by Maisey Yates
“I did,” he continued.
“No. I helped you. That’s what I do, Cain. I help people. It’s the way that I’ve figured I can redeem that tiny existence that I had for so many years, for all that time that I needed help from people, all those times when I needed them to hold me up because I was too weak. I’ve become that for other people, and I understand how maybe your emotions can get...tangled up in that. But that doesn’t mean you’re in love with me.”
Then he looked angry. A sudden shadow passed over his face and he launched himself from the bed, and she found six-plus feet of angry man walking toward her, totally naked. “Is that how you’re going to play it? That we just had therapeutic sex? You offered up your body to me out of pity? Is that just what you do?”
“That’s not what I meant. I met with Violet. I talked to you about her, and tried to figure out ways you could get along better. The sex is different. It’s separate.”
“No. That’s where we were stupid. The sex isn’t separate. It never is. It never was. It’s part of you, it’s part of me and it’s part of us. There was never a line. It was never me coming to you for advice, and a different me giving you orgasms. It was all just me. And it was all just you. We lied to ourselves, because we were afraid. Because from the minute I laid eyes on you the connection that I felt with you was stronger than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life. And I needed to have it. I needed to have it, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let myself have it if I acknowledge that.” He reached out, his fingertips brushing her chin. “We’ve both been hurt—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Your ex-wife hurt your feelings. My ex-husband bruised my body. He made me bleed. He broke me, Cain. Not just my body, but my soul. We haven’t both been hurt. Don’t act like we’ve been through the same things. Like you can take your limp dishrag of a marriage and compare it to the hell that I lived through.”
His head jerked back as though she had hit him, but then he straightened, leveling that green gaze at her. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I know what you went through was hell. I do. And I didn’t go through hell. But whatever I have to do to convince you that it won’t be like that with me, I’ll do it.”
She shook her head. “I think you misunderstand. I don’t think you’re going to hurt me. I’m not afraid of you, Cain. I never have been. That isn’t the problem. The problem is that I don’t want to share my life. Everything I have here? I built it. It’s mine. A new life, a new woman. I don’t have any room in my life for a man, not in a permanent sense. I like Violet, but I’m not looking for a child either. I’m not looking for ties, I’m not looking for anyone or anything to be beholden to.”
Her own words cut her deep, wounded her. She hated herself for saying them. For bringing Violet into it. It wasn’t fair, but she also knew it was the one thing that would drive him off. She could probably tell him she didn’t want him until she couldn’t breathe, until her voice was raw with it, and he would still be there, staring at her, refusing to move. But if she said she didn’t want Violet...
He would never fight against that.
“You’re lying,” he said, his voice rough.
She was. She was. And her heart was twisted up, wrung out, threatening to burst from the strain that was being put on it right now. She hurt everywhere. Pressure building behind her eyes, tears threatening to overflow. But she had to do this now. Or she would never be able to do it. No matter what being with him did to her, no matter how profoundly she lost herself, she would get sucked back into that pattern.
Love wasn’t like that for everyone, and she knew it. But she had a feeling that some people just weren’t meant to have it. And she was one of them.
So she had to end it now. Had to end it now before it ended later, badly. Before she was left a broken shell again, working to pick up the pieces of her life. She didn’t know that woman. She wasn’t her. And she would never become her again. Even if it hurt now, she would do what she had to do to keep herself from being decimated later.
“I’m not,” she said. “I know it doesn’t make sense to you and, in a way, I’m kind of glad,” she said, trying to speak around the lump that was forming in her throat. “Kathleen hurt you. But she didn’t break that part of you that...can have love. That can have a relationship. Good. Go have one. Go have one with somebody that actually wants to have one with you, Cain. Stop putting yourself in impossible situations and wanting women who are never going to give you what you give them.”
“Don’t you dare lecture me, Alison. Don’t you dare stand there and act like I should love somebody else. I know my heart. I know my mind. I love you. It’s not an accident, and it’s not because I’m a fool. It’s not because there are things in this world I haven’t seen. Not because there’s pain I haven’t felt. You think you’re going to wound me? My own mother didn’t want me. My wife walked out. On me. On my child. I’m still standing here taking the chance. Because love is worth that. More than that, you’re worth it.”
She shook her head. “No. No.” I’m not. I’m not. The echo of those denials rang inside of her, but she didn’t speak them out loud. Didn’t even stop to analyze them. Couldn’t. Didn’t want to.
“Dammit, Alison,” he said, reaching out, grabbing hold of her arms and pulling her close to him. He didn’t hurt her, but all the intensity, all of the pain that he was feeling came through in that hold. “You know what this costs me. I’m doing it anyway. Talk to me. Work with me. Give me a chance.”
