One Last Chance: Small Town Second Chance Romance

by Amelia Gates

  He eyed me as he stumbled back over to my door. “Okay. Just making sure. Can’t be too safe. Goodnight, now.”

  “Goodnight, Dad.”

  Mom was watching from the hallway, lurking on the edges of our interactions as usual. I wondered what she would do if they ever escalated. I wanted to believe that she would step in and slap some sense into him, or at least call the cops—but I strongly suspected that she would just stand there with that blank look on her face and watch the whole thing play out. I wondered for the millionth time if he’d ever hit her. She sure acted like he had. The feebleness. The silence. They were all telltale signs of a woman who’d put up with too much. Deep in my mind, though, I doubted it. Mom had been the way she was ever since Hunter died. Well, he didn’t just die. He was killed. I couldn’t blame her for becoming the way she had. She lost a lot. Things even the toughest and strongest people sometimes never recovered from.

  When my father lost interest in my doings and wandered back to the living room, he left the door open. Mom stood there watching me for a whole minute before she decided to come to my door. She stepped inside just as far as she needed to grab the handle, then offered me a very polite smile.

  “Sweet dreams, Daisy.”

  “Thanks, mom. You too.”

  There were some questions I might never be brave enough to ask.

  She closed my door gently—quite the feat, since my dad’s violent entry had left the hinges bent just enough to throw the latch off-center—and then I was left alone with my book again. But now that the inspection I had been expecting was over, my body relaxed beyond the point of fighting it. I was asleep with my head on the page in minutes.

  The next day, after spending every waking moment drenched in anticipation and making a complete fool of myself singing and dancing through my workday, it was finally time to put the plan in action.

  A secret meeting in the woods, in the hidden hollow where all the best parts of our lives got started; it was an omen, I thought, and a good one. We were going to get through this together, just as we always had before.

  I was halfway to our meeting point when my phone rang. My heart leapt, thinking it was Kash, until I remembered that I hadn’t actually ever given him my number. I glanced at the caller ID and sighed.

  “Hey Dad, what’s up?”

  “You done with work?”

  I ground my teeth. “Just finishing up, I have a little while longer. Why?”

  “They change your hours or something?”

  Oh, now he wants to start paying attention. I should have known, though, especially after last nights treat of him searching my room like a mad man. “Not really, we’re just working on a few projects which are taking a little longer than we thought. Did you need something?”

  “Yeah, your Uncle Charlie is coming through tonight. You better be home in time for dinner, he’s gonna want to see you. And we’re gonna need some drinks. Double what you usually get. And butane, my zippo’s out.”

  You always need drinks, I thought. But what I said was, “Soda?”

  “What am I, a goddamn teenager? Beer. Enough for the both of us.”

  So, half your usual? “I won’t be able to carry two cases home by myself,” I pointed out.

  “You could make two trips.”

  “Or you could use the truck.”

  “I don’t want people thinking I’m an alcoholic!” he barked.

  “So tell them you’re throwing a party. That’s what I do.” The words came out harsher and angrier than I’d intended. It made him pause for several heart-wrenching seconds.

  “That’s not a bad idea. Fine, I’ll get the beer myself. But you better get home in time to help your mother with the kitchen, I swear she’s given up on cleaning.”

  “She does her best. You could help her, you know.”

  “First I’m a teenager, now I’m a woman? What the hell’s gotten into you today?”

  Kash. Well, not yet. But his energy was infectious. Even though he’d been good through his incarceration, there was still that rebellious undercurrent, that deep sense of fairness and the utter lack of ability to ignore bullshit. It got under my skin and loosened my tongue and I lived for it. But I had to be careful. Dad always had said that Kash was a bad influence on me and Hunter. He’d pick up on the difference if I didn’t tone it down.

  “I’m sorry Dad, it’s just work. This new filing system they’re trying to teach us is stressing me out. I’ll be home as soon as we’ve wrapped everything up here, I promise.”

  He grunted his approval and barked his good-bye just as I reached the corner of Main Street and Poplar. Somewhere down Poplar’s crusty, gravelly depths was Kash, waiting for me in the trees. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see him from the street—that was the magic of Poplar, that little dip in the center, hidden from view on all sides—but I gazed down that way for a moment anyway, searching for him. I almost wanted him to have forgotten, just so I wouldn’t have to be the one to disappoint.

  But of course he was there. I turned the corner into the magic little dip to find him sitting on a tree stump with a bouquet of wildflowers in his hands. He was frowning at them as though they had disappointed him deeply. His face lit up when he saw me, flowers all but forgotten as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in to him.

  “You smell like home,” he murmured in my hair. He breathed it in, then exhaled warmly against my neck. It was enough to make me shudder with a long-dormant desire.

  “I can’t stay,” I said as I clung to him.

  “I know,” he said with a soft sigh. “Your dad talks pretty loud. Which one is Uncle Charlie?”

  I grinned and pulled back enough to see his face. “The one who eats black bananas and is always pestering Dad to play board games with him. Dad will do it after three beers, but he never wins and then things get broken.”

