by Maisey Yates
“So is that what this is? This is you sacrificing?”
“No,” he said, his tone harsh. “I want to do one thing right. Let me do it. Let me do this one thing.”
Tears made her throat feel thick and tight, emotion compressing her chest like a band. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think, and worst of all, she couldn’t argue.
“Could you not be noble, Alex?” she asked, her throat crackly. “Could you fight for the wrong thing instead?”
He stood so straight and tall then, and she could almost see a uniform on him, even though he was standing there naked. But there he was, the soldier. Fighting this war that was tearing him up inside. And she was almost certain it wasn’t really about letting her go. Wasn’t really about letting her experience all of these things. It was the side effect, she believed that. But there was something else to it, as well, yet she couldn’t figure it out. Couldn’t think around the pain that was blooming inside of her.
Couldn’t fight with conviction because she was afraid that he was right.
“Don’t ask me to do that,” he said.
“Fight for me.”
“I am,” he responded, his voice hard.
“Can’t you just be selfish? Can you say that you’re keeping me? That you aren’t going to let me go?” For a moment, the idea of that kind of security, of the kind of safety she could find in Alex’s arms, held tight against that muscular wall of a chest for the rest of her life seemed like the most beautiful, certain future she could imagine.
Seemed like the only thing she could ever want.
He shook his head. “I’m not looking to use another person as my Band-Aid, Clara. That’s the one thing I won’t do. I will not make another person’s life all about me.”
And it was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that he was. That this was about him, whether he couched it in self-sacrifice or not. But she stood there, watching the years stretch before them in her mind’s eye, and she saw them as two people trapped forever in this house. Two people forced together by fate or God or whatever it might have been.
And she knew he would always question it. Because he questioned it now.
“So you just want me to go. Anywhere.”
“I want you to have the choice.” He sighed heavily. “It’s important.”
She nodded, her lips numb, her entire face starting to feel numb. Her fingertips were cold, and she imagined that she might not be able to feel them next. And that it would be a blessing.
“I guess I should pack,” she said, more out of a desire to be shocking than an actual desire to pack up her things. She had a job, and she didn’t have the money yet. And regardless of what Alex said, she wasn’t taking a loan from him to finance their breakup.
“You don’t have to leave the house right away. You don’t have to pack up,” he said. “I’m not going to live here. I’ll continue to take care of the place while you’re gone. I can hire people, like we discussed.”
“What about my bees?” she asked.
The stupid bees. She tried to think back to a time—not that long ago—when her fondest dream had been to live in this tiny house forever with Asher and her bees. And now she couldn’t even imagine why she had wanted Asher. And even though she liked her bees, she couldn’t really figure out why they mattered either.
Her whole chest was a slash of pain, and it was hard to remember liking anything at all.
“I’ll make sure your bees are taken care of. The ranch is my responsibility for now, and that means all of it.”
“Well, I’d better make plans, anyway,” she said, her words stiff. “I don’t even like wine. So I’ll probably quit the winery.”
“Right.”
“Maybe I’ll drive down the coast. I’ve never been to California. I’ve never been to Disneyland.”
“Disneyland is a happy place, I hear,” he said, the words flat.
She wasn’t going to be happy anywhere. Not for a long time. She knew that. But, she wasn’t going to say it. What little pride she had, she was going to go ahead and preserve.
“Alex...” She swallowed hard. “You changed me.”
He reached out and touched her chin, sliding his thumb over her bottom lip. “I hope to God that’s a good thing, Clara.”
“Me too.”
He dropped his hand then, and went into the bathroom. She could hear him dressing, and she decided she couldn’t be there when he came back out. She ran to the closet and pulled on a pair of underwear and bra, then grabbed a dress, tugging it over her head and running into the main part of the house before flinging herself outside.
She ran down the front steps, moving blindly through the property. Heading toward the bees, she realized belatedly when she caught sight of the hives. They didn’t bother her without her protective gear on. At least, not when she wasn’t messing with the hives. She sat down on the ground, not caring if she got mud on the dress, and drew her knees up to her chest. The bees buzzed lazily around her, drunk on honey, and completely unconcerned with her presence.
Apparently, she didn’t much matter to anybody. Apparently, she was so easy to leave. So easy to let go of.
A sob caught in her throat.
Jason.
It was so hard not to be angry with him. Even when she was proud. Because he had left her too. Dammit all, he had left her just like everybody else. That loss, that abandonment, was so sharp right now it was like a knife lodged into her throat.
She choked on a laugh. “At least Alex is changing it up. At least he’s sending me away.”
She tried to imagine this future he was talking about. This one where she went out and decided what she wanted to do. Had a road trip, decided if she was going to go to college for something. Visit a city and decide that maybe that suited her more than country living.
But everything just seemed dark. It seemed dark and it seemed blank. She couldn’t imagine herself away from here. Couldn’t find her way forward.
