Hunter
The lodge feels emptier without Tess here, which makes no sense, given that she was only here for a few weeks.
But in that time…her presence was so large that it almost seemed to brighten the place, to make it feel like more than what it is.
I can still scent her in every room, so warm and sweet that it’s like she’s standing here with me.
And now she’s just…gone. Because I practically pushed her out the door. I didn’t fight, didn’t beg her to stay like everything inside me screamed I should. Why didn’t I do that?
You know why, something whispers.
Deep down, I know there’s nothing here for her.
Even if we were to try to make this work around her schedule…
I’d do nothing but hold her back. I mean, really, what is there for her here?
Nothing but a lodge that’s barely making ends meet and a town that she could probably fit into a subdivision in her city.
She can’t thrive here. There’s absolutely nothing.
Nothing except me. And it’s no secret that I’m not exactly a prize.
I feel anger and regret swirling through me, a small part of me wishing I’d never touched her to begin with. I knew what would happen if I kept giving in to her, if I kept indulging in her sweet scent and her soft body and her softer heart—but I did it anyway. Like a fool.
I smile bitterly.
Appropriate, since I apparently never learned my lesson.
But then I think about her smile and her big brown eyes, which looked at me with such trust over and over again, and honestly…I never stood a chance, I think.
I do up the last button on the nicest shirt I own, feeling stiff in the rigid material and the slacks that were a surprise even to me when I found them in my closet.
Tess’s friend should be here anytime, and with every second that ticks by, bringing his arrival closer, my nerves skyrocket a little higher.
It feels silly now without Tess. What can I possibly say to this man to convince him that the lodge is as special as it feels to me?
Sure, there have been a lot of good changes in the last few weeks, but there is still so much to do.
And now there’s a possibility that we’ll be doing it without Tess.
Fuck.
As much as I try not to think about her, my thoughts always seem to find their way back to her. It’s torture, really.
A knock sounds at my door, and my stupid heart jumps into overdrive, despite knowing there’s no way that it could be her.
“Come in,” I say.
Jeannie’s head pokes around the doorframe, giving me an encouraging smile. “Your guy is pulling up the drive.”
“Great,” I say shakily, dropping down to the edge of my bed. “Now I just have to figure out how to not say anything stupid.”
Jeannie frowns, moving deeper into my room and taking a seat next to me on the bed. “You’re not going to say anything stupid.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you love this place too much,” she says. “Anything you say will just be a reflection of that.”
I stare down at my hands in my lap, my lips pursed and my brow wrinkled as I consider that.
Jeannie pats my knee. “How about we talk about what’s really bothering you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you know exactly what I mean, young man.” She tsks. “Tess called me from the airport to tell me goodbye.”
My jaw clenches despite the fact that I’m trying to look nonchalant. “Oh?”
“Yep. Sounded about as miserable as you look right now.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say unconvincingly.
I peek over at Jeannie to catch her rolling her eyes. “Oh, come off it. The pair of you were trapped here for days, and I come back and the entire place smells like heat. I’m not stupid, you know.”
“Yeah, well,” I chuckle darkly. “Maybe I am.”
“It’s not stupid to admit you care about the girl,” Jeannie points out. “And it’s been clear to me for weeks that you do, even before all this heat business.”
“I have no issues admitting I care about her,” I say with a sigh.
The problem is, I think I care about her too much.
“Then why are you sitting here moping? You could have told her how you felt.”
“How do you know I didn’t?”
“Because I know you, and you don’t let yourself have good things easily. Too busy carrying guilt from an actual decade ago that isn’t yours to carry.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t tell me it isn’t true,” she cuts in.
“You’ve holed yourself up here on this mountain ever since your parents died, because you still feel responsible for what happened to them, and you think sequestering yourself in this place is somehow your penance.
” She cocks her head and gives me a pointed stare when I look back at her with an open mouth. “Am I wrong?”
“I don’t know,” I say too quickly. “I…You’re not…not wrong.”
