That’s what I want. I want her on every fucking level. I want her so much I can’t do it to her.
Lance’s voice filters through my mind again. If I don’t marry her, someone else will.
What the fuck do I do now?
Sixteen
Hadley
The view from atop Bluebird this time of year is my favorite. The leaves are starting to change, giving hints of the show they’ll put on a few weeks from now. It’s still subtle now with just touches of golds and crimsons. It’s pretty, but my favorite view anytime, anywhere is standing just a few feet behind me.
I wonder if he’s pacing, and if he is, why. I don’t want to turn around and look, but I feel his presence. He gets closer, then farther away, then closer again. My lungs hold the air that’s filled them. My heart rattles in my chest, and I can feel my pulse pounding in the side of my neck.
Something has been different between us today. Initially, I thought it was my attempt at a new mindset courtesy of Emily. But the longer we’re together, the more I think it’s not just me.
“The truth is,” he says, making me jump, “I don’t want to be friends with you.”
I shake my head, hoping it loosens the fog in my skull as I try to process Machlan’s words.
Silence settles on Bluebird Hill. The only sound is the rush of oxygen my lungs finally let go.
My bottom lip starts to quiver. I don’t want to be friends with you.
He can’t mean that.
Fighting tears, I clutch a hand to my chest and try to steady myself. This is exactly what I wanted when I came to Linton, and now that I’m getting it, it feels like I’m being sliced and there are no bandages big enough to stop the damage.
His palm cups the edge of my shoulder. His long, muscled fingers wrap around my arm.
Closing my eyes, I remind myself this is exactly why I’m here, and that maybe, just maybe, the universe is helping me for once. My eyes open as his hand slips from my shoulder and I turn to look at him.
“I knew that,” I say, the lump in my throat obvious. “That was sort of a rhetorical question.”
His forehead mars, the lines forming above his eyes deep and many. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“There’s kind of only one way you can take it when someone says they don’t want to be your friend,” I say, forcing a laugh. Turning to the truck, I continue. “Besides, this makes that whole box thing easier—”
“Stop.” His hand touches my shoulder again but pulls away immediately this time.
I stop. I stop and listen for his voice, wait for the explanation that I think is going to come. What kind of an explanation it is, I don’t know. I don’t even want to guess at it. But something is coming. I can feel it.
“The truth is,” he says, giving my words back to me, “you aren’t just any girl to me, and you never will be.”
There isn’t even a warning. My eyes fill with tears—red-hot, guppy-sized dollops of water cloud my vision of the truck.
“Fuck, Hadley.” He steps in front of me. On his face is a scowl he wears so well. It’s usually aimed at me, but this time, I get the feeling it’s not. That maybe it’s aimed at himself.
“What are you doing?” I ask. I fight so hard to keep the tears from streaming down my face. If the dam breaks and one passes, it’ll be a cascade of emotions I can’t control. I have it under wraps until I look him in the eye.
My knees wobble as I see something in those orbs I’ve only seen a couple of times in my life. On the other occasions, I thought it was love. I believed this look to mean he felt something for me in line with what I felt so deeply for him.
Now, I’m not sure what to think.
Or maybe, I’m afraid of what to think.
“I’m really out of my wheelhouse here,” he says.
I give him a half-smile. “So this has nothing to do with alcohol, cars, poker, or sex?”
He grins sheepishly. “It has a little to do with sex.”
Blowing out a breath, the tears absorbing into my body, I find a kernel of steadiness inside myself and hold onto it for dear life.
“You kind of fucked me up a little with that whole ‘I want to love Samuel’ bullshit,” he says.
“It’s not bullshit.”
“No, I know it’s not. I know you want to fall in love with some respectable guy and have the whole house and kids and dogs thing you didn’t have growing up. I get it.”
It takes everything I have to force the weight in my chest away. “I do want that. I’m ready for it now. And …” The weight comes back with full force, barreling its way through my defenses and filling my abdomen. I can’t blink the tears back this time. I can’t fight the lump in my throat either. My nose burns as my gaze settles on Machlan.
He stiffens, his eyes going wide before filling with a mix of fear and confusion. A half-step is taken back as he runs a hand along his stubbled jaw. The breeze whips around us, rustling a clump of wet leaves stuck to our shoes.