Which, she supposed, was as good a reason as any to need to be somewhere else. To need to see somewhere else.
Because she didn’t know. Because she’d never experienced another place. Because she didn’t want to be like her father and grow old on this ranch with a broken heart.
And that was what it came down to. He had sent her away. He had said they wouldn’t be together, even if she stayed. So in the end, she would be just like her father. Doing the chores, aching for somebody who was no longer here to hold her.
No. That she wouldn’t do. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t exist in this house with yet another ghost.
That was what Alex would become to her. A ghost. She had been a fool to think that she could touch him just for a little while and not miss it when it was over.
He thought she should go have experiences. Eat homemade pasta just because other people said it was good. Sleep with other men just because people thought it was the thing to do.
She didn’t need those things. And somewhere down in her soul she knew that.
But right now, she figured she had to go out and have them. Because the alternative was dying of a broken heart.
And there had been too much damn death in her life for her to sit around and accept her own.
Clara rose to her feet and looked out across the property. At the well-worn path that she’d forged over the past year of tending to the bees. The path that forked one way going to the barn, the barn where she had danced for Alex and then made love with him. To the house, the house she had been born in. The house her father had died in. The house where she had received the news that her brother was gone.
The house where Alex had held her by the woodstove, his heart thundering against her cheek. That house that had seen so many losses and so many gains.
What would it be like to walk on
ground she hadn’t worn grooves into? To wake up and not know where she was?
She was going to find out. She was determined she was going to find out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ON HER DRIVE to work the next morning, Clara was feeling bleak. The money had been in her bank account this morning.
A whole lot of money.
Money because her brother was dead. Money that meant she wasn’t tied to this place if she didn’t want to be.
She hadn’t seen Alex since he’d told her to leave yesterday, and she was intent on avoiding him until she actually did leave. She wasn’t going to line up anything permanent, at least not for the time being. But she was going to take some time off from Grassroots so she could take a drive down the coast and possibly get as far as San Francisco. She wasn’t sure about going any farther than that. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to chance driving in that kind of traffic. This was the problem. She had been so stationary for so long, she wasn’t entirely sure how to break out of it.
On a whim, she pulled into Stim on her way to the winery. She took a deep breath, her heart pounding hard as she got out of the car and walked into the coffee shop. She hadn’t seen Asher at all since her grand announcement that she just wasn’t that into him, and it felt strange to go seeking him out now. But something was pushing her to talk to him. Even if she didn’t know what.
“Clara,” Asher said, smiling when he saw her, “it’s been a while.”
“Yeah,” she said, wrapping her knuckles on the counter.
“Your usual?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I hated my usual. Hot chocolate. And can you like...add something sweet to it?”
He looked appalled, but to his credit didn’t lecture her about the evils of refined sugar. “If you’d like that, I can definitely do it.”
“I would.”
She stood there for a moment, rocking forward on the balls of her feet as silence stretched between them.
Finally, he spoke.
“So how are things?”
“Okay. I got my heart broken. Not a big deal. And I’m kind of planning to go on a road trip. So. That’s cool. Not the broken heart. The road trip.”
“Damn,” he said. “That is a lot of things.”
“Yeah. I just need to get time off work. And I think I’m going to go to San Francisco.”
“That sounds like fun.”
“Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe it will be. I haven’t been. I mean, I’ve never even been to California. So that could be fun.”
“I’ve driven down a bunch of times.” He kept his concentration on stirring the drink in front of him. “So if you want company, I could maybe go down with you.”
“I...” She couldn’t quite figure out the offer. If he wanted to go down with her so he could keep her company, or if he wanted—expected—that they would sleep together. Though, it would kill two birds with one stone, she supposed. That other experience Alex seemed to think she needed before she knew her own mind and desires.
The very idea of it made an involuntary shudder go up her spine. She was not ready to sleep with another man. She didn’t know how ready she would ever feel, but she was most definitely not ready to sleep with another man two seconds after Alex broke up with her.
“I was kind of in love with him,” she said.
The words caught in her throat as it tightened. And she realized they were a lie. Because she wasn’t kind of in love with him. She was totally in love with him. And there was no amount of life experience needed for her to know that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
“That’s rough,” he said. He pushed the drink in her direction. “But it doesn’t have to be anything serious for us to have a little fun together.”
He looked at her, all handsome and bearded, his dark eyes the same color as the hot chocolate he’d just made for her, and just as warm. But she didn’t feel enticed or seduced or anything.
It didn’t have to be serious for him. But it did for her. She realized it then. It absolutely had to be something serious for her to sleep with somebody. She was pretty sure she had known she was serious about Alex from the moment his lips had first touched hers. That there was something different about him. About the way he made her feel, the way he made everything around her feel. Like it was alive and exciting when for so long it had all been gray.
