by Ami Weaver
Chase didn’t say anything else. He got up, and when he came back he had a sandwich, which he handed to Mack. “You need this more than another beer.”
Mack took it, but he wasn’t so sure. What he really needed he was afraid he’d never have again.
His wife back.
* * *
The next morning Mack’s head pounded. He’d earned the headache. He dragged himself through his day at his vet practice, and while he was perfectly pleasant to his staff, his patients and their owners, his office staff had clearly caught his underlying mood and were handling him with kid gloves.
He went out to the tree farm because it wasn’t in his nature to shirk his duties just because it was awkward. He could handle it. Unless it came to his ex-wife, of course. It was becoming crystal clear he had no idea how to handle her.
He didn’t see her when he first pulled in. Then he spotted her in her navy fleece jacket and red vest, a bright red hat covering her copper hair. He swallowed hard. She looked up then, spotted him and said something to Wendy, who laughed as she walked away.
Now she was walking toward him, her stride long and purposeful. He didn’t move, just shoved his hands in his pockets and let her come, let her make the move. It wasn’t in his court. This was all her.
“Can we talk?” Her brown eyes searched his and he saw the shadows on the fine skin under her eyes. She hadn’t slept any better than he had.
He was tempted to say no way, but he didn’t want to hurt her more. There’d been too much pain between them already. “Sure.”
She turned and headed out the door, toward the house. He caught up with her and they walked, wordlessly, through the dark to the house.
* * *
Darcy was nervous. Her fingers shook as she unzipped her fleece jacket. She went into the kitchen. “Coffee?”
“Sure,” he said, and his voice was quiet and cautious. She didn’t blame him. She’d undone everything they’d rebuilt in the space of a few minutes last night. Again. Clearly, this was not meant to work out. Not ever.
She prepared the mugs and handed him one, unable to hide the fact her hands were shaking. The coffee sloshed in the mug but didn’t spill. He took it with no comment other than a murmured “Thanks.”
The best way out is through. She’d always loved the line from Whitman and it steadied her now. She sat and gestured for him to do the same.
“I’m sorry I sprang that on you like I did last night,” she said. This needed to come from the heart, for her sake and his. “And I’m even more sorry I didn’t tell you what the doctor said all those years ago.”
Maybe it would have been easier for him if he’d known they could never be what he wanted so badly. Help him understand why she’d left. Tears burned her eyes. She’d thought she was done crying over this. But the magnitude of their loss hung between them now and she finally saw it differently. She’d held on to it as hers for so long she’d forgotten it was really theirs.
He sat back, his expression shuttered, his untouched coffee steaming on the table between them. She couldn’t read him, wasn’t sure what was going on in his head. “It was a lot to take in,” she said quietly. “And I handled it all badly.”
He rubbed his hand over his face. “Yeah, we both did.” He sat forward, and rested his arms on the table, gaze on his fingers. She wanted to take his hand in hers, but instead threaded her fingers together tightly in her lap, so tightly it hurt. “Darce. I just wish you’d have told me. Let me carry some of it with you.”
The dark thing, the deepest secret she held, battered against her chest. She wasn’t going to tell him all of it. They had a chance to make a fragile peace. Telling him it had all been her fault wasn’t going to help that, help him. And she owed him the chance to move on. So she said simply, “Me, too.”
Because that was true. If she’d let him take some of it from her, would she have been able to stay? Hard to tell. She’d been a physical and emotional wreck at the time. She’d come back here, to the farm, to recuperate. He’d tried to get her to come home, but she’d refused. And he had eventually stopped arguing with her. Her physical injuries had healed, but her emotional ones ran much deeper. So deep, she didn’t think she’d ever get around them. It was an ache she doubted would ever go away.
They sat for another few minutes and Darcy would have given almost anything to know what he was thinking. Then he said, “We need to get back.”
Relieved it was over, she pushed back from the table and stood, reaching for his mug. But he caught her hand as he rose from his chair and tugged her around the table toward him. She stood in front of him, inhaling his scent, close but not close enough. She knew it’d never be close enough. Not now. He bent and pressed a soft kiss to her mouth. Then he dropped her hand and stepped back.
She put the mugs in the sink and they walked, wordless, back to the farm. The cheery, noisy bustle of happy families and Christmas music carried down the lane and for a minute Darcy felt suspended between two worlds—the one she had and the one she could have had if she’d stayed.
It was an eerie, unsettling feeling.
* * *
They managed to work around each other, but Darcy found the fragile peace they’d forged exhausting. She just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep. Until the day after Christmas, when she could finally go back to Chicago. Home.
Or was it?
She missed Chicago, but she’d begun to realize it wasn’t quite home. Not the way this place was. Was that because she’d grown up here? Or because she still had some kind of feelings for Mack?
It seemed best to just admit it. That there were clearly lingering feelings, but it was in no way enough to move forward on. If either of them had wanted to. And she did not. There was too much pain in the past that would bleed through to their present.
“It’s not enough,” she said out loud to the spruce tree in front of her. There, I said it. Now all she had to do was hang on to that for the rest of her stay and she could escape mostly unscathed.
