Come Home to Deep River

by Jackie Ashenden

  She remembered the day before when he’d pulled her into his arms after he’d signed the agreement with her mother, how he’d told her that she needed to go and have the life she’d always wanted. And she’d felt vaguely hurt by that. As if she’d been expecting him to say something else.

  You wanted him to tell you to stay. Because the life you always wanted is right here.

  Hope reached for the beer sitting in its little hole in the sand and pulled it out, the metal cold against her fingers. Her heartbeat was fast and her breathing had sped up along with it, and she knew she was thinking like a crazy woman.

  He wasn’t going to say any such thing, so why she was thinking that he might she had no idea.

  She popped the tab and took a sip, watching as Silas took a couple of marshmallows out of the bag and put them on the end of the sticks.

  “What are you doing over there?” Holding on to the sticks with one hand, he extended his arm, clearly indicating for her to sit right next to him.

  “Hey, this is where the cushion is.” Hope grinned, trying to quiet her raging heartbeat.

  “Well, shift it over.” His eyes gleamed in the firelight. “Come on, I’m cold.”

  She huffed a little to tease him but moved around the fire, coming to sit beside him, leaning in to the warmth of his body that somehow seemed even warmer than the fire itself.

  His arm settled around her, holding her close as he extended the marshmallows toward the fire.

  Silence fell, and the tension inside Hope gathered tighter for absolutely no reason.

  “So,” she said at last, when it didn’t seem like he was going to say anything, “what’s all this for?”

  Silas inspected the marshmallows, then extended the stick toward the flames again, giving her a brief glance. “I thought a little celebration was in order.”

  “Celebration?” Her breath caught and she felt as if she was standing on the edge of a precipice. “What for?”

  “You leaving. Me staying. And a pretty damn successful town meeting.”

  That shouldn’t have made her stomach dip or cause a cold wash of disappointment to flood through her. Of course he wasn’t going to tell her that he loved her or even that he had feelings for her. Why had she been expecting he would? Where on earth had that thought even come from? This affair they’d been having had always been temporary, and she knew that. Hell, she’d even insisted on it. There were no feelings, none.

  So why are you feeling so very disappointed? So you love him. So what?

  Hope swallowed and took a sip of her beer, conscious of the warmth of the hard, masculine body she was leaning against. And suddenly she couldn’t bear to be near him.

  She pulled away, sitting up instead, staring at the fire, fighting to keep her feelings from her expression, knowing she was probably failing.

  “Hey,” Si said, sounding puzzled. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing.” A reflexive response that wasn’t going to convince anyone, let alone him.

  “Bullshit it’s nothing.”

  She stared hard at the flames, holding on to her beer, not wanting to look at him. Afraid that if she did, everything would come spilling out. “Just tired.”

  “Hope.”

  There was tenderness in his voice that made her throat close, that made her want to cry. And she knew she couldn’t lie to herself anymore. Couldn’t pretend that she hadn’t been secretly hoping he’d tell her that he wanted her to stay. That he loved her. That he’d always loved her.

  She’d been running from that hope ever since he’d turned up at the Moose a week ago. Desperately telling herself that she didn’t want anything more permanent, that she didn’t want what her whole soul had felt starved of.

  And it wasn’t much to want, was it? Just to feel like she wasn’t a burden to someone, the locked door of someone’s prison. The sole caretaker of a legacy she’d never wanted in the first place. No, what she wanted was only to feel like she was important to someone. Precious to someone. That wasn’t wrong—it wasn’t.

  A warm hand touched her back, searing her skin, and she’d shaken it off before she could stop herself.

  “Hope,” Silas said again, sharper this time. “What’s wrong?”

  “You want me to go, don’t you?” She shouldn’t be talking about this, shouldn’t be revealing everything she was feeling, but she couldn’t help it.

  “Of course I want you to go. This is what you’ve been wanting to do ever since—”

  “What if I changed my mind?” she interrupted and turned her head, meeting his gaze. “What if I decided I want to stay?”

  An expression she couldn’t read flickered over his face, then he frowned, the firelight reflected in his eyes, making them seem even more brilliantly gold than they already were. “You can’t stay,” he said, as if it were his decision, not hers. “You wanted to go to college, Hope. Get that literature degree. That’s what you always wanted to do.”

  “I can get a degree remotely.” She was holding her beer way too tightly, but now that she was on this path, she had to keep going. “Mal told me he’d done one. I could stay here. I don’t actually have to leave if I don’t want to.”

  “But you do want to.” Silas’s expression hardened. “That’s what you told me. That’s what you wanted.”

  “Maybe I don’t want that anymore.” Her jaw was tight, her heart aching, and she knew she shouldn’t tell him, but this was important. And she was tired of pretending, tired of denying. Tired of not thinking about things that made her feel uncomfortable.

  It was time to confront them. Because if the past thirteen years had taught her one thing, it was that if you didn’t at least try to reach for what you wanted, all you’d ever get was a handful of nothing.

  And she was tired of having nothing as well.

  She held his gaze. “Maybe I want something else.”

