Color of Forgiveness

by Madeleine Beckett

  “Are you serious?”

  Natalie snickers. “Hey, I’m trying here.”

  “Can you see me writing a letter?”

  “Okay, okay. You’re right. No letter writing. But when you do get an opportunity to talk to Myra? Tell her everything. Don’t hold back. I know it’s going to be really hard for you, but it’s important to not keep secrets from her.”

  “Yeah, I know. Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “Well, she has to come back at some point. Where does she work?”

  “She’s a writer. She’s writing a book right now.”

  “She’s a writer? Has she written something I’ve read? What’s the name of her book?”

  “I have no idea,” Dylan says with a laugh. Natalie joins him.

  “Well, maybe you’ll get another chance to talk to her friend. I’m sure something will work out.”

  “I hope so,” Dylan says with a sigh. “Thanks for talking to me. I’ve made such a mess of everything. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it.”

  “Dylan, you know how much I care about you. You can talk to me any time. Keep me updated on how things go. I really want things to work out for you. I can’t wait to meet her.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Call me soon.”

  After saying their goodbyes, he slips his phone back into his pocket. Standing, he groans, his back hurting like hell. A grimace crosses his features when he picks up the sledgehammer and puts it into the back of his truck. Almost every muscle in his damn body aches.

  Sitting in his truck, he stares at Myra’s front door, missing her like hell. He wishes she was inside, sitting by the fireplace, working on her book or standing in the kitchen, cooking. He smiles when he pictures himself with her in the kitchen, his body wrapped around her, his lips against the soft, warm skin of her neck, making her giggle.

  Sighing heavily, he pulls out his phone and dials her number. It goes straight to voicemail. Clearing his throat, he leaves her a message. “Hey. I just wanted you to know that I’m not going to give up. I know I probably don’t deserve a second chance with you, but I want one anyway. I’ll beg for one. I… I miss you, Myra. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  He follows it up with a text.

  4giv me I miss u –D

  * * *

  The next morning, with his trailer securely hitched to his truck, Dylan climbs in behind the wheel and takes a moment to rub his eyes, totally exhausted from a sleepless night. He takes a drink of his coffee and backs out of his driveway, headed for Myra’s house.

  He wants to get all of the concrete into the trailer and hauled off to the dump today so he can then start prepping and leveling the ground for the new concrete. Pulling up to Myra’s house, he looks over at Jackie’s and lets out a string of curses when he sees her car is gone. He was hoping to catch her before she left for work, wherever the hell that might be. But he figures it doesn’t matter anyway because he has the distinct feeling she’s never going to give him any information about Myra anyway since she hates him so much.

  Getting out of the truck, he yawns and stretches and looks up at the sky, his lower back throbbing from all the work he did yesterday. Even though it’s a cool March day, the skies are a beautiful bright blue without a cloud in the sky… couldn’t be a better day to lay some concrete.

  Stretching one last time, he pulls on some gloves and starts moving the heavy pieces of concrete into the trailer.

  A couple of hours later, he slowly walks up to Myra’s porch and sinks into a chair, completely drained, but happy with all of the shit he’s gotten done.

  Closing his eyes, he leans his head back against the chair and stretches his long legs out in front of him. Hearing a car approach, Dylan opens his eyes and sits up straight in his seat. His heart beats harder as he strains to see the car. Hoping like hell that it’s Myra. When the mailman comes into view, he slumps back in his seat and stretches his legs out again. The small vehicle pulls up to Myra’s mailbox. But instead of just depositing the mail, the guy opens the door and hops out.

  “Hello, there… Lovely day, huh…? It’s nice to get a taste of spring, isn’t it?”

  Dylan reluctantly stands. “Yep.”

  “Are you replacing the sidewalk?”

  “Yeah,” Dylan says walking down the steps. “It’s a good day to work on it.”

  “It sure is. That sidewalk was a mess. I bet Myra’s excited about it. Is she around?” he asks, holding up her mail.

  Dylan opens his mouth to respond, casually glancing at the mail. He freezes, his eyes widening when he catches a glimpse of the return address on the handwritten letter sitting on the top. All he caught was Susie and Philadelphia but that was enough.

