Never Stopped Loving You (9 page)

Kara wasn’t sure about that, but then she couldn’t dismiss how Whitney and Brandon had spoken to one another. Whitney typically reserved brash speech for private to maintain that Chester name like Mr. Chester had always preached about. Remembering how she’d talked to Bartender Brandon in the middle of a packed bar, though? Curious. Kara smiled. “Sounds like a liar to me.”

Whitney shook her head. “No. It’s the truth.” She pointed with a shaky hand. “And you’re my friend. You can’t take sides with her.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire!” Tasha yelled. “And she’s my friend too.”

“You just met her. I’ve known her forever so I have friendship dibs.”

“But she’s smart and already took my side, so she’s my friend too. And you can’t call friendship dibs.”

Whitney sipped. “Yes, you can, it’s like calling shotgun on the run to the car.”

Kara eased closer, wanting back in. Wanted to be a part of girls’ night again and have the fun she and Whitney had. Would it be too much to hope for that she’d be let in with open arms or should she expect an awkward adjustment? She waved her hand about. “There’s plenty of me to go around. But what happened when you asked him for coffee?”

Whitney leaned back against the couch. “I asked him if he wanted to grab coffee the next morning. He said no. I said okay. Maybe some other time. And he said maybe. And I said let me know. And he said I will. And that’s it. That was...” She glanced to Tasha. “When the hell was that anyway?”

Tasha’s lips twisted in thought and Kara felt another tug in her stomach. Whitney had never kept up with dates and time. Kara had always been the one Whitney had looked to for those kinds of answers. So screwed up. She’d screwed up so much, but no more.

Tasha’s lips pursed and fidgeted with thought. “I think it was four months ago. Maybe?”

“I was wearing a heavy coat.” Whitney tapped her glass to her lips. “So had to be at least January.”

“Three to four months then.”

Whitney’s gaze landed back on hers. “So you see. Months ago and nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a mention of it.”

Kara bit her lip. From those few seconds in the bar, though, there was no denying the chemistry. “I’m sure he has a good reason.”

“Yeah. It’s called he doesn’t like-like me. He just likes me for my five-dollar bills paying for drinks and getting change to leave tips.”

There was a lot of staring into drinks at that. The alcohol was settling in their stomachs. The pull and lull of its heady effects sucking the women into relaxation and comfort. Tasha’s empty glass slipped in her hands as she settled against the leather recliner. Kara put her still-full glass aside and moved to take Tasha’s drink.

She stirred only a bit and Kara dropped a throw blanket across her lap.

Whitney was still awake on the couch, watching her, but her eyes were growing heavy too. “Why aren’t you drunk?”

“I didn’t have as much as you two. Since I was baking.”

She nodded. “What happened at the bar?”

“Wade saw me talking to John outside and didn’t like it.”

She winced. “Probably not.”

Understatement of the year, but Whitney looked to be waiting for an answer. Kara filled the air with the first thing she could think of. “Definitely not.”

All true. There was no probably about it. Not even a little bit. She glanced up, out the window to the light glowing in the barn and knew it had to be done. “I have to talk to Wade. Tonight. To explain.”

Whitney slouched, kicked her shoes off and stretched across the couch. “Explain what?”

Kara settled in at the other end of the couch, Whitney’s feet in her lap. “About everything he thinks about me. He’s got it all wrong. I thought everything would be fine if he never knew, but running from it has caused more problems. Especially now that I’m home.”

“I’m way too drunk to understand what you said. Remind me to ask you tomorrow to repeat that.” Whitney smiled. “But I like the sound of you saying you’re home. You are home. This is your home. Never should have left.”

“Just add it to the list.” She pulled a blanket off the stack from beside the couch and blinked back the tears filling her eyes.

“What list?”

“My list of mistakes.” She flipped the blanket out and covered Whitney.

“I don’t think you made a bunch of mistakes. Maybe a select few moments of poor judgment. It happens.”

She laughed. “Dropping you like I did is one of my biggest regrets, Whitney. I hope one day you can forgive me. We were eighteen. Just out of high school and we had so many plans for that summer. I blew them all.”

Whitney’s eyes were dropping. “Why’d you go?”

“Because I realized what was happening and I didn’t know how to stop it.” What she’d thought was fun and games had been real and humiliating.

“I wish you would have talked to me and we could have figured out something.”

“I wish I had too.” She patted her friend’s leg. “But I was scared. Running away seemed for the best.”

