“His truck shouldn’t be here.”
“Honey, you knew he’d have to exact his pound of flesh at some point. It’s better to get it over with.”
“I’m trying to get today over with. I don’t need tempers boiling over or, even worse, to be put in a position where I feel the need to protect her.”
“I wouldn’t think that would be a problem after what you went through yesterday. Aren’t you even a tiny bit hopeful he’s making her hurt a little?”
“I’m angry with her, madder than I’ve ever been, but I’ve spent every day for over a decade trying to take care of her. I can’t shut off those instincts overnight, even if she can.” It had taken every ounce of fortitude she possessed not to crumple when Nic had collapsed last night. The woman she loved was hurting, and that pain nearly did her in. Even in the midst of her own turmoil, she couldn’t stop worrying about how her actions would affect Nic. It was only the realization that Nic hadn’t felt the same compassion for her that had enabled her to walk away.
She pushed open the door to her home, bracing herself for shouts or even an all-out brawl. She didn’t think her father would actually hit Nic, but she’d seen his anger boil over before. If he was willing to overlook Nic’s gender in their relationship, he might be capable of doing so in a fight.
Hearing nothing, she stepped farther into the house to see her father sitting at the kitchen table. “Daddy, where’s Nic?”
“Hey, baby girl.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and rested his chin on the top of her head. “You should’ve stayed with your mama. I took care of things here.”
Annabelle stepped back. “Took care of it how? Did you kill her?”
The corners of his mouth twitched up in a humorless smile. “We came to an understanding. She’ll be out of the house this morning.”
Belle bristled at the comment and straightened her shoulders. “That wasn’t for you to decide. Where is she?”
“Upstairs. Why don’t you stay here until she’s done? Better yet, you girls go get some breakfast, my treat.”
“That’s a great idea,” Liz interjected. “Daddy can call us when Nic’s gone.”
“No,” Annabelle said sadly. “I have to do this.”
“And you will,” Liz said. “But there’s no sense making it harder than it has to be. Let us help you.”
“I will. You’ll have to help me a lot over the next few weeks, probably months, but only when I ask you to. I’ve had so much taken from me in the last twenty-four hours. I won’t give up control of the last few things I actually do have a say in.”
“I don’t want you alone with her,” her father said gruffly, but she understood he was trying to protect her. If only the trauma could be kept out of mind simply by keeping Nic out of sight.
“I need to do this.” Belle lifted her chin in what little show of defiance she could muster. “This is my life, my home, and my chance to say good-bye. I’d appreciate you letting me do those things my way.”
Her father didn’t budge, but Liz’s eyes softened, and she tugged on his arm. “We’ll go get some coffee and be back in an hour.”
“Thank you,” she said, and then waited for the door to close behind them before she climbed the stairs to the bedroom she’d never again share with Nic.
Nic sat on the bed holding her head in one hand and a photograph of them in the other. The image of her sadness was one more to add to the mental scrapbook of things that would haunt Belle for months to come. Nic immediately jumped up and wiped her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“No, I’m sorry. I should’ve been gone by now. I’ve packed my clothes and toiletries.” She motioned to the three suitcases on the bed, refusing to make eye contact. “I’m sorry to use so much of the luggage. I didn’t have any boxes handy.”
She looked like she’d hadn’t slept, and she’d clearly been crying.
Annabelle clamped down on her instinct to soothe her. “It’s okay. There are some boxes in the garage. I can go get some and start in your office.”
“No, you don’t have to. I’ll do it. Or not. If you want to ship the stuff to me at work, you could. I won’t come back.”
“Nic, it’s your house, too.”
“Not anymore. I don’t have any right to be here, and even if I did, I just can’t.”
She understood that. She didn’t think she’d be able to survive the memories here either. “Where will you go?”
“I’ll go to a hotel close to work, try to find an apartment maybe. Honestly, I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
Would she go to Davis? She wouldn’t let her in, but the thought of Nic trying hurt. “I guess thinking ahead hasn’t been your strong suit lately.”
“No.” Nic’s shoulders sagged. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.” She looked away and slid another wall up, this time to block her anger. “I didn’t come here to fight with you.”
“You’re entitled to be angry. I deserve it.”
“Oh, I am, and yes, you do, but that’s not how I want to leave things.”
“You’re right. As always.”
She shook her head. She didn’t want the flattery. It felt so empty now. Had any of it been real? No, she couldn’t do that either. No sympathy, no anger, nothing introspective or retrospective. She had to focus on the task ahead. “We need to divide up the furniture.”
“I’ll need my laptop and the stuff in the file cabinet in my office. That’s all.”
“What about your tools? Your recliner? The TV?”
“I don’t need any of it. I’ll have the paperwork drawn up to put the house in your name. Your car, too.”
“Nic, I don’t want all of it. It’s just stuff. It’s always ever been empty baubles to me.” She balled her fist in frustration, then released it in a wave of sadness. It’s never offered me any comfort without you.”
