by Nicole Helm
“It isn’t your choice to make,” she returned, back to flat and hard.
“No, it isn’t. I’m asking you, Tori. I’m begging you to stay because it’s where you belong. Look, when Hayley first started with us, she wasn’t sure she wanted to have contact with me or Brandon, what with knowing what she knew about our father, and we had her work with Sam so she didn’t have to deal with us. You don’t want to see me, you don’t have to see me. I’ll go to part-time. I will do whatever it takes to keep you a part of that, even if it means taking myself out of it.”
“Why?” she asked, so baffled and lost, and it validated all his theories on what she was thinking and feeling.
“Because I love you. Because you being happy is the most important thing to me. I’d sacrifice for you, Tori. I’d rake myself over the coals for you, again and again. Maybe the dumbass kid I was seven years ago couldn’t or wouldn’t, but this dumbass can and will. A million times over. I want you to be happy. I need you to be happy for me to be.”
She was silent, staring at him, all those gears in her head turning, though he didn’t know how or what conclusion they’d come to. So he could only sit there and hope.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tori had never felt like this before. Like all the pain and certainty and fear was slowly being infused by hope.
By love.
He didn’t really love her. He couldn’t. All this talk about her happiness . . . She didn’t know how to make sense of it. It had to be a game, surely. Some strategy.
Except, even a million years ago when she’d been young and dumb and head over heels in love, Will had never strategized. He’d never manipulated.
So, maybe not a game, but he didn’t . . . He didn’t get it yet. What was wrong with her. What people always ended up thinking or feeling. Maybe he was the first one to talk about making any kind of sacrifice for her, but . . .
She kept thinking about Cora saying you kept searching until you found someone who didn’t reinforce what your brain told you about yourself. But that was Cora. She didn’t know. . . .
Tori closed her eyes and tried to get a handle on something. She fisted her fingers in the grass and tried to force herself into action. Into decision.
The thing was, Will had to know he was walking into a trap here. An inevitable crapshoot. With the crap being shot at her. He was blinded by something when he looked at her.
Or, it’s love. It’s finding the person.
“You don’t want to love me,” she blurted.
“Don’t I?” he replied blandly. “Because I actually do remember quite well what not wanting to be in love with you felt like. This isn’t that.”
“You just don’t get it. Th-there will come a time . . . I’m collateral damage. Always. People sweep me away in the wreckage, it’s just . . . who I am, or whatever.” She pulled the blades of grass in her fist until they broke out of the ground. “It’s either that or I really am some sort of evil spirit,” she muttered.
“You don’t think that.”
“I don’t know. . . .”
He got closer then, his hands cupping her face and forcing her to look at him. She should have fought him. She should end this stupid, pointless conversation. But his rough hands were on her face, and his hazel eyes were blazing with a certainty she envied.
“Tor, you’re one of us. You’re a part of us. Whatever . . . Look, I had a mother and father who didn’t particularly care about my existence, either, I know. But that doesn’t make you who you are. Something your mentally ill brother said to you isn’t something you build your life on.”
“I know that,” she grumbled, trying to jerk her head away, but he held firm, studying her and seeing too much.
“Do you?” he asked, his voice all concern and bafflement.
She swallowed, but that lump was still there, and growing. She didn’t want to cry anymore or hurt anymore like this. Why was everyone pushing her?
So yeah, maybe . . . Maybe sometimes she wondered if her brother had the right of things. Sure, he was sick, but maybe that gave him insight no one else had. Maybe he saw the truth. She was the source of evil, of their problems, the thing that needed to be sacrificed. Mom and Dad had let her go without a fight. Maybe . . .
“Look at me.” Will said forcefully, so unusually forceful she couldn’t think of what else to do but obey. “You are not wrong or evil or bad. You, Tori Appleby, are . . . Hell, you’re everything I wanted and was afraid to screw up. I didn’t want to hurt you, and I didn’t want you to figure out I was as worthless as most people seemed to think I was, so I get that. I get that little voice inside of you whispering only bad things happen, and you must be bad, but it’s bullshit.”
“I know that. I do. I just . . .”
“You have to do more than know it. You have to believe it.”
It was so much worse to want to believe it, to hope it was true, than to just accept it wasn’t and deal with the consequences. It was so much more painful to hope for the positive outcome knowing she could fail.
She shoved his hands away and pushed into a standing position. “I can’t do this. Whatever this is, I can’t do it.”
Slowly Will got to his feet, his expression grim, and perhaps it was hurt lurking in his eyes, but Tori looked away.
“Okay. Okay. I didn’t come here to fight or . . . I only came here to beg you to stay, and tell you if you want me out of your life, you can have that, too, but you need to stay.”
She hugged her arms around herself, wishing she could make herself say terrible, nasty words so he wouldn’t want her to stay, but she couldn’t make them appear. She couldn’t force them out.
“Promise me you’ll stay, and I’ll leave right now.”
Why was he doing this? Why was he sacrificing something for her? It didn’t make any sense, and it made her feel...
