“Listen, motherfucker—”
He froze.
Completely.
His breaths and his body and his words.
A chill slid down my spine.
Fear and dread.
“Yes…I’m so sorry…please forgive me…hang on one second.”
He blinked hard, but his eyes went achingly sad. Slowly he held out the phone. “You need to take this.”
“Mama.” I clung to her lifeless body, begging it again and again. “Mama. No. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. I’m not ready.”
I’m not ready.
Anguish burned through me like white hot fire. Ripping and rending. Cutting me in two.
Wails bounced off the walls, the sorrow I expelled having no place to land. No place to go.
“Mama,” I cried, hugging her closer, never wanting to let her go.
My rock. My foundation. My strength.
Gone.
I couldn’t breathe.
The loneliness cried out.
The vacancy too much to bear.
Hands pressed to my shoulders. As if they sought to pour new strength into me. Gathering me closer. A breath in my hair. Lips to my head.
“Shh…I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
A sob tore free from my spirit. Just another missing piece of me. I clung tighter to the woman who’d always made me believe, grief gushing from my plea. “Why, Ash, why does everyone leave me? Why?”
He gathered me closer, and I gave, collapsed into his arms. We slid to the floor and he pulled me onto his lap.
He rocked me. “Shh.”
Agonizing comfort.
Tears saturated his shirt. “Why?”
My soul wept.
Mama.
The words tumbled from my tongue. Incoherent and desperate. “Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me. I need you. Ash, I need you.”
I need you.
He pressed his mouth to my forehead. “Shh…I’m right here. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
thirty-two
Ash
I spent three full days with her.
I held her for hours. First on the hospital floor. Then, once I’d convinced her she needed to get out of there, back at her house. I wrapped myself around her from behind. Both of us still fully clothed where we lay on top of the quilt on her bed.
I sat with her while she made funeral plans, and I helped her pick out a casket. One that would match her sister’s. Her mother was being buried beside her in the next plot.
Today, I stood beside her at the gravesite while she bowed her head and cried.
I didn’t think she’d stopped crying. Not once. It fucking slayed me.
I kept an arm wrapped around her waist while her mother’s old friends and acquaintances showed up to offer their condolences.
Trees thrashed and flailed and the sky spat its fury around us.
Like the earth mourned with her.
My crew came. Of course they did. All of them were there to offer their support. The girls stepped up with tears shining in their kind eyes and offers that they’d be there for whatever she needed. The guys stood nearby with all that staunch, silent loyalty.
Never once did I leave her side.
And I couldn’t pinpoint it.
When it happened.
When my world tilted and every vain promise I’d ever made became a lie. When everything became her.
Because somewhere in those three days? Somewhere along the way, I made a silent vow I never would.
“You need to eat something,” Emily fretted. She wrung her hands and paced in front of Willow.
Willow was snuggled under a blanket in an old rocking chair in her living room.
It wasn’t cold.
Knew well enough sometimes cold didn’t go just skin deep. Sometimes it was bred from within. A chill that originated in your spirit and spun out in a frosty web.
Wrapping your bones and numbing your blood. Before it slowly but surely seeped to the surface.
She shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”
Emily exhaled heavily. “Fine.” She turned and went back into the kitchen where she could do more of the fretting she’d been doing.
Willow sat there with that huge mess of hair piled on top of her head, expression ridden with sorrow.
And all I felt was her peace.
The peace she’d given me.
The peace I wanted to give her in return.
And I wanted to drop to my knees and tell her I loved her. That I was terrified that I did. Terrified I might turn around and fuck it all up again, but that I was done running.
Because like she told me once.
Even wild hearts needed a place to rest.
And she’d become mine.
But I didn’t want that confession coming at a time like this. Didn’t ever want her to think I was sayin’ it just because I wanted to pull her from her grief because God knew she deserved some time to feel it.
So, instead, I sank to the floor in front of her and framed her sweet face in the palms of my hands. She looked up at me.
Chocolate eyes.
Broken soul.
Spirit so far from weak.
“I need you to eat something, darlin’. You haven’t eaten in four days. I’m not telling you to snap out of it or to dry your eyes or that it was for the best. All I’m telling you is I fucking care about you a whole lot and I need you to at least get something in this sweet body before it withers away.”
She gave me a trembling half smile.
I squeezed her tighter. “Deal?”
She nodded in my hold. “Deal.”
“Thank God.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead.
I started to climb to my feet when Emily cut me off, already jumping into action. “Campbell’s famous Chicken Noodle or Maude’s not so famous tuna casserole?”
Willow laughed, soggy and choppy, but it was there. “I’ll take the soup.”
“Soup it is.”
I turned back to look at her. She ran her fingers down my face, so goddamned tender. “Thank you for being here. You don’t know how much it means to me. I’m not sure I could have gotten through this without you.”