“I just…please let me do something right. I know it won’t make up for everything, or anything really.” She sighed and swallowed forcefully, as if trying not to choke on her own emotions. “But you’re going to get started in a new life, and I need to know you’re taken care of.”
Her heart twisted, ripping at her insides. If Nic had wanted to take care of her, why hadn’t she been able to summon that sort of honor or dedication months ago? Or maybe she had, but not in any of the ways that had mattered. How had they let their priorities grow so far apart? “If it makes you feel better, then go ahead and soothe your conscience.”
“It won’t really, but thank you.”
“I’ll get the boxes and meet you in your office.”
With nothing left for them to say, they spent the next half hour working in sad silence. One by one they carried boxes to Nic’s car until she closed the door on the last of them. As she stood in the driveway, she couldn’t help but notice what an absurdly beautiful day it was. Across the street the neighbors’ children played catch in their front yard, oblivious to the two lives falling apart in front of them. Why wasn’t it raining? The sun felt so wrong amid all the gloom she felt.
“Will you be okay?” Nic asked softly.
“I guess I’ll have to be. The world clearly won’t stop for my broken heart.” Tears filled Nic’s eyes again, but she did an admirable job of blinking them back. Annabelle didn’t possess the same control over her emotions anymore. With the immediate job at hand completed, she let her own tears run freely. “What about you?”
“Yeah, don’t worry about me.”
She wished she could promise that, but she couldn’t. Worry would keep her up at night, along with doubt and fear, anger, and, most of all, sadness, but there was no sense explaining that. “Take care of yourself.”
She didn’t know how much more of this she could take, and Nic didn’t look to be faring much better, her breath coming shallow and quick as if to fight back a sob. They needed to make a clean break. Instead, they stood staring painfully at one another, as if trying to soak up o
ne last memory, even an agonizing one, to put off the emptiness.
Then in an instant they were in each other’s arms. They clung to one another shaking from sobs. The muscles of Nic’s back rippled as she squeezed her to her chest. She breathed deeply to take in the scent of Nic’s cologne and listened intently to imprint the sound of her rapid heartbeat.
“I’ll always love you,” Nic whispered.
“I’ll always love you, too. I wish that could be enough.”
Nic nodded, her tears running down and mingling with Annabelle’s. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know, but you have to go.”
Nic inhaled deeply and stepped back, her strong hands steadying Belle as she withdrew from their embrace. “Good-bye, Belle.”
“Good-bye, Nic.”
She watched Nic drive out of view, then took one deliberate step after another until she was back inside. She made it to the couch before collapsing under the weight of her grief. She lay there in their big, empty house and wept. She cried until she couldn’t see, until she could barely breathe. She cried even after she heard her father return and felt Liz’s arms wrap around her. She cried for herself, for Nic, for their relationship, for all the tarnished memories, and for the future they’d never have.
Chapter Eleven
August
Davis typed furiously on her computer. Why did so many of her clients have to be idiots? If she could spend half the time she wasted putting out fires on doing her actual job, she’d be rich. Not that she was hurting for money. Business had become her life over the last few months. She had more word-of-mouth contacts than ever before, and she never turned them down. She rarely slept and had no desire to socialize, so she might as well work. She’d completed double the number of projects in the last three months that she had in the entire time she’d been with Nic
Nic. Why did it always come back to her? Fine. Whatever. Let everything remind her of the massive mistake she’d made. Those memories kept her focused on taking care of herself instead of daydreaming about something that didn’t exist. The wretched feeling in the pit of her stomach every time her mind wandered back to what might have been served as the fuel to make sure she never put herself in that position again. If it also meant she occasionally shot off a slightly too terse e-mail to one of her idiot clients—oh, well. Collateral damage.
Closing her inbox, she finally opened an ad she was working on for the Margaret Mitchell house. “Oh, Maggie,” she mumbled as she adjusted the font. “It’s a good thing you didn’t have e-mail, or you’d have never finished Gone With The Wind.”
She stared at the ad, silently condemning the color scheme the tour company wanted. Who put sepia-tone photos on a Georgia Tech yellow background? She saved the document and copied her layout onto a new one. She’d claim artistic license and send him two different versions, one done his way and one done correctly. From there it was his own problem if he chose to print the crap version.
“Excuse me.”
“What?” Davis asked not looking up.
“I wondered if you wanted a refill on your coffee.”
Did I ask for a refill on my coffee? She glanced over the edge of her laptop screen. The young barista who’d taken her order earlier stood looking at her expectantly with a pot of the fully caffeinated stuff in one hand. “Sure, go ahead and top it off.”
“Cool.” She filled the cup. “I also brought you one cream, no sugar.”
“Thanks.” She took her coffee more on the bitter side these days.
Davis looked back to her work but couldn’t ignore the young barista who lingered next to her small table. Did she want to hold the cup to her lips for her?
“So, what are you working on?”
Davis tried not to roll her eyes. “Work.”
“Right. I guess that makes sense. Probably something very important and top secret since you’re doing it in the middle of a coffeehouse and bookstore.”
What a cheeky little chick. Davis almost smiled. “Can I help you with something?”
“That’s my line.”
