Ever Always (9 page)

This wasn't good. Ever never threw down the gauntlet, but Hunter could see her rearing back and getting ready to stand her ground. He stepped closer to her, ready to reach out and touch her if need be.

Sam actually chuckled. Hunter's eyes met the sky. His brother wasn't taking her seriously. That was a mistake. “It threw me for a loop the first time, too.”

“I'm not going in there,” she said.

Richie Rich looked shocked and appalled. “But in there is where the bar is.”

Hunter clenched his fist. If she didn't want to go, they wouldn't go. What the hell was wrong with everyone?

Reed went ahead inside, shaking his head, and Ever faced off with Sam. She informed him, once again, that she wasn't going inside. The frustration grew on Sam's face in the dimly lit parking lot, and the determination grew on Ever's. He wasn't sure why she picked this point to take a stand on, but it was clear she didn't want to back down.

So he reached out and touched her shoulder. It tensed beneath his fingers, and then she glanced at him. Her muscles relaxed.

“Let's just go in and have one drink,” he said softly. “I'll order you a nice bottle of Bud. Then, if you still feel unsafe, I'll come back out here with you and wait.”

Sam's head was ping-ponging between the two of them like they'd lost their minds. “You don't have to wait with her. I'm here.”

Oh, he was here? Was he? Hunter's blood immediately went from a normal temperature to boiling hot.

“Fine, one drink,” said Ever quickly. Hunter's eyes slid toward hers, and she met them briefly before turning on her heel and heading inside. Sam followed.

Hunter sucked in a lungful of air and blew it out slowly. He allowed himself one more quick breath before following them inside.

Sam's new friends were nice enough. Much more down to earth than Hunter had expected, given all the money that was clearly floating around the large table. These people were loaded. Like, money-had-never-been-a-thought-in-their-minds loaded. He couldn't understand what Sam could possibly have in common with any of them.

And then he noticed how the strikingly beautiful brunette was keeping him in her sights. And it was like slow motion when he saw Sam's tendency to keep glancing her way.

Suddenly, he was very aware of one of the reasons Sam seemed to love Nelson Island so much. He grabbed Ever's hand under the table and looked at her in the seat next to him.

Her eyes were also on the brunette, Aston, and her mouth was falling open farther by the second. Especially when the personal questions about their lives back in Duck Creek started flying around the table.

Especially when Sam began having a very heated discussion with Aston right in front of them, about how much she wanted him to stay in Nelson Island.

Ever's hand was clutching his tighter and tighter under the table, and Hunter couldn't take it anymore. The tension was so thick he was practically choking. He wanted to get her out of there. He was just about to stand and pull her up along with him when her chair scraped loudly against the wooden planked floor and she pushed back from the table.

“I need air,” she gasped.

She ran from the room. Hunter stared openly at Sam, who jumped up, too.

But if his brother thought he was the one going after Ever, he was sorely mistaken.

A
s her feet pounded against wood, and then gravel as she hit the parking lot, she wondered why she was so upset in the first place.

She loved Sam. She knew that much was true. There was a huge part of her heart that had belonged to him for so long that she would never want anything for him but happiness.

But wanting happiness for someone she loved and then seeing it happen without her were two very different things. She was having a hard time reconciling the wants of her heart with the need in her soul. Sam had friends here. And she wasn't stupid. That girl with dark hair who looked like some sort of Disney princess wanted him, and Sam had looked in her direction more than once tonight. Something was stirring between them.

She had to let him go, because he could have a life here he never would have had in Duck Creek with her. And this life was his, not hers. She had always, always loved Sam.

But she had always, always been
in love
with Hunter.

She stopped running. She reached both hands up to her face and felt the wetness covering her cheeks a second before the sob burst free from her chest.

Her knees gave out, and she couldn't understand why she didn't hit the rocks beneath her until she heard Hunter's voice in her ear.

“I got you,” he said.

She smiled in spite of the deep, aching sadness that was causing her throat to close up.

“You keep saying that,” she whispered.

“I guess I'll have to, until you believe it,” he said as he cradled her to his chest.

“Ugh,” she said, looking over his shoulder. “I hate that damn pier.”

He smiled down at her. “I know you do.”

He set her gently on her feet but didn't let go of her. “That was intense in there.”

His tone was cautious. He was trying to feel her out. He didn't want to upset her more than she already was, but she knew he deserved an explanation of where her freak-out was coming from.

“It's not that I don't want him to be happy,” she said. “But his friends were asking so many questions. And then there was that girl. Did you see the way he looked at her?”

