No Gentle Giant (A Small Town Romance)

It was all over, and I no longer had to watch a fat drug spider weaving webs around Heart’s Edge with not him, but Paisley Lockwood at its center.

Those threads were still there, all this time.

Only now they’re twisted into a noose.

I just hope I can slip the knot and keep my own neck out of it.

Leaving the storage room, I step into my office and unzip the duffel bag I’ve left there. It’s sweltering and sticky tonight, but I pull myself into thickly padded snow pants, an even thicker jacket, all fluffy down inside puffed out around me.

I’m already a sweaty mess from hauling the gold, so the heat from the insulating layers makes a bad situation worse.

I’ll deal with it because I have to.

A little flying ceramic nearly cut the ligament in Alaska’s knee, although it looked like a shallow wound on the surface.

I’m not about to risk worse from a lot more broken glass—though if things are as explosive as I hope, the padding probably won’t protect me that much.

Deep breath.

It’s okay.

I can handle pain.

I’m used to hurting.

It’s joy, happiness, pleasure, and certainty that are unfamiliar to me. For just a little while, I had them in my grasp.

For just a little while, I had him.

There’s a wax envelope on my desk. My throat closes as I flip it open with my thumb and run my fingertips over the glossy photo on the surface. A stack of Eli’s pictures he’d developed at the pharmacy, only to shyly give them to me and tell me to pick out the ones I like best so he can have them blown up into prints.

So many great shots at The Nest.

Sometimes when I hadn’t realized he’d been watching me.

Watching us.

The majority of the photos are of me and Alaska together—him perched on a barstool watching me work, me calling something over my shoulder to him with a smile I didn’t even know I knew how to make when Ms. Wilma was right.

My smiles are always sad.

But not around him.

Not when he’s teasing me, offering his warmth, his understanding, lighting my world until I forget how to be afraid.

All the hollow places that pain and loss carved inside me were filled with him, remade in his image until there was no denying how I felt.

Whole.

As I slowly flick my way through the photos, I stop on one.

The night of the festival. I knew Eli was there, hanging around with Tara and the Fords, but I hadn’t realized he had his little camera spying on me and his father yet again.

My heart falls apart.

My fingers tremble.

There we are.

Just a little ways off from the rest of the crowd, looking up at the sky full of fireworks.

Like there’s nothing in the world but me, Alaska, and those vivid glowing lights bursting against the stars, shedding rainbow shades down our faces, highlights along the edges of fingertips fiercely tangled together just like the way we’d entangled our lives.

I’m not going to burst out crying. I’m not.

I don’t have the time or the will or the energy.

With what’s in front of me, I can’t waver.

That’s why I haven’t let myself answer Alaska’s calls or listen to his voicemails.

His apologies, his joy at having Eli back, could only make me second-guess what’s about to happen.

They’ll tempt me to be weak, to turn back, to go to him and take the safe route like I’ve always done.

And the irony is, this safe route will just prolong this torture and endanger God knows who else.

I can’t start thinking too much about everything I want to cling to, the things I’m afraid to lose, or I’ll lose my nerve. I won’t be brave enough to finish the job I desperately need to close out forever.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, an ugly reminder of exactly what’s ahead.

I fumble to get it out of the padded snow pants, but when I do, my blood chills.

Yes, I’ve been expecting it, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready.

I’ll never be ready for this.

If you’re playing a game with me, Paisley texts, First your boyfriend dies. Then his sweet little boy. I’ll save your mommy dearest for last. And I’ll make you watch me carve every last one of them up before I cut you to itty bitty pieces so small they’ll never identify your scraps.

Welp. Can’t say she doesn’t have a knack for dramatic threats.

No games, I send back. I’ve finally figured this entire mess out. What my father did. The gold’s all yours. Every piece he took from you. Come get it, and then get out of my life. We’re square.

There’s a long pause.

I’m waiting for a long message full of expletives, mocking baby talk, or just whatever batshit crazy thing stampedes through her evil pixie head.

Instead, I only get back one line. Three words.