Page 118 of Tender Heart
He raises an eyebrow at me.
Okay, not my best word choice. But seeing him upset does something visceral to me.
I abandon the tomato bushes and close in on him, tugging my gardening gloves off. “Please, talk to me.”
He slams the tip of the shovel into the pile of fertilizer. Good lord, it reeks. If it wasn’t so amazing at growing the most delicious food, I wouldn’t support this stinky endeavor.
“You’re not telling me something,” he snaps.
I reel back, jerking my head like he slapped me.
It’s not because I disagree. It’s because by hiding this from him, I feel like I’m lying. Maybe I am. Did not telling Joshua contribute to his death? I guess I will never truly know.
But . . .
“That’s not true,” I hear myself say.
The same go-to answer every time. Avoidance. I’m great at it.
He’s in my space a heartbeat later. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Evie.”
I almost crumble under his scrutiny. But I don’t. The last thing I need is Callum hunting