Leave it to him to be fearless in hopping back on another one to get to me as fast as he can.

  When his car pulls into the lot, I’m running out the front door and jumping into his arms—legs wrapped around his waist, lips planted firmly on his. He staggers backward under the force of my weight, and his chuckle fades with the kiss I give him without thought or care to who can see us. To who knows.

  The kiss says so many things. I miss you. I was so scared. Never again. Words I’m still so goddamn fearful of even thinking.

  And when the kiss ends, when my feet are lowered, I beat my hands against his chest. “Don’t you ever, ever, ever do that to me again.”

  His laugh rings out. “Just another day at home with you beating me up one way or another.”

  “Shut up.” I push him and then press my lips to his again. Another taste to affirm he’s alive. That he’s okay. That this is really him, here, in my arms.

  His hands are on my face. His eyes are locked with mine. His half-cocked smile owns my heart.

  “I love you, Ellery Sinclair. I love you, and I’m sick of not saying it. I love you, and all I could think about as the chopper went down was that I hadn’t told you. So I’m telling you now. I’m telling you so that you can do what you want with it, but nothing is changing my feelings now. You got that? Because I’d rather make a mistake in telling you than it be a travesty that you didn’t know.”

  I hear his words. I understand what he’s saying. But I’m so overwhelmed by everything that there is. Lost in not losing him that his words are there, but my need for him to be alive drowns everything out.

  The fear.

  The panic.

  It’s just him.

  Just us.

  Just another tomorrow for us to figure this out.

  Ford

  The dreams never stop.

  One after another. What could have happened. What did happen. And each nightmare shook me awake to find Ellery’s face on the pillow beside me. Her legs intertwined with mine. Her even breathing and steady heartbeat beneath my palm a reassuring reminder that they were just that. Nightmares.

  And in between the terror and fear was the reminder of what happened last night. Of me pulling her onto my lap. Of us holding on to each other. Of her lips meeting mine as she sank down onto me.

  As she loved me—with her body and the emotion in her eyes—but never with words.

  We moved in the silence.

  Reacting to each other’s touches. Each other’s moans. Each other’s pleas.

  Reacting until it became almost painful to breathe knowing that I almost lost this. Lost her.

  When I pulled back to look at her, to watch what she looks like awash in love, a lone tear slid down her cheek. I kissed it away. I murmured that I was okay. That I am okay.

  And that I loved her.

  But the pleasure became lost when the next nightmare hit. When it scared the shit out of me.

  I think the dream jolts me awake. Or did the door just click?

  The first thing I notice is the room is starting to lighten from the early dawn breaking.

  The second is that Ellery isn’t beside me. The bed is cold.

  I scrub my hands over my face and swing my legs over the side of the mattress. “Elle?” I ask toward the partially opened bathroom door.

  Maybe she’s having the same nightmares I am. Maybe she needs a reminder that I’m okay.

  But when I peek in the bathroom, she’s not there. I head to the hallway, and when I look down it, her back is to me as she rolls her suitcase behind her.

  Panic strangles me. Does she have a meeting I forgot about? A conference call she needs to be on?

  But I know the answer is no.

  She’s running.

  “Ellery?” I jog after her, but she doesn’t look back at me.

  When I move around her in the hallway, blocking her path, it’s only then that I can see the tears streaming down her cheeks. See the utter devastation etched in the lines of her features.

  “Baby. Please. Tell me what’s wrong?”

  Her expression remains stoic despite the tears staining her skin and the subtle shaking of her head. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

  Those three words fucking devastate me. Obliterate every bit of hope I’d held on to.

  “Don’t do this. I’m not letting you go,” I say as my pulse races and my disbelief riots. “Not after everything. Not after yesterday. Not after . . . us.” I don’t even recognize my own voice right now. The pleading in it. The fear woven in it.

  “This isn’t right,” she murmurs as she tries to step around me. I move to block her. “This can’t happen.”

  “What can’t?”

  “This. Us.” She looks down and tears splatter the new carpet between us. “I refuse to let myself . . .”

  “To let yourself what?” I demand. To hope? To want me? To . . .

  “To love you,” she whispers as her eyes look up and meet mine.

  “Why? Why can’t you love me?” I challenge, my hands on her shoulders, desperate to give her a shake and knock some sense into her. But she’s scared enough already.

  Just as I am.

  But my fear is because I know what I want and am afraid I won’t be able to have it. And her fear is because she’s never had it and she’s terrified to feel it.

  “Because I can’t.” She swallows over a sob. “I just can’t.”

  “I deserve more than that. A better reason, Ellery, and you damn well know it.” I draw in a deep, fortifying breath to calm myself. “Why can’t you love me?” My voice breaks.

  “Because . . . because everyone I’ve ever loved has died. Has left me. And I just can’t . . . I can’t lose you too. I almost did yesterday. I almost lost you. And I’m terrified of loving you and then losing you. I can’t put myself through that again.”

  I stare at those sapphire eyes that own me. At those lips that can say anything and I’d do what they’d ask. At the woman who has my heart fully in her trembling hands.

