Hung By the Fire (Evergreen Lake: Under the Mistletoe)

Chapter 24

twenty-four

BETHANY

The wind rattled around me as I pushed through the kitchen door and onto Cole’s porch. Early morning moonlight filtered down from the sky, the sun nowhere near ready to make its appearance yet. Snow, pristine in some places, blanketed the ground. I couldn’t remember ever seeing this much before. Even as a kid, when we came here, we’d never experienced a storm, let alone the blizzard conditions we just went through.

The blizzard where everything changed.

I clutched the tumbler of coffee and took a sip.

Cole and Joy were still fast asleep inside, while I hadn’t been able to sleep more than a handful of sporadic minutes all night. I touched the pendant lying on my chest, hoping it would ground me.

When we knew Cole was going to be stuck at work for more than a regular shift, Aunt Nadine had brought over more of my things. I settled in, taking care of Joy, and knowing that with each second that passed, it would be harder and harder for me to leave, the house or Evergreen Lake.

I also knew I would have to.

Especially after I said the words I had sworn I would keep to myself.

Letting Cole know I loved him, blatantly saying the words, would just push him away, scare him off. I hadn’t spent this much time around the man and not learned that one intrinsic fact.

It wasn’t that he didn’t feel it. Something in me knew he did. It was that he didn’t trust it. And I didn’t know how to get past that.

I thought I could hold myself together after the pictures. After a Christmas spent like a family. After my Zoom home with my family, where everyone got to see Cole and Joy. While we were on the call, all the girls, mom included, were texting me until we were all laughing so hard both Cole and my stepdad asked what was going on. Those text messages were not going to be seen by anyone but us.

Even after the necklace, a gift so personal, so thoughtful, I could barely breathe when he handed it to me.

I managed to hold the words in, until he told me about the necklace for Joy.

That’s what sent me over. The knowledge that in some way maybe I’d be tied to her for longer than I was here in Evergreen Lake had pushed me to be stupid and lay my heart on the line.

I loved that little girl with everything I had. I knew it was a possibility when I’d started watching her. Knew both she and Cole could wrap me around their little fingers and forage a place in my heart in the blink of an eye. I didn’t try to stop it. Stopping a freight train would have been easier.

You can match.

It was what a parent did with a child, matching outfits or jewelry. Except I wasn’t her parent because I would never be with Cole. He’d never let me in.

The words had slipped out, and I prayed he’d say them back. Pretended I could hear them whispered against my lips as he kissed me. Imagined I could feel them in his touch when we were in bed, in the way he held me to him and petted me throughout the night. His hands stroked over me even in his sleep. I knew because I’d been awake, thinking of what I was going to do.

I was afraid there was only one option.

“Dad,” I whispered while holding the pendant, “you thought I should come back. Should I stay?”

I waited, and waited, but no cardinal appeared.

I wondered if I had my answer.

“You’re up early.”

Cole ambled down the hall just as I was closing the door behind me. Honestly, I thought he’d stay asleep longer given how exhausted he must have been after working for days and then everything going on yesterday.

I moved to the counter, afraid to look at him. Afraid he could tell what I had been thinking.

“I missed you.” He came up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and curling his upper body over mine. Like I was something precious and to be cared for. “I don’t know if I like sleeping alone anymore.”

While I hadn’t exactly moved in here before the blizzard, I’d been spending enough nights here that we both probably had gotten used to it.

“I couldn’t sleep. You want coffee?” I stepped away and tried to change the subject, but the man wasn’t easily put off.

“Did I do something?”

The only thing he did was not do something. Not feel about me the way I felt about him. Not fall in love with me. Not see a future for us. But I couldn’t blurt that all out. It would mean my emotional death.

So, I brushed off his concern. “No. Of course not.” I poured him coffee and placed it on the table. “How long do you think Joy will sleep? It’s still early, I know, but she may like the snow. We didn’t go out much when it was still actively snowing, but since it’s stopped, maybe we could.”

See? Normal, everything was normal.

Cole stared at me, his gaze quizzical, as if trying to figure out what was wrong.

“Considering all the excitement of yesterday, she’s probably down for a bit yet.” Still, he stared. “Nope, something’s wrong. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I told you. Just tired from yesterday.”

The emotional fortitude I needed in order to have the discussion we should was not present at the moment.

“I—”

Luckily, Joy decided that very instant to make herself known. “Looks like she’s up for some more excitement today.” I started down the hall, calling back over my shoulder, “Have your coffee, and I’ll get her up and dressed.”

By the time Joy and I returned to the kitchen, Cole had breakfast ready. It was a sedate meal, not a lot of talking except to answer Joy’s nonsensical babbles. It was one of my favorite parts of mealtime. This baby tried her hardest to contribute to the conversation whether it was her and I or all three of us. I couldn’t help but smile and talk back, reveling in her joy.

