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“Okay, just know that one of these days you’re going to tell me who she was. Maybe together we can see what can be done to fix whatever you screwed up before you make an even bigger mess by marrying Angela.”
“Who says I screwed it up Grace? Maybe she’s the one who screwed it and me over—did you ever think of that?” he questioned a bit bitterly without meaning to.
“So, there was a she…I told you that you couldn’t lie to your doctor,” Grace said with a half grin before letting him leave knowing he had given her as much as she could hope for in one day.
She wasn’t going to let him make a mistake marrying Angela when the woman was still in love with her ex-husband. She wouldn’t condemn her cousin to a loveless marriage the way she had herself. She’d given up her chance at true love because of family pressures and while she adored her children, she always wondered about the ‘what ifs’ on those special days she simply couldn’t forget.
“I’ll see you at Grans’ for lunch,” Tyler replied heading out the door. He caught sight of a lithe body moving through the winding walking trail and felt his gut tighten. She wasn’t going to get to him this time. If he saw her again, he would control his own need to gaze upon her, to simply be within her presence.
In high school, he had purposely gotten into the same sections as her, so he could see her every day, nearly every hour during the day. The first year and a half he’d tormented her to avoid the truth—that he wanted her in a way he’d never wanted anyone. She was a Crawford. The enemy. Only she hadn’t been. She’d been everything to him.
He went to the creek for a party he’d overheard her agree to attend and started in on her until she’d left. The tears that’d sparkled in her eyes had killed him and he gave her just long enough to get to the bridge before slipping through the woods to intercept her. He could see the pain his words had caused, built up inside of her, and with no one else around, she’d demanded to know why he couldn’t just leave her alone if he hated her so much.
He didn’t respond with words—hecouldn’trespond with words because he had no idea how to explain it to her. Instead, he’d reached out for her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her until he’d said everything, explained it all through that kiss. From that moment she was his, and he was hers. At least until he’d reached their spot ready to take them to the nearest city where he could marry her in the shortest amount of time possible and found nothing but that note.
A part of him wondered if she hadn’t played the cruelest trick on him, fooled him into thinking she loved him simply to destroy him, but when he heard through the local gossip chain that she’d left town he’d let that bit of wonder go. He spent months looking for her, but he had no clue which scholarship she accepted. She’d applied to dozens of schools when they were still debating what to do after high school. How their relationship would work. Where they could go to escape the feud.
Their plan to elope then go to school is Seattle wasn’t decided until April that year. He’d seen the stacks of letters she had in her backpack one day while they were out in the woods. One of their favorite spots they’d go to get away from everyone so they could just relax and be together without the stress of having to keep their relationship quiet. He was fishing while her head rested on his lap, and when she finished her book, opened her backpack to put it up, he’d seen them and asked what they were. Which led to their decision to stay close but also have some space in case their families lost it when they announced their marriage.
He started classes that fall doing his damndest to forget about her while he pursued his biology and landscaping architectural degrees. His freshman year held a parade of nameless, faceless women he used to make himself feel better, worse than Seth ever could possibly use the women around town—even if he’d never slept with any of them. Not a singleone of them held his attention the way Justine could by simply breathing.
He was cruel to several when they attempted to turn flirting into something more. Lashing out at them when that happened, telling them they meant absolutely nothing to him was a total jackass move. Hell, his entire freshman year was nothing more than him being a hurt, angry asshole to the entire female population.
He encouraged the flirting, the interest until they were begging to simply be kissed before knocking them down to nothing. Wanting to hurt any woman that came near him, so they’d never try it again. So someone else would hurt just as badly as he was without Justine. At the time, it’d kept the pain of not having Justine next to him at bay. Letting the disgust at the idea of another woman touching him to overtake him in those moments. But it was always short-lived.
The first summer she hadn’t come home showed him that she had meant it when she said she loved him too much to be near him and not be with him. It was the same way he felt, and he’d told himself that if she ever returned he would make her his again—fully that time no matter what their families might think. Then another year passed without her around, then another, and another, during each his need to have her overtook the better part of his life until he’d convinced himself he hated her as much as the Andersons hated the Crawfords.
He’d destroyed the wildflowers he’d planted for her on the fifth anniversary of her being gone. He doused them with the alcohol from the bottle he had nearly downed and set a match to them. The charred remains of it and the gazebo was now etched into his memory, the reminder that not even destroying what was special to them could destroy his desire for her.
To this day, no one knew he was the person to torch the area. They simply believed he had graciously repaired the damageto the grounds, replanted the wildflowers, and recreated the gazebo because it was what he did. Really, it was because he had to have a small piece of her in his life still.
The next year he was amazed to find that not even the fire had killed the tulips he’d originally planted for her. The burning hearts bloomed in greater numbers than ever before, and he’d stopped ignoring the place and instead planted more each time he needed a reminder about what type of torture love could inflict.
Planting allowed him to let his anger out while still sheltering his love for her, and now she was back in town. Just when he’d finally accepted that she would never return, four weeks before his wedding, she was suddenly, unexpectedly back, throwing him into a tailspin he didn’t know how to get out of without causing more damage to those around him.
Chapter 2
Justine checked her reflection in the mirror before tightening her stomach muscles, making herself tense up in order to overshadow the reception she might receive walking into the church. The walk took five minutes, and she smoothed her skirt down before moving up the stairs in her five-inch heels. The light click of them against the tile in the vestibule alerted people to her presence and she saw the shock on her brother Noah’s face when he spied her.
“Justine!” he said loudly gaining the attention of the better part of the church. She gave him a smile, a real one this time, although it was nowhere near the smiles she once wore and found herself crushed in a bear hug. “It’s about damned time you showed your face around here. I should swat your butt for worrying Mom and Gram so much.”
“Wow, can you ever tell you’re now a dad,” she teased him as their sister, Madison, and brother, Kevin, reached them.
“Look at you,” Madison gasped taking in her dress and heels. “If you weren’t wearing makeup I’d think you were still thirteen playing dress-up.”
“Would you stop it?” she sighed hating her perpetual youthful looks now.
“Not a chance Shorty,” Kevin stated hugging her to his side. “You have ten years’ worth of ragging due. I’ve had to deal with being the youngest around here since you disappeared.”
“You’ll always be the youngest boy so deal with it,” she mused sticking her tongue out at him.
“Oh yeah you’ve sure grown up,” Noah said rolling his eyes at her before looking towards the side stairs with a smile. “Mom, Dad, Kevin caught something I think you might want to keep.”
“We have enough fis…Justine!” her mother exclaimed hurrying to her side when she realized Kevin had his arms around her. “Look at you…you’re not my little baby anymore.”
“I haven’t been a little baby for a long time, Mom,” she said grateful for the reprise before confronting her father.
“You’ll always be the family’s baby Justine,” Madison warned watching them closely to see how their father reacted.