“No!” She broke his hold on her, turning in the opposite direction and walking away from him. “No,” she repeated again, this time the word was steady, as she took a deep breath, found that calm, dead place inside her that she had retreated to for years anytime something hurt too much. Anytime something was too hard. In that moment, that action, this moment of necessity made her feel justified. Made her feel like she really didn’t have another option.
Because he had forced her here. He had forced her into this. To that dead, emotionless place that had been her touchstone when the world had been too hard, when her husband had been too cruel. She had to do it now to escape this pain and that she could still access that dead piece of herself was a reminder of how close her trauma was. Of the fact that it was just on the other side of the wall.
It was why she had built the wall in the first place. And Cain Donnelly could not be allowed to destroy it.
“I don’t want to,” she said. “Can’t you understand that?” She whirled around to face him. “You said you haven’t been in love before, but I have, Cain. I loved a man with everything that I had, I gave him my trust, and he broke it. He broke me. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that I need to be healed, that I’m waiting around for you to show me that I can have what I want. I don’t want it. I want my life as I have built it for myself. I want to be free. I don’t want to be weighed down by you and all of your bullshit. You have too much baggage. I have enough of my own. And actually, I’ve figured out how to lay a bunch of it down. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that I can’t, and that I need you to rescue me. I don’t want that. And I don’t want you.”
The words were sharp and they left an ache in her throat as though they had cut her on the way out.
“Alison...”
“No,” she said again. “It has to be this way.” She swallowed hard, hating herself for what she was about to say. For what had to be said. “Otherwise...you’re just going to end up being the reason I’m unhappy, Cain.” She forced herself to meet his eyes. Looking at him felt like dying, but she had to. “We both know that you don’t want that.”
He didn’t react to that. His expression solidified. His mouth firmed into a thin line. Those green eyes that had looked at her with warmth, with passion, with anger, went cold. Like she was looking at dead pieces of jade, so hard and sharp they would cut her if she got too close.
“You’re righ
t,” he said, his voice tight. “I don’t want that.”
“I have to go to work.”
“So do I.”
“Good. Just... Good.” She started hunting around for her clothes, panic building in her chest. He needed to go. He needed to get dressed and leave, and if he didn’t, then she was going to leave first, because she couldn’t be this close to him. She couldn’t be. All of her resolve would weaken, and she would collapse. And she just couldn’t risk that. She couldn’t let this break her like it was threatening to. This was a test, and she was damn certain she was going to pass it.
“Violet is supposed to work later today,” he said, his tone hard.
“Yeah,” she returned. “I know. This doesn’t affect Violet’s job, so you know.”
“Why would it? Apparently, it doesn’t affect you at all.”
He collected his clothes then, dressing silently, the anger pouring off him palpable. But he didn’t direct any of it at her. And part of her wished to God that he would.
Instead, he just walked out of the room when he was finished. She pulled her shirt over her head, and followed him out into the living area, but by the time she made it there, he was walking out the front door. He closed it behind him with a finality that echoed inside of her.
She should be relieved. It was over. It was done. Everything could go back to the way that it had been before. To the way that she needed it to be.
She wasn’t relieved. She wasn’t relieved at all.
With shaking legs, she sat down on her couch, her hand pressed firmly to her chest as her threadbare heart beat against her breastbone.
She had told him that he didn’t understand the kind of pain she had been through. He didn’t, she knew. Not specifically. But in that moment she understood that while Jared had broken her in a lot of horrible ways before, she had never been broken quite like this.
Because no one had ever broken her heart before. And now, she had gone and broken her own.
But it was the only way she could keep the rest of herself whole.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CAIN WAS NUMB and exhausted by the time he walked into the house an hour after Alison had told him to leave. He was kind of grateful for the numbness, because he had a feeling once it receded, this was going to suck big-time.
He paused in the doorway, shaking his head. Then he pushed his hair back off his forehead, taking a deep breath. She had rejected him. He had told her that he loved her, he had put himself out there, and she had rejected him.
It flew in the face of everything she had taught him over the past couple of weeks like a suicidal bird aiming for a jet. Counterintuitive, feathers and carnage everywhere.
Communication was supposed to work. It was supposed to be the key. His magic key that he had discovered made everything easier. Except today, when it had shattered everything inside of him.
There was probably a lesson in this too. About persisting even though this was terrible. About continuing on in the lessons he had learned regardless of the way that Alison had responded to his declarations. But he didn’t really care what the lesson was right now. He was pissed he was being forced to learn it. He didn’t want to learn anything. He wanted Alison.
“Dad?” He looked up and saw Violet standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Are you just getting home?”
He wasn’t exactly sure why she assumed that, since he could have just as easily been coming in from working outside, but he wasn’t in the mood to lie. Wasn’t in the mood to sidestep or be defensive.
“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of neck.
“I noticed that you went out last night,” she said, crossing her arms. “Were you going to tell me where you were going?”
