down and talk to you, tell you I didn’t deserve another chance, but maybe we could try. But you found them and signed them. I saw your wedding ring on my dresser, and I lost it…”

  Anna pulled in a shaky breath as her palms rubbed over her thighs.

  “Can you please look at me?” he whispered.

  A rogue tear escaped down her cheek, and she slapped it away. “I can’t.”

  His fingers, then his palm, skimmed her jaw. He brushed a tear away, and her eyes closed from the contact. Her emotions, her reactions to his touch, were a tangled mess. “Baby, look at me.”

  When she opened her eyes, tears fell unchecked down his cheeks.

  “Yes, I dated her, but it was the stupidest mistake of my life because she wasn’t you and she’d never be you,” he whispered.

  Anna looked down at her hands clasped in her lap. “This doesn't make any sense.”

  “I miss you.”

  “Were you unhappy? When you…were you unhappy?”

  He shook his head adamantly. “No, I wasn’t unhappy. I was…sad and frustrated, but you were everything I could have asked for. I got caught up in the…the attention from someone new, and I let it go way too far.”

  He paused, then continued with a smile. “Anna, I love you. I think I have since the first day I saw you, and I carried those ridiculously heavy boxes up two flights of stairs.”

  “I wanted to spend the rest of my life loving you, but I’m with Drew now.”

  He laughed ruefully. “When Ryan told me you started dating him, I thought it was a fling. Two people who lived in the same town falling into old habits. Then Reed told me you were bringing him to their wedding, and I had to know.”

  “It’s not a fling…”

  “I know that now. When I laid eyes on you two at the wedding, I could tell it was serious…you were in love with him, and it scared the hell out of me. I’ve never been so pissed in my life watching you with him. You were still so upset when you first saw me, but by the end of the weekend, when we danced, you let me hold you, and you smiled and laughed that beautiful laugh. You looked in my eyes, and I saw my wife.”

  “I enjoyed the dance,” she answered quietly.

  They’d shared a nice moment, and Anna left the dance floor hoping the next time they saw each other, as their paths would inevitably cross again, they could at least be some version of friends.

  “Then when I told Ryan, when I told him I wanted you back, he said Drew was proposing and I should let you be happy.” Mason threw his hands up in frustration. “I couldn’t do it. I had to know, had to make sure there wasn’t still a chance for us.”

  “I didn’t know he was proposing…”

  “Would you have said yes?”

  “I don’t…yeah, I would have,” she stuttered.

  He cocked a brow. “You would have?”

  “I…”

  Before she could finish, he placed his hands on her face. He leaned forward, hesitating for only a second. He searched her eyes and seemed to find his answer before he covered her lips with his. She started to pull back, but the familiar sweetness of his mouth on hers brought back the memories of those months after the divorce she spent wishing the cheating never happened and she could feel his kiss again.

  “I love you, baby,” he whispered against her lips.

  His hand moved to the small of her back, but those words jarred her back to the present and not those miserable months she spent alone.

  Anna slid away on the bench. She needed distance. From all of it. “Mason, I can’t. I love Drew.”

  Her heart beat wildly in her chest as she touched her lips. The sensation of his kiss still lingered there, and she wanted to hate it, to hate him, but she didn’t.

  “I wish I’d kissed you like that more often.” Mason moved to crouch in front of her. He reached in his pocket, holding her wedding rings between his fingers. “Anna, please come home.”

  She didn’t have a response, so she looked past him at the water. Hoping for some answers in the constant flow of her river.

  “Want me to take you…home…to your parents?”

  Home? If only she knew where that was.

  “Thanks, but I’m good. I think I’ll walk.”

  “Okay.” He stood but didn’t make a move to leave. “I’ll talk to you soon?”

  She stared up at him, taking in his handsome face. The tiny chicken pox scar on his forehead she loved to kiss, his sandy blonde hair always a bit messy.

  Anna forced a nod.

