“Or a safe word—during sex. Maybe he’s a kinky son-of-a-bitch.”
We both laugh, but my laughter ebbs the moment Parker’s face flashes through my mind. Because I was thinking about sex.
Damn it.
While Leah starts wiping down the countertops, I pluck my phone back out and scroll through my contacts until I find his name. I shoot him a quick message.
Me: Are you busy? My ceiling tried to kill me.
“I really, really appreciate you coming out.”
Parker plods through my doorway, stomping his work boots against my entry mat. His dark hair is a chaotic mess of overgrown waves, and his skin is scuffed with dirt and paint smudges. He eyes me with that same penetrative stare that rattles my insides, like he’s trying to see beyond the words. “Yeah. Not a problem.”
His gaze skims over me, and I kind of wish I changed out of my comfy clothes. All I’m wearing is a pair of cotton shorts and an old college t-shirt with my hair thrown up in a messy bun. But then I scold myself for wishing that—it doesn’t matter. I’m not trying to impress him. “Did you just come from a job?”
“I did.”
“You seem to have a good business going. I’m happy for you.”
Parker’s eyebrows dip as he registers my response. He does that sometimes—frowns at compliments and smiles. Acts of kindness. At first I thought he was just an asshole, but now I’m wondering if he’s genuinely not accustomed to those things.
“I like staying busy.”
I flash him my teeth. “I get that. That’s why I went a little crazy with my baking business. It keeps me focused. Distracted.”
“They were good.”
His reply takes me off guard, and my smile wanes. Did he just say something… nice? To me? “Oh… the cupcakes?”
“Yeah.” Parker clears his throat, dipping his head towards the kitchen. “This way?”
I blindly nod, watching as he moves around me and shuffles toward the scene of the crime with his toolbox. Wringing my hands together, I follow, wondering if I should incite more conversation. More nice words. “So, um, do you live around here?”
Absolutely gripping, Melody. Great job.
“Ten minutes, give or take,” he says, peering up at the gaping hole when we enter the kitchen area. “Jesus.”
I wince as I follow his gaze. “I wish I had a cool story—a meteor shower, maybe a mysterious transient living in my ceilings. But my brother says it’s just a leaky pipe.”
Parker spares me a curious glance. “Leaky pipe sounds less life-threatening.”
“Not a cool story, though,” I breeze, flicking my finger at him.
He presses his lips together, and I choose to believe he’s holding back a smile.
“I’ll go grab the ladder from my truck,” he murmurs, his toolbox clanking against the countertop. “I can measure and shit today, then I’ll be back tomorrow to finish. I have another job during the day, so it’ll probably be early evening.”
“That sounds great. Thank you.”
Parker gives me a little nod, averting his eyes and moving around me to head out to his truck. His arm grazes mine as he passes, and I’m zapped with a shot of warmth that turns my skin flush. The fleeting over-the-shoulder look he sends me has me wondering if he felt it, too.
I wrap my arms around myself, trying to scrub the goosebumps away. They are physical evidence of this feeling—this nagging curiosity that is quickly blossoming into something else. And maybe I should be happy about it. Relieved. It’s proof that I’m still alive, that I’m capable of feeling something other than overwhelming numbness.
But truthfully, it angers me.
How dare my body react in this way, how dare it feel.
How dare it feel roused by a man who isn’t Charlie.
My eyes trail to our wedding canvas, hanging on the far wall, the one I’ve debated taking down at least fifty-thousand times. It hurts to look at it. It hurts to see his smile, so blissful, so in love—so unaware of how swiftly our love story would be snuffed out, ending in bitter tragedy.
Tears burn my eyes, my throat stinging, so I distract myself in the kitchen and begin to bake. I try my best to ignore Parker’s presence as he sets up the ladder, carrying tools and measuring equipment between his teeth. I try to ignore the way the muscles in his back pull and stretch against the fabric of his light gray t-shirt, and the way a faint whiff of his shampoo or deodorant mingles with the chocolate brownie batter—something clean and outdoorsy. Organic, like the way a gentle breeze might smell way up in the mountains.