  His expression was absolutely unreadable. Abruptly, he dropped the marshmallow sticks and stood up in a sharp, jerky movement. Then he turned and walked toward the river a couple of steps and stopped, his back to her.

  For a long moment, there was no sound but the rushing of the river and the crackle of the flames.

  And the breaking of Hope’s heart.

  He didn’t need to say anything. He’d obviously seen it in her eyes. And his reaction had told her everything she needed to know about his feelings on the subject.

  He didn’t want her to stay.

  He didn’t want her.

  That’s a lie, though. You know he wants you.

  Only physically. And maybe he liked playing the supportive friend—he’d always liked to feel needed, Silas did—and he tended toward being a white knight. Obviously sweeping back into Deep River and dramatically rescuing the town and then rescuing her had been satisfying to him.

  But it had never been about more than that. It was she who’d wanted it to be.

  “Don’t,” Silas finally said in a low, fierce voice. “Don’t stay because of me, Hope.”

  “Why not?” She had nothing left to lose now, so why not lay it all out there? “Why shouldn’t I stay for you?”

  He was a tall dark shadow beyond the firelight. “Because you wanted to go—”

  “But what if what I really wanted, what I’ve wanted for years and years and never realized, was you?”

  The words echoed around them, falling into a vast cavernous silence, and her heart ached and ached because he hadn’t turned around. He wasn’t coming over to where she sat and pulling her to her feet, kissing her, holding her as if he never wanted to let her go. No, he was only standing still, every line of him tense, as if he was bracing himself, waiting for a blow to fall.

  “You don’t want me, Hope.” He stayed turned away. “It was just sex, that’s all.”

  That hurt. That hurt a lot. “It was more than just sex, Si.�
�� She tried to keep her voice neutral, to not let the hurt show. “It was way more than that and you know it.”

  “But that’s all it was supposed to be. That was all this whole thing was supposed to be.”

  Slowly, she put down her beer and then got to her feet. “I know it was. But then it changed. And you talking in the meeting tonight about the environment—about the people… I realized how much like home this place has felt recently. More than it has in years. And the reason for that is you, Si. You make Deep River feel like home to me, you always have.”

  He shook his head. “You can’t—”

  “Because I’m in love with you,” she said, because she had to say it. She needed to. It was too big to keep inside anymore, no matter how exposed and vulnerable it made her feel. “I think I’ve loved you for years and never realized. Not until tonight. Not until now.”

  * * *

  Every muscle in Si’s body had gone tense, and he couldn’t relax them. He stared into the darkness where the river flowed, his jaw aching, everything aching, the words he’d always fantasized hearing from her echoing around him.

  She was in love with him. She’d loved him for years.

  He’d imagined her saying those words, had imagined it many, many times. Yet now he had the reality, it felt nothing like he’d thought it would. He didn’t feel happy or satisfied or relieved or overwhelmed.

  What he felt was furious.

  He was the one who was in love. He was the one with all the helpless longing, not her. She was never supposed to reciprocate. She was never supposed to fall for him.

  What she was supposed to do was leave, to go and have a goddamn life, while he was supposed to stay here. Alone.

  Safe, don’t you mean?

  No, it had nothing to do with safety. Or certainly not about his. It was about hers. It was about protecting her. Protecting her from himself and what he wanted. Because he always wanted more than people could give, and hadn’t he learned that from his father? His constant need for more had driven the old man to the bottle, and there was no knowing what it would drive Hope to do.

  He couldn’t expose her to that. He wouldn’t.

  Slowly, he turned around to face her.

  She stood next to the fire, the light igniting the red in her hair, making her blaze, and her eyes were darker than the night sky above, looking at him… God, the way she looked at him hurt.

  She was so beautiful. But she’d never been for him.

  “You can’t love me.” He kept his voice flat, crushing the fragile hope in hers. “And I’m not worth sacrificing everything you wanted for.”

  Shock rippled over her features. “What? Why would you say that?”

  “Because of Dad.” He’d never told anyone this, not one person, and he didn’t want to tell her now. But she had to know.

  “What about him?” Hope frowned. “He was an alcoholic, sure—”

  “But he didn’t start out that way. Not at first. He was a good father, and then Mom died and he changed.”

  “He was grieving, Si.”

  “I only wanted him to feel better,” he went on, ignoring her. “I only wanted him to see that though he might have lost Mom, I was still alive. That’s all I wanted.” His heart rate was through the roof, adrenaline pumping through him, but he forced himself to keep going. “But he wouldn’t look at me, wouldn’t even speak to me, and that went on for weeks. Then I remembered that the night of Mom’s funeral he’d had a couple of beers and he’d seemed…better.” He had to take a breath, force the rest out. “I found a bottle of vodka in the back of the pantry, and I thought that if beer could help, then vodka would be even better. So I gave it to him, and he nearly drank the entire thing. And that night he talked about her. He smiled and he laughed. Christ, he even gave me a hug.” Si’s heart twisted in his chest at the memories, a raw bitter anger coursing through him. “Then the next day he went out and bought another bottle. Then another and another. And I didn’t stop him. I was ten, and I liked it when he was drunk.” He bared his teeth in a feral smile. “Because when he was drunk, he was my dad again.”

