Sassy Blonde (Three Chicks Brewery 1)

“Surprised to see me?”

He blinked, but she remained. “How is this possible?”

She offered her hand. “You know, you don’t always have to have the answers for everything.”

But he needed answers. He needed logic, and nothing about this was logical. Everything slowed around him when he took her delicate fingers in his. She felt solid, so familiar. “You feel warm.”

“You’d expect different?” she asked with a laugh, leading him closer to the tree where he’d spread her ashes.

The world spun away from him as he glanced down to their intertwined hands. He sat next to her under the tree and she felt real. Like she’d never left him. “This can’t be real.”

She tightened her fingers. “This doesn’t feel real to you?”

“It does,” he countered, losing himself in the tight way she held him. “But…”

Laurel gazed at the creek and then up at the willow tree. “I like it here. You picked a good place for me to rest.”

His mind wanted to refuse this as truth. He decided to stop fighting, needing to get all the things he wanted to say out. “It felt right when I found this place. You would have been happy living here. We should have moved here. You would have been safe.”

She turned to him with a smile that broke his chest wide open. “I would have loved this house, you’re right.” Her gaze fell to the home behind him. “But this was never meant to be my home.”

He sucked in a harsh breath, the world feeling like it was slipping away from him. “It should have been.”

She gave a dry laugh. “Should have, could have, might have, those are all possibilities that will never be.”

His stomach roiled. He’d been saying those statements for far too long. To ground himself, prove this was truly happening, he looked out at the pebbles and gravel half-buried in the muddy creek bottom. She moved closer, leaned her head against his shoulder, and said, “You know why I’m here. You know what we have to talk about.”

Hayes shut his eyes against the exposed wound in his heart. “What if I don’t want to talk?” He enveloped her, holding her tight to him. “What if I just want to keep you like this and not let you go away again?”

“We don’t get that choice, but choose if you’re ever going to forgive yourself.”

“How can I?” he said, time seemingly halting. “It’s my fault you disappeared.”

Laurel leaned away from him. Her gaze was sharp like it used to be when she got annoyed with him. “You’re looking at this all wrong.”

“How else am I supposed to look at it? I let someone live, and that choice cost your life.”

She placed her hand on his arm, a warm, touching comfort that seemed familiar. “The alternative would have been that you killed an unarmed man. That’s not you. That won’t ever be you.”

“But if I had, you’d still be here,” he said.

She slowly shook her head. “I’m not supposed to be here. Nothing you could have done would have changed that. Maybe the manner of how I died might have changed, but I would have gone, regardless.”

“I don’t believe that.”

She laughed softly. “Not even you can change what’s written in the stars, Hayes.”

He wanted to shout that he could fix all this. Make it all right again, but control had been lost to him a long time ago. Water trickled around rocks and over twigs. Everything was too vivid. Too real. “Were you afraid…when it happened?”

She shook her head. “No. I didn’t feel anything. Didn’t hear anything. It happened so fast.”

His eyes welled. He blinked to clear his eyesight, only to make sure he kept seeing her. “It didn’t hurt?”

“Nothing hurt.”

Hayes gathered her in his arms, just for this second. He held on tight, having no idea how much time he’d get. “Did you wonder if I’d come?”

“It all happened too fast for any of that, Hayes,” she explained gently. “You have to stop blaming yourself. Don’t waste any more time. Be happy. If not for you, for her.”