The pain of losing her, of losing them, broke off another piece of my heart.

She yammered away as we cleaned up and then dressed her and ourselves in gear to go play in the snow. Unsure at first, once she got used to it, she loved it. The snowsuit made it almost impossible for her to move, but it didn’t matter. She patted the snow next to her and laughed in delight at the snowman Cole built for her. By the time we brought her in and stripped her of her outerwear, she was already fast asleep.

“Down for the count,” Cole whispered as he shut the door to her room behind him. “Now we can talk.” He shook his head my way. “Don’t say no. Something is wrong, and I want to know what I did.”

“You didn’t do anything. I did.”

“That makes no sense.” He took my hand and led me to the living room, pulling me down to the couch beside him. “C’mon, whiskey girl, tell me what’s the matter.”

The words spilled out all too easily, which only showed how much of a mess I truly was.

“Didn’t you hear me last night, Cole? Didn’t you hear what I said?”

The look on his face should have stopped me, but it didn’t. It wasn’t ignorance of what I said, it was fear. I wasn’t surprised because deep down I knew emotions like that scared him. He’d told me enough about his childhood for me to understand he didn’t believe someone could feel that way about him. I just hoped he could overcome it.

In this moment, I had my doubts.

“I heard you.”

“I love you. You and Joy. I know I shouldn’t have fallen. I told myself over and over again, I needed to protect my heart, but I couldn’t. At some point I didn’t even want to because I thought something had changed.” I rose, unable to stay still and against his body while I spilled my guts. “I thought your feelings changed. That maybe the plan that this was only an affair or situationship or whatever would change. But they didn’t, did they?” He stayed silent and my heart shattered into a million pieces. I wasn’t even sure how I was still breathing. “Please just tell me. Let me hear you say it. You still won’t give me all of you.”

I don’t know if it was closure I was looking for or a good dose of sadism that made me want to hear the words.

He shook his head, and I braced for the worst. “They did. They changed.”

Gasping, I clutched at my chest, not sure what he meant. Not sure what to do.

“I didn’t want to love you, whiskey girl. I didn’t want to love anyone. I didn’t think I could love someone. Ever. I’d made that decision years ago when my parents essentially threw me away.” Cole leaned forward, forearms resting on his legs and dropped his head down, not looking at me. “Then I found Brian, then Tricia. Somehow, I convinced myself what I felt for them wasn’t love. Friendship, yes. Bonds forged by similar experiences and tough times, sure. When Joy came along, I couldn’t do anything but love her. She was a sweet, innocent baby. She deserved love, and she wouldn’t hurt me.”

My heart hurt so much for what he had been through, what he believed himself to deserve for so long. “I won’t hurt you.”

“You know, I don’t really even have any friends here. Didn’t open myself up to the team, no matter how hard they tried.” It was as if he didn’t hear me, but that was okay. If it helped him get the story out, I’d listen as long as he wanted. “Your aunt may have been the first person to manage to break down a wall, and that was out of sheer stubbornness,” he huffed out on a laugh. “She helped with Joy whether I asked for it, or wanted it, or not.”

“She’s a good woman.”

“She is.” Finally, his head lifted. “Like her niece.” We locked gazes for a brief moment, before he dropped mine, staring back at the floor. “You hit me like a bolt of lightning that first night, then again when I saw you walking across the backyard, and hell, every day since.” He rose, coming over to stand in front of me, his eyes a mix of grief and fear and worry and love. “I do love you, but I don’t know if I know how to do it right. To do it like you need, you deserve.”

“Do any of us? If you’re basing it on your parents, that’s not fair.” Shaking my head when he opened his mouth to speak, I went on, “My parents had a wonderful marriage, my mom and stepdad do too. I was lucky two-fold and you weren’t, but look at the man you made of yourself without them. You served your country and now the community, you were such a good friend, a good brother, that Tricia and Brian entrusted their greatest gift to you. If you could learn to be that type of person, why do you think you can’t love me the way I need?” I wiped the tears streaming down my face before cupping his cheeks in my hands. “And what does that even mean? I need you. Only you. I already know your love would be amazing.”

“But—”

“No, no buts. Don’t doubt yourself in this because I don’t doubt you.” Going up on my tiptoes, I brushed my lips over his. “I want to stay. I didn’t want to come back to Evergreen Lake, but I should have known I was missing a piece of myself by letting the bad overtake the good. I want to stay in the place where my dad led me.” I tapped my finger against the cardinal pendant. “I want to stay with you.”

Stepping away, I grabbed my coat, slipping it on before picking up my purse and striding to the back door.

“I hope you want me to stay with you too.”

Silence descended as I opened the door and stepped out, believing for the first time in a while that everything would be alright.