A smile pulls at my lips—a zephyr.
“Fucking hell.”
I snap my head up from the bowl of batter, watching as Parker grumbles through the tape measurer in his mouth and examines his finger. My face goes ashen when I spot the blood. “Oh, my God… you’re bleeding.”
“I’ll live.” He climbs back down one-handed, holding his injured finger up to keep the blood from dripping. Plucking the tape measurer from his mouth, he tosses it to the counter and moves around to the sink, mumbling, “Got a Band-Aid?”
Swallowing down the queasy feeling roiling my chest, I meet him at the sink and snatch his hand before he dips it under the running water. “Parker, this looks terrible.”
He tries to pull away. “I got it. It’s not a big deal.”
“Let me help, will you?” Reaching for a clean dish towel, I wrap it around his index finger and hold tight in an attempt to control the bleeding.
“I told you I don’t like to be touched.”
Our eyes meet, my breath sounding choppy when I inhale. “And I’ve been known to faint at the sight of blood.”
“Sounds like you should go back to being Betty Crocker while I deal with this.” His Adam’s apple bobs, his entire body tensing at my nearness. “Both problems solved.”
“Or you can let me help, and we’ll face our fears together.” I force a mega-watt grin despite my nervous belly and wobbly knees, causing his gaze to dip down to my mouth with that trademark glower. When his eyes lift back up, they look darker somehow. More ablaze.
“You and your smiles…” he says in a low voice.
He’s trying to project his annoyance, but I don’t buy it. Applying deeper pressure to the towel, I tease, “I know they’re growing on you.”
“Like fungus, maybe.”
“But the good kind of fungus.”
“No, like ringworm.”
My smile lingers as I unravel the towel to inspect his wound, noting the cloth is saturated in blood. “What the heck did you do? Does my ceiling have teeth? Maybe I’ll have a cool story, after all.”
“Got myself on a nail. Amateur move.” Parker finally tugs his hand free of my grip and spins around to the faucet. “I’ll take a bandage if you have one.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a ride to the hospital?”
“I’m really fucking sure.”
Stubborn.
After sifting through my linen closet for bandages, I find a First Aid kit with antiseptic and gauze and carry it back to the kitchen. Parker is applying pressure with a new towel, looking massively ticked off. I hesitate for a moment before approaching, swallowing my pride and closing in on him. “Let me see.”
“Will you stop?” he barks, trying to dodge me as I reach for his hand.
“I used to be a nurse.”
“Really?”
Holding him steady in my left hand, I rummage through the kit for the antiseptic with my right. “No. But I’ve seen three or four episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.”
My eyes flick up, and I swear to God I think I see a smile begin to surface. But he squashes any trace of it and grunts his irritation instead. “So damn intrusive.”
“Like the sun, right?”
My tone is gentle and unoffended as Parker’s jaw tightens, and he whispers back, “That’s right.”
I nod slowly, watching as the blood flow finally ebbs, and I dab the antibiotic cream onto the wound with a fresh gauze. P
arker hisses through his teeth, trying to pull back, but I hold firm, knowing he could push me away if he really wanted to.
I don’t think he wants to.
“My husband used to compare me to the sun,” I tell him softly, still working, still fixing him. “It was kind of our thing. I was the sun, and he was the sky, and for the longest time, I didn’t know how to survive without him. When you build your entire life around another person and that person just disappears… what’s left?” I don’t dare glance up at him as I peel open a bandage, too afraid his deep stare will eclipse the rest of my words. “I’ve spent over a year trying to figure how to build a new life around me. But as you probably know, given your line of work, with building comes the occasional collapse. The inevitable downfall. Pieces don’t always fit the way you want them to, and then… starting over again sounds so overwhelming. I’ve had my share of downfalls, and I’m sorry you had to witness one of them.”
Parker is still and silent, his breath beating down on me, tickling my baby hairs. He hardly flinches when I wrap the gauze around his finger, securing it with a bandage.
