“Good, you’d ruin how quiet it is out here,” he joked as he hopped up on the hood and lay down next to her.
“Shut up,” she groaned as she slapped at his side, letting her hand rest there for a moment as she remembered what he looked like without his shirt on. “So what should we do if we’re not going to talk?” She knew the question was leading.
“You could sing. I haven’t heard you sing at all since we’ve been here. Normally you’re at least humming something.”
“I haven’t felt like singing since I left California. When I was out there I was singing almost every night in this bar. Most of the people weren’t paying attention, but there were some who made me feel like they loved it.”
“You accomplished something pretty impressive out there. I may not be comfortable with the risks you took but the result was amazing. And you did that on your own. You should feel good about that. Brad is somewhere he can’t lay a hand on anyone again and get away with it.”
“I guess. I wasn’t really alone. I had a friend,” Willow admitted, turning on her side toward him. Her eyes traced the profile of his face as he stared up at the sky. She slid her hand over his chest and rested it on his heart, the thumping against her palm grounding her.
“I’m glad. I kept thinking of you out there alone.”
“Marcario really helped me.” Willow closed her eyes and pictured his face. “Being his friend makes me hopeful for us.”
“For me and you?” Josh asked, still staring up at the sky.
“Yes, because he wasn’t perfect. Not by a long shot. He did a lot of things I didn’t agree with or understand but I could still see the good in him. It was like murky water, but if you strained your eyes you could see something shiny at the bottom. I’m hoping you can see the same thing in me.”
“I can,” Josh assured as he brushed a bit of hair away from her eyes. “I don’t have to look too hard to see it.”
Too exhausted to fight it, tears filled her eyes and spilled down onto her cheeks. “I don’t want to be me anymore,” she whispered.
He placed his hand over hers where it rested on his chest and she soaked in the warmth of it. “You can change anything you want about yourself anytime Willow. Just don’t change too much. There are lots of parts I like.”
“I know that I push people away. I know I’m rude. I’m just so damn angry and confused. It’s like I’m waiting for this one big thing to change it all. It wasn’t getting Brad arrested. It wasn’t finding out what happened to these girls. What else is there?”
“I don’t know,” Josh admitted, intertwining their fingers and keeping them planted on his chest.
“You’re supposed to be the smart doctor. You don’t have the answers?”
“This week, all the information and the stories, it’s opened my eyes to everything I’ve been missing, and not in a good way. I feel like I’ve had my head buried in the sand my whole life. Sex trafficking. Suicide. Dumping bodies. I’ve been living in Edenville and pretending the whole world wasn’t falling to shit all around me. So no, I don’t have any advice. This is all new territory for me. Who am I to tell you how to deal with it?”
“That’s what I needed to hear,” Willow smiled, grateful for the acknowledgement that there was no easy answer. She slid the rest of her body on top of him in one seductive move, and when he opened his mouth in what she assumed would be protest or rational thoughts, she covered his lips with hers. His conflict was palpable, even in the hungry yet reluctant way he was returning the kiss. When her hand slid to his belt, he finally pulled his lips away.
“I know this feels right at the moment, but I don’t think−”
“I think we should not think. Just for tonight,” she murmured as she pressed her lips to his ear.
“I’m not looking for just tonight,” he uttered, but she could tell he was giving in as his hands slipped up the back of her shirt, caressing the smooth skin of her back.
“I know. But it’s all I have to give right now.” She ran her hands through his hair as she pulled back and stared down into his face. “Can it be enough? Please?”
He didn’t answer with any words, but the flicker in his eye was enough. She knew that even the smartest man would struggle to be wise in a moment like this. Leaning back to a sitting position on top of him she slipped her shirt over her head and drew in a deep breath as the sun fell behind the tree line. Josh’s hands grasped her hips and the tightness of his grip spoke volumes. She leaned back down to him, pressing herself against the heat of his body and breathing in his musky scent.
Josh opened his mouth to speak and, fearful he’d say something completely logical and spoil the moment, Willow kissed him. She pushed her tongue into his mouth and when she felt his hand tangle up in her hair, she knew he’d have nothing left to say. Words were pointless, reasoning futile; it was time to feel good. Time to feel connected. They didn’t have a plan for the future, they didn’t seem to be on the same page about much, but right now they were two trains barreling in the same direction and that was enough.
Chapter Fourteen
Making love on the hood of a rental car in a quiet clearing in the woods was perfect medicine for Willow, but it wasn’t curative. Waking up the next morning curled in Josh’s arms in the hotel room she felt a knot pulling tighter in her stomach. She was awake for nearly an hour before Josh stirred but she didn’t move. She was torn between the lulling comfort of being in his arms and the guilt she felt for putting him in this position. Truthfully, she didn’t feel any more ready to be with him today than she did the day before, or the day before that. So why did she sleep with him, knowing his heart was on the line?
There’d been no discussion of what today would bring. It was a strategic oversight on her part not to plan past the sunrise but now it was time to face it and she felt terrible for what she’d done. Making love to him felt so perfect but she still felt so imperfect.
“Good morning,” Josh groaned as he stretched his body from his toes to the tips of his fingers and his eyes cracked open. “Have you been up long?” he asked sounding concerned.