She forced her brain to think awful, but it wasn’t that at all. It was wonderful. It was a beautiful, amazing thing he was offering. And it was Will, Will, and she didn’t know how to argue with the fact Will didn’t get anything out of her staying, not unless he did . . .
She closed her eyes, so irritated there were more tears to fall, but he was standing there saying he would give her all the space she needed, if only she kept the thing that made her happy, and she didn’t know how to deny the fact that was love.
Because against her will and brain and everything else, she loved him wholeheartedly, and she wanted him to be happy. It had been why she’d had to leave all those years ago, because she hadn’t been able to face the possibility of his being married to Courtney and being happy, but worse, so much worse, she hadn’t been able to stand the thought of him married to her and unhappy.
She’d had to leave, to convince herself Courtney would give him everything he was after, and preserve that illusion. It had killed her to do it, but the alternative had been even worse than metaphorical death.
That love had never gone away, no matter how much she’d wanted it to or convinced herself it had, and now Will was offering the same kind of sacrifice—well, demanding might have been a better word, but it was still . . . love.
Someone loved her. Truly. Fully. Though the doubts in her head whispered a million terrible things, none of them made any sense. Not in the face of Will’s love.
She turned to face him, something like calm settling over her. He loved her. She loved him. They wanted each other to be happy. How . . . how did she run away from that? That wouldn’t be love—not this time. It would be cowardice and self-protection.
And it wouldn’t give them a chance. The chance scared her, so much so she shook even as she made her decision, but much like a dangerous cliff face to climb, with the right tools . . . With the right tools you could do the thing you thought you couldn’t.
Brandon’s words. A truth that scared her to her bones, but under her bones was her heart, and it beat painfully for the man staring at her with hazel eyes and a grim mouth.
“I’ll stay,” she said
on something like an exhaled whisper. “I’ll stay,” she said again, stronger this time.
He nodded, once, and she saw him swallow as though he was grappling with some great emotion. Then he turned, just ready to walk away. It should have felt like anything but love, but in this moment, she knew that sometimes, sometimes love could mean walking away.
But it didn’t have to be walking away. Not if she was brave enough to stand, to take, to give. Brave enough to hope.
“Will?”
He stopped, and this would be the now or never part of her life she looked back on and wondered about. The way she’d wondered if she should have stayed home instead of running away. The way she’d wondered if she should have never told Will she’d loved him years ago. If she had ignored Toby’s advances. Those bright, shining moments of taking the wrong path.
Or were they all right when it led her here? Because this was bigger than all that. Because it wasn’t a thing. It wasn’t a course. It was Will. It was life.
She’d never been a coward before. A lot of stupid things, yes, but never a coward.
“Don’t go.”
* * *
Will didn’t turn at first. He was a little afraid he’d turn around having misread those two simple words. Maybe she wanted him to hash out the details. The hows and whens of avoiding each other.
Which was fine, because as much as he’d wanted the damn woman to fall into his arms and say it was all a mistake, he was prepared for the hard yards. He was prepared for the fact he might have to give her the last thing he wanted to.
But hell, if she was happy, he’d soldier through. The idea of her running off and dealing with everything alone again was too much. He’d sacrifice whatever.
“Will.”
Finally he forced himself to turn, and she was standing there, looking at him plaintively.
She drew in a breath, let out one that shuddered and halted. She cleared her throat, dusk enveloping them as the mountains loomed dark and mysterious in the distance, the sun gone behind them.
“I know how to fight a war, but I’m not sure I know how to sign a peace treaty.”
Will blinked. “I . . . You lost me.”
“I’m using the whole war, collateral damage metaphor,” she returned, waving her hand in the air as if that explained a damn thing.
“I’m shit with metaphors, maybe you could just say it plain.”
“I don’t know how to do this!” She waved her hands between them. “I don’t know how to . . . believe it works.”
It was his turn to take a deep, shuddery breath because that arrowed hard and deep. Hell if he knew how. “I think . . .” He cleared his throat, taking a few steps closer. He wanted to touch her, but he settled for standing close enough to see the swirls of blue and green in her eyes. “I think you decide to keep trying until you do.”
“Keep looking,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Until you find it.”
“Something like that.”
She blinked up at him, chewing on her lip before she reached out, hesitantly. He didn’t move, though what he really wanted to do was pull her into him and hold her until she got it through her thick skull she was not running away. And neither was he. Not ever again.
Finally her fingertips rested on his chest, right above his heart, where it beat a little too hard and fast. She flattened her palm against his shirt, still worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.
Gently, slowly, he brought his hand up and rested it over hers. What he hadn’t felt in the light touch was clear now, her hand and entire arm was trembling.
“Christ, you’re shaking.”
“Well, the last time I told you this, you walked away,” she grumbled, still looking at the spot on his chest where their hands touched.
There was only one thing this could be, and he was quite certain his heart stuttered to a stop. He’d resigned himself to walking away, keeping his distance, letting her figure out things. He’d resigned to her not being ready for this.
