“I’ve always wanted you. I might not have shown it, and I know I didn’t treat you right, but I did. I still do.”
“Are you done?” she asked, still refusing to look at him, even as her voice lost its steadiness and she felt a burning in her eyes. A month he’d stayed away, and now he thinks he can just waltz in? It was too late.
“No, I’m not. I misjudged you. I don’t know why I couldn’t see the truth that was glaring in front of me but I fucked up. I want you back.”
“Go away.” It was everything she’d wanted to hear but a month too late. She didn’t care what he wanted anymore. Just as he hadn’t cared how she’d felt. Now if she could just get the tears to stop falling, and get the fist that felt like it was wrapped around her heart to let go, maybe she could sound like she meant it.
She wouldn’t look up at him and kept gardening like he wasn’t standing there. She heard him finally start to retreat, which should’ve made her feel better, but instead made the tears pick up their pace. Her hands attacked the dirt with the anger she felt toward him and at herself for missing him.
Just when she thought he was finally leaving, he turned back around.
“Go away,” she repeated, keeping her head down, not wanting him to see how he was affecting her.
He knelt beside her. “I deserve to lose you. I’ve been the biggest bastard in the world. I couldn’t see past myself to realize what I had. But I can’t leave you alone without knowing I tried. I don’t deserve your forgiveness but just know that I love you.”
“You walked away from us. You threw me out.” She finally looked up at him now, rage overcoming the tears. “You just disappeared. No goodbyes, no explanations, nothing. Just gone. And now you show up here as if we can pick up again? Like nothing happened? It’s over. I don’t want you.”
He dropped his head, her words finally seeming to hit home, no matter how false they were. She was starting to fear she’d never really stop wanting him.
“I’ll leave, but just know that if you ever need anything, ever, I’ll be there.”
She watched him turn and walk away, feeling more torn apart with each step he took until he was gone, and the emptiness felt crippling.
She heard footsteps returning. “I thought you were leaving?” she snapped, not wanting Lars to see how badly she was falling apart.
“If you feel that strongly about it,” Paddy said.
She looked up to see the old man leaning on his cane.
“I’m sorry.” She wiped a hand across her cheek, probably leaving a dirt smear, but she didn’t care. “I thought you were somebody else.”
“Don’t worry about it. Happens all the time,” he said, even as she was doubting anybody ever mistook him. “I’m guessing that was Lars you thought you were talking to?” he asked.
She nodded but got back to digging, not wanting to discuss Lars at all.
“He’s always been a little different.”
“Sure,” she said, humoring him but hoping he wouldn’t continue talking.
“Distrustful and unsatisfied, always running around searching for something he couldn’t explain. I didn’t think he’d ever calm down.” He moved around her and looked at the other rose bushes she had laid out beside her.
“Is there a point to this? Not to be rude, but I really don’t care to talk about him.” She pulled off her gardening gloves and threw them beside the hole that didn’t look like it was getting a bush today.
“You know, I’d mentioned how I was thinking of recruiting you for the agency but I guess it’s good it didn’t work out. Maybe you don’t have as much faith as I thought, if you can’t see what you might have had.”
“I never had him.” And she didn’t need the reminder. She was a minute away from walking into her house and locking the door on the whole world today.
“I’m sure you’re right,” he said in a placating voice. “Enjoy your roses. They’re almost as pretty as the ones he gave you.”
Paddy finally left, and she sat there wondering what he was talking about. Lars had never given her roses.
Chapter 38
The bells chimed over the door as he was bent over the guy he was tattooing. It was a reaper tattoo because that’s all he’d been in the mood to do. No one had complained. Some had even cried at the sight of the finished artwork because all of his pain and regret was there to see. He hadn’t been able to eat or sleep. All he could do was remember Faith’s tears, the hurt he’d caused her. It was tearing him up inside.
“Get out,” he said to whoever had just walked in.
The lights in the room started to dim and he realized the visitor was still there and messing with the window shades.
“Get—” He turned about to bark out a command when he saw her, Faith, lowering the shades. He thought he’d picked up her floral scent. He thought he sensed her so often lately, to only look over to an empty space, that he’d stopped expecting her to be there.
“Get out,” he said to his client, softer this time. “Now.”
“Again?” the guy grumbled.
“Yes,” Lars snapped and the guy grabbed his shirt and headed out the door.
Lars’ chest was tight as he watched her. She was as beautiful as ever, long blonde hair flowing down her back in a white strappy sundress.
“How’ve you been?” Lars asked when he finally got his voice back. He thought he’d never see her in his shop again.
“Okay.”
That word crushed him. She’d moved on. She’d looked it when he seen her through the window of her gallery. He hadn’t been able to resist driving past it.
“That’s good.”
“No, actually, that’s bullshit.” She finally turned to him and he could see the sadness there. She wasn’t okay.
“Why did you come here?” he asked. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
She walked around his shop, not seeming to realize he’d just given her fair warning.
“I finally looked at the tattoo you did on my back.”
“If you don’t like the flowers, I can cover them up with something else.”
“No. They’re beautiful. I just don’t understand why you chose them?”
“Flowers?”
“Not just flowers, but black roses, a symbol of death?”
“You didn’t have a symbol, so I guess I…”
“Decided to give me yours? I need to know why you did that.”
“Because from the moment I saw you sitting in that chair over there, the first day we met, something clicked inside of me. You were a mess, filthy dirty, absolutely terrified, but I could tell you were going to survive no matter what the cost. I don’t know. Something happened and the part of me that I never let see daylight was climbing out to the surface and saying you were the one. I just refused to believe it, at first.”
As Faith walked farther into the room, Lars moved slowly to the door. His fingers moved to the deadlock and he watched her as the bolt clicked into place. His actions didn’t seem to make her nervous, which was good because he wasn’t sure if he could let her go. Not again. He’d warned her, and she hadn’t left.
He started to slowly approach her.
Her eyes dropped and her fingers ran along his supplies, touching this and that. “I’m still angry. So angry it’s hard to think sometimes.”
The hurt he heard paused him on his pursuit.
“I just don’t understand how you can walk away from someone, not once but twice.” The overhead light caught her eyes and he could see the mixture of unshed tears and anger.
“I thought it was what you wanted.”
She looked at him, shaking her head, as if she didn’t even understand why she was there. But she was. She’d come to him and he wasn’t letting her go again.
All hesitation was gone as he crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her. “I love you. I’m sorry that I had to lose you before I realized.”
“How can I ever trust you again? How do I know you won’t change your mind again?”
He held her tightly, knowing he couldn’t let her go again, knowing that she still did care. “I know I can’t make what I did right. I know I hurt you but I’m going to fix it.”
“What if you can’t?”
“You wouldn’t have come here if you’d truly given up on us.”
“But—”