  “Son, when a woman’s temper makes you love her even more, when her defiance makes you want to challenge her, and when her smile makes you want to earn each and every one, then you know she’s worth the goddamn fire.”

  My dad was right.

  It is in this moment that I know I’d crawl over coals, risk the singe and the burn, to pull her against me and take away that look on her face.

  God, how he was fucking right.

  Fire’s got nothing on love.

  On what you’d do for it.

  On what you’d give for it.

  On how bad you’ll burn for it.

  “I just want you. Any way I can have you, Ellery. We’re worth the fight. You’re worth the fight. Everything else is just noise. We can work on the rest.”

  She takes a step back and out of my grip, her eyes on everything but me. “I have to go, Ford.”

  That tear last night . . . it was because she knew she was saying goodbye.

  With that, Ellery Sinclair walks around me and out of the inn.

  And with what I fear is out of my life.

  Ellery

  The tears don’t stop.

  Neither does the ache in my chest or the pain in my heart.

  I love him.

  I love Fordham Sharpe when I swore I’d never allow myself to love him.

  And I almost lost him.

  The dreams never stopped coming. The panicked gasp when I woke to find him there, alive, his chest rising and falling, only scared me more.

  Everything I love dies.

  Everything.

  I can’t curse Ford with that. I can’t curse his brothers with that.

  I wipe another tear away and then trace the engraved letters on my father’s headstone.

  His face flashes through my mind. His big laugh and warm hugs. His strict discipline but effusive praise that made you feel like you were on top of the world when he gave it. His unwavering support and distinct advice that I still hold close even today.

  Mom’s shoulders shudder as I try and hold on to them. As I try to comfort her like she has me.

  But no hug is going to help this hurt.

  No kiss on the boo-boo is going to make this go away.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. It’s easier than looking around and seeing everyone pretend they’re not looking at us. Their eyes full of pity. The it’s such a shame murmured to one another. And my eyes being closed is ten times better than looking at the shiny black casket above the ground in front of us.

  Is he cold in there?

  Is he still in pain?

  Is he wishing he hadn’t done it because he sees how much we’re hurting? How much we miss him?

  Mom tries to pull away from me. To reverse the roles back to where they should be with her as the parent and me as the child. And one look at her face—eyes sad, face swollen, nose red—tells me what I already know: nothing will ever be the same again.

  She slides me over and onto her lap. Her chest heaves against my back and the sound—the mewling sound she’s fighting back—I hope I never hear again. I put my hands over my ears and try to make it stop. To try and pretend this isn’t happening.

  It’s the sound of devastation.

  Of my life changing.

  Of a little girl irrevocably changed.

  Why did you do this, Dad?

  It hurts to breathe.

  You broke us.

  My head dizzies.

  You broke her.

  My eyes burn so much, but I have no more tears to cry.

  What if I can never put her back together again?

  I hate you for this, Daddy.

  “I don’t hate you,” I murmur. “I just don’t understand though. Even all these years later. I don’t understand.”

  The tears fall past my eyelashes, the hurt so strong. Even though it’s been two decades since I was forced to say goodbye.

  No, I don’t hate my dad. How could I? But I’m pissed he robbed me and Mom of more years with him. Of more time. God, I’ve missed you, Dad.

  The breeze picks up and a leaf tumbles across his plot until it lands on my mom’s.

  I smile. It’s almost as if he’s telling me it’s okay to leave him for my mom. I press a kiss to my fingers and touch his headstone before shifting and looking at my mom’s headstone.

  It’s more elaborate than his. Garland went all out on it. What was it like for him to bury the woman he loved next to her first love instead of somewhere the two of them could be together?

  I never really thought about that. About what he gave up so he could give her this. About how he loved her even while knowing she’d always loved another man more.

  The thought sits with me as I rearrange the flowers I brought for her in the permanent vase affixed to her headstone.

  I don’t think I could do the same. I don’t think I could love someone like Fordham while knowing he loved another woman more.

  Maybe I’ve been so jaded by grief for so long that I never stopped to consider the kind of man Garland is. The person he was for her when he probably needed and wanted so much more.

  “He still thinks about you, Momma. Just like I do. Every minute of every day.”

  I stop fussing with the flowers and shift to lean against the marble slab.

  I hate this place.

  I hate that it’s here that I learned all about true and utter loneliness. About devastation.

  I hate that it’s peaceful here. Peaceful in a way that lulls you to sleep with a gentle breeze in your hair and the rustle of leaves overhead.

  Because it shouldn’t be peaceful.

  It’s the place where dreams are broken and hearts are shattered.

  It’s where you realize more than anywhere else in the world just how dark and lonely death is. How permanent it is. How many scars it leaves behind. Every time.

  I hate this place.

  It makes every part of me riot inside—my heart, my soul, my being.

  Garland stands beside me, his sunglasses on, with one hand resting on the mahogany coffin. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t speak. He just stares at his hand in silence before dipping his head ever so slightly in one last goodbye before taking a step back.

  He pauses and squeezes my shoulder before walking away to give me time with her.