“Anyway, I’m not the sun,” I finish, tracing my finger along his dressing, caught somewhere between this moment and a past life. “The sun only knows how to shine, and I’ve seen too much darkness.”
A beat passes, a quiet, poignant beat, and Parker asks, “What happened to him?”
Part of me wants to hide from those words because reliving the worst moment of my life is really, really hard. But the other part of me recognizes the beauty of his question.
He cared enough to ask it.
My grip on Parker’s hand clenches out of instinct, the memories brutal and unforgiving. “It was our wedding anniversary. We had just left a restaurant and were walking home, discussing life. The future.” I inhale a frazzled breath, forcing myself to continue. “We were happy. Kissing, smiling, laughing. We were so, so happy, and then it’s almost like time froze, and evil seeped inside of our little bubble, and everything changed. A stranger came out of nowhere and stole my purse while we were talking about becoming parents, and Charlie chased him, because that’s what Charlie did. He was my protector. He chased him into the busy downtown street and was hit by a car.”
I finally lift my eyes, my blurry, watery eyes, and discover Parker staring down at me with an expression I’ve never seen before. Confusion, maybe, mixed with… a shred of emotional turmoil. It’s like he has no idea what to do or say, but my words are affecting him, and that’s new. That’s something startlingly unfamiliar.
He doesn’t say he’s sorry or offer his sympathies, and I’m okay with that. I’m tired of people being sorry. I’m sick of hearing it.
Parker’s response to me is in everything he doesn’t say or do.
He doesn’t pull away. His hand remains enclosed in mine while he allows me to graze the tip of my finger up and down his bandage, and I feel like this is his own way of opening up and sharing a part of himself. Not with words—not with words that can feel hollow and superficial, but with vulnerability. By breaking down a wall he’s probably spent a hell of a long time building and letting me in.
And I think we both realize this at the same time. We both notice the shift, the power of this moment, the undeniable energy swirling between us—we notice it at the exact same time, and that makes it all the more potent.
My finger goes rogue and travels along his palm, tracing all the little lines and divots, a maze of untold stories. His skin is warm, so warm and inviting, despite his chilly façade. I feel him tense against my touch, his body’s way of trying to resist me, but he still doesn’t pull away.
Parker lets me touch him, really touch him, and I have no idea what it means. It’s beautiful, and it’s intimidating, but I’m not sure I understand it quite yet as we stand here in my kitchen beneath a busted ceiling, while my body starts to lean into him like he’s some sort of magnetic forcefield. Like I’m drugged and loopy, unable to hold myself upright, desperate to steal more of his warmth for myself.
I look up at him then, swaying and strung-out on whatever this is, and goddammit, I can’t help but smile. It’s instinctual, involuntary—just like Parker’s reaction to it.
He heaves in a jerky breath, his whole body stiffening. I can feel him harden, his muscles clenching, because I’m that close to him. And then he finally pulls his hand away, tearing his eyes from mine and looking down.
The moment is severed, and it’s for the best, it really is. I take a step back and bite down on my lip, smoothing out my hair and sucking in my own deep breath.
“I’m going to head out,” Parker says, breaking through the thick silence. His voice is raspy, a little rattled. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He gathers up his tools, and I just stand there, watching him, my skin buzzing and my cheeks hot. “Don’t worry about it. You’re injured, Parker… I’ll find someone else to take care of the ceiling.”
Parker folds his ladder and tucks it underneath his arm, reaching for the toolbox with his opposite hand, careful not to make contact with his wound. He pauses in front of me before he leaves, his eyes pinning sharply on mine. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
A heartbeat goes by before he sweeps past me and out the door, and I finally let out that breath.
—FIFTEEN—
It’s another monsoon.
Is there a monsoon season in Wisconsin?
If there’s not, there should be. The weather has been bizarre this year with frequent storms, high winds, an abnormal amount of rainfall, and now there’s talk of tornados this evening. As I stare out the rain-streaked glass, I’m grateful that my water issues were only a leaky pipe and not a leaky roof, or I’d be in a bathing suit right now swimming to the liquor cabinet.