Hunter's eyes closed briefly. “You saw that?”

“Who didn't?”

“Okay,” said Hunter. “That looked bad…”

“I have absolutely no room to be upset about anything Sam does! I have to let him go before I ruin everything for him…”

“Stop.” His gentle voice somehow cut through all her crazy. She closed her mouth and looked up at him, his image blurred by her tears.

“You're a good person, Ever. So is Sam. You two have been thrust into an impossible situation. But doesn't this kind of prove what I've been saying all along? He was never meant to stay in Duck Creek forever. The life he has out here now is proof of that. And you know what? I'm not sad to see the way he looked at that girl. You know what that means? It means that…if you…I mean, if we…”

He stopped. She knew where he was going with it. It meant that if she and Hunter decided to be together, Sam would be able to move on without her.

Oh God, her heart hurt. It felt like someone had reached inside her chest with the intent of squeezing the life out of it. And they were succeeding.

She knew she was losing it. Her breath was coming in deep gasps, but she still couldn't seem to suck in enough air to sustain herself. Her knees were made of Jell-O. Her voice…where was her voice? Gone.

A finger beneath her chin stilled her. Her face was lifted to meet Hunter's steady stare. She grabbed onto his arms and held on for dear life as their eyes locked.

“Go,” he whispered.

His voice released the knot of emotion and loss she felt inside of her. It escaped her like a balloon lifting up, up, up and out into the great big sky. As she stared into his eyes, her breathing slowed and her body became strong enough to stand on her own. Hunter still did that for her. Reminded her that she was strong enough.

This time, that single word had a different meaning, and as he uttered it she leaned forward to brush her lips against his. The contact made her close her eyes and sigh against his mouth. His grip became tighter around her waist as he pulled her closer, and their bodies melded together as he deepened the kiss with a guttural sound deep inside his chest.

Hunter's kiss didn't have a hint of desperation in it. It had a safe quality that she craved and a heated passion that promised so much more. She wanted the more. She wanted it so badly.

She never realized she had entered a private world that only the two of them shared until she was snapped out of it by pounding footsteps on the dock. She broke free of Hunter, turned, and glimpsed Sam's back as he sprinted away from them.

“Sam!” she screamed. Panic crept in through her toes and rose slowly through her body, rattling her bones and causing her muscles to quiver.

Not like this.

She turned to Hunter, and his expression must have mirrored hers exactly. Before three months ago, Hunter was the most laid-back, even-keeled person she knew. He didn't wear his heart on his sleeve. He didn't display his emotions for the world to see.

But as she watched his face, the most tortured expression she'd ever seen crossed it, and he squeezed his eyes shut for a second before he opened them to stare into hers. Then his gaze broke free as he looked to where Sam had retreated.

A foreign cry she didn't recognize ripped from her chest as she turned and ran after Sam.

Hunter knew before Ever did that no amount of words or pleading or begging was going to make his brother listen to them. What he'd just witnessed, no matter what he was feeling for anyone in Nelson Island, no matter how happy he was with his new life here, had completely shattered his heart.

He glanced over at Ever as the cab driver rolled away and they began walking back to the tack house on the Hopewell property.

“Ever,” he began.

“Don't,” she said in a voice completely devoid of emotion.

His head snapped back as though she'd slapped him. The last time he'd heard her voice sound like that was after her father died.

“Don't do this, Ever,” he pleaded. “Don't shut me out. Now more than ever, you need to keep me close.”

She didn't say a word. Once back at the house, they packed up their things as Sam had requested, got in the truck, and began the long drive back to Virginia's mountains and their beloved hometown.

It wasn't until they were halfway home that Ever finally spoke.

“I can't do this anymore, Hunter.”

No. No, no, no. He had just lost his brother. It wasn't going to be in vain. He wasn't about to lose his heart, too.

“Can't do what?” he said, trying to keep his voice calm.

“Can't do
this.
Whatever this thing is between us, it's over. It was wrong then, and it sure as hell is wrong now. Sam will never speak to either of us again. I'll never be able to look at you without…without…”

Her voice broke on her last words and he reached across the console for her hand. Once again, just like on the way to South Carolina, she ripped it out of his reach.

“Just take me home, Hunter,” she said quietly, laying her head back on the seat and closing her eyes.

He'd never been in love before. He guessed he'd always been holding out for Ever, in a way. He knew she belonged to Sam, and he knew they both thought it was forever. But no girl in the entire universe was going to be able to understand him the way she did. No girl would ever compare. So he'd waited until he had the opportunity to completely fall in love with her.

