Come Home to Deep River

by Jackie Ashenden

  Somewhere inside of him a knife twisted, pain echoing through him.

  But he didn’t say anything. He had nothing left to say. He’d made his decision and he wasn’t going to change it, and it had nothing to do with fear.

  Nothing at all.

  Hope turned without another word and walked away, leaving him standing by the leaping fire.

  He didn’t stop her.

  He’d done the right thing—he had.

  And maybe if he told himself that enough times, he’d believe it.

  Chapter 18

  Silas hammered in the last nail on the shingle he was attaching to repair Phil’s roof, and clearly he was using a little more force than was strictly necessary because Phil yelled up at him, “Hey, you’re supposed to be repairing the roof, not beating it down!”

  Si grimaced, gave the shingle one last—lighter—blow before examining his work. Seemed good. Then his phone vibrated in his pocket, and he took it out, his heart beating for a second far too fast. But it was only yet another call from Damon.

  Ignoring it, Si put the phone back in his pocket, hooked his hammer into his tool belt, then made his way back to the ladder propped against the side of the house.

  Phil was standing beside the ladder, scowling as Si came down and stepped onto the ground.

  “My house won’t stand up to any more of your repairs if beating my roof in is what you call repairs,” Phil said grumpily. “What’s gotten into you, boy?”

  “Sorry.” Si knew he didn’t sound sorry in the least, but he was beyond caring. “It’s all done, though.”

  Phil eyed him. “It’s that girl, isn’t it?”

  A hot shock pulsed down his spine. “No, it’s not the damn girl,” he snarled before he could stop himself.

  But that was a lie. Of course it was the girl.

  For the past few days, he’d been keeping busy, figuring out where he was going to live now that he was staying and viewing a couple of the vacant lease properties as potential homes. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was helping out around the town, responding to people’s questions that had come up following the town meeting.

  Which was great, because he needed to be busy. He needed to be doing something so he didn’t have to think of Hope. Didn’t have to keep replaying the sympathy and understanding on her face as he’d told her about his father, didn’t have to see the tears on her cheeks as he’d told her he didn’t want what she had to offer. Didn’t have to see the pain in her eyes before she’d turned her back on him.

  That she was avoiding him made things easier. She seemed to spend all her time in her back office, which was good, because it was bad enough hearing her voice at night, talking to the regulars behind the bar, the sound of her laugh drifting up the stairs. Making him want to go down there and haul her over that bar and into his arms.

  But he’d made his decision. And it would be better for both of them in the end. Yes, much, much better.

  Phil didn’t seem bothered by his foul temper, only nodding sagely as if Si had just confirmed something for him. “Heard that she’s planning on leaving,” he said. “And that you’re taking on the Moose.”

  Si ignored the way his chest ached at the thought of Hope leaving. Because it shouldn’t ache. He knew she was going to go, and he was pleased that she was. “Yeah, that’s right,” Si muttered. “That’s the plan.”

  Phil’s bright blue gaze seemed to see far more than Si was comfortable with. “You seem real happy about it,” the old man observed.

  “She needs someone to take on the lease,” Si bit out, not really sure why he was explaining himself. “I offered.”

  Phil tilted his head, the movement making him look like one of his birds. “Seems to me that it’s not the lease you want to take on.”

  Si stared back, belligerent. “Got something to say to me, Phil? Because if so, out with it. I haven’t got time for games.”

  “Fair enough.” The old man’s gaze was steady. “Word is something’s up with her, that she’s walking around looking like a woman with a broken heart. And it seems like she’s not the only one.”

  Another shock, a cold one this time, rippled down Si’s spine, and for a second he couldn’t speak. “I’m fine,” he managed when he could find his voice again. “It just didn’t work out.”

  “Huh.” Phil rubbed at his chin. “You don’t look fine to me.”

  His heart ached, throbbing and raw, the memory of Hope’s face and the anguish in her dark eyes pulling at him, eating away at him.

  Yeah, you broke her heart. And broke your own in the process.

  “It’s none of your business,” he said roughly, not wanting to go into it.

  “Maybe not,” Phil conceded. “Or maybe I know more than you do about broken hearts and how to heal them.”

  Si stood there, suddenly very conscious of the crack that ran through that heart of his. Because yes, it was broken. It had broken when his mother died, and over the following months, as he’d realized that his father didn’t want him when he was sober, only when he was drunk, it had broken again.

  And again the night Hope had walked away.

  It had broken so many times he was sure there was nothing left of it.

  But apparently not, since nothing else could explain this pain.

  “You can’t heal it,” he heard himself say in a raw voice. “Sometimes things just stay broken.”

  Phil shook his head. “That’s bullshit, boy, and I think you know that. Everything can be fixed, otherwise why would you be up on my roof hammering at those shingles?”

  Si almost laughed. “It’s not the same thing.”

  “Sure it is. And I’ll tell you this for free. The only way to heal a broken heart is not to give it less love, it’s to give it more. Give it as much as you can handle.”

  He took a breath, unable to look at the old man. Because he thought if he did, he’d probably break in two. “And what if I don’t have any of that to give?”