“No,” she lied rolling away from him and on to her back. “I just got up.” She pulled the sheet tighter to her body and it made the inches between them seem like miles. She wondered to herself, if you hurt someone, was it better to do it all at once or drag it out? Would leading Josh to believe she was ready for this for another day, or week or month be better for him than just bolting now?
“You all right?” Josh asked as he scrutinized the concern painted all over her face.
“I’m fine,” she replied unconvincingly as she slipped out of the bed and headed for the shower. “I’m sure Bobby and Piper have been blowing up our phones. You might as well tell them to head back to Edenville. I don’t need them for anything else.” She turned the knobs on the shower. Oddly, she felt like if she sounded unlikable maybe it wouldn’t hurt so bad when she told Josh they didn’t have a future.
“I figured we should meet up with them. I’ll send them a text and maybe we can do breakfast,” Josh suggested, and Willow could hear the uneasiness in his voice.
“Fine,” Willow sighed as she stepped into the hot water, letting it melt away the pain in her heart for a moment. Josh didn’t come in to join her and she assumed her shitty attitude this morning had done the job. She wouldn’t say she regretted last night. Not from her perspective. Josh had proved a skilled and perfectly attentive lover. He was the ideal mix of passion and pleasure. She just wasn’t looking at it as a jumping off point for the future. It was an event, an isolated event, and she knew that would hurt him.
The rest of the time getting ready was fairly quiet, as was the ride over to the diner to meet Piper and Bobby.
“Good morning.” Piper smiled as Willow and Josh slid into the booth.
Willow nodded back and directed her attention immediately to the menu, though she wasn’t really hungry.
“Do you feel any better this morning? Sometimes a good night’s sleep can really
help clear the mind.” Piper voice was full of cheery hopefulness.
“I feel fine.” Willow shrugged. “I’m just going to eat breakfast and then go back and crash at the hotel.”
“We’re looking at flights to book back to Edenville,” Bobby said taking a swig of his orange juice. “The wedding is coming up fast so we need to get back.”
The silence was speaking volumes, no one wanting to ask if Willow was coming back with them. Why wouldn’t she? She’d found out what had happened to the girls she remembered. Things seemed to be progressing with Josh.
“You guys must be excited,” Josh said, trying to force a smile. “Where are you going for your honeymoon?”
Both Bobby and Piper hesitated before they finally smiled at each other and Bobby spoke. “We’re honeymooning here.”
“You’re coming back up here?” Willow asked, ready to tell them that was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard.
“This is our honeymoon,” Piper explained. “Bobby couldn’t get anymore time off from work so he took the time he was going to take after the wedding to come up here. It was well worth it though.”
“How do you figure that?” Willow shot back feeling instantly like shit for causing them to take something so special and waste it on a useless attempt at helping her. Not to mention she’d treated them like garbage through most of it.
“We wanted to be here for you and now we want you to be there for us. We want you to come to the wedding. Jedda is looking forward to seeing you. We can even have your parents come so you can have some time with them, too,” Piper offered optimistically.
“I can’t. I need to figure out what my next move is, but I know it’s not going back to Edenville. That place isn’t home to me. I can’t see myself going back.”
“So you never planned to come back?” Josh asked, his face looking like he’d just taken a physical blow. Willow tried to hide behind the fact that she’d never promised him anything, but wasn’t last night a silent agreement of some kind?
“Maybe I thought about it, but I know now I’m not.”
“I wish I’d known that before last night, but I guess that’s too much to ask from you, Willow. Some honesty,” Josh murmured with an unfamiliar anger on his tongue.
“You said you came up here to find out what happened to these girls you remembered. Now you know.” Bobby pointed that out as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “You have nothing else to do here.”
“Maybe I won’t stay here, but it doesn’t mean I have to go back to North Carolina, or Block Island, or school.”
“Everything you said last night, hoping I could see through the murkiness in you that was bullshit?” Josh accused, and Willow felt her face go as gray as thundercloud. It wasn’t that she hadn’t meant what she said; it was that in the morning she wasn’t as ready as she thought she’d be to live that truth.
“No. I didn’t know last night what I planned to do. I didn’t make any promises to you. All I can say is that I’m not going back there but I think all of you should. I’m fine now. I’ll figure out what to do next.” She knew she was not fine, far from it. But she also knew having them here wasn’t going to change that one way or another. No one wants an audience when they’re spiraling out of control.
“You ever notice that you make all your decisions without thinking of how anyone else might feel? That’s a good way to end up alone,” Josh shot back as he stood and stormed out of the restaurant.
“Aren’t you going to go after him?” Bobby asked, looking at Willow like she had three heads.
“He’s right. I do. Even if I went after him, what argument would I make? Listen, I do really appreciate the time you guys took and the fact that you gave up your honeymoon. It would have taken much longer to get to this point without you.”
“Do you know the first time I met Piper, I had to chase her out of a diner just like this and apologize for being an ass? It’s what makes what we have today possible,” Bobby explained with a pleading tone.
“You don’t understand,” Willow argued as she dropped her fork loudly into her plate.
