Page 26 of Love Restored

7

Graham needed to bang his head against a wall, but that wasn’t about to happen right then. Everything had gone to shit with just one knock on the door, and he wasn’t sure what he was going to do about it now.

Candice was now in his living room—he’d relented and let her in after closing the door on her earlier—and Blake had walked out of his life.

What the hell had just happened?

“Who was that?” Candice asked.

He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. He didn’t have time for this, and frankly, hadn’t had time years before when Candice had been standing in his other home. The home they’d once shared together. They’d sold that place during the divorce—memories too deep, too painful for either of them to keep it.

“Don’t do that. Don’t be the shrill ex-wife. It doesn’t flatter either of us.”

“I’m not shrill.”

“The fact you have to defend being shrill or not proves the point.”

Candice let out a huff of breath. “No, it doesn’t. And calling each other names isn’t going to help the situation.”

He whirled on her. “And what is the situation? You come here out of nowhere, during a month that I truly don’t want to see your face, and act like you’re entitled to be here.”

“We were in love. We were married. We had a daughter.”

“All in past tense, Candice.”

Her eyes widened, and his stomach revolted. He hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t meant to even think it.

“Fuck. I didn’t mean… Fuck! I miss Cynthia every day and every minute I breathe. She is part of every fucking thing I do, Candice. And the fact that I feel that way, and the fact that until recently you decided to try and forget her, doesn’t mean you have a right to be here. Don’t look at me like that; you tossed her shit in a box because it made you cry. What about me? Huh? What if I wanted to see her face when I woke up in the morning in that damn picture? I didn’t have my kid, but I damn well wanted to see her face in any way I could. We grieved differently, and it broke us. You left, Candice. Why couldn’t you stay gone?”

His chest heaved after he’d finished, his heart racing, his lungs aching. She just stared at him, tears in her eyes, as if he’d hit her. And he hadn’t, damn it. He’d never laid a hand on the woman who had broken him further when he’d thought he was already far more than broken. She’d walked away just as he had because there had been nothing left between them. They’d fallen out of love, and hadn’t even liked each other in the end. Though the divorce had been wanted on both sides and not contested, it still burned that he’d lost that part of his life when he’d lost Cynthia.

He closed his eyes at the thought of his daughter’s name. He’d lost his baby girl, and still didn’t know how to talk about it. His brothers didn’t mention her; neither did the friends who had been with him back then. It didn’t seem fair to the child he’d lost that he wouldn’t even mention her in passing, but he thought about her. Daily. He thought about how old she’d be now, what she’d be learning in school, what sport she’d play if she felt like it. He’d wanted her to reach her teens so they could fight like every other parent and child he knew. He wanted to see her grow up and find her independence as it clashed with his need to parent. He wanted to stay up late, watching the clock as he waited for his daughter to come home after hanging out with her friends, or hell, from her first date.

He wanted to walk her down the aisle and give her away to someone who would never be good enough but would be perfect for her anyway.

Because that’s what fathers did.

And he’d never have that chance. Never have another breath of fresh air next to the daughter he loved with all of his heart. With a twist of fate, he’d lost his baby girl, and part of his soul with her.

He and Candice hadn’t been strong enough to weather the storm together, and he’d be damned if he spent the anniversary of Cynthia’s death dealing with the one woman he never wanted to see again.

“You need to go, Candice,” he said after a few moments of silence. She hadn’t said anything back to him after he’d yelled, after he’d told her he wanted nothing to do with her.

Because she truly hadn’t changed since she’d left. She didn’t like dealing with the hard things, and instead, would hide behind tears and incriminating silences until someone took care of her. He’d never actually faulted her for that because, frankly, sometimes he wanted to do that, as well. But he wasn’t going to deal with her anymore.

That chapter of their lives was over because God had decided that Graham didn’t need a child anymore. Candice was just going to have to deal with it.

“I think I should stay,” his ex-wife said after a moment. “I don’t think you should be alone this month.”

He whirled on her but did his best to keep his anger in check. “I’m not alone. I have my brothers, and hell, the entire Montgomery clan if I snap my fingers. They are here for me without an agenda, without a need to comfort them when I want to crawl up the walls.” He sighed and moved toward her.

Her eyes widened, wet from her tears. Her face had gone pale except in the cheeks where she’d reddened from crying.

When he stood right in front of her, not touching, and with no real need to move any closer, he looked into her eyes and shook his head.

“You can’t stay here, Candice. And, honey, you don’t want to. Don’t you get that? Being here won’t help you grieve, won’t help you do what you need to in order to heal. It didn’t work when we were married and falling apart, and it won’t work now. Go to your friends, to your parents. Be with them, because being with me didn’t work for you before and it’s not going to work now.”

She shook her head. “You don’t know that.”

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