A small smile lifted Whitney’s sleepy face. “We’re going to be okay, Kara.”

“That’s what I want the most.”

“People in town are going to be assholes, but they won’t say anything to me more than once, I can promise you that.”

Tears clouded her vision. “Thanks, Whitney. That means a lot.”

“You were eighteen, Kara. If half the people in this town were held accountable for things they did at that age, they’d be in a heap of trouble. Including a couple snotty folks who got married and six months later had a miracle preemie eight-pound “healthy” baby. Tate might shit his pants, but I don’t have a problem reminding judgy people of their pasts.”

Kara squeezed her friend’s leg. “It might take work, but I’ll win Tate over eventually.”

Whitney’s eyes were drifting closed. “Fully expect you to. Always thought you could do anything you put your mind to.” She sighed and snuggled against a pillow. “Always wanted to be like you, was a little jealous when you got to break free. I wished you’d taken me with you.”

Kara stood up and stepped back as Whitney was dragged under the fog of her alcohol-soaked mind and sleepy body. Kara swiped tears off her cheeks and tucked the blanket around her friend. Kara was going to be okay. She didn’t hope for it anymore. With Whitney by her side, she knew it was going to be true. With time, she was going to be okay and the release of pressure off her heart was unimaginable. Such a strong grip that’d held her for so long let go like a first breath of the sweet cake scenting the house.

She pulled open the oven door and found the cake lifted, browned over and fluffy-looking. She pulled it out and let it cool for a bit while picking up her mess. The dishwasher was empty, so she tossed everything in. The top of the cake was only a little warm to the touch, so she turned it out on a plate, covered it and shut down the kitchen.

Kara grabbed the small trash cans out of each bathroom and set them by each woman, just in case they were needed come daylight. Not figuring a thing had been moved, she returned to the bathroom around the corner and opened the cabinet for the bottle of painkillers. She dumped four pills in her hand and returned downstairs, snatching a couple bottles of water along the way.

She put the pills on a napkin in the middle of the coffee table. Broke the seal on both the waters so they wouldn’t struggle come morning and slipped out the front.

The spinning whiz of a saw buzzed from the barn and pulled her that way. Kara closed her eyes, inhaled the breeze of Chester Farms. It was a scent unlike any other she’d ever found. All farms should smell the same.

They didn’t. Ripened berries were in the air. The summer warmth and this place. A homey, country air. She released the breath and started the walk of doom to the barn. The large front doors were parted. A sliver of light peeked through, highlighting a long, narrow sheen of bright white across the grass.

The whine of the saw returned, another board was cut and the smacking of timber being stacked quickly followed. She slipped in the old barn and lost her breath for a moment. The once-cluttered place was bare from wall to wall. Concrete now covered the former dirt floor. The interior walls that were once raw wood, the same as the outside, were now Sheetrock. The rafters overhead that had often sported layers of dust and spiderwebs were cleaned. The center of the room was open with a large light hanging low from the center rafter. The hay loft at the back of the barn now had handrails across the front, and a set of steps so new the wood was yellow had been added along the wall instead of the old rickety ladder that had been there for so many years. A storage or tool room used to be tucked under the loft, but now half of it was walled off. A hallway was to the far left under the stairs. On the far right, a squared area left open.

The saw buzzed once more and she followed the sound deeper into the barn. Footsteps moved and she turned again and came within inches of smacking right into Tate. She jumped back and covered her chest. “You scared me.”

He looked down at her. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to him.”

“You need to leave him alone.”

The comfort Whitney just gave her was gone and its absence left her chest bleeding. She knew Wade was hurting too. He had also been a friend of hers a long time before they’d crossed the line and tried dating. Back before she ruined his friendship with John too. “Please, Tate. There’s so much y’all don’t know. Things he deserves to know. I know you don’t think much of me, but let me talk to him. I’m doing the right thing.”

He lifted a shoulder. “And then what?”

She rubbed the chill from her arms. “And then that’ll be it. After I’ve explained what happened tonight...and years ago, that’ll be it. He’ll understand a lot and then we can move on.”

“Together?”

The idea sent an instant wishful vision through her mind of the many dreams she’d had but knew wouldn’t happen. Anything with Wade was a risk to having a home and her life back. “I hope as friends.”

“And then move on with John.”

She blinked off the tightness in her throat. “No. Tonight was...not what it looked like. John and Wade both need explanations from me. After I’ve explained, that’ll be it. I can’t handle more, Tate. I can’t. It was hard as hell coming back to this town and the last thing I want to do is make the same mistakes.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, still blocking her path. “What are you hoping from here?”