"You can tell everyone else they wouldn’t understand, but that argument doesn’t work on me,” Piper cut in with an edge to her voice. “I’m one of the few people who understands what this moment feels like.”
“I doubt it,” Willow huffed back like a petulant child. By this point she was even annoyed with herself, but she didn’t know how else to send all these people back to their lives and stop wasting their time. They had to hate her as much as she hated herself.
“You close your eyes and you see their faces. You remind yourself that all you would have had to do was speak up and they could be alive right now. When you start to feel happy, even if it’s by accident, you remind yourself you don’t deserve it. So you punish yourself. You push away what feels good because if those dead girls don’t get to have it, neither should you.” Piper laid out the scenarios in a way that made it clear she certainly did understand.
“I know this is what you’re going to school for, talking to people like me, but…”
“No you can’t find this feeling in a text book,” Piper interrupted, her face red with frustration. “For me it comes from watching my father kill my mother and then attempting to kill me. It comes from waking up in the hospital and being asked if I knew the person who attacked me because he was a serial killer they’d been hunting. It comes from being too scared and selfish to say anything.” Piper’s voice was growing louder and Willow watched as Bobby gently covered her hand with his, a simple act of comfort in a moment of pain. “Delanie Morrison will never have a chance to get married, but I will. She’ll never have a chance to be loved by someone like Bobby because when my mouth was shut, my father was out killing her. I’ll live with that every day of my life. I’ll always see her face in the quiet moments of my life.”
“I didn’t know that,” Willow said, swallowing hard.
“You know what else you don’t know? That pain and my happiness are mutually exclusive of each other. I can carry both of them. You don’t just walk through life. You can design your own if you’re willing to work hard at it. I can go to Betty’s every Wednesday for dinner and cuddle my godchild. Bobby can love me and I can love him back. You know what the difference between my story and yours is?”
“You’re only talking about one girl,” Willow said, staring down at the table, her cheeks blazing with a growing anger she couldn’t pin down the source of.
“No. I was an adult. I was a full-grown person when I sat there and lied to the police about not knowing who attacked me. Ten years or more older than you were when you didn’t speak up. But I’ve still managed to find a way to stop punishing myself. Finding my way in the world doesn’t dishonor Delanie’s memory, it does the opposite.”
“And that’s an epiphany you had, what, like the day after she was killed? Or a couple weeks later? You met Bobby and you just magically knew what to do?” Willow’s voice was prickly with sarcasm. Though she was portraying these statements as accusations, they were actually questions. She wanted to know how Piper had managed to find her way but couldn’t find the courage to just ask.
“No,” Piper said, with a look of acknowledgement on her face. “You’re right. It took some time. I made some wrong turns.”
“I’m glad you’ve found a way to be happy Piper but excuse me if I’m still working on it,” Willow blurted out as she got to her feet and headed for the door.
Chapter Fifteen
“She is a pain in the ass,” Bobby groaned, running his hand over his stubble-covered cheek. Josh, who had made his way back into the restaurant and flopped into the booth after Willow had left just nodded his head in agreement. “I don’t know how you’ve been putting up with her,” Bobby continued.
Josh shrugged as he pushed his eggs around his plate. “I guess it’s time to ask myself why I am.”
“She’s in a rough patch,” Piper sighed, though even she was starting to won
der if this was something Willow could pull herself out of.
“I don’t think anyone would blame you Josh if you stopped chasing her. Maybe it’s time to let her take care of herself,” Bobby suggested.
“Where do you think I’d be if you’d given up on me when I kicked you out of my place and told you to go to hell?” Piper asked, raising an accusing eyebrow at Bobby.
“True.” Bobby smiled as he wrapped his arm around Piper’s shoulder. “But you were a little nicer than she’s being.”
“I think she’s afraid to be nice, as if it will make us all like her and then she’ll start to be happy. You’d be surprised how scary happy can be for some people,” Piper explained. “Josh, we’re heading home in the morning. Do you want to book the same flight as us?” Piper softened her face as she tried to imagine what it must feel like to be him right now.
“Thanks for the offer but my patients are covered and I’m not ready to go back. It might not be easy to understand why but I know exactly what’s waiting for me back in Edenville. I’ve dated plenty of girls who aren’t any trouble. The kindergarten teachers and the sweet librarians, they fit perfectly into my life the way it is today. The only problem is I don’t fit there. Willow is different. She challenges me. It’s harder to care about her, to understand her, but I feel like myself when I’m with her.”
“That actually makes perfect sense Josh,” Piper said, squeezing Bobby’s leg below the table, partially to keep him from saying something insensitive but also to remind him that she hadn’t been all that easy to love either.
“Then what’s your plan?” Bobby asked, looking more skeptical than Piper.
“I guess I wait to see what her plan is. But I know it’s not Edenville. I’ll be there for the wedding though, I promise. No matter what she’s got going on, I’ll be there.”
“Hopefully she comes too. But if she doesn’t that isn’t on you. The most important thing for you to remember is it’s not your job to make her do anything. You can’t force this to get better, you can just hope to be around when it does,” Piper offered, channeling the memories of her own rough patches.
Settling Scores (Piper Anderson Series) Page 11