I gathered her hand that was fluttering along my face and pressed her fingers to my lips. “I don’t want to be anywhere else. Not ever again.”
Maybe it was shitty to say it then. Making her promises when she was in this state. But I couldn’t regret it. Not when she looked at me the way she did. Like maybe I’d given her back a little of her life the way she’d given me back mine.
“You make me happy.” She repeated what I’d told her that night, before things had gone to hell.
We both jumped when the doorbell rang. “I’ll get that.”
She nodded, and I pushed to stand. Roughing a hand through my hair, I headed to the front door. I looked through one of the small windows to the side. Sheila, her mother’s caretaker, waited on the other side holding a box.
I clicked it open, raked an uncomfortable hand through my hair, murmured, “Hey.”
I felt terrible I’d lit into this poor woman thinking it was that bastard Bates.
She quieted her voice. “I know it’s a difficult time right now, but I wanted to drop these things by for Willow. I know she’d like to have them.”
I accepted the box, which was filled with knickknacks and pictures. “That’s kind of you. I know Willow will appreciate it.”
She shifted and warily peeked inside. “I hope she’s doing okay.”
“She’s not right now…but she will be.”
She smiled. “Okay then.”
“Thank you again,” I said before I latched the door shut.
Turning on my heels, I took the three steps back out into the main room where Willow was still sitting. “Sheila brought your mom’s things. How about you and I look through them later? When you’re ready?”
Emily came in carrying a bowl of steaming soup. “I think later is good.”
>
She motioned toward the stairs with her shoulder. “Why don’t you take that up to the extra room? That’s where Will here keeps all the sentimental stuff. We need to be careful or this one’s gonna turn into a hoarder.”
A tiny scoff managed to work free from Willow’s mouth. “I work with antiques. And I’m not above a dumpster dive. Do you really think I’m actually going to part with the good stuff?”
It was almost playful, and a little relief settled on my heart when I bounded upstairs and took a left through the closed door and into the room I’d never been into before.
Emily wasn’t joking. It was hoarder’s heaven in there.
Natural light filtered in through the window. The drapes pushed open on either side were dated with floral embroidery, the bedspread covering the bed hailing from an era Willow certainly had never stepped into. The floor was covered in stacks of boxes and trunks, an old armoire in the corner.
I suppressed a chuckle.
Because this girl.
I fucking liked it.
Liked that she was humble. Modest. A million miles away from the chicks that hunted like goddamned vultures in my world.
I crossed the floor and set the box down on top of another propped against the far wall.
Straightening, I glanced across the big ornate dresser cluttered with trinkets and photos. Couldn’t help but smile when I saw one of an adorable little girl. Had to be Willow. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven, her arms squeezing around her mom’s neck with that awe-inspiring smile already written on her face, hair blowing all around her where she stood in a field.
Her mom was smiling right back.
I trailed my fingertips over a necklace and a ring, drummed them over a tarnished silver cup.
Learning this girl because I wanted to know her in every way.
I stopped dead at the small wooden box situated in the center. Ashy gray with bronze hinges and hook. The same logo carved on her store’s sign, the same written on her skin, was etched onto the top.
Dread curled through my fucked-up, muddled senses.
I blinked what had to have been a thousand times.
Trying to make the picture come out different.
Instead, everything crystalized as all that familiarity crushed me like a rockslide.
My hands fisted in my hair.
No.
Panic hurdled around the room. Ricocheting from the walls and gaining strength. It yanked at my heart and my spirit and nearly dropped me to my knees.
Fuck.
No.
My head shook and dizziness spun.
Still, I couldn’t stop myself from reaching up, tentatively lifting the lid and peeking inside, like maybe doing so would come up with a different answer.
Inside was a small scrap of paper folded in quarters.
I stumbled back like it’d burned me, my eyes frantic, attention bouncing around the room at the rest of the tokens.
At the pictures I suddenly processed.
The breath punched from my lungs.
Gutted.
I pressed a fist to my mouth and bit down. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, I wanted to weep. To fucking get on my knees and beg it.
Why?
Why the fuck did life have to be this way?
Unfair.
I fled the room with panic hounding at my back and grief weighing on my chest.
That’s just what I got. Falling in love like a fool.
Knew better all along.
I clung to the railing as I clamored down the staircase.
Willow looked up when I got to the landing.
My chest squeezed.
So fucking tight I was certain it was going to strangle me.
“I…ah…I got a call. I need to go.”
She frowned but then gave me one of those understanding smiles. “Okay.”
I didn’t stop. Didn’t kiss her or touch her or hug her. I just bolted out her door.
Stark white light blazed from above.
Blood.
Splatters.
Handprints.
Smears.
Grief, horror, and shock.
A sob wrenched free, and I dropped to my knees and gathered her in my arms.
Cold and limp.
I shook her.
“What did I do? What did I do? No! Please.” My wails bounced against the bathroom walls.
