I’d evaded as much as I could, been vague when I couldn’t . . . and it had only seemed to fuel their concern. It made me regret telling Nathan anything about my life or my lack of relationships and allowing him to see how Sawyer had gotten to me in a way no one else ever had.
If I hadn’t let Nathan in, I was sure none of this would’ve happened.
Or, at least, not to this extent.
Then again . . . the fact that I hadn’t checked, or posted on, my social media in the two and a half weeks since I’d left Amber would’ve been enough to freak Megan out. So, maybe not.
Somehow, in all the attempts to assure them I was fine, I’d ended up apologizing for making them worry and agreeing to come stay for a night or two to finally talk everything through.
During the drive to their house, I’d tried to figure out how they’d talked me into this. But I’d still found myself walking up to their door late last night, sleeping in their guest room, and waking up to the questions of what I was going to say and how I was supposed to get through this.
“Megan said you move all the time,” Nathan began, “which made me think it wasn’t a coincidence you had a lot of stuff with you in Amber.” When an amused huff left me, he looked from where Megan was silently watching us, then back to me. “Where’ve you been living since you left?”
“Around,” I said lamely. “I usually know where I’m going next, but I haven’t gotten that feeling yet. So, I’ve kind of just been going from city to city, staying in hotels for a few days at a time.”
“You could’ve come here sooner,” Megan said, and I sent her a grateful smile, even though I had no intention of staying here long.
It wasn’t staying with them, it was just . . . “I hate small towns,” I whispered, and looked to Nathan when he laughed.
“Sure about that?”
My eyes rolled and a hint of a smile tugged at my lips, but it quickly fell. “I’ve always hated them, they feel suffocating to me. Amber did too.” I swallowed, trying to force the knot away, my head shaking because none of this made sense. “I was there for such a short time, but cities suddenly don’t feel the same. I used to be comforted by them, and now they’re all so loud.”
“Maybe it isn’t that they’re loud,” Nathan offered, his stare drifting to Megan. “Maybe it’s that you found someone who brings you a kind of peace you’d never had before, and now that peace is gone.”
A breath heaved from me as my eyes burned, and I looked in that same direction. “You know, your boyfriend is super romantic considering how vicious he can be when he’s in a business suit.”
Megan offered me a dopey grin. “I know.”
Nathan lifted his arms out to the sides, showing that he was already mostly dressed for work.
“Doesn’t count when you’re with us instead of business people,” I said matter-of-factly.
He simply leaned forward to rest his arms on the table. “You know I’m right.”
It felt as though my chest were being frozen and burned at the same time. I didn’t want to do this—I didn’t want to rehash this. “No, I don’t.”
His lips parted like he wanted to argue, but he forced them into a firm line and pushed from the table. “I have to go to work, you try to talk to her,” he said to Megan as he crossed the kitchen and pulled her into his arms for a kiss.
After grabbing his jacket off the chair, he paused beside me and waited until I met his stare to say, “You know, after you left, the owner of Blossom talked to me for the first time.”
“Beau?” I asked incredulously.
Nathan just shook his head as he continued. “Little things, like hello and stuff like that. But then she stopped me one time to ask if you were engaged.”
“What’d you say?”
“I laughed.” He gestured to the side and said, “I didn’t have to ask Megan to know you weren’t. Then she asked, ‘Is that a no?’ I told her girls as fierce as you have fragile hearts that are kept well-guarded. If you had belonged to someone else, her brother-in-law wouldn’t have had the ability to shatter yours.”
My chin trembled as I fought back a wave of tears and looked to Megan accusingly. “Seriously, who is this guy?”
Her answering smile was all kinds of giddy and swoony. “Mine.”
With another kiss and exchanged I love yous, Nathan left after promising to bring frozen yogurt home after work.
“I approve of him, one thousand percent,” I said when Megan sat in the chair he’d been occupying, carefully sliding a mug in my direction.
Instead of a response I’d expected, she planted her elbows on the table and her chin on her interlaced fingers. “Tell me everything about Sawyer Dixon and don’t you dare leave out one single detail. I have been dying to know, Nathan knew next to nothing, and you clearly need to talk about it. We’re not leaving this table until I know all.” She nodded her head as if that was that and then looked at me blankly, expecting me to do exactly what she’d demanded.
“Uh . . .” A hesitant laugh tumbled from my lips.
Megan just clicked her tongue. “I’ve got all day, lady.”
I sank back in my chair and wrapped my hands around my mug, defiant words gathering on my tongue as the first morning in Amber filled my mind and lifted the corners of my lips.
“It was my first morning there,” I began after minutes came and went in stubborn silence, a breath of a laugh escaping me. “I was going off no sleep and had just gotten out of the shower, still only in my towel, and stepped out of the bathroom to find him in my room . . .”
* * *
By the time Nathan came home that night, weighed down with bags of frozen yogurt, I had told Megan as much as I possibly could of my time in Amber. I’d laughed through nearly all of it, and somehow managed not to cry when I came to the end, despite the searing pain of reliving it all.