  “Is Myra around?” the mailman asks again.

  Dylan clears his throat. “No. She’s… out of town.”

  “Oh. She didn’t stop her mail. Have you been collecting it for her?”

  He has to get his hands on that address. “Yeah… I have.”

  “Great,” the mailman says with a grin as he hands Dylan Myra’s mail. “Good luck with that sidewalk. Have a great day.”

  Dylan swallows hard and stares down at the mail in his hands, his eyes transfixed on that return address. He can’t fucking believe it. Still staring at the letter, he slowly walks over to Myra’s mailbox. Opening it, he frowns as he stares into the empty box for a moment. Glancing over at Jackie’s house, he puts two and two together and figures Jackie must be the one getting Myra’s mail for her. He sets the small stack of mail into the mailbox and stares at it. Rubbing the back of his neck, he looks off into the distance for a moment before his eyes dart back down to the card in the mailbox again. Slowly, and still in shock, his hand reaches out and closes the lid.

  * * *

  “Myra, you are a phenomenal cook. This is seriously delicious,” Jeff says before humming happily.

  Myra smiles at him. “Thank you.”

  “Myra?”

  Myra turns her head towards Wesley who is seated next to her. “Yes?”

  “Thanks for making us chicken nuggets. I hate broccoli,” he says, wrinkling his freckled nose up. “I’m glad you didn’t make us eat it like mom does.”

  “You’re welcome,” Myra says with a grin. “But make sure to always eat your broccoli because it’s good for you.”

  Susie butts in. “No complaining about mom or I’ll steal your chicken nuggets right this minute and replace them with a plate of broccoli and cauliflower,” Susie says to Wesley. “Oh, and I might throw in some bean sprouts on the side just to be evil.”

  Wesley and Tucker both make ugly faces and yell out several ewwws and yucks. “Gross,” Tucker says with a shiver. “Cauliflower is nasty.”

  Wesley shakes his head. “Bean sprouts are nastier,” he says.

  The boys begin a heated argument over which food is the nastiest. Myra smiles as she listens to the boys debate the topic.

  “What food do you think is the nastiest?” Tucker asks Myra.

  “I don’t know. I like just about everything,” Myra says as someone knocks on the door. She stops talking and looks up at Jeff and Susie. Jeff starts to get up to answer it, but Susie puts her hand on his arm to stop him. “I’ll get it.”

  Myra turns her attention back to Tucker. “What’s your favorite food?” she asks him as Susie disappears from the room.

  “Pizza and hamburgers and French fries and…”

  “Wait,” Myra says with a giggle. “You only get one choice.”

  “Well, if I only get to pick one, it’d have to be pizza,” Tucker says.

  “I know what my favorite food is,” Wesley announces.

  “What?” Myra asks.

  “Gummy worms,” he says with a toothy grin.

  Myra laughs. “Yuck.”

  “They’re good. Have you ever ate them before?” Wesley asks.

  “No. I don’t ever want to eat worms,” she says, giving him her best grossed-out look
while shivering a little.

  “They feel like real worms on your tongue,” Wesley says with bright eyes. “It’s cool.”

  “You don’t know what a real worm tastes like,” Tucker says to Wesley. “I know this kid at school that eats real worms all the time. He says they’re kind of gritty.”

  “What’s ‘gritty’?” Wesley asks.

  Myra can’t help but giggle. And lose her appetite.

  “Boys,” Jeff says, giving Myra an apologetic look. “We will not talk about things like that around the table.”

  Both boys hang their head their heads and pout. Myra has to hide a smile at how cute they look.

  Susie steps back into the dining room with a gigantic smile on her face. “Holy shmoly macaroni,” she mutters, holding her fists up and shaking them excitedly before letting out a little squeal, all the while staring directly at Myra.

  Myra frowns at her. “What?”

  “Guess what?” Susie asks, grinning from ear to ear.

  Myra smiles at her enthusiasm, but has no idea what’s going on. “I have no clue.”

  “There just so happens to be a certain scruffy Greek god…” Her eyes dart to the boys then back to Myra, “… butthole that just arrived on my doorstep who obviously couldn’t bear to be away from you. Can you believe he flew all the way here to see you? That’s so romantic.”