He laughed incredulously. “I don’t have to tell you where I’m going.”
Violet lifted her hands. “I’m just saying, am I going to end up having to drag you out of some barn party late at night while you’re three sheets to the wind?”
“Maybe,” he said.
“In all seriousness,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Do you want to...talk about it?”
“Are you going to lecture me about safe sex?” The expression on her face actually made him smile, and in his current condition that was pretty difficult.
“Good God. Do I have to?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. I’m kind of curious to hear what that would entail.”
“Me locking myself in the bathroom and screaming into the void?”
“That sounds about right.” He sighed heavily. “I might go back to bed for a while.”
“Are you... Are you okay?”
Violet looked about as shocked to say the words as he was to hear them. “I will be,” he said. “There’s not much other choice, is there?”
“What happened?”
“Got rejected.” He pressed his hand to his chest. “It hurts too. Dammit, I figured I would be done with this stuff a long time ago.”
“It’s not exactly comforting to watch from this end of the spectrum,” she said. “I figured someone your age should be done with that too.”
“Thanks.”
“Was it... Is there... Is it Alison?” Violet looked genuinely concerned about that.
“Yes,” he said, because they were talking now, so he might as well keep going with the honesty. “I didn’t tell you because she’s your boss and I figured that would be weird for you. It was also just supposed to be... Okay, I’m not going to tell you what it was supposed to be. But, suffice it to say it wasn’t supposed to be something you needed to hear about. Stuff changed. At least, for me it did.”
Violet bit her lower lip. “Are you in love with her?”
Cain took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Yes. But she isn’t in love with me.”
“That’s really stupid,” Violet said, her tone earnest. “She should be.”
“Thanks. I think so too.”
“I can quit. I can quit working at the bakery. If you want me to.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want you to. I want you to have your job. Because you like it. And I want you to keep your relationship with Alison, because you like her.”
Violet scowled. “I’m not sure I like her anymore.”
“Things like this happen. That’s relationships. One person wants something, the other person isn’t ready. Or maybe it’s me. Maybe she is ready, but she needs the right guy. I don’t know. Either way... Life goes on.”
“But it’s stupid.” Violet reiterated her earlier stance.
“Good people are stupid sometimes. Just because she doesn’t want to be with me doesn’t mean she’s a lost cause.” Privately, he wondered if he was the one that was the lost cause. It was difficult not to. Considering the fact nobody seemed to want to stay with him much.
But no, this was about Alison. He would love to be angry at her—part of him was. But it was hard to condemn a woman who had gone through what she’d gone through. Hard to say what she should do. He knew what it was like to have a marriage go to hell, but he didn’t know what it was like to be subjected to the kinds of things she’d been subjected to.
He knew what it was like to have trust broken. To have someone do something that seemed beyond understanding. He would never understand how Kathleen had managed to break ties the way that she had. How she’d walked away from Violet without a backward glance.
“Why are you being so reasonable? You’re never reasonable. You’re definitely not reasonable with me.”
“Good question,” he said. “I’m thinking that the unreasonable part comes later.” Right now he just felt... Well, still numb. Although, it was starting to fade a little bit at the edges, leaving behind a strange ache that wasn’t really preferable.
“If you need me to quit my job, I will. When the unreas
onable hits.”
“I’m not giving you permission to quit your job, Violet. Nice try though.”
“How am I supposed to go into work now? Now it’s weird.”
“Another unintentional side effect of getting older. Things get weird sometimes. And you have to deal with it.”
“Then I guess I have to...go to work and...deal with it.”
“Sorry,” he said. There was just so much apologizing to do. “This was a good talk, but I’m going to go upstairs and...deal with it.”
Cain walked past Violet, heading up the stairs, down the hall toward his room. He stripped off his clothes as he walked through to the bathroom, turning the shower on and stepping beneath the spray before it had fully warmed up.
He wasn’t sure what he hoped to accomplish by taking a shower. Maybe he was just hoping to wash the feelings away. To go back to a place in his life where he had been ineffective, but hadn’t cared quite so much either.
For the past sixteen years the only person he had really loved was Violet. Now there were more people. His brothers, Alison. And when you had that much, there was a lot more to lose.
Well, he had lost Alison.
That realization sent a sharp stab of pain straight through his chest and down through the rest of his body. Yeah, he wasn’t numb anymore. It hurt. Hurt like a son of a bitch.
He braced his hand against the tile wall, steeling himself against the onslaught of pain that rained down on him harder than the water.
He wanted to get right back out of the shower, go back to Pie in the Sky, drag her over the counter and into his arms, kiss her, claim her in front of the entire town. He wanted to fight for her. Wanted to tell her that it wasn’t the end, that it couldn’t be the end. Because he had finally figured out how to love someone. Really love them. And it didn’t seem fair that he had learned it on a woman who wouldn’t love him back.