“Thank you. So much. That’s very nice of you to offer your...services. But it just doesn’t work for me.” She took a sip of her hot chocolate and frowned. It was hideously bitter.
“Sorry to hear that,” Asher said, no anger in his voice at all. Honestly, his lack of intensity about it all undermined any of the flattery inherent in his hitting on her. “Is your drink good?”
“Great,” she said. Then she frowned even more deeply. “No. It’s not great. It’s disgusting, actually. I just can’t do this dark-chocolate heresy. I basically want a melted candy bar. And, I know that’s not sophisticated or healthy for me, or any of that. But I just don’t care.”
Asher laughed. “Okay. I have no idea why I like you so much. Because you are completely different than me. But I really wish that you liked me too. Because I think we could have fun together.”
“You want to sleep with me,” she said, for some reason not feeling even a little embarrassed to make that assumption.
“Yeah,” he said. “Is that a big deal?”
“It is to me. I think that’s the problem. I don’t like coffee. I think sex is a big deal. I need sugar in my hot chocolate. I’m just not the same kind of person. Ironically, I fell in love with somebody who really isn’t the same kind of person either. But that’s the difference. I love him. I love him, and he doesn’t love me back. I have to go lick those wounds by myself. With hot chocolate that doesn’t make me want to gag.” She set the cup back down on the counter. “No offense.”
He laughed again. “I don’t really take your culinary word as law. Also no offense.”
“That’s...that’s fair enough.”
“See you around, Clara.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe not. I might end up moving to California. Maybe it will suit me.” But she knew it wouldn’t. Just like bittersweet cocoa never would.
She turned and walked out of the coffee shop feeling somehow both deflated and buoyant. She had gone and stated her opinions, and she had confessed the fact that she’d been dumped out loud.
She got into her car and jammed the key into the ignition.
Then she sighed. She was just going to have to do it at work now too. But she had friends there now. Unlike when she had lost Jason, she had some people to talk to.
She supposed that should feel like a bigger consolation than it did. But really, not much felt consoling at the moment.
She continued on to Grassroots feeling more than a little bit tragic, and by the time she got there, she was in a pretty full-scale funk.
But Sabrina smiled when she walked into the room, and she really hadn’t anticipated how much it would mean to have somebody that was happy to see her when she felt so damn low.
“Oh no,” Sabrina said, the smile sliding off her face almost as quickly as it had appeared. “You look like you’ve had a trauma.”
A tear slid down her cheek. “I have.”
“Damn Donnellys,” Sabrina said, slamming her hands down on the table. Thank God the tasting room was still empty, and there were no customers. “I knew it. They’re assholes. Absolute assholes. They can’t help it. They think they’re God’s gift to women, and honestly, who can blame them? But...”
“I don’t know what Liam did to hurt you.” Clara cut Sabrina off mid-tirade. Alex had hurt her, yes. But he had reasons, and they were even good. She was sad, and angry, but she couldn’t just burn his whole character to the ground because she was wounded. “But it’s co
mplicated. Alex and I. He said some things...he’s not wrong.”
“Let me guess,” Sabrina said, “he said you were young. And that you didn’t know what you wanted.”
Her words were so close to the truth it was almost shocking.
“I...well, yes. But it’s not completely untrue. I mean, I am young. And I haven’t really experienced life. He says I need to do that. And maybe I’ll...travel. Go to school. Who knows? He’s not wrong about my inexperience.”
“But don’t you find that so painfully patronizing?”
“He wasn’t patronizing. He’s afraid.”
Sabrina looked struck by that. “Afraid?”
“Yes. He’s been through a lot. I don’t know what all you know about their childhood, but it was really hard. And life has been hard for him since. And I just think he doesn’t know how to take a good thing. But who am I to talk? I don’t know how to handle good things either. I don’t know what I want. I mean, so much of my life has been decided for me. And until I really make a decision, how will I know?”
“Does the idea of all these possibilities make you feel excited? Or does it make you feel like you’ve died inside a little bit?”
Now Clara felt totally deflated and she could tell by the look on Sabrina’s face that it showed.
“I thought so,” Sabrina said. “I think new possibilities are supposed to feel exciting. I think when a grown man is running scared, and he tells you it’s for your own good but it feels more like you got stabbed through the heart...it’s not for you. So, yes, I think you’re right. I think he is probably afraid. But he’s trying to make you think he’s also being benevolent. Pretty sure he’s just being a coward.”
The tasting room door opened and in walked Lindy—the owner of Grassroots Winery, Sabrina’s former sister-in-law and their boss. She was a striking blonde, very well put together, every inch the competent business owner, but without that polished, hardened look that you might expect from somebody who ran a more corporate office. No, she looked exactly like a vineyard owner should. Her hair falling in soft waves, her style a kind of elegant, easy chic.