Then again, Megan had cried enough for the two of us.
She was also convinced I made a mistake in leaving and needed to go back, no matter what Sawyer had said that last day.
“Right, Nate?” she asked as we took the bags from his arms. “Rae has to go back.”
“No ganging up on me right when he gets back—jeez, what is with you and frozen yogurt?” I asked as I pulled out enough containers to feed a small army.
Nathan stepped back a little and put his hands together in front of him, seeming to gather strength and preparing for the worst.
“It’s just frozen yogurt,” I mumbled slowly.
His stare darted from Megan to me and back again, an apologetic expression crossing his face before he focused on me. “Can you sit down?”
Apprehension moved swiftly through me as I gripped one of the containers in my hands. “I think I’d like to stay right here.”
After a moment, he nodded and took another step back, taking deep, steadying breaths as he did. “I called Blossom Bed and Breakfast and talked to Savannah.”
Megan sucked in a sharp breath. “Babe,” she said softly, drawing the word out in disapproval.
I didn’t move.
I wasn’t sure I breathed.
“She was the only one I thought might talk to me.”
“I’m here to talk,” I said, the words coming out on a strained wheeze.
“Not about this,” he said confidently. “Not about how he’s doing.” He rubbed at the back of his neck and looked over his shoulder before facing us again. “She told me what went down that last day before you left—about everything. And then she said there was one person who would know better than anyone.” Nathan cleared his throat and stepped aside, sliding his hands into his pockets and looking wholly worried as someone came walking up behind him.
I stumbled back into the counter when Emberly smiled cautiously at me and then dropped the container when her mom—our mom—stepped up behind her.
“Oh God,” I said on a breath and tried to figure out how to react and what to say and how to yell at Nathan for doing this behind my back.
But I
could only stare at them.
“We’re hoping you’d like to talk,” Emberly said. “I’ve missed you. The town has nothing exciting to talk about with you gone. And our boy is . . .” Her shoulders sagged with a heaving breath. “He’s a mess, Rae.”
“And I think the three of us probably have a lot to say to each other,” Tori said soberly.
Megan flung out an arm, smacking me with her hand. “Oh my word, I just realized who—Nathan, you did not—” A gasp ripped from her and turned into a low whistle. “Good thing we have froyo, we’re gonna need it to get through this.”
Chapter 38
Sawyer
There was such a long pause after I asked my brother how work was going, that I glanced at the screen of my phone to make sure the call hadn’t dropped, then started to say his name when he said, “You don’t sound good.”
My eyelids slowly shut and my head fell back to the headrest. “Man, if people don’t stop telling me that, I’m gonna lose my goddamn mind.”
“Take a hint,” Cayson said gruffly. When an irritated huff blew past my lips, he continued before I could speak. “I remember how it was back then, and talking to you now is pulling me back in time. You’re worrying me, Saw.”
“Yeah?” When he grunted his confirmation, I said, “Funny, because if I remember correctly, you were busy deserting us last time.”
“Sawyer . . .”
“If you’d been worried or if you’d cared about any of us—especially Mom—you would’ve come back. But you didn’t then and you won’t now because you’re too damn busy thinking about yourself. Like always.” I tossed a hand out in front of me, my voice dropping to a murmur. “Not that there’s a reason to come back. Not for this.”
“Jesus.” A breath that edged between a laugh and a scoff sounded through the phone. “I—yeah, all right. I, uh, just wanted to check in.”
My jaw clenched tight. “Appreciate it.”
“Guess I’ll talk to you next week.”
My head dipped even though he couldn’t see me. “Yep.”
“Saw . . .”
My next breath caught in my throat as I waited for whatever else he had to say.
“She isn’t Leighton. Go get her.”
His words wrenched my chest open, exposing my grief and anger and the constant unknowns that went ’round and ’round in my mind.
I wanted to find her. I wanted to yell at her and demand to know what was real and what wasn’t. I wanted to hold her in my arms and kiss her until everything felt right again.
But the one thing I was sure of was she would make it impossible to find her again.
“I’m fine, Cayson.”
After ending the call, I hopped out of my truck and headed into Brewed, running my hand through my hair and shaking the rain from it as I bypassed where Emberly was at the counter with a customer and headed to the bar section.
I’d only been there for a few minutes—long enough to order lunch and think of every Rae-related memory in that room about a dozen times—before Emberly appeared beside me.
Eyes faraway. Mouth in a frown.
As they had been for days.
“You have a break before your next job?” she asked, but her tone was all wrong. It was low and weighted like she was on the verge of breaking down.
I studied her for a moment before saying, “No, I already finished everything I had lined up. But, you know . . . someone could call.” When she didn’t respond or even indicate that she’d heard me, I leaned closer and tapped her arm. “Em, what the hell is going on? You’ve been like this ever since you came back from that trip.”
She released a weighted breath, her stare falling to the bar. “It just didn’t go how we hoped it would.”