I pressed my mouth to her forehead, every part of me trembling. Shaking. “No, baby, no. Anna, no. God, please, no.”
I jerked to sitting, sweat slicking my skin and my heart pounding out of my chest.
I roughed both hands down my face.
Fuck.
Knuckles rapped on my bedroom door, and I realized that’s what pulled me from the dream.
From that goddamned nightmare that had become my life. I should have known I couldn’t run from it forever.
Groaning, I slumped back down and pulled my pillow over my head, cutting off what was left of the evening light. “Go away.”
For the last three days, Zee had been riding my ass nonstop. Dude kept striding in here like my own damned room belonged to him, telling me to stop being a pussy and go fix whatever the hell it was I’d fucked up.
He didn’t even need to ask if I was to blame. Clearly he knew where that fault lie.
Another knock, and I bit back a slew of curses, because when the fuck had lashing out at my crew been my thing? I groaned a little louder when he didn’t take a clue and the door creaked open.
“Goddamn it, Zee, told you I’m not in the mood—”
My rant broke off just as that crazy energy depleted all the air from the room. It lit with that suffocating familiarity. Peace and mayhem. Soft and fierce. My perfect demise.
On a harsh exhale, I jerked up to sitting.
“Willow.”
On all things holy. I tried to contain the surge of relief at the sight of finding her standing in my bedroom doorway. I did.
But shit.
She looked so damned good. Like the breath I hadn’t been able to catch for the last three days.
Chocolate eyes blinked at me from across the space. The girl clung to the door handle like she needed the support to continue to stand. Her hair was twisted in a lawless mess, tied up high on her head. Errant pieces tumbled down.
Did this hurt her as bad as it was hurting me?
I was hit with the onslaught of emotions that rode through her stare. So many I couldn’t make sense of them.
Or maybe the only thing I could read was my guilt.
Guilt for doing this to her.
Guilt for leaving without a word or an explanation. But that explanation? It would only hurt her more. So instead of manning up and cutting things off, I’d hidden away in my room.
This goddamned room where she was everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Twilight tumbled in through the windows. A duel between night and day. A clash of shadows and streaming, brilliant light.
She was caught in one of them. The girl lit up in glittering fire.
God.
She was gorgeous.
So damned gorgeous my bones rattled and my chest heaved.
How the fuck was I supposed to make it through this?
She lifted her trembling chin. It exposed the delicate column of her neck. My vision shifted course, and there I was, the asshole who was imagining burying my face in silky flesh. Taking a teasing taste before I dipped in and took a good long drink.
My fingers twitched.
The girl was wearing this short, flimsy dress—the kind that drove me straight out of my mind—and those long, slender legs were bare. But the thing that got me? She was wrapped in a sweater, hugging it to her tight, sweet body, like she still couldn’t shake the cold.
My mouth went dry, and my heart started at a gallop I couldn’t contain.
Peaches.
I wanted to claim it. Instead I shifted, moved so I was sitting up on the edge of my bed. Of course,
I was in nothing but my underwear. Didn’t know what made me more transparent—the fact she could see my body reacting to her simply standing there or the fact my spirit was screaming out.
So loud I could practically hear it.
Aching in agony.
Guess that’s what happens when you toed that line.
You fell.
She edged forward.
I shivered when I felt her stop right in front of me.
I just kept staring at the floor, wishing it would open and swallow me whole.
Because this was me. The coward. The one who couldn’t stand to look at her face when I drove the final stake through her heart.
“You left me.” It slid from her mouth with a sharp blade of accusation.
I forced myself to look up at her.
“It was for the best, darlin’.” I croaked out the lame excuse.
Chocolate eyes watched. Gauging and reading. Seeing right through me.
I wanted her to lash out or tell me I was a bastard. Make it easier on the both of us. Instead, this sweet, soft girl set a tender hand on my face. Shivers rushed and warmth spread beneath the surface of my skin.
“Do you remember what I told you?”
Maybe I was lost to the sudden dose of comfort I didn’t deserve because confusion pulled at my brow.
She swallowed. “That day in the kitchen downstairs, when you asked me my greatest fear.”
Anguish pressed down at the same time understanding came sliding in. I nodded, my voice gravel. “You told me your greatest fear was of being alone. Of bein’ lonely. Of having all that love in your heart and not having anyone to give it to.”
Her mouth quivered, and the words hitched in her throat. “And for the last three days, every time I turned around…every time…the only person there was me. There was no one there for me to give it to.”
“Willow.” I reached out and clutched her hips. I couldn’t help it. Couldn’t stop myself from touching her.
Beneath my hands, she shivered, and she traced her thumb along my cheekbone as she continued to speak, “And you told me your greatest fear was falling in love.”
Energy shimmered around us. Disorienting and confusing.
She set her free hand on my other cheek, the girl burning into me as she forced me to fully look at her. “And here we are…both of us suffering. Because both of our greatest fears are now our realities.”
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