“Baby boy,” she sighs. “You’re smart, and you’ve got a good head on your shoulders…but sometimes you can be a real dummy.”
I rear back. “What?”
“Your parents loved you to pieces. They would hate the thought of you sitting around here blaming yourself for something that was a complete accident. They’d hate it if they knew you were still punishing yourself, and deep down, I think you know that.
” She shakes her head. “Maybe this is a conversation I should have had with you years ago, and I’m sorry I didn’t, but something tells me you might be more open to hearing it now. ”
“Really? What makes you say that?”
“Because I’ve been watching you with that girl for weeks now, and you look at her just like I used to look at your uncle. Like she hung the moon.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say dejectedly. “There’s nothing for her here.”
“You’re here, aren’t you? I’d say you’re plenty worth hanging around for.”
“That isn’t—”
“And for that matter,” she says, cutting me off, “who says you have to stay married to this place? You’ve been holed up here so long, you forgot there’s a whole world out there to explore.”
“Are you saying I should give the place up?”
“I’m not saying that at all,” she tells me.
“But I’m saying you don’t have to pour every waking moment into it.
This place will always be here. We always find a way to keep it going.
You don’t have to give it your entire life to make sure that we do.
” She pats my shoulder. “You can let yourself have a life outside it, you know?”
I run my fingers through my hair. “We don’t even know if Tess wants anything more from me, Jeannie.”
“You’re right,” she says, startling me a bit. “We don’t know that, because if I had to guess, you let the girl run off without telling her how you feel out of some silly, misguided sense of being all noble and deciding what’s best for her without giving her an actual say, am I right?”
I open my mouth to answer, closing it just as fast when I realize that she is, in fact, one hundred percent correct.
“That’s what I thought,” she says smugly. “So now you have a decision to make.”
My brow wrinkles. “I do?”
“That’s right,” she answers. “You can either keep going as you have been, giving your entire life to this place without taking anything for yourself out of guilt for something that wasn’t your fault at all, or…”
“Or?”
“You can go get the damn girl.”
I swallow thickly. “Are you suggesting I go after her?”
“I’m suggesting you take something for yourself for once in your life.”
“What if…” I inhale a shaky breath. “What if she doesn’t feel the same way?”
“Then you move on with your life,” she says bluntly. “You keep pushing forward, but with a new attitude. One that lets you enjoy your life, not just suffer through it.” She gives my knee a gentle squeeze. “But something tells me you aren’t the only one.”
“How can you be so sure?”
She taps her nose. “Because I am rarely wrong”—she leans in, giving me a knowing grin—“and you aren’t the only one who’s been throwing hung-the-moon looks.”
I stare down at her hand on my knee, mulling over everything she’s said and wondering if there could possibly be any truth to it.
Could Tess really feel all the things I’ve been feeling?
Is there actually a chance that she might want something more than what we’ve shared?
And more importantly, am I brave enough to ask her?
Jeannie gives my knee a soft pat. “Tess isn’t Chloe, Hunter.
You know that, right? I know after someone breaks your heart, it feels like those cracks will never heal, but the funny thing about heartbreak is…
the cracks leave plenty of space to let someone else in, and if you can let yourself do that, if you can take that leap…
that person might just be the one who can seal those cracks right up and make you whole again.
” She grins. “And from what I can tell…Tess knows her way around some spackle.”
I can’t help the watery laugh that escapes me despite the fear that racks me as I consider what she’s suggesting.
“Now go down there and do this interview—which you’re going to knock out of the park, by the way—and then you think about what I’ve said, you hear?”
I nod slowly. “Okay. Sure, Jeannie. I can do that.”
“Damn right you can,” she says. “So go down there and get this shit done.”
A chuckle escapes me, and I nod dutifully. “Yes, ma’am.”
She stands, giving me one last stern look before she exits the way she came. I sit there for a moment, stewing over everything she’s said, fear gripping me at the idea of putting myself out there, of taking that leap and risking plummeting to the ground all over again with no one to catch me.