  To let me do the one thing I’m not prepared to do—say goodbye.

  I’ve tried to hold it together. I’ve tried to be the adult once again in a situation I should have never been in once, let alone twice.

  But as I stand here and stare at the casket, all I can think is what I would give for one last hug. To listen to her whisper “I love you” in my ear as we did. To lean back and see the pride and love in eyes that are the same color as mine.

  “Why did you leave me?” I whisper to the wind. “You were all I had left. What do I do now? How do I go on? How do I . . . live?”

  The tears come. It’s no use holding them back. I’ve already screamed and yelled and cursed God and everything in between for taking her. For having to go on without her.

  I lean over and press my lips to the wooden lid, warm from the sun’s rays. I hate how much she’ll miss. How much I’ll miss her. How I’m supposed to live without her. Because this time, I have no one to hold me while I cry.

  There are no shoulders to lean into.

  I can feel the loss sink into me. The fear to love without dreading the loss that comes after, enveloping me.

  Because why try?

  “I know you were brave enough to love again, Mom, but I’m not. I’ll never be as brave as you were.”

  I never want to feel this way again.

  Ever.

  The breeze picks up again and the leaf that tumbled by earlier comes back the other direction and hits my leg.

  “You trying to tell me something, Mom?” I smile through the tears, wondering what she would have looked like now. Fine lines and gray hairs she’d fuss over when they peeked through. Rumblings over why I’m not married and when I’ll give her grandkids.

  Normalcy.

  Things I’ve been robbed of.

  Things I fear more than anything.

  I met a man, Momma. He’s kind and funny and handsome . . . and he believes in me more than I do sometimes.

  I love him.

  I love him, and I’m so damn terrified that by loving him, I’m going to lose him. I can’t do this to him. To his family.

  I just can’t . . .

  The tears come harder now as I lean my head back and let the warmth of the sun dry them from my cheeks. But I don’t think they’ll ever stop. They never have in a sense.

  There’s such an irony that this place brings me such peace when it’s also the place where my life fell apart. I watched my mom’s face and body crumble as we said goodbye to my dad here. I had to say goodbye to her here too.

  This is where I learned that love was too dangerous for your heart.

  This is where I accepted that I would never let myself love anyone again.

  I open my eyes to see the leaf picked up by the wind so it dances through the air a few feet off the ground.

  I smile because in watching it, I can hear her voice. It’s faded over time, but right now it feels so real and loud and alive.

  It’s okay to love him.

  It’s okay to fear losing him.

  But it’s not your love that’s causing this.

  It’s not your fault.

  I shake my head as if this is a two-way conversation and not just in my head. My fingers continue to trace, my thoughts continue to spin, and my heart still aches.

  “If that’s true, then give me a sign, Mom. Give me a sign.”

  Ford

  “You okay, brother?” Ledger asks. “You sound like shit.”

  “She left.”

  “Like to go to the store?”

  “No. She left, left.”

  “Left, left?”

  “Yup,” I say with a sigh.

  “What the fuck did you go and do this time?” he asks with a chuckle.

  “I almost died.”

  His laugh is louder, almost as if I’m joking. “Bullshit.”

  “No. I’m serious. Everyone she’s ever loved has died, Ledge. Everyone. It wasn’t until she said that to me that I’d thought about it.”

  “So she’s afraid if she loves you, she’s going to lose you again and—”

  “And she can’t handle losing anyone else.”

  “Jesus. I don’t even—”

  “The goddamn epilogue . . .”

  “What?” he asks, confusion laced through his tone as I finally put the missing piece into place.

  “Nothing, it’s just . . .” She’s afraid to believe in happily ever afters. She can’t read them because after the declaration of love in the last chapter, she’s afraid to see what happens next. She’s afraid to see if they’re still together. That’s why she doesn’t read them.

  “It’s just what?”

  “Nothing,” I repeat.

  “Well . . . shit.”

  “Yeah. You’re telling me,” I mumble. The past few days have been miserable. She’s my other half here in everything . . . and now that she’s gone, I’m fucking lost.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What can I do? I can’t fix years of her thinking one way.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “You don’t know how stubborn she is.”

  “You’re telling me you’ve given up? That’s not the man I know. The brother I know.”

  “I haven’t given up. I love her, Ledge.” I sigh and run a hand over my stubble. It’s rough. I’m fucking rough. I look like the walking fucking dead. Roddy must think I’m on a bender, still shaken from the chopper crash with my bloodshot eyes and grumpiness.

  But I can’t sleep.

  I can’t eat.

  I just want her back where she belongs.

  Here.

  With me.

  “I just need to give her something to make sure she understands I care about her fear, but that it doesn’t scare me away in the least.”

  “If you need our help . . .”

  “I know, brother. I know.”

  And I did know.

  Ellery had been right. Dad’s book was about Dad—his life. His achievements. His failures. His challenges. His relationships with Mom and us. The short amount of time I spent doing the press release put that in perspective for me. Even more importantly, that day helped heal the rift that had formed between my brothers and me.

 

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