Some things just couldn’t be fixed, no matter how much you wished otherwise.
* * *
The next morning, Darcy disconnected her phone and set it on the table in Java, the coffee shop that had become her closest thing to a home office.
So far, things were moving fairly smoothly in Chicago. Mally had things well in hand, which didn’t surprise Darcy. She opened her laptop to check for the file Mally had emailed during their conversation. Perusing her assistant’s work, she realized that Mally didn’t need Darcy’s direction. She knew exactly what she was doing and was in fact fully qualified to take over Darcy’s position if she wanted to step down.
She could step right in and Darcy could—what? Leave? And do what? Ross wouldn’t give Mally Darcy’s job, of course. Not right away. But Ross would move on, fill her position.
Darcy put the thoughts aside. No point in going there when it wasn’t going to happen. She’d worked long and hard to get where she was and she wasn’t going to throw it all over for—what? Definitely not for something she couldn’t even define. That was reckless. And stupid. And so very un-Darcylike.
“Darcy. How are you?”
She looked up at the friendly voice to see Cheryl. “Hi, Cheryl.” She pulled her papers and laptop over so the other woman could sit if she wanted to.
Cheryl hesitated. “Are you sure? I don’t want to bother you if you’re working.”
Darcy closed the laptop and gestured for her to sit down. “I’m completely sure. I could use a break anyway. I’m sorry we haven’t been able to get together yet. How are you?”
Cheryl smiled. “Good. Busy. Decided to treat myself to a latte today since we got word that we’re being considered as adoptive parents for a teenage mother’s baby.”
Darcy’s heart stuttered. “Wow, Cheryl, that’s wonderful. When wi
ll you know?”
“Soon. She’s about seven months along. She’s a good girl, got in a tough situation and wants to give her baby the best life she can. It’s not a done deal, but I hope...” She trailed off and took a sip of the latte.
Darcy reached over and touched her hand. “I hope so, too, Cheryl.”
“There’s something I’ve been wondering,” Cheryl said quietly, her hands closed around her cup. She leveled her gaze at Darcy. “Why did you leave without saying goodbye? And why did you cut off all contact with me?”
Darcy sucked in a breath. There was pain in her old friend’s voice, but no censure. She slid her laptop in her bag to give herself a second to regroup. Then she folded her arms on the table and looked right at Cheryl. “I’m not really sure. It hurt too much to be here, and everything was a reminder of what—of what I’d lost. I was just trying to move forward and I know I did a bad job of it.” She’d rejected Cheryl’s support, everyone’s support. How stupid she’d been. “I was just so lost, I guess. In the grief. I’m so sorry I cut you off.”
Cheryl nodded. “I figured that was what happened, but I needed to hear it for sure. I would have been there. I wanted to be there, Darce. A lot of people did.”
So she was learning. All the bitterness she’d carried like a shield was withering away. She’d erected the shield as a defense to keep herself in, not to protect herself from people who cared. But that was exactly what had ended up happening.
“I wish you’d let me in,” Cheryl said quietly now. “And I wish I’d tried harder to reach you. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t try as hard as I could have.”
Darcy’s head came up sharply. “What? No, Cheryl, that’s not what happened. You were there. That’s all you needed to do, was to be there. And you were. I was the one who didn’t know how to handle it. Or how to let anyone help me handle it. I just wanted it all to go away.”
Cheryl cocked her head. “Did it?”
“No,” Darcy admitted now. “Not really. I got good at kind of locking it away. Until I came back here.”
A small smile ghosted across Cheryl’s mouth. “I bet. There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What’s that?”
“Olivia’s middle name is Darcy.”
Darcy’s breath jammed in her throat. Cheryl couldn’t have surprised her more if she’d hit Darcy with a hammer. “You—really? Oh,” she said, and the word kind of fell from her lips. “Cheryl—”
“Yes, really.” Cheryl’s smile was looking decidedly damp around the edges, which was okay because Darcy knew hers was, too. “I just wanted you to know.”
The lump in Darcy’s throat was almost too big to breathe around. She reached for Cheryl’s hand and held on tight, a connection she wished she’d accepted when it was offered all those years ago. “Thank you, Cheryl.”
Chapter Thirteen
Mack showed up late at the tree farm. He looked a little ragged, and despite her best intentions to stay away, she went up to him. He gave her a tired smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Concerned, she touched his arm. “Are you okay?”
He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Yeah. No. Rough day.”
Which told her nothing, since she could already see that. “We can get by without you tonight if you need to go home, Mack. Don’t feel you need to stay.”
He dropped his hand. “Thanks, but I need to stay.”
Since he wasn’t going to confide in her—why would he?—she nodded. “Your call. Let me know if you change your mind, though.”
He said nothing as she walked away. Then—
“Darcy.”
She stopped and turned. “Yes?”
He drew in a shaky breath. “It was an abuse case. Worst one I’ve seen yet. Dog beaten within an inch of his life and left out to die in the cold. He was frozen to the ground. I don’t know if he’ll survive, or if he’ll ever be able to go to a new home.” His voice was low, and the pain in his words fell heavily on her heart. Horror and anger fired there, too, that someone would treat an animal that way. Any living being.