But here she was, always surprising him.
And in that surprise, he could move. He could touch her. He could have her, because they had this.
He crushed his mouth to hers, sinking his fingers into her hair and holding her there as he poured everything he was into kissing her.
“Will,” she protested against his mouth, but her body melted into his. “I didn’t even say it.”
He tipped her head back, looking her right in the eye. “Say it.” He swallowed. “Please.”
Her mouth actually curved a little at that, even though there were a million worries in her eyes. She took a breath, which only served to press her body closer to his.
“No one’s ever cared much whether I was happy,” she said, which were not the words he was looking for. “I’m not sure that’s the worst thing, but I think maybe . . . Maybe I never learned how. Things don’t work out for me, they never have, but . . .” She sighed against him, her fingers tracing the pattern of his shirt. “Somewhere along the line I stopped trying to have them work out, and maybe that’s as much the problem as anything else.”
Will comforted himself over the lack of the words he wanted to hear with his fingers in her hair and his body pressed to hers. With the realization that maybe this was a step, like so many others. “I was pretty sure when you showed up it was some sort of cosmic punishment, or maybe middle finger. Because . . . that’s, well, it was what I was looking for. Proof that I sucked.”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
“But Skeet got to talking at me about second chances, and it wouldn’t let me go. That idea that I could have one, but only if I decided to work for it.”
“And you decided to work for it?” she asked on a whisper.
“For you. For us.”
Her hand slid up his chest and to his face, cupping his bearded jaw as she looked up at him. “I love you, Will.”
“I love you, Tori.”
But she looked more pained than the thrilled he felt. “I’m so afraid I’ll mess it up. That I’m not good enough,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes again too.
“Me too.”
“That is not comforting!”
He smiled. “Sometimes . . . we screw up. For years. We make the same mistakes over and over again.”
“Still not comforting.”
He pressed a kiss to her head. “And sometimes you learn from those mistakes, and decide not that you can’t ever make them, but that you’ll always work hard to fix them. I wouldn’t have . . . I wouldn’t have decided to kiss you, to sleep with you, if I hadn’t made the decision to make it work, no matter what gets thrown our way.”
She blew out a breath, leaning into him. “Okay, that’s a little better.”
He wasn’t sure how long they stood in her yard, arms locked around each other, the night descending rapidly around them. She was letting him hold her, leaning into him, and holding on to him. She loved him. He didn’t want the moment to end.
“Will?” she murmured into the quiet night.
“Yeah?”
“Come inside.”
He shifted so he could look down at her and her mouth curved even more as she unwound herself from him and took his hand with hers.
“What for, exactly?”
She rolled her eyes. “I want you to . . .” She sighed, a rueful smile gracing her sharp mouth as she moved to her tiptoes and wound one arm around his neck so she could tug him closer to her face. “I want you to make love to me, Will Evans.”
He pretended to mull it over, even as her eyes narrowed. In a smooth move, if he did say so himself, he scooped her up and off the ground, both arms under her ass so he could have her eye level.
She laughed into his ear as he lifted her off the ground, and he realized only then that he’d still been holding himself tense, still a little afraid it would all evaporate.
But she laughed, and he could finally let that relief course through him, because he’d finally fixed something, and now he finally had a chance to b
uild something.
She wrapped her legs around him, kissed him as he attempted to walk to the house.
“Where’s Sarge?”
“Micah took him.”
“Perfect.” He managed to hold her up with one arm as he opened the door, then stepped inside and kicked it behind him. He wasted no time striding to her bedroom and then dumping her on the bed.
For a moment he simply took that in. Tori and love and all the opportunities that lay before them.
Her amused expression faded a little, worry edging the corners of her eyes. But it wasn’t the kind of concern that undermined his certainty, because he understood it too well. The fear anything good was just that—too good to be true for them.
They both had a ways to go to trust that kind of good, but if they could keep reminding each other, Will had no doubt they’d get there.
“It’s real,” he said, knowing he’d read her correctly when she blinked at him. He pulled off his shirt and grinned before crawling onto the bed with her and covering her body with his. “And we’ll make it work,” he whispered into her ear. “Together.”
And then he lost himself in a kiss, in Tori, and in a future they’d both work for and believe in, one way or another.
Epilogue
Six months later
“Mr. Evans, don’t make me call a guard,” a scowling nurse said, glaring at Will from the door of a hospital room.
Will smiled his most charming smile at the nurse. “Not even five more minutes? It’s not every day a guy gets to meet his first niece and nephew.”
Though the nurse tried to keep her firm expression, Tori knew that telltale pressing of lips together.
Unlike the nurse who shook her head no, Tori was forever falling for Will’s charm. Sometimes she tried to be irritated over, but love did funny things to people. So she was learning.
Sam and Hayley had left dutifully at the nurse’s first visiting hours are over warning. This was now her third, and Tori had no doubt she’d follow through with her threats this time. Will must have finally gotten that through his head, because he sighed and walked over to Brandon.