Page 110 of Training the Heart

Ivy moves further away from me and stands staring out thewindow. For a long moment it’s just silent, and I am still standing here with no fucking idea what is going on.

“I just … Wade, I’m not myself right now. I think maybe I’m going to sleep at my own cabin tonight. I need … a night … to clear my head, to just think, everything is happening so fast and I don’t know what the future holds … my job, how that’s going to look now …”

I look up and breathe for just a moment, panic rising in my gut.

“Ivy. You have a job here, for as long as you want, I told you that today.” I sound like I’m pleading because I am. Pleading for the future that’s right at my fingertips.

“Don’t leave,” I beg.

She turns to face me and I can see it in her, her fight with whatever she’s struggling with, her own internal battle, whatever’s living in her mind.

“I’m not upset with you, Wade. I just … don’t know what’s to come. I just need to sleep. Maybe things will look more clear to me in the morning.”

She moves to grab her purse and her jacket. I feel like I’m watching in slow motion. I want to stop her, I want to grab her and tell her she isn’t going anywhere, but another part of me says to let her go, to give her the space she needs to calm down, to realize she’s talking batshit fucking crazy right now, thinking I’d ever go back to Janelle or anyone else for that matter.

Before she opens the door, she looks up at me. “This isn’t your fault, Wade. It’s mine. I let things get too messy, we work together, this whole thing is just so … complicated now, maybe too complicated.”

My mouth falls slack.What the fuck is she saying?

“You can’t possibly think that, Ivy,” I say as I grab her arm to get one more second with her.

She looks down where my hand holds her then back up to my eyes.

“Don’t tell me what I think, Wade. I had five years of a man telling me what I think.”

It’s those words that make me let go and watch her walk out my cabin door, because if there’s one thing Icanshow her, it’s that I’m fucking nothing like the man she was with before.

I’m pacing.

Fuck.Pacing and drinking … and pacing some more. By midnight, I’ve gone over all of this a million times and I can’t fucking figure out for the life of me what happened today between Ivy and Janelle that got Ivy so spooked. She knows how I feel, she knows the last thing on earth I’d ever do is leave her to go back to Janelle. I’d rather fucking sleep on the barn floor naked for the rest of my life than sleep in Janelle’s bed.

I run a hand through my hair as I walk outside to my front porch, holding a half-empty bottle of bourbon because everything in my goddamn house reminds me of her. It’s cold outside but the fresh air feels good as I stand and stare two hundred feet down the path at Ivy’s dark cabin. I let every encounter I’ve had with her register with me. Everything she’s ever told me runs through my mind as the burn of my bourbon slides down my throat.

How she’s never been able to rely on anyone, how it’s only ever been her against the world. How everyone she’s ever loved has let her down or left her in some way.

And then it hits me like a fucking bolt of lightning—she’s pushing me away before I can let her down, this is all too real toher. The fact that we’re happy. Really fucking happy. My words this morning and now that Sam isn’t coming back, it’s even more real for her. She could have it all, but she’s trainedherself. To think she doesn’t deserve it.

I knock back the rest of my bourbon as I realize just whatmyjob is.

To show her how fucking worthy she is of all of it. To show her that when she needs me most I’m going to be there, right there with her, every goddamn second, telling her it will be okay. Even when she’s too vulnerable and afraid to tell me she needs me.

A light flickers on in her cabin, letting me know she’s still awake, and before I even realize what I’m doing I’m moving down my porch steps in my t-shirt, not even bothering with a coat, as fast as my legs will carry me to her.

I make it to her cabin in less than thirty seconds. I’m just raising my hand to knock, but before I can the door swings open. Ivy’s standing before me, her eyes are puffy, there’s a tissue in her hand, shoes on her feet. I planned what I would say but when I look at her now, ready to come to me, so fucking beautiful it hurts, all I can manage is, “Baby … fuck.”

I move into her cabin and pull her small frame into my arms. She doesn’t fight me, she clings to me, fisting the back of my shirt.

Her voice is quiet against my chest. “I’m so sorry, Wade. I know you would never want … I know you love me. I’m just really scared.”

I kiss her head, her face, her arms wrapped up around my neck, any part of her I can get my lips on, and I just breathe her in. I take a moment to brush her hair off her tear-stained face and cradle her cheeks in my hands. I kiss her lips.

“Ivy, I can’t even spend four hours away from you. I don’t know what you’re scared of, I know something is going on in thatmind, but all of that can happen while I’m sleeping beside you. Because fuck, I never want to go one night without you.”

I pull her in again and whisper in her hair, her sweet sugar-scented hair, the hair I love so much.

“This. Us. This isn’t like anything either of us have ever had before. You can take as long as you need, sweetheart, and when you’re ready to talk about whatever this is, I’ll be here, waiting, every fucking time.”

She pulls her face back and looks up into my eyes for a split second.

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