Even as she tried holding back the tears, she couldn’t stop the dribble itching her nose and making her sniff. “To find the home I used to have. That’s it.”

“Look,” he sighed and then stroked a hand over his face. “He cares for you, that’s all.”

She nodded. That’s because Wade was a good man and worried about her. Tate stepped aside and headed toward the front of the building, leaving the hallway open for her to take the hardest walk of her life. Temporary lighting hung from the corners and illuminated her way until she rounded a turn and found Wade.

He wore clear safety goggles. The ends of the black strap holding them to his head stuck out to the sides. He wore a simple white T-shirt, but it was coated in sawdust. His bare arms as well. His dark hair dusted too. She curled her hands into fists, trying to squeeze out the desire to brush all that off him.

His jeans were slouched across the front of him, but snug through the legs and hips. A peek under the table revealed his long legs and his sturdy, wide stance as he worked.

Wade was always a worker. As a teen, she’d known everything when it came to Wade. Could tell you anything about the boy, but she’d been blind to his feelings. His emotions and heart.

She waited as he cut the board before speaking, not wanting to risk him cutting off his hand in surprise. That would be one mistake she really didn’t need. The board eased through the spinning blade smoothly until clearing it all the way out. The power behind the blade slowed and the engine whine stopped.

He lifted the boards and put them in their respective stacks. He never looked up, but continued with his work. “What do you want?”

She started and moved farther in the room. “I didn’t know you saw me.”

He snorted, but it was humorless. “Come to say goodbye since you broke the rules?”

“No. I’m not leaving.”

“I warned you.” He pointed at her with another board. “This afternoon I warned you to stay away from him.”

“I can’t.”

He shook his head. “What does he have that you can’t stay away from? What makes him so special to you?”

She frowned at him. At the look of him with his hands flat on the table. His shoulders slouched. His complete loss. She wouldn’t look away. She would face Wade for this. “I owe him an apology. After that, it would shock the hell out of me if he ever spoke to me again.”

“That would shock me.” He grabbed another board, cut it and put it aside, breaking their stare. What was she supposed to do? Just jump in there? Announce she’d been so in love with him, she’d been blinded stupid by her actions? She grabbed an empty five-gallon bucket, turned it upside down in the middle of the room and sat on it. The thin edges were sharp and cutting against her legs through her cotton dress. Good. A reminder to keep her in reality because in the past she’d tended to enter fantasyland when it came to talking to Wade. Thoughts and dreams had always intruded until she was forced to nod and do her best to follow his body language to know when to laugh or only smile.

He spoke instead. “He really likes you, you know.”

She looked up. “No, he doesn’t.”

“That’s what he said.”

“When?”

“Tonight. After you walked off.” Wade leaned forward. His grip on the edges of the table saw was tight if his white knuckles were any indication. “Maybe if you hadn’t run away like you had—again—you’d know this already.”

She scrubbed her face, swiped her bangs back, pushing her hands all the way over the top of her head until her bangs flickered down in her face once again. “This is all your fault.”

Chapter Nine

Wade’s mouth dropped. The world
bullshit
was rolling across his tongue when Kara’s hands flipped up.

With a puff of air, she blew bangs from her face. “I mean, not
your fault
, your fault. But your fault.”

Like hell. After all this time, after all she’d put him through, she was trying this? He gripped the side of the table saw to keep himself from physically removing her from his property. At least not until his temper calmed down. “Find someone else to blame your stupid mistakes on because it wasn’t me.”

Her hands dropped in her lap. Head hung forward. All her hair flooded around her face to the point he couldn’t see her anymore. “I was fourteen and stopped by the house one day.”

He waited. That wasn’t any surprise. She’d stopped by the house it seemed every day until they’d broken up.

“You were in the kitchen. Eating.” Her head tipped back. All that hair fell away and revealed a smile while she stared upward. A small laugh tripped over her tongue. “You were always eating then, it seemed like.”

He looked away, not liking how his heart was slowing. That the pounding heat making him grip the table was loosening by the simple look of her. That warm color on her cheeks and brightness around her eyes as she remembered some moment. How his sudden heavy breathing was fogging his goggles. He ripped them off, tossed them on the table and focused on the fact that she dared to blame him for her fuckups in the past. “Do you have a point?”

The smile was gone. “Getting to it. That day it was a sandwich wrapped in a napkin. A Saturday morning. You’d played ball the day before and had been hit in the shoulder really hard. Worst hit you ever took.”