Now that he had, he had no clue how he was going to be able to just sit back and let her walk out of his life.

Three Months Later

He aimed a wry smile at his phone while he read the text Sam had sent him. It had only been a week since the first random text came in from his brother.

Hunter was just amazed that Sam was speaking to him again.

He saw him once, two months ago in July, when the sheriff had hauled him into the station and gleefully locked him in a cell. Brandon had gone around town gloating about it, and Hunter was there to see Sam in a matter of hours.

So was the brunette from Nelson Island.

The entire story had come out, and by a miracle, or by the smarts of the fancy attorney the brunette bombshell's father had sent to Duck Creek for Sam, his brother had been cleared.

So had Ever. She finally told the whole story of what happened. Her old school nurse quickly came forward to corroborate her early injuries. Along with some old hospital records—and what everyone in Duck Creek already knew about her father—it was enough to clear Ever of any wrongdoing.

But Ever still hadn't spoken a word to Hunter since that long drive back to Duck Creek.

He had contemplated texting her so many times. He'd considered calling her phone. Cross had to damn near tie him up in order to stop him from just showing up at her house.

His heart was in tatters. Ever had pulled the shredded pieces with her when she left him. She'd lost Sam, and so she'd given him up in return. That aching in his chest he felt whenever he was with her before was now a permanent state of being. The pain was nearly unbearable.

Duck Creek was a small town, but she must have been working extra hard to avoid him, because he hadn't seen hide nor hair of Ever Allen in three months.

He ran into Cross, who was leaning against the glass front of the flower shop while he waited.

“Stalking the local florist again?” he asked with an innocent smile.

Cross shot him a smirk. “How else would I find out all that info for you on how Ever's doing?”

Hunter's smile faded. “She okay today?”

“Rilla says she's doing fine; she's just not the same Ever she met months ago,” said Cross with a shrug. “But then, we all know why.”

His throat clogged with Cross's words. “I can't fix it for her, Cross. She won't let me.”

He turned and began walking toward Jimmy's. They were quiet as they moved, and Hunter didn't spare a glance around as they entered the bar.

When they sat down at a table, Hunter raised a hand to the bartender to indicate that he wanted a beer, and the bartender nodded briskly.

“What the hell are you doing here?” asked Cross seriously.

“Having a beer?”

“I don't mean literally here, smart-ass,” said Cross. He ran a hand through his wild, dark hair. “I mean here in your life without Ev? She's it for you, man. Stop wasting time. Go get her.”

“Shut the fuck up, Cross. This shit is hard enough without you telling me stuff like that. I can't go get her; she's her own person. She doesn't want me.”

The pain expanded until it was spreading into his limbs with a burn that only affected him when he thought about her. He received an update each day from Cross, who managed to get a report from Rilla, but it still hurt like there was poison spreading through his veins—the slowest-working poison in the universe—killing him slowly.

“I don't want to talk about it,” he growled.

“You haven't even told her that Sam is texting you again,” said Cross quickly before dropping his eyes to his beer. “That's all I'm saying.”

He hadn't told Ever about Sam. That was true. Would it make a difference? He knew she was drowning in the guilt of what they'd done and how it had hurt Sam. But now that she knew Sam was moving on with his life and that he'd forgiven them, would it matter to Ever? Would it give him a chance at getting her back?

God, he wanted her back more than anything he could possibly imagine. He wanted it so much he woke up at night imagining she was there in his arms like the single night in his life he'd gotten to spend with her. That night was imprinted in his memory forever, and it haunted him.

He stood up so abruptly his beer knocked over and spilled into Cross's lap. Cross jumped up, cursing loudly.

“Sorry,” said Hunter quickly, throwing a bill onto the table. “I gotta go.”

“I have cancer,” announced Lacey one evening as they were closing up the bakery.

Announced it, like she was announcing that there was a storm headed their way, or that the Hokies had just won the national title.

“What?” asked Ever, certain she'd heard the older woman incorrectly. She thought Lacey had just informed her that she had a deadly disease.

“You heard me, girl,” said Lacey, wiping out the big oven. “I have cancer.”

Ever's hands stilled over the countertop she was wiping, and her eyes instantly filled with moisture as she stared at Lacey's back. Her breath hitched and she raised a shaky hand to her face to brush away a pesky strand of hair.

Lacey stood up, turned around, and saw that Ever's face had turned pale and that her limbs were trembling.

“Oh, now don't start thinkin' I'm dying on you, cuz I ain't,” said Lacey soothingly as she rushed to Ever's side.