Is it a risk I’m willing to take?
“Well, I think that will just about do it,” Nate says, smiling at me as he jots down a final note. His cameraman snaps another pic of the newly finished great room, and Nate stows his recorder in his pocket as he offers me his hand. “I appreciate you letting us come out, Mr. Barrett.”
I shake my head, clasping his hand. “No, no, I should be thanking you,” I tell him. “This is…” I chuff out a laugh. “This is great of you.”
“It’s nothing,” he says, waving me off. “I owed Tess a favor.” He flashes me a grin. “She must really like the place if she’s cashing it in for you.”
My chest squeezes, my lungs seeming to forget how to draw in oxygen for a moment. “Yeah, Tess is…amazing.”
“Oh, the best,” Nate agrees. He chuckles. “She called me this morning and basically demanded that I be gentle with you.”
My breath catches. “She did?”
“Mm-hmm.” Nate nods absently. “Seemed to be killing her that she couldn’t be here.” He winks at me. “She must really like you too, I’d wager, considering she spent twenty minutes telling me all about you and what I should expect.”
“What…what did she say?”
Nate’s eyes gleam with mischief. “Oh, just that you’re kind of a grump, but it’s all an act. That you’re actually a big, soft marshmallow in lumberjack coating and would bend over backward for this place and everyone in it if you needed to.”
“She said that?”
“Mm-hmm.” He claps me on the shoulder. “It’s nice to see her so into someone. She’s always so wrapped up in her work…” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I’m really happy for you guys. You treat her good, you hear?”
I open my mouth to tell him that he’s got it all wrong, that there’s nothing real between Tess and me, but my lips close as quickly as I roll his words over in my head like unturned stones.
I know for a fact that Tess’s meeting was this morning, that she should have a million things to worry about concerning her literal dream, and yet she still took the time to make a call for me; she was still thinking of me despite all her own shit going on.
I feel frozen, unable to move as an emotion overtakes me that seems too big for my body, one that threatens to fill me up and overflow so that it’s pouring out of me, taking over my entire being.
If you can let yourself do that, if you can take that leap…that person might just be the one who can seal those cracks right up and make you whole again.
And I realize all at once—because of something as simple as Tess taking time out of her day to make sure that I’m okay—that I want her to be that person. I want to let her into all the cracked pieces of my heart, to let her make me whole again, something that I’m starting to think only she can do.
“What the fuck am I doing?” I ask incredulously.
Nate looks confused. “I’m sorry?”
“Sorry,” I offer. “I just…I need to do something. Are we all good here?”
He nods. “Oh yeah. We’ve got everything we need.”
“I really appreciate this,” I tell him. “Seriously. Thank you so much.”
“It was my pleasure,” he says with a smile. He gives me a wink. “Now go get her.”
My mouth gapes. “How did you…?”
“I have my ways,” he says with a shrug. He leans in closer. “Between you and me, Tess’s poker face is shit. And since she sounded as grim as you look right now…it’s not hard to connect the pining dots.”
“I…” I laugh incredulously. “Of course. Thanks again.”
He waves me off. “Go, go. I can see myself out.”
Before he’s even finished speaking, I’m already running through the house, searching for the people I know I’ll need to help me pull off what I have in mind.
It’s outside my comfort zone, what I’m planning, and it’s well outside my wheelhouse, but I know deep down it’s something I have to do. And if I don’t…I’ll regret it forever.
I find Thomas, Chase, and Kyle on the back deck, Chase smoking a cigarette as Thomas laughs at something Kyle has just said. Turning my way when I approach, they look at me with wild eyes when they notice how frazzled I must look.
“Hey, man,” Thomas says. “You okay?”
“No,” I say with a laugh. “Not at all.” I can feel myself grinning maniacally despite my words, and I lean in to give them a pleading look. “I really need your help.”
And I do. Need help. If I’m going to pull this off…I’m going to need a fucking lot of it.