He touched his right shoulder. Remembering that hell of a hit. Bastard had bruised like a son of a bitch and took forever to go away.

She clasped her hands between her knees. “Your mom and dad were looking at your arm when I walked in.”

He remembered his parents. Not her. Mostly he just remembered the bruise and his parents worrying something serious was damaged. Thankfully, nothing was. Just a lot of soreness.

Kara looked up. But not at him. Up toward the ceiling of what would one day be his bedroom. Her eyes shifted around. A swallow moved down her throat. “You were, um...in a towel. It was tied really low on your waist.”

Her knees bounced as she talked. Fidgeted with her fingers. “I guess you’d just gotten out of a shower because your hair was damp too. I stared at you through the doorway from the hall.” She nodded. “For several minutes.”

She chewed at her lower lip, a habit it seemed she hadn’t left behind in all her running away. “I slipped away and upstairs to Whitney’s room, but I never forgot that day. Never forgot how you looked. And how I realized I no longer thought of you as Whitney’s annoying older brother.”

Weight crashed through his arms and they dropped to his sides.

She stood and paced. “I wasn’t planning to tell you all this, but after what happened with John, I really don’t have a choice because I think you deserve to know. So you understand.” She rubbed her hands together as if they were cold. “For years I watched you. Wanting something. I wasn’t sure. Later I figured out I wanted
you.
I watched the girlfriends come and go. Got jealous with each one. But it didn’t matter. I was just another sister to you. Until that one night.”

The night in the truck. When she’d picked him up after the game.

She sat again. Another small smile. Another laugh. This one nearly whispered. “You flicked up the corner of my hair. Told me you’d never noticed how soft it was before.”

He cleared his throat, remembering that night far too well. Could still recall the silkiness of her hair falling between his fingers. Unfortunately it was easy to remember the moments you regret the most.

“And there I was. Everything I wanted was coming to me.” The smile was gone again. “But after watching the...parade of girlfriends come through, I didn’t want to be one of them.”

He wanted to walk around the table saw to stand by her. He didn’t. She wasn’t his to comfort. She just looked so damn detached, empty and not at all like the Kara Duncan he knew.

“I should have realized that as your baby sister’s best friend, you wouldn’t have treated me that way. That I wouldn’t have been another girl you had. I mean, your parents would have run you through if you’d treated me that way. And then Whitney would have just shot you, I think.”

That was true, but not why she would have been different. She would have been different because she just was. She never caked on the makeup. Dressed in sexy clothes. She didn’t come on to him like other girls had. She didn’t flirt with him and ask him to buy her things because his family had money.

She was always plain and pure, sweet little innocent Kara Duncan, and, Christ, he still wanted her. So much had happened. And now this. Pounding started in his head. He should say something, but he didn’t know what to say. She was saying what he wanted to hear, but if what she said was true, then why had she pushed him away every chance she got?

She stood abruptly, walked a few paces and then laughed. The sound wasn’t sweet or soft. It came out empty, hollow and shaky. She didn’t direct her words at him, but merely to the room. “I thought I was so smart. Thought I had it all figured out.
I’m going to be different
, I’d thought. I’m going to play hard to get because I knew no other girl had been that way with you before.”

A knot settled in the pit of his belly and started eating through the lining. “Kara.”

She held her finger up at him. “No. No. You don’t get to talk. You need to know the whole thing or else we’ll never get past it.
I’ll
never get past it.”

“I’m not—”

“If you stop me, I won’t get to finish, and you deserve to let me finish so you know everything.” She shook her head and paced. The dress she wore swished around her thighs. It wasn’t too tight. Not baggy loose. Just right. Hugging without being revealing. Showing enough to see, not enough for a clear picture. Before she’d started with John, this was the Kara he’d fallen for. How a loose-fitting dress was damn sexy on her. “So we dated. You put your moves on me and I fought like hell to pretend... I don’t know—” her shoulders shrugged up to her ears, “—that I was amused? A little charmed? I tried anything and everything to keep from revealing that I was being completely swept away by you and any moment I was about to fall in your arms and be just another girl in your life.”

He knew what was coming next. He stared at his boots instead and resisted the idea of vomiting on them.