  Phil gave a quiet laugh. “Everyone’s got love to give, boy. No matter what they tell themselves.”

  “But not everyone deserves to have it,” he said before he could stop himself.

  The old man was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “I think if someone is loved, then they deserve it. But love hurts. And not everyone can handle that kind of pain.”

  Si had no answer to that, because he sure as hell couldn’t. And he didn’t know why that stuck with him as he finished up Phil’s repairs and began the walk back into town. A mistake to walk, because it left him with too much time to think—about the crack in his own heart. About the crack he’d put in Hope’s. About love and worthiness.

  About pain.

  Love hurt, Phil had said, and he wasn’t wrong. Love had never meant anything but pain for Si. Yet he couldn’t stop thinking about what had blazed in Hope’s face as she’d confronted him down by the river, telling him about how he’d shown her what she’d been missing and how she’d put aside her fear to take what she wanted.

  You’ve loved her for years, and you never told her the truth. She loved you in a week and gave you her heart the first moment she had a chance.

  Si came to a sudden halt at the side of the gravel road, looking sightlessly over the mountains.

  She was brave. Braver than he’d ever been either before or since. She’d had the courage to open her heart to him, while he’d kept his locked.

  She’d shown him her soul, her fears, and her hopes, while he’d kept his wrapped up tight and secret.

  Safe. You kept it safe.

  The thought was like a bucket of ice water dumped straight over his head.

  Yes, he had. That’s exactly what he’d been doing: keeping himself safe, protecting himself. Using his own sense of unworthiness as an excuse. And that’s what it was, an excuse.

  Because she was r
ight, he was a goddamned coward. He was afraid. He’d had his heart broken so many times and it hurt, it just goddamn hurt. And if he gave it to her and she broke it…

  Shit. He wouldn’t survive it.

  Si stood there staring out at those damn mountains, the pain in his chest nearly unbearable.

  So where did that leave him? Phil had told him that more love was the key to healing a broken heart, but when that love could also destroy him, what should he do? What could he do?

  You have to trust her.

  The thought was an arrow straight from the sky, skewering him right through.

  She was his friend. She’d always been his friend, no matter what. And she loved him. Even after he’d told her about his father, she’d looked at him as if that didn’t matter to her in the slightest and told him that she’d give him everything he’d ever wanted.

  And he did want it. He wanted her.

  Hope. Her name was a promise, a prayer, a magic spell, holding the grief and the loneliness at bay. A light in the dark, the sun breaking through the clouds.

  That’s what she’d always been, his hope. And if he couldn’t trust her, if he let her go, all that hope would be gone. And without that, he might as well be destroyed already.

  Si took a shuddering breath, the knowledge sweeping through him like a wave.

  She loved him, and he had to trust that love, trust her, even though he might not deserve it. Even though he was afraid. Because without her, he couldn’t survive.

  Si began the long walk back into town, moving faster and faster. And then he was running. Running back to her.

  After all this time, hope was the one thing he couldn’t bring himself to let go of.

  * * *

  Hope leaned on the bar as Joe and Lloyd began their usual argument. Tonight’s was a little different, somehow morphing into which one of them had the best wilderness skills and which one could best teach those skills to the vast number of tourists that would soon be flooding into Deep River.

  It would have amused her if she’d cared, but she didn’t care. In fact, for the past couple of days, she’d cared about nothing. Even filling out her college application forms and sending them off hadn’t made her feel anything.

  Her heart had crumbled in on itself, leaving only an empty space where it should have been, a void that nothing seemed to fill. Which was maybe being unnecessarily dramatic, but even so, that’s how it felt.

  Everything had been made even harder by the fact that Silas was still ostensibly staying at the Moose. She’d managed to avoid him since that terrible evening beside the fire a few days ago, and with any luck, she could keep on avoiding him. At least until the moment when she left, which would be soon. Her mother was already drawing up an itinerary of potential cities they could live in, though that was going to be dependent on which college accepted her.

  She wished she could feel more excited about it, but she didn’t.

  Perhaps that would change, though. Once she got away from here, away from Silas, she’d feel better. Perhaps she’d regain the excitement she’d once had for new possibilities and new challenges.

  You won’t. Not when all you want is him.

  She did. But he didn’t want her, and even though she knew that wasn’t true, that he was only afraid, that didn’t make the reality any easier to bear. She’d tried to make him see that he had nothing to be afraid of, nothing to feel unworthy about, but he’d refused. And she couldn’t force him. All she’d been able to do was walk away.

  God, if only it wasn’t so hard…

  Joe and Lloyd’s argument was reaching its usual crescendo, and she began looking around for Axel to do his usual excellent job of kicking them out when suddenly the doors to the Moose were jerked open.

  And the dusty remains of Hope’s heart shivered.

  Silas stood in the doorway, breathing fast, his chest heaving as if he’d just run a hundred miles. A wild sort of energy was rolling off him, making everyone in the entire bar stop what they were doing and look.