  With a huff, Susie plants her hands on her hips, shooting Jeff an evil glare. “You need to take some lessons from him, you unromantic toad,” she says.

  Before Myra can utter a word, Dylan steps into the door frame, looking incredibly nervous, his left hand tucked into his jeans and his right hand hanging at his side, holding a single red rose.

  CHAPTER 3

  PEACH, PETITION

  Dylan swallows hard, his eyes glued to Myra’s stunned face as he stands in the doorway of Susie’s dining room, his heart banging so roughly against his ribcage that he’s surprised it doesn’t jump out of his chest.

  Myra has always been beautiful to him, but staring at her now, his breath catches in his throat at just how truly stunning she is. Maybe that ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ shit people spew has some truth to it. It’s only been a little over a week since he last saw her, but to him, it feels like a goddamn lifetime.

  Myra slowly stands her eyes wide and face pale. Nervously, he clears his dry throat and wipes his sweaty palm on his jeans, terrified that she might be getting ready to tell him to get the fuck out.

  He startles slightly when Susie starts talking. “Come in, come in,” she says, motioning towards him. “We just sat down to eat. Make yourself at home… mi casa su casa and all that other flim flam shazam.”

  Nodding, he takes a couple of awkward steps forward.

  “Dylan, I’d like to introduce you to my hubby, Jeff,” Susie says. “Jeff, this is Dylan, Myra’s boyfriend.”

  Dylan’s eyes widen and dart to Myra’s when he hears the word ‘boyfriend’. Thankfully, that frozen-slash-stunned look is gone. But now her expression looks hard and a bit pissed off. Maybe a lot pissed off as he watches her eyes narrow and her lips thin into a grim line.

  He snaps his attention back to Jeff who has risen from the table. Quickly shifting the rose from his right hand to his left, he wipes his palm on his jeans before shaking Jeff’s outstretched hand.

  “Great to meet you,” Jeff says with a grin.

  “Likewise,” Dylan mutters quietly with a nod.

  Susie moves to stand behind one of the boys sitting at the table and ruffles his hair. “This is Tucker, my oldest. And that fine-looking little man sitting next to Myra is my baby, Wesley.”

  “I’m not a baby!” Wesley shouts.

  While Susie and her son begin arguing, Dylan looks at Myra again. Her eyes stay on his for an instant before dropping to the rose in his hand. She walks around the table, stopping a couple of feet in front of him. “What are you doing here?” she whispers to him in an angry voice.

  “Uh… well, I…” he mumbles before being interrupted.

  “Dylan, I hope you’re hungry. Myra fixed us a feast fit for a king,” Susie announces in a loud voice. “Or a scruffy Greek god you know what,” she mutters before snorting.

  “You said ‘butthole’ earlier,” Tucker says.

  “What?” Susie asks. “No, I didn’t. You were hearing things.” Susie and her boys start arguing again, but once Dylan looks back down at Myra, he doesn’t hear a word they say. Their eyes stay locked for a moment before she quickly looks down at the floor.

  He wishes he could get closer to her, put his nose in her hair, smell the skin on her neck or touch that sweet, soft spot right underneath her ear with his lips. His hands itch to touch her. He wants to hold her in his arms and tell her how badly he missed her.

  She glances back up at him and this time she doesn’t look away. And he gets completely lost; he totally loses himself in those eyes and his mind turns to mush. He had this moment rehearsed over and over on the plane. He knew exactly what he’d say and how he’d say it. But right now, he’s got nothing. He swallows and with the faintest smile, he finally just whispers, “Hi.”

  Immediately, her brows pull together sharply. “I asked you a question,” she whisper-hisses.

  He frowns. “Huh?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh. Yeah, I…” he says before looking up at the shouting match escalating at the table.

  “No fair!” Wesley shouts. “I wanna sit by Myra. I was here first!”

  “Wesley, move your plate next to Tucker like I told you,” Susie says harshly, giving him a stern ‘mom’ look.

  Wesley scowls and scoots his chair back roughly, causing it to make a loud, scraping noise against the wood floor as he angrily picks up his plate.