His mouth opens as if he’s about to speak, but nothing comes out. As if he’s afraid to bring up the topic he’s pretty certain I was about to broach—one we’ve only discussed a handful of times.
A sadness creeps across his handsome face and settles deep in my heart.
Energy drains from my body. If I could drop to the cold, wet ground and curl in a ball, I would. The edges of the rocks and the sticky mud would be preferred over the hell of looking into Machlan’s face and seeing my own feelings reflected.
My gaze hits the gravel because I can’t look at him. I consider heading to the truck and ending this conversation when he speaks.
“And what, Hadley?” His voice is low, careful. Almost like he was forced to ask it and definitely like he already knows the answer.
My heart races, my palms sweat despite the cool temperatures. Maybe it’s my imagination, but the air around us picks up too, and the world around us seems to go faster.
I close my eyes and see her sweet little face all bundled up in a pink blanket Machlan bought at a discount store the day before I went into labor.
“And I hope someday I’ll make her proud.”
The last few words come out in a hiccup. I’m not sure they even make it into the air before Machlan pulls me to his chest. His arms envelop me in the warmth of his body as my own torso shakes with a force it only does when I cry about this.
About her.
About our daughter.
I don’t cry a lot. Sometimes on her birthday when I’m alone and wondering what she would be doing if she were with me and not with the wonderful couple who adopted her that April afternoon. There’s just something about having this conversation with Machlan that feels overwhelming today.
The longer I cry, the tighter he holds me.
I think about waddling into that little store and watching Machlan choose a blanket as though it was the most important purchase he’d ever make. How he woke up that morning in the dingy little motel and this was the only thing he wanted to do—buy the baby a blanket.
His cheek lays on the top of my head, and I’m not sure if he’s holding me or I’m holding him. My own trembling makes it hard to tell if it’s all me or if some of it is coming from him too. Either way, as deeply as it hurts, it feels better to know I’m not hurting alone.
It’s only when I’ve thoroughly soaked his shirt and my chest stops vibrating and my tears turn into whimpers does he loosen his grip. He plants a kiss to the top of my head that I think I’m not supposed to feel before he lets me go.
“Sorry,” I mumble, stepping back. I dab my eyes with the corner of my damp shirt. “I didn’t mean to break down on you like that.”
He brushes a lock of hair that’s matted to my cheek off my face. His thumb glides over my skin, his palm cupping my cheek before he withdraws it. “Do you think about her a lot?”
“I think about her every day,” I whisper. “I wonder if she still has your dark hair and my eyes.”
“I wonder if she still has my mom’s widow’s peak.” He runs a hand over his face, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “She had two crowns at the top of her little head. Remember that? And the lines on her left hand ran together instead of splitting into two.”
I purse my lips so I don’t cry. “Yeah.”
“Damn it, Had. I’m sorry.” He looks away, gulping. “I’m so damn sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” My heart breaks in two. The pain of watching him replay that day hurts as much as replaying it myself.
He walks in a circle, shaking his head. His hands go to his hair, and he yanks on the tresses, pulling the locks in a display of utter frustration.
“Machlan. Stop it,” I beg.
Much to my surprise, he does. He stops.
“You know what I do first thing every morning?” he asks. “Before I get out of bed or take a leak or make coffee? I think about her. Every fucking morning. Then I think about you. And I think about how everything could’ve been different if I’d had my shit together.”
“Machlan—”
“Then I say a prayer,” he says, ignoring me. “I ask God to watch over her and keep her safe and to let her always feel how much we love her, you know?” He turns to me completely, and the look in his eye—completely and utterly raw—almost breaks me. “Then I pray for you. That you have a life you deserve and that, somehow, by the grace of God, everyone can forgive me for being such a massive fuckup.”
“Machlan—”
“Don’t even,” he warns, shaking his head.
“Don’t even what?” I cry. My eyes are wet with tears as I watch the man who did the best he could in that situation blame himself. Doesn’t he understand how I would’ve fallen apart without him? How him never leaving my side from the moment I told him I was pregnant until we laid our precious girl in another set of arms meant everything to me? How he held me when I broke down and gave me the courage to go on? Doesn’t he understand any of that?