CHAPTER 15
Mia
KEEPING MY EYES closed, I don’t attempt to move away from Talon, who has me locked against him, with my leg trapped between his and my wrist held firmly in his grasp. I listen to his steady heartbeat while his chest rises and falls, knowing I would be happy for the rest of my life if I woke up every day in this exact position.
My throat gets tight when last night’s events invade my warm, safe bubble, but I remind myself that my parents are asleep in the guestroom upstairs, my sister is asleep down the hall, and my nieces are with their dad, having no idea what happened yesterday. I don’t even want to imagine what they would have thought if they had come home to find their home destroyed. And I’m not looking forward to the next few days while we try to figure out how to navigate the conversations that will have to happen.
There is no way Cece or the girls will be able to stay at the house, and it’s going to take weeks if not months to get the house to a point where they can live there again.
I take a deep breath and open my eyes, tipping my head back to look at Talon in sleep, then carefully dislodge my wrist and move my leg, hoping I don’t wake him. I’m sure he has to be exhausted after yesterday, not from just helping his family but from dealing with mine. I don’t even know what time he came to bed last night; I just know it was some time after I fell asleep at around one. When I finally make it out of bed, I quietly grab a pair of shorts from my bag and pad to the bathroom, going through my morning routine before leaving him to sleep.
When I get to the kitchen, I find a pot of coffee has already been started and spot my mom out on the deck with my dogs through the glass doors, sitting in a chair with a mug in her hand. After preparing myself a cup, I head out to join her, and she turns to smile at me when the door opens.
“Hey.” I walk to her, bending down to kiss her cheek. “I thought I’d be the first one up this morning.”
“You know me. I can’t sleep in, even when I know I should.”
“Yeah.” I drag a chair across the deck and take a seat next to her, lifting my feet to the rail.
“It’s pretty out here, and if the trees were pine, I’d think I was in Montana,” she says quietly before taking a sip of coffee.
“I thought the same thing the first time I was here,” I tell her then point past the railing. “You can’t see it from here, but there’s a path behind the house that leads to a pond the size of a lake with one of those paddle boats on it. I’ll have to take you and Chaz down there; he’d get a kick out of it.”
“So I’m guessing you don’t plan on coming back to Montana, even after Cece and the girls are settled?” She turns her head my direction, and the sadness I see in her eyes makes me hate what I’m about to admit.
“I love it here. It took a little for me to settle in, but I’ve fallen in love with Tennessee.”
“You’ve fallen in love with Tennessee, or you’ve fallen in love with the man who owns this house?”
Licking my lips, I turn my gaze back to the trees in front of us then tell her the truth. “It’s him.” I shrug one shoulder. “I keep trying to remind myself it’s too soon to fall in love with him, but it doesn’t change how I feel about him.”
“When I met Chaz—” She touches my cheek, smiling. “—my first thought was ‘I’m going to marry him.’ It freaked me out to the point of denying him at every turn, but thankfully he never gave up on me.” She pulls her eyes off mine, but I still catch her somber expression before she can hide it. “I know I messed you girls up, and I hate that I negatively influenced your outlook on relationships and love. I wish I could go back in time and do things differently.”
“Mom, it’s—”
“Don’t tell me it’s okay, Mia,” she cuts me off before I can tell her that I understand why she did what she did, now that I’m an adult. “I was weak. I knew what I should have done every single time your dad cheated, but I never did it. Then worse, I dragged you and your sister into our issues, because I needed someone, anyone, to tell me that what I was feeling and how I was reacting was okay. And because you girls didn’t know any better, you fed me what I wanted to hear.” She wipes under her eyes quickly. “I hate that I put you and Cece in that position. You never should have had to deal with that when you were kids.”