  Kash laughed, then winced. “Are you going to be okay?”

  I shrugged. “I always am, aren’t I? Mom’s gotten good at distracting both of them, I’m sure it’ll be fine. I just wish the timing wasn’t so terrible.”

  Kash kissed my forehead, sending shivers down my spine. “Me too. But there’s always tomorrow.”

  “And the flowers…they’re so pretty, Kash. So very pretty.”

  “I’m hearing a ‘but’.”

  I smiled apologetically. “But if I bring them home, Dad will want to know where they came from.”

  Kash tilted his chin up defiantly. “From the side of the road,” he said. “I picked them all on my way here, it’s not a lie.”

  I took the flowers from him and looked them over. They were beautiful, and masterfully arranged. “You picked these?”

  “Every single one of them.” His eyes twinkled. He always did enjoy surprising me.

  I buried my face in their heady scent and breathed deeply. Goosebumps rose over my arms and for a moment nothing mattered except him, and nothing existed outside of that fragrant little dip. The urge to kiss him was strong—but then I remembered why I was in such a hurry.

  I hugged him quickly and squeezed hard. “Same time tomorrow?”

  “Is that what you want?” He sounded so reserved it startled me. I looked up at him and I could see him bracing for rejection.

  “Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  He shrugged, but his mask faltered just enough for me to catch a glimpse of his insecurity. “You didn’t seem so sure the other day.”

  I scoffed, stunned. “You mean before I had all the facts? Kash.”

  “Well, I mean, I don’t know.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I want to see you tomorrow. Same time, same place. If that works for you.”

  He nodded. “Does it work for your dad?”

  I grimaced. “It better. God, I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.”

  He relaxed again and I realized—even though he’d heard Dad give me instructions himself, he had managed to convince himself that I was making excuses to get away from him. I didn’t sa
y anything, just shook my head, smiling in spite of myself.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I went home with a handful of posies and butterflies in my heart. How he could still give me butterflies after all this time was beyond me, but he managed it.

  The next day went much more smoothly. Dad and Uncle Charlie had gone off into the woods to hunt something—beer cans, most likely—which left my entire evening free to spend with Kash. Since Dad was off shooting things, we wandered in the other direction, toward the creek.

  “Remember when you and Hunter decided you were going to pull a Tom Sawyer down here?” I asked, pointing at the river.

  Kash laughed. “It would have been a lot better if we hadn’t tried it in November. I’m still cold.”

  “I bet. I’ve never seen anything break apart as fast as that raft did.”

  “I told Hunter we needed more rope but no, he wanted to get out on the water faster.”

  “He sure got into it pretty fast.”

  Our knuckles had been brushing against each other’s as we walked, and Kash finally grabbed my hand. His warm, calloused palm dwarfed mine and his long, dexterous fingers engulfed my hand. It was the safest feeling in the world, being wrapped up in him. In that moment, I was certain that he would never hurt anyone. He certainly wouldn’t kill his best friend. The certainty was as warm as the sun on my back, and twice as pleasant.

  But then I looked up at him and realized that the reason I felt so safe with him was the same reason some people felt safe with their Rottweilers. and pit bulls—he was dangerous, but he was on my side. He was safe because I knew he was willing and able to protect me from any threat, no matter how scary it was. What if Hunter had become a threat somehow?

  “What’s up, buttercup? You look worried.”

  I glanced up at him. “Stop reading my mind. Can’t help it when you put it all over your face. You’re thinking too hard.”

  I sighed. “Maybe? But maybe not.”

  I knew him as well as I knew myself. At least I thought I did. At least—how well did I even know myself, anyway?

  He squeezed my hand. “How bout you tell me what you’re thinking, and I’ll tell you if you’re overthinking it?”

  I sighed. It wasn’t fair. He had always been the person I’d gone to when I couldn’t make up my mind about somebody. He was always the person I’d trusted to give me the perspective I needed to figure a problem out. But how could he do that for me when he was the person in question? I couldn’t talk to Lizzie about something like this. She’d have an opinion, sure, but then so would the rest of the town within a few hours.

  “What really happened that night, Kash?”

  He frowned. “I told you. Didn’t I?”

  “Maybe I need a refresher.”

  He nodded. “Okay. One of our customers asked us to meet his cousin downtown. Since it was a new person, we were supposed to go together. Can’t be too careful about that crap. We set it up with the guy, then agreed that Hunter and I would meet a block away ten minutes beforehand. Hunter never showed.”

  “What were you supposed to do if that happened?”

  Kash shrugged. “We never even talked about it. I trusted Hunter completely, just like he trusted me. It was never a question—until he didn’t show up.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “What could I do? We had a reputation to live up to, and this sale would put us over Hunter’s personal—inflated—minimum threshold to get us out of town. We needed it, so I went to finish it. But the customer was already spun when I got to him. Don’t know what he was on, but it was some janky shit. He took one look at the product and started swinging.”

  “So you fought him?”