  Mason smiled, kissed her cheek, and walked to his car. He waved and drove away.

  Two hours later, she still stared into the water. Her emotions stretched in so many directions she wasn’t sure she could ever trust where her heart was leading.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Three

  Drew

  Thunder startled Drew awake as hail pelted his bedroom window. He closed his eyes and stretched across the bed in the darkness. Waking up for what had to be the millionth time throughout this miserable damn night to nothing but emptiness beside him.

  He stared at the window as lightning flashed, illuminating the streaks of water running down the glass. The scene from last night played over and over in his head like the worst hell on earth nightmare he’d ever had.

  Mason stood on his front porch telling Anna they were still married. They might be legally bound, but she sure as hell wasn’t his anymore.

  Drew caught a glimpse of his phone on the night stand and obsessed some more over her text.

  I need a little time. I love you.

  What the hell did that mean? Like she needed some time to figure out how to walk away from Mason…or from Drew? He was losing his damn mind wondering what she was thinking, where she was sleeping, and who she might be with.

  He finally had her back. After all those years of wishing things were different, of wishing he’d never let her go, of knowing the love of his life was spending hers with someone else, time had brought her heart back to him. They were together. They were happy. Then Mason showed up and took her away from him…again.

  The sun had yet to rise, but there was no point in trying to sleep. He attempted to shower away the images of Anna and Mason and whatever may have happened between them last night…or be happening right now.

  He leaned his forehead against the tile, palms flat against it, as the scalding water and steam surrounded him. The image of her tear-streaked face walking out his door was all he could see.

  He knew she loved him, but what if she loved Mason more?

  He recalled the sensation of her lips on his, the intensity of her kiss pressed up against the front door, then he’d begged her to come back.

  Begged her.

  If it were under any other circumstances, he’d tell Luke to punch him in the face and take away his man card for being such a chick about it, but he didn’t give a damn. He’d do anything to know she’d walk back through that door.

  “Please come back, Sunshine,” he whispered to the shower walls. She couldn’t hear him, but he desperately hoped she felt how much he
loved her, that in the last six months he’d proven she could trust him and build a life with him.

  Her shampoo and body wash sat on the tile step mocking him. He reached to flip the top open, breathe in the scent, but realized he was on the verge of going crazy and shut off the water instead.

  Drew ran his finger over the pale yellow towel on the hook. Anna convinced him the old ones were no longer thirsty towels, and they’d bought these together a few weeks ago.

  He avoided her clothes in the closet, grabbing a t-shirt from the hanger and an old pair of jeans. Coffee called his name, so he made a cup and sank into the recliner, hoping TV would distract.

  Only ten channels in, Drew chucked the remote across the room, watching it smash into pieces against the wall while he grabbed his keys off the kitchen counter. He backed his truck out of the garage and drove five minutes to the one person who would give it to him straight.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Luke’s scratchy morning voice greeted him as he leaned against the door in his boxers. “You realize it’s six-thirty in the damn morning on a Sunday, right?”

  “Yeah, sorry, brother.” He pushed past Luke into the living room, and he paced.

  Luke scrubbed his hands over his face. “Okay, well, give me a minute.”

  He disappeared down the hallway, and Drew sank onto the old worn-out couch. His knees bounced as he tried to calm his nerves.

  “Is this conversation going to call for coffee or a shot of whiskey?” Luke asked with a laugh. He walked into the kitchen, buttoning the last button of his jeans and starting on the flannel shirt.

  Nothing about this was funny.

  When Drew didn’t respond, Luke turned to face him. “Geez, what the hell’s wrong? Did you two have a stupid fight or something?”

  “It’s not a stupid fight. I’m losing her,” he whispered, having almost convinced himself it was true.

  Drew was somehow back in that place, the moment where she’d said “I do” to Mason and he’d lost her forever. Why had he spent the last seven months falling more deeply in love with her than he ever knew was possible, just to have it all ripped away?