Lacey's hand rubbed a slow circle over Ever's back, and all Ever could think was that the crazy cake lady was comforting
her.

“Lacey, when did you find out?” she said weakly.

“Two weeks ago. It's stage-two lymphoma, so we can fight it. But I need to start aggressive treatment right away, and that means I have to let go of all of this.” She gestured grandly around the bakery.

“You're selling the bakery?” asked Ever in horror. “No, Lacey—you can't do that! I can just work it for you until you're better. This place is your baby. You can't sell it.”

A stubborn determination settled over Ever as she stared at Lacey. There was no way she was letting her give up the thing she loved most. No way in hell.

“I'm not selling it. I'm giving it to the only person in my life I know could do it justice. I'm giving it to the person who has always felt like a daughter to me. I'm giving it to you.”

Now Ever's legs did give out, and she sat down hard on the tiled floor. She closed her eyes and stuck her head between her legs. When she finally looked up again, Lacey was grinning at her.

“I can't let you do that,” she said quietly. “No, Lacey.”

“It's already done,” said Lacey with a wave of her hand. “Had the paperwork filed last week. It's done, and you own the place, and you better not get rid of those coconut clusters everyone loves so much just because your boyfriend hates them.”

She reached out and squeezed Lacey to her. “I'm going to be there for every step of your treatment, Lacey. I promise. Whatever you need. And this place? I'd be honored to own it. Holy crap—I can't believe I own a bakery!”

Then it dawned on her, what Lacey had said. “What boyfriend?”

“Hunter Waters,” said Lacey carefully.

“Lacey…what? I haven't spoken to Hunter in months. That ship has sailed. After what went down with Sam…I just…”

She'd given Hunter up, for his own good. It was the right thing to do. She'd come between the brothers, and she had to step away so that one day they could repair their relationship. As much as it hurt—and her chest was ripping open a little more every day—it was what was right.

Ever was well aware that she had some healing of her own to do. After she left Nelson Island, she'd recalled that for her entire life, one or both of the Waters brothers was standing right beside her, holding her hand. It had been time for her to stand on her own for a while.

Lacey shook her head vigorously. “You'll learn, little girl. Life is too short for that nonsense. Didn't you just have a nice long conversation with Sam this week about forgiveness? He's happy down there in South Carolina. Deliriously happy. He found his nirvana. It's time for you to go get yours.”

Ever shook her head slowly, staring at Lacey. “You don't think it would be wrong? Me and Hunter, I mean?”

“Enough time has passed, Ever,” said Lacey gently. “Hearts have healed. All the hearts except yours and Hunter's. Because you both need each other.”

She was right, of course. More right than Ever had allowed herself to admit.

A series of images began flitting through Ever's head, like the last six months of her life reeling through her consciousness in pictures.

Hunter, standing next to her in the woods after Sam left. The first staring contest they had. Hunter, the way he looked as he hovered above her.

“Thanks, Lacey,” she said, squeezing the woman to her side again and standing up.

Lacey patted her shoulder. “I need you to close up tonight. I've got a doctor's appointment to get to. I meant it when I said I'm getting ahead of this thing. You gonna be okay?”

Ever nodded, worrying her lip while she studied Lacey. “Anything you need, Lacey. I'm here for you.”

Lacey gathered up her things and sent Ever a beaming smile before leaving the bakery. Ever leaned against the counter, thinking about all the revelations the day had brought her. She hadn't been expecting any of it. Not Lacey's shocking news, not her epiphany about Hunter.

Hunter.

What if it was too late? What if he'd moved on while she was getting herself together? What if…

Rilla walked in the door, snapping her out of her reverie. “Came to get a cupcake. I swear I've gained ten pounds since I moved here. You and your damn cupcakes.”

Ever smiled at the girl who'd quickly become her best friend. “At least your ass is happy.”

Rilla's mouth dropped open and Ever laughed. It faded away as her thoughts turned to a place they hadn't been for a long, long time.

“Hey,” said Rilla with a concerned frown. “You okay? Where'd you go?”

“Hey, Rilla,” said Ever suddenly. “Will you come somewhere with me tomorrow morning?”

Tomorrow morning was one of the days the bakery was closed. She could do what she needed to do without having to worry about getting to work. And after what she needed to do, she'd never make it through a day of baking.

“Sure.” Rilla nodded her head slowly, staring thoughtfully at Ever. “I can close the shop for a few hours. What are we doing?”

“I'll pick you up. Breakfast will be on me.”