“Mel, check it out.”
West hollers at me from the kitchen where he’s helping Shane with the pipe situation. Helping, as in, watching from the sidelines as he sucks down beers and makes useless commentary. Wandering over to the two men, I fold my arms and glance up, having no idea what I’m checking out. “Looks great,” I try, hoping that it really does look great. To me, it’s still just a giant hole in my ceiling—a hole I’m certain won’t be going away anytime soon, considering I wouldn’t blame Parker for canceling on me after his finger injury… not to mention, the inclement weather.
“Right? Shane’s the man,” West grins, tipping his beer at his friend.
Phew.
Shane gives me a quick sweep, his dusky eyes rolling over me, and I’m reminded of the way he looked at me that night at the brewery. That new look.
The look that screams, I’m newly single, and you’re newly single, so what should we do about it?
I clear my throat. “Thank you so much. I really appreciate you squeezing me into your busy schedule.”
“It’s no problem at all. I’m glad I could help,” Shane responds, reaching for the fresh beer my brother holds out to him. “That’s a nice dress, by the way. Pretty color on you.”
Oh.
Interesting subject change.
Folding my arms tighter, I glance down at said dress. It’s a casual dress, periwinkle blue, and it cuts off at the knees, featuring short sleeves and a v-neckline. I spin the skirt, fidgeting through my reply. “Thank you. You’re sweet.”
Is this what the dating world is like?
Or am I just a special brand of awkward?
I lace my fingers through my hair, smiling.
Awkwardly, of course.
Shane continues to stare at me with interest, nodding his head. “I can be,” he quips.
Oh, boy.
“Well, I’m going to head out. I have that pool tournament tonight as long as the weather doesn’t get all Wizard of Oz on us,” West cuts in, glancing my way. “You and Leah coming out?”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so. Parker said he was going to try and stop by to fix the ceiling.”
“Douchey contractor guy?”
I groan. “Yes, West, douchey contracto
r guy.”
The ensuing knock at my front door has my belly flip-flopping, my hands smoothing out the non-existent wrinkles in my dress, and my eyes dodging my brother’s questioning gaze.
“I-I’ll be right back,” I mutter, spinning in place and heading to the front of the house with reddening cheeks, my heartrate quickening.
I’m being stupid. It’s just Parker.
Well, it could also be that random betta fish tank that doubles as a plant holder I bought on Amazon at three A.M. during a bout of sleep deprivation… but it’s probably Parker.
And just because we shared some kind of moment twenty-four hours ago, doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t justify these butterflies and clammy palms, because at the end of the day, he’s still a closed-off brute, and I’m still a grieving widow.
With a calming breath, I pull the door open and promptly get blasted by a gust of rain-infused wind, nearly tipping backwards. Parker stands there on my porch with his ladder and tools, drenched from head to toe, his magnetic green eyes enough to pull me upright. Collecting myself and shaking out the water droplets from my hair, I step aside to let him in. “You came.”
“I said I was going to,” he says softly, his tone missing its usual bitter edge. Parker shuffles through the entryway, smelling like a rainy Colorado mountainside, and leans the ladder against my rust-colored wall. “You have company?”
“My brother and the plumber,” I tell him, chewing the inside of my lip and observing the way he tousles his wet hair back from his forehead. Little drops of water trail down his arms as he slips out of his boots, causing my eyes to follow. His skin is bronzed from the sun, his tan lines evident when his sleeves lift, revealing strong biceps. Parker isn’t overly bulky, but he’s lean and fit, perfectly in shape, a testament to how hard he works. “If you can’t finish everything today, it’s no big deal. I know the weather is going to get worse.”
“I heard there could be tornados and shit,” he confirms, rising back up and towering over me by a solid foot. “Hopefully, you have a basement.” His irises flicker like emerald lightning when we lock eyes, a complement to the booming thunder outside, and then he moves around me, towards the kitchen.
The Wrong Heart Page 12