“Well, I think you’re good there.” She tapped the rim of her coffee cup. “All filled up.”
“Right. Actually there is something you might be able to help me with.”
Here it comes. Davis sat back, crossed one leg over the other, and folded her arms across her chest. “What’s that?”
“I thought maybe you’d do me the honor of letting me buy you dinner.”
What a nice way to phrase that. It was certainly better than most of the come-ons she’d heard lately. It almost sounded sincere. The girl was actually cute, maybe in her mid-twenties with wispy chestnut hair and a line of small silver hoops pierced down her right ear. A slight blush tinted her neck a flattering shade of pink, suggesting she’d had to summon some courage to ask her out. Davis almost felt bad about what she was about to do. Almost.
“I prefer to eat alone.”
“Always?”
“Always.”
The girl’s shoulders dropped, but she forged on. “Do you see movies alone, too?”
“Look,” Davis said in a voice that sounded just enough like her mother’s to disturb her, “you’re cute and persistent without being intrusive, and you seem really sweet.”
“But?”
“Not really a ‘but’ so much as a ‘therefore,’ because when I see qualities like that in a woman, I become very leery. My track record suggests either you’re a deceptive master of manipulation, in which case I’d like to stop this thing now, or you’re actually a good person, in which case you should want to stop right now, because you won’t be any of those things after a date or two with someone as jaded as I am.”
“Wow. So do you only date people who aren’t sweet or good looking?”
“No.” Davis sighed. “I don’t date anyone.”
“Okay, then.” The girl shook her head, then as she walked away added, “I’m sorry about that.”
Davis went back to her advertisement. She wasn’t sorry about it. She wouldn’t let herself feel anything other than cold resolve.
*
“That’s the last box,” Liz said, slamming closed the tailgate on her father’s Dodge Ram. “It sure doesn’t look like much.”
“Thirteen years of my life, and all that’s left fits into one pickup.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“I know.” Annabelle shrugged. “In some ways it’s better like this. A clean break and all that, but sometimes it still feels like such a waste.”
“You can’t do that to yourself, honey. You can’t think about what you’d like to have back or what you could’ve done differently.”
“I know.” And she didn’t think about those things most of the time. She’d become a master at not thinking about anything. At first it had taken all her energy to do the most basic tasks. She’d been so proud of herself the first time she’d eaten and showered in the same morning. As she’d grown a little stronger, she’d focused on getting the house ready to sell, then sorting through the belongings to decide what she wanted to keep, what should go to Nic, and what would stay with the house. The job had been emotionally exhausting, but in the end most items had fallen into the latter category.
It had been a full month before she could think about anything other than the most immediate problem at hand. Her parents wanted her to move back in with them, but a few nights on the ranch with her father hovering protectively and her mother chattering constantly to fill any shred of silence proved that wasn’t the answer.
She’d also spent a week with Liz and her children, which was better. Her sister, niece, and nephew had been through this kind of trauma two years earlier, and they all seemed to understand the types of distractions she needed as well as how to handle her emotional outbursts when they couldn’t be avoided. However, they’d all come out the other side of their ordeal and made peace with Liz’s divorce. Annabelle worried that the presence of her very raw grief was too stark a reminder of the pain they�
�d only recently escaped. She was proud of herself that even in her anguish she refused to inflict any of the torture Nic had put her through on anyone else she loved.
In the end she needed a fresh start, but the prospect had been so overwhelming she’d spent another few weeks wallowing in uncertainty about how to start the long and arduous process.
“Are you sure you don’t want to just commute for a while until you find a place to live in the city?” Liz asked once again, but without much hope in her tone. “I’d love to have a few more days with you before you go.”
“I don’t have much time before school starts, and I don’t want to spend it wavering between my old life and my new one. I have to take things one manageable step at a time, and that means proving to myself I can handle Atlanta at least a little before I start to worry about whether or not I can still teach.”
Liz took her hand, giving it a little squeeze. “I know you’ll do great. I’m so proud of you and all the strength and grace you’re showing, but I wish you could’ve found someplace closer.”
“I do, too.” Lord knows she’d tried to find a job in Athens or the surrounding areas. She’d even looked closer to her parents’ home, but teaching jobs were hard to come by, especially since she’d had zero classroom experience in the last few years. In the end she was lucky to have found anything at all, even in Atlanta.
“I’ll miss you so much,” Liz said, her voice cracking.
Annabelle choked up, but by now she’d learned how and when to control her tears. She’d become a pro at compartmentalizing, and now was not the time for a breakdown. “I’d really like you to visit next weekend if Jason takes the kids.”
“If he doesn’t, I’ll let them spend the weekend with Mama and Daddy. They’re more reliable, and the kids enjoy the ranch more than their dad’s shitty apartment.”
“At least he has an apartment,” Annabelle said wistfully, then rushed forward before she could feel any pity, “which is why I have to get going. I refuse to be outdone by your flunky of an ex-husband. Maybe I’ll even be ready for you to help me decorate by the time you get there next weekend.”
Does She Love You? Page 15