“You said yourself we’re a bad idea. I don’t have a cabin in the woods to run off to, so you need to respect that I need some space.” She closed the door before he could say anything else, then rested her forehead against it.
This wasn’t going to work. Even if he stayed in his own yard, she couldn’t even begin to heal her broken heart with him so close. She needed to pack a bag and go stay with somebody else. Her mother, preferably, but she couldn’t exactly commute from Massachusetts. And Mitch was home with Paige and Sarah, so she could either throw herself on Rose’s mercy and beg a room at the lodge, or she could go to Tori’s.
She chose Tori, just because there were too many people at the Northern Star, a couple of whom worked closely with Matt. After packing a couple of tote bags with the bare minimum, she locked her house and threw them in her car.
There was no sign of Matt or Bear, which made it easier to back out of her driveway onto the main road. And she didn’t allow herself to look in the rearview mirror as she drove away.
TWENTY-TWO
FOR ONCE, MATT was thankful to live in a town that thrived on gossip. It hadn’t taken him long to hear Hailey was staying with Tori, which put his mind at ease. Of course, he also heard Hailey was staying with Tori because he’d broken her heart and was a horrible jerk, but he didn’t blame them for siding with her.
First, because she was born and raised in Whitford, so it was only natural they’d rally around her. And, second, because he deserved it.
The problem was that he had no idea how to prove he could be the man she wanted him to be.
Her house sitting empty was killing him slowly. Knowing she wasn’t there made him feel as if there was a void in the pit of his stomach he could never fill. He missed her and it was so painful he was surprised he kept breathing.
It didn’t help any that Bear seemed to miss her as much as Matt did. His expectant whines and his sad eyes when he ran next door only to find the pretty lady still wasn’t home just made her absence that much harder for Matt to deal with.
By Thursday morning, when he left for work, he was starting to wonder if she’d come back. He knew how much she loved her house, and the fact he’d driven her away from it just added to the guilt he was carrying around.
He was an idiot. There wasn’t really any way to sugarcoat that fact, and he accepted it. He’d lost the best thing that ever happened to him and he had nobody to blame but himself. He’d been so afraid of losing her, he’d driven her away.
Once his workday started, he managed to keep busy enough to not drive himself crazy. Outside of holiday weekends, Tuesday through Thursday tended to be quiet on the Whitford trails, with only a few local riders out, so he was in his truck, patrolling the roads over by the lake. Hailey was never completely out of his thoughts, though. She’d asked him to respect her need for space and he was trying like hell, but he needed to see her. He just wasn’t sure if showing up at Tori’s apartment was the way to go or not.
When a call to help convince a confused moose to leave town and go back into the woods came and he spotted a florist, he decided it was time to act. Once the animal situation was taken care of and his shift was pretty much over, he popped in and bought a bouquet of red roses. It felt a little cliché, but he was a man with few options.
Then, of course, his radio squawked and his plan had to be delayed. By the time he rolled into Whitford, he was tired and second-guessing himself. It didn’t seem like showing up at the place she’d gone to be alone was the way to answer her request for space.
But when he saw her car in her driveway, the frustrations of the day fell away. She’d come home. Whether or not that meant anything where he was concerned remained to be seen, but at least she was back in her own house.
When he got out of his truck, Bear ran around from the back of her house, then stopped. He barked, then headed back toward where Matt presumed Hailey was before stopping again. The dog was obviously ecstatic to have Hailey back and wanted Matt to go say hi.
He clutched the bouquet of roses in his hand, trying not to squeeze them and break the stems. Then, after taking a breath to steady himself, he followed Bear into Hailey’s backyard. She was sitting in a chair, a glass of lemonade on the table next to her, and she gave him a sad smile.
“Bear missed me, I guess.” The lab was bumping his head against her knee, begging for more attention.
“He’s missed you a lot. So have I.”
“I was at Tori’s. Which I’m sure you already knew since Fran knew.”
“I did know, but I was trying to give you that space you asked for.” He held out the bouquet, breathing a sigh of relief when she took it and buried her nose in the blooms.
“I’ve never gotten roses before. They’re beautiful. Thank you.”
“They’ll need water soon. After I bought them, I got a report of an RV being driven erratically. I had to find him and then wait for a drug dog and...whatever. They had to sit in the truck longer than I anticipated.”
“They’re still beautiful.”