“And you broke up with me over it. Said that we shouldn’t have even tried it. It was crossing a line we never should have tried to cross. That we were friends. There was nothing there and no reason why we couldn’t just be friends again.” She clicked her tongue in her mouth, still talking to the room, not directly at him. “What’s a scorned eighteen-year-old to do? I’d spent my teen years saving myself for you. Waiting for you and passed up dates because I didn’t want to miss my chance that one day, Wade Chester might see me for someone else other than his baby sister’s friend. All I knew was how you’d made me feel. That every time I saw you with another girl, it burned me up inside until my nails were cutting into my palms. I couldn’t stop thinking about it I was so jealous. I wanted you to feel that.” She hung her hands off her neck and looked down. “So I went after John. He’d asked me out in the past and I wanted to give you a taste of how seeing me with someone else would feel. And when I dated him at the beginning, oh boy, it got your attention.”

He opened his mouth, but she shook her head.
Oh
,
fuck.
Not that she needed to explain the rest. He was getting it all loud and clear.

“You still don’t get to speak, because, yes, I know I sound completely crazy. And like a nutty stalker. You couldn’t tell that to me then. I
quickly
figured out that you breaking up with me was the best thing that ever happened to me.” She pulled in a heavy breath. “And the worst, because the more I dated John, the more you noticed me. My plan was working and I’d go to sleep at night with a big grin on my face. I chased John with the only purpose to try and hurt you and make you think about me.” Her voice shook through the empty and quiet room. Her back was to him now, but her words echoed loud and clear. “I was so blind and stupid. John was nothing but nice and polite. He deserved nothing I did to him. Nothing you did to him. And it was all my fault. I know John cared for me. He told me the last day I was here. That’s what we were arguing about when you grabbed him that night. He was trying to argue and prove that what we had was real and I was telling him it was just fun. While I was playing games, I’d toyed with his emotions and didn’t know it. I’d toyed with you and lost you. Whitney was gone from me because I was in so deep. So deep that I didn’t know what to do, so I left.”

“Kara.”

She shook her head instead and turned back so that she faced him. She looked different there. Not as broken, but her trembling caused the front of her dress to shake. One strong breeze and she would fall apart. “So yes, I did agree with you that I wouldn’t talk to John, but I have to because I have to straighten this all out with him. He thinks we had something special and we didn’t. He thinks that, crap, I don’t know, chemistry is still there and it’s not. When he danced with me tonight, whispered how much he’d missed me, all I could think about was how bad I wanted to be somewhere else.”

She turned her back to him again. The harsh breath she took cracked through his chest. He started toward her, but she turned again and he froze in his spot. She looked closed off to him. Her hands fell from across her waist to her thighs and fisted. “I can’t live with all this guilt anymore. I have to fix what I did to Whitney, how I dropped her with no warning. I’ll never forget the night when she called out to me from across the bar, wanting to talk for just a moment and I walked away. And I have a chance there. God only knows why she’s giving it to me, but I am going to take it. I also need to fix the friendship I ruthlessly destroyed between you and John. I don’t know if that’s repairable or not, but I’m damn well doing to try.”

“Kara, I—”

“Please don’t say anything.” Her eyes were full and she sniffed, but no tears fell and her shoulders rolled back, neck elongated and she straightened. “But please. You don’t have to worry about me screwing up your life anymore. I lost too much last time. All I want is to settle in my work, rebuild my friendship with Whitney.” She put her hands up, stopping him when he started around the table saw. Her fingers shook. She bounced on her toes, looking ready to flee at any moment. “Don’t talk to me. Let me do my work. I’ll let you do yours because I really can’t handle screwing up anything else in my life. I’ve done enough. Let me do what I do in peace, I’m begging you. I just want the home I used to have. I have nothing else. I’m not going to embarrass you or the Chester name.”

She fled the barn and he let her go. Because he had no idea what to say even if she let him speak. He flipped the power off to the saw, shut down the lights and worked his way through the front of the barn. He didn’t want to catch her, he just wanted to see her.

The moon was still overhead and he squinted across the grounds. Movement in her car caught his attention and he studied her. Half of him wanted to go there. Take her keys and pull her to the barn until they figured out something. The other half of him was stuck to the side of the barn he leaned against. Just completely blank. Dead to thoughts and actions.

The turn of her little engine cracked through the night and he stepped out the door as she drove away from him. Again. And again, he realized he didn’t have a say in it. He was really getting tired of that. Since they’d broken up, there’d been a lot of yelling. A lot of demanding. Not much calm talking.

He swallowed, trying to find a way to figure out this mess, and he doubted it would include calm talking. When it came to Kara Duncan, calm was never an option.