She walked back toward him. “Oh, Mack. Do they know who did it?”
He shook his head. “No. Not yet. I hope they find the son of a bitch. Because it’s more than the dog, Darce. What if this guy’s doing this to his family? There’s something wrong with a person who can hurt an animal this way.”
She gave up and wrapped her arms around him, laid her head on his chest. His jacket was cold under her cheek. He wrapped his around her, too, and they stood there, by the side of his truck, Darcy feeling his warm breath on her hair. This was what they should have had. This was one of those moments that was out of time, from a life she didn’t live but could have.
“He’s got you,” she said finally as she stepped back and looked up to meet his eyes. “And we’ll hope the person who did this gets found soon.”
“Thanks,” he said quietly. “I see a lot in my job. A lot of broken animals, sick ones, too. But almost never something like this. I don’t know how he survived as long as he did. I really don’t. So I’ll cut out early tonight, if it looks like things are under control, to go check on him. Jennifer’s with him now.”
“It’s a Wednesday,” Darcy said. “Our slowest day. It’ll be fine, whenever you’re ready to head out.”
They walked to the barn in silence and he gave her hand a quick squeeze before heading the opposite way. Warmth fizzled through her, a little burst of surprise and happiness. He’d never touched her like that in public. She didn’t know if anyone had seen.
She kept an eye on him through the evening, and he did leave early. That night, after she’d closed everything down and chatted with her aunt and uncle, she went up to her room and called Mack to check on the dog. She felt a little bit like a teenager as she lay flopped on her back across the bed, knees up. She almost wished for the days when there was a long phone cord to wrap around her finger.
“Hello?”
His voice was just as sexy over the phone as it was in person. Despite the reason for her call, her lady parts gave a little shimmy. She cleared her throat. “Hi. It’s Darcy.”
He gave what sounded like a pained chuckle. “I know. Everything okay out there?”
“Yeah. I just wanted to see how the dog is. If he’s—well, if he’s okay.”
Mack sighed. “He’s not okay, but he’s holding. At this point, that’s about all I can expect. Still touch-and-go. If he makes it through the night, his chances will be better.”
“Poor guy,” she said quietly.
“Yeah. I’m going to check him every hour until five, then I’ll go home and catch a few hours of sleep while Jenn checks him.”
“So you’re staying at the clinic?” She knew Jennifer lived above the clinic. Maybe he stayed with her. And it was completely none of her business. Still, an odd twist slipped through her chest.
There was a rustling, as though he was moving around. “Yeah. I keep a cot here. I’ll sleep in my office. Grabbed a pillow and blanket from home. I don’t have to do it too often.”
“That’s good,” she said.
There was a pause, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. They were just quiet. Together.
“Darcy?”
“Yeah?” Why was she whispering?
“Thanks for calling.”
“You’re welcome.”
She disconnected the call and stared up at the dark ceiling, feeling all kinds of fluttery and weird. Truth was, she could have waited until tomorrow to find out about the dog. She’d been concerned, yes, and saddened. But she’d wanted to check on Mack, too, and this had been a convenient excuse.
She rolled over and put the phone on the bedside table. She already missed his voice. Missed him. How sad was that?
* * *
“Two weeks until Christm
as Eve,” Joe announced at breakfast. “This upcoming Saturday will be almost as busy as the day after Thanksgiving. I’m going to meet with you and Mack to discuss a game plan.”
Darcy spooned up more oatmeal. She had no idea what her aunt put in it, but it was good. It didn’t matter if she didn’t need the meeting. Uncle Joe did. “When?”
“Tonight. He’ll come to the house when he gets here. We’ll have it here, in the kitchen.”
“I’ll have pie,” Marla broke in with a smile.
“Sounds good.” If it hadn’t been the last season, it would have been a different sort of meeting. Darcy wanted to ask why they’d never branched out into more sales, why they hadn’t expanded the tours, why more promotion hadn’t been done. Yes, some of that cost money, but they’d have earned it all back and then some. But she wasn’t going to ask now. It was too late.
The farm had two weeks left. Then, after the new year, it’d be turned over to Mack and his brother to bulldoze. Appetite gone, she slid her chair back to carry her bowl to the sink. For all Mack still tugged at her heart, he was taking away the one thing that had always been a constant in her life. She needed to remember that.
* * *
“I’m so sad this place is closing,” one woman said to Darcy later that evening after the meeting with Uncle Joe. “I’ve come out here since I was a little girl. Now I bring my kids. We look forward to it every year.” The kids in question looked to be around five and nine, and happily sucking on the mini–candy canes Darcy had given them from her stash by the register.
“Me, too. We all are. But my aunt and uncle are going to retire. A tree farm is a lot of work.” She’d said the same thing many times over the past couple weeks. But now she added, “It’s been a wonderful experience, being a part of all these Christmases for all of these years.”
The woman handed over the cash for the tree. “So much better than grabbing a tree at a big box store,” she agreed. “I wish your aunt and uncle all the best in their retirement. Maybe they’ll get lucky and find someone to take it over.”