  Kash shrugged. “I guess. I mean…sort of. Mostly just kept him from destroying me, though. Like I said, he was on some janky shit. By the time he tired himself out I was pissed off and bleeding and I just wanted to go to bed. So I did. Got a solid three hours of sleep before the cops busted my door down.”

  My heart sank for him. “That must have been awful.”

  “Could have been better. I refused to give them my alibi, that’s what screwed me. They saw my messed-up face and jumped to conclusions. And I guess they found the murder weapon in my shed.”

  Startled, I glanced up at him. “I didn’t hear that part. What was it?”

  He shook his head. “Just a wrench. A big, heavy wrench. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a bolt big enough for it. It sure as hell wasn’t mine, but it was on my property. As far as they were concerned, that sealed the deal.”

  The thought of Hunter dying on the end of a wrench made my stomach churn. I looked out over the creek to settle my soul, watching the sunlight play over the rippling water. A wad of trash floated by, ruining the view. I sighed.

  “You know what kills me? This town has so much potential. There’s all this beautiful nature around, all those historical buildings—but nobody cares enough to take care of it.” A restless fire twisted down my spine. “I need to get out of here.”

  Kash wrapped his arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “Soon,” he said. “I promise.”

  “How? You’re working for room and board; I’m barely making enough to save anything. I think I have three hundred dollars in my savings right now. That’s not even enough to pay for gas to get anywhere good.”

  His eyes twinkled when he looked down at me, and he kissed my forehead. “Trust me,” he said.

  I did, implicitly. A small part of my mind wondered if that trust would prove to be my greatest weakness.

  Chapter 12

  The days went on like that, with Dad checking on me every night and me making time to meet Kash every afternoon. I made sure I was always in bed, reading and listening to music, before eight o’clock. Eventually Dad would get bored of his hyper vigilance. That was what I was waiting for—that was when Kash’s plan, and mine, could really start picking up speed.

  The weekend was difficult. The only excuse I had for leaving the house on Saturday was to do the shopping, and I couldn’t time it right to meet with Kash. We’d decided that talking on the phone, even texting, was too dangerous. It would only take a small push for Dad to get suspicious enough to start checking that. Instead, we started leaving each other notes under a little stone on top of the tree stump where he always sat, waiting for me.

  I lived for these notes. I kept them in a hollowed-out book on my shelf and re-read them sometimes at night. Kash wove images of a life I had always dreamed of, promising me a quaint castle with hardwood floors and a library, a life where we would leave for work every morning and fall into each other’s arms every night. They were just short of marriage proposals and I drank them in.

  I’d never lived through a longer weekend, and Monday had never felt so good. I sped through my morning coffee and dawdled over my outfit and hair—I was giddy with the knowledge that I would see him that evening, so giddy that all thoughts of restraint were pushed to the back of my mind. I matched my bra and underwear without a second thought, and shaved my legs clear up to my navel.

  “It’s hygienic,” I told myself as a little wriggle of anxiety began to climb up my spine. “It’s good to do this every once in a while. Besides, what’s the point of buying matching sets if I never wear them? There’s nothing wrong with using clothes as they were intended.”

  Still, I left the house with a grin on my face which refused to fade all day. I twirled through the stacks of books like a fairy tale princess, whistling and humming to myself as I worked.

  Excitement rushed through me like an endless freight train. I couldn’t be sure that anything would happen that night—Kash had been real reserved, and I didn’t know yet whether it was his uncertainty about his feelings for me, or his uncertainty about my feelings for him, or possibly just the fact that we were grown people behaving like deviant children—but I was ready for anything.

  The air held a slight electric chill as I locked up the library for the day. I could barely differ
entiate it from the delicious chills already coursing through my being, but a quick glance at the sky showed the promise of rain. Maybe it’ll just be a little drizzle, I thought. Definitely not enough to rain out a romantic moment. A grumble of thunder in the distance argued with me.

  “Well at least wait until I’m finished,” I said to the sky. “You can hold off for an hour or two, can’t you?”

  In response, lightning flashed across the sky, splitting the clouds open. So, I guess mother nature wasn’t exactly on my side. I was drenched through to the skin in under a minute. It had been deadly dry for a month; the side streets would flood rapidly, and the gravel road which led to my house could be washed away entirely. It happened every couple of years, deepening the hollow by an inch or two every time.

  The storm had taken everyone by surprise. Main street was full of cars, which was unusual. People usually sat out the first hour or so of these, long enough to see which direction it would go. Sometimes it blew through with minimal damage; other times the storm sat in the sky and spun until it was all out of rain to dump on us. Huge puddles formed in the margins and gutters of the road, becoming waves as cars plowed through them, drenching me even more as I passed.

  The only thing to do was keep my head down and move quickly. I doubted Kash would be at our meeting spot; he was stubborn, but he wasn’t suicidal.

  Cold seeped through my skin and into my muscles, making me stiff in spite of the exercise. The roads had begun to empty. The cars which remained were driving slowly and weaving in and out of the painted lines—hydroplaning was apparently scarier than dipping into oncoming traffic.