  Dylan clears his throat, his eyes darting between Myra and Susie. “I can come back. I don’t want to interrupt your dinner or anything,” he says.

  “Nonsense,” Susie says, putting a clean plate in Wesley’s now vacant spot next to Myra. “You traveled all the way from Nyssa. Have a seat.”

  Dylan frowns and scratches at his neck. He doesn’t feel comfortable eating dinner with them, and he’s about a hundred percent certain that Myra feels the same way. But before he can say a word, Myra speaks up. “Dylan and I need to talk,” she says, meeting his eyes for a moment before promptly marching out of the dining room. Dylan stands there frozen just staring after her before he finally snaps out of it.

  “Excuse us,” he mumbles to Susie and her family before taking off after her.

  With a few quick strides, he catches up to her and follows her up a staircase. She quickly opens a door and disappears inside. Stepping in behind her, he glances around at what appears to be a spare bedroom. Observing a suitcase sitting open on a chair, he concludes this must be the room she’s staying in. He shuts the door gently behind him and looks at Myra.

  She keeps her back to him, facing the bed. He stares at her long, dark hair flowing down her back and wishes his fingers were twisted and tangled in its softness. He puts up little protest when his eyes roam south. He almost salivates over her curvaceous ass when he remembers how goddamn soft those small curves felt under his hands.

  Closing his eyes, he rubs a hand over the back of his neck, feeling like a complete dickhead for having dirty thoughts about her at such a fucking inappropriate time.

  Taking in a deep breath, he opens his eyes just as she turns around. “How did you…?” she starts to say before her eyebrows furrow in frustration. “Did Porter tell you I was here? I can’t believe he did that. He promised me he wouldn’t say anything…” Her gaze drops to the floor, her face twisting in pain.

  “No,” Dylan says immediately, taking a small step towards her. He stops when she flinches slightly. “Porter didn’t tell me anything. He wouldn’t tell me shit. I tried, but he wouldn’t budge.”

  “But… how did you find me?” she asks before realization crosses her face. “It was Jackie, wasn’t it?”

&nb
sp; “No. She wouldn’t tell me anything either.”

  “Well, then who...?”

  “No one really,” he says with a shrug. “I just figured since Susie was your best friend, you’d probably be here. At least I was hoping…”

  “You were hoping? You flew two thousand miles hoping I was here?”

  “Yeah…”

  Myra’s frown deepens. “But how did you get Susie’s address? Porter’s the only one that knows it.”

  “Well, uh…” he stammers, rubbing his hand nervously over the back of his neck. He doesn’t want to tell her about replacing her sidewalk yet because he wants it to be a surprise. “I…”

  “Dylan, don’t do this again,” she says, glaring at him. “You have to talk. No more hiding.”

  Nodding, he runs a hand through his hair. “Right. I, well, I was at your house, sitting on your front porch when the mailman came up. We got to talking and he handed me your mail.”

  “You went through my mail?” she shouts.

  “Jesus, no, I didn’t look through it,” he says, shaking his head. “There was a card…on top. I saw Susie’s address. I couldn’t help it because it was right in front of my damn face. I figured it must have been fate or some shit because what are the goddamn odds, right?”

  A puzzled look crosses Myra’s face. “A card…? Why would Susie send me a card?” she mumbles.

  “I don’t know. But she did.”

  She stares at him for a moment before her eyes begin to narrow. “You were sitting on my front porch? What were you doing at my house?”

  “I just… I was missing you. I didn’t know where you were and I was going a little fucking crazy. I was hoping you’d show up so we could talk.”

  “Didn’t you understand that I didn’t want to talk to you when I didn’t return your phone calls?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And I still don’t. I’m really not interested in hearing anything you have to say.”

  Dylan sighs and rubs his hand over his jaw. “Look, I don’t blame you for feeling that way. You have every right in the damn world to be fucking pissed at me. I should’ve talked to you about everything; I should’ve told you about Sabrina. There’s a fuckload of shit I should’ve done, but I didn’t. I know you probably don’t believe this, but I was planning on telling you everything… that morning after we… you know, but I… instead, I just fucked it all up.”