My head moved in faint shakes. “Yeah, but I don’t know why y’all went in the first place. I mean,”—I gestured to the bar and the opened barn doorway that led to the café—“this place is amazing. It is. But you’ve always said what makes it that way is this town . . . and you’re right. A big part of that is also you and your mom. That’s why I don’t understand why y’all suddenly wanted to open more locations outside Amber.”
I hadn’t even known Tori and Emberly were considering expanding. I’d just gotten a series of texts from Em nearly a week ago, saying they’d gotten a last-minute meeting with an investor and were taking the first flight out.
When they’d come back the next night, Tori had been a little reserved, but still Tori.
Emberly had barely spoken to me. Every time I’d tried to get her to, her eyes began welling up before she walked away.
“Yeah, well, we aren’t. So . . .”
“Em,” I protested, reaching for her arm when she started away again, and choked back anything else I may have said when she looked at me with tear-filled eyes.
“I love you. You know that . . . right?”
“Of course,” I said softly. “I love you too. You’re my best friend.”
“I’m sorry.” Her words came out strained and thick with emotion. “I’m so sorry Rae left.”
Everything inside me locked up slowly, painfully, preparing for another heart-wrenching ache and trying like hell to fight it.
“If I could, I would bring her back, and I hate that I can’t.”
“Where is this coming from?” I asked and slid from my stool to follow her when she started backing away, head shaking. “Emberly.”
“She isn’t coming back, Sawyer.”
I’d known.
I’d known from the moment I’d gotten that last text from Rae.
Still, hearing those words from my friend, who was usually so optimistic, sent a shot of ice-cold dread through me. “I know that. Again,” I said, the words clipped and harsh, “where is this coming from?”
“There was no investor.” Her hushed confession had the same effect as if she’d screamed it.
I stopped moving and just stared at her, silently demanding she explain while begging her to stop.
“That guy . . . the vulture? The one Rae was friends with. He contacted Savannah because he and his girlfriend were worried about Rae. He flew us out to their place.”
From the sinking, tortured feeling in my gut, I knew what she would say next, and I didn’t want her to.
“She was there, Sawyer,” she admitted, the words soft as a breath.
For the second time in just weeks, I felt the floor get ripped out beneath me in this bar.
“You didn’t tell me?”
“Sawyer—”
“You didn’t tell—you fucking lied to me?”
Her face crumpled and she stepped forward, hands outstretched pleadingly. “I would do anything for you, you’re my family. I would fly at a moment’s notice to bring back the girl you love. And everything was going well, I was so encouraged, but then . . .” A sob ripped from her and her arms dropped heavily to her sides.
“But then . . .”
“But then . . .”
Her last words swirled around and around in my head as I waited for her to continue.
But then what? I wanted to shout when nearly a minute passed in agonizing silence.
“She won’t come back because of us—my mom and me,” she finally went on. “Because there’s too much bitterness and it will bleed into everything else. She said she can’t live that way. That she spent so long trying to move past what happened with her family and knows she wouldn’t have been able to if she hadn’t moved away from them.”
I somehow made it back onto the barstool, my head dropping as I ran my hand over the back of it again and again.
“Sawyer, I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” I asked thickly and managed to lift my head to look at her. “Em, you did nothing other than try to bring her back. Everything else is her decision and isn’t on you.” I glanced at the plate of food that was set down on the bar next to my elbow, my head shaking. “I can’t—I gotta go.”
“Sawyer,” Emberly began, voice slightly frantic.
But I just pulled her against my chest and lowered my head to hers. “Not on you. Understand?” Once she nodded, I released her and walked out to my truck, ignoring the stares and whispers as I did.
They’d all been whispering for weeks.
Maybe this conversation would be enough for them to realize it was truly the end.
Maybe it would be enough for me.
Chapter 39
Rae
I worked at steadying my breathing and told myself repeatedly not to look over my shoulder, though every instinct told me to, as I knocked on the door.
You can do this.
You’ll be fine.
I’d played this scenario out in my mind no less than a thousand times on the drive here, each time getting more creative than the last. But the truth was, the absolute worst that could logically happen had already happened.
Besides, this time I was ready for what was coming . . .
I’d stayed with Megan and Nathan for another night after Emberly and her mom had left, only because we’d spent the entire day going over their visit, arguing over what I’d decided, and talking through what I planned to do until it was too late to leave.
When I’d left the next morning, I still didn’t have a plan, but I’d somehow found myself in a city I’d never intended to go near again, parked in front of a home that looked exactly as it had growing up.
I didn’t have to wonder if my dad’s sister and her family were still there, they’d told me as much at one of the signings they’d shown up at. Claiming loudly and dramatically that I was missed at home and welcome there whenever.
I’d sat in my car for nearly an hour before going to the door and knocking.
The shock on my aunt’s face turned to excitement as she’d looked around as if she’d expected me to bring other authors with me.
Once she’d realized I was alone, her excitement shifted into something more irritated as she’d tightly asked, “I’m sure you have a reason for being here. Did you run out of all that fancy money?”
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