  Shock rippled over Hope’s face. “Oh, Si…”

  “So you see, don’t you?” he demanded, ignoring the soft note in her voice and how it hurt. “You see now. He wasn’t an alcoholic. I turned him into one. Because I wanted my dad back. Because I wanted more than he could give.”

  Sympathy had replaced the shock in her expression, a terrible sympathy that cut him to shreds. “You didn’t tell me.” Her voice was hoarse. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “What? That I caused my father to turn to drinking? That I was ultimately the one responsible for his death?” He couldn’t keep the sharp edge from the words. “Why the hell would you think I’d tell anyone that?”

  “I was your friend. I would have understood.” She took a step toward him and stopped. “God, you can’t blame yourself for that. You were ten, and you’d just lost your mom.”

  “But it wasn’t just me being ten,” he said bitterly. “How does that excuse me at fourteen? At sixteen? Letting him buy all that vodka. Letting him drink it. I could have stopped him, and I didn’t.”

  “You were lonely, and you wanted him to be there for you.”

  “That’s no goddamn excuse.” His heart beat out of control now, and she looked like she wanted to close the distance between them, and he had no idea what he’d do if she got too close. Hold her so tight. Never let her go. “Dad told me once when he was sober that I wanted too much from him. That he didn’t have anything more to give me. And he was right. I did want too much. I still do.”

  The firelight flickered over her lovely face, gleaming on the telltale signs of tear tracks on her cheeks. They felt like a knife in his chest.

  “That’s not wrong, Si,” Hope said. “I’d give you everything you wanted and more, and I think you know that. So why can’t you take it?”

  But he knew. He’d always known, deep down inside. He stared at her, the distance between them not so very far and yet vast enough that he couldn’t cross it. “I don’t deserve it,” he said, hard and cold. “I’ll never deserve it.”

  She blinked. “What? Why on earth would you think that?”

  “Why the hell would you think I would?” He flung up a hand. “After everything I’ve just told you?”

  “But…” Her gaze searched his face, nothing but puzzlement on it. “That’s not true. That’s so not true I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Start with a goddamn bottle of vodka.”

  “Si—”

  “Dad died, Hope,” Si ground out, trying to make her understand. “He died in the end because he was drunk. Because I didn’t stop him from drinking. And because of him, Bill died too.”

  “But I’ve never blamed you for that and you know it,” she shot back. “I would never judge you, either.”

  “No, but I do.” He couldn’t say it any plainer than that.

  She stared at him for a long moment. “What? So that’s it? I tell you that I love you and you throw it back in my face, giving me some crap about how you don’t deserve it? And all because you gave your father a stupid bottle of vodka?”

  Pain and fury knotted inside him, rough as old rope. She made it sound ridiculous, so simple, but it wasn’t. “I’m sorry, Hope,” he said roughly. “But that’s all I’ve got to give you.”

  Her hands closed into fists, her own anger stark on her face, her eyes glittering with pain. She swallowed, and he wanted to go to her, pull her into his arms and tell her everything would be okay.

  But it wasn’t okay. Nothing would ever be okay again.

  “Would you listen to yourself?” she said hoarsely. “It’s not all you have to give. You have so much more, and I know because I can see it in your eyes every time you look at me.” She took in a shaky breath. “It’s not that you don’t deserve it.
It’s that you’re too much of a coward to take it.”

  “No, that’s not true—”

  “Yes, it is.” Her voice was unsteady, tears glittering on her cheeks. “You told me that you’d wanted me for years, and here I am, giving you exactly what you want, and now suddenly you’ve changed your mind?”

  She’s right. You are a coward.

  “You don’t understand,” he said.

  “No, it’s you who doesn’t understand.” Abruptly, she came toward him and every muscle in his body locked. Because if she touched him…

  But she didn’t. She stopped right in front of him, the look on her face brighter than the fire, ablaze with something that hurt to look at. “I’ve spent my life being afraid, being too scared to reach out and take what I wanted. Until you, Silas Quinn. Until you came back into my life and showed me everything I was missing out on.” Her voice shook with passion. “You made me want things. You made me think I could have them. You gave me the courage to reach for them and I did, so don’t you dare tell me that I don’t understand. I put away my fear, Silas. What’s your excuse?”

  “I’m not afraid,” he growled. “All I’m doing is trying to protect you.”

  “From what?” she demanded. “From you? Well, it’s too late for that. Too goddamn late!”

  His heart ached. Everything ached. He’d never wanted to hurt her. All he’d ever wanted was for her to be happy. But she’d never be happy with him. Because what she wanted he couldn’t give. And love had already cost her so much with her mother. He couldn’t be like Angela, holding on to her, taking from her. Taking and giving nothing back.

  Forcing aside the anguish, he only stared back. “I’ve told you why it won’t work between us. And I never promised you anything more.”

  “Oh, I know you didn’t,” she said bitterly. “You were always very clear.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “And if that’s the way you want it, that’s fine. I won’t force you. But just remember that this time it was me who offered something more. And it was you who didn’t have the guts to take it.”