  Then his gaze—brilliant gold and green—came to hers, and all of a sudden she couldn’t breathe. She wanted to turn and run, escape back into her office, but he was already coming toward her, determination in every line of him.

  She reached for the anger she’d felt that night by the fire, lifting her chin, determined to challenge him the way she had when he’d come into her bar just like this only a week or so earlier.

  Axel, obviously picking up on the tension, started toward Silas, maybe to stop him, but Silas only gave him a look that made the other man step back.

  Well, the bastard might be able to intimidate Axel but he wasn’t going to intimidate her. No freaking way.

  She stood tall behind the bar, waiting, and Silas kept on coming, shoving between Lloyd and Joe as if they weren’t there, much to their annoyance.

  “Hope.” His gaze was fierce and he ignored the muttered curses of the two old men on either side of him. “Can I talk to you?”

  But she was angry. So angry she was shaking. Did he think that he could just waltz back in here after he’d basically thrown her heart back in her face? That she would agree to speak to him? Just like that?

  “No,” she said, equally fierce. “You can’t talk to me. And if you don’t get out of my bar—”

  “Five minutes. That’s all I want. Just five.”

  The shaking got worse, and she had to fold her arms over her chest to ease it. “Why? What’s it going to change? I think you said everything you needed to, didn’t you?”

  “No.” His voice was full of something intense and dark, a note she hadn’t heard in it before. “Turns out I have a few more things to say. But not in front of anyone else.” The intensity in his gaze burned. “If you need me to beg, I will.”

  Silence had begun to ripple outward, people turning to stare.

  She was creating a scene and she hadn’t meant to. Dammit.

  Silas didn’t seem to notice, still staring at her as if her answer was the most important thing in the entire universe.

  “You got some nerve, Quinn,” Lloyd muttered, because of course gossip about her and Silas and what was happening between them was already circulating. “You’d best apologize to the lady.”

  “That’s exactly what I want to do,” Silas said, still looking only at her.

  She couldn’t let this go on. The sooner she dealt with him, the sooner he’d be out of her life. So she lifted a shoulder, trying to hold on to her anger and not the pain, and said, “Fine. Five minutes.”

  He said nothing, paying no attention to all the stares thrown their way, following her silently as she led the way to her office.

  “Why are you here, Silas?” she demanded, taking refuge against her desk as he closed the door behind them. “Because if it’s to—”

  “Stay, Hope.” The look on his face was suddenly blazing, some powerful, fierce emotion vibrating in his voice. “Stay with me.”

  Shock rippled through her. “W-what?”

  “I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay here with me instead.”

  The shock deepened, widened. “But…you wanted me to go.”

  “I know I did. But I was wrong.” He shoved a hand through his hair, the same wild, passionate energy as he’d had out in the bar pouring off him. “Turns out you were right that night beside the fire. You accused me of being a coward and… You’re right. I am.”

  Her mouth was dry, the crumbled remains of her heart gritty as sand. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

  He stared at her. “You were never supposed to love me back. You were always supposed to be unobtainable. Because that made you safe. That meant I could love you without fear, because if you never loved me back, I could never have my heart broken.”

  She swallowed, trying to follow what he was saying, her brain not working quit
e right. “But I—”

  “And then you did,” he went on, moving closer. “You gave me your heart, and I had no goddamn idea what to do with it. Love had been nothing but pain for me, and here you were, offering me yet more. I had to protect myself. Because I didn’t want to face the reality of my feelings for you.”

  Hope blinked. “What feelings?”

  Silas took another step and then stopped, the look in his eyes so focused and intent she could barely breathe. “I should have told you years ago and I didn’t. Because I’m a goddamn coward. You always were braver than me, sweetheart.” The gold burning in his gaze was as brilliant as the fire beside the river that night. “I love you, Hope Dawson. I’ve always loved you. I’ve loved you for years and years, but I was too afraid to say it. I was too afraid of the pain. Too afraid of what I felt for you, because my heart’s been broken before, and if you broke it, I knew I wouldn’t survive.”

  Her eyes prickled, her throat getting sore, all her anger draining away. “Si—”

  “No,” he said hoarsely, “let me finish. I told you I didn’t deserve it, that I didn’t deserve you, and maybe that’s true and maybe I don’t. But I’m not going to use that as an excuse anymore. Instead of you breaking my heart, I broke yours, and I’m sorry. I want to fix it. I want to heal it. I want to give you back all the love you should have had from me years ago, and not holding anything back this time. I want to—”

  But Hope couldn’t keep still any longer. She closed the distance between them, stepping up to him and raising a hand, laying a finger across his beautiful mouth to silence him. Her throat was so tight she could barely speak, yet she forced the words out because they were important. “If there’s one thing you need to understand, Silas Quinn, it’s this. You don’t need to deserve me. And you don’t need to become worthy. You already are.”

  His mouth moved against her finger, but she pressed it down, keeping him quiet, because she wasn’t done.

  “I know you had a crappy time of it with your dad. I know you blame yourself. And I get it. That’s how I felt about my mom, too. But we can have this without needing to deserve it or be worthy of it. We can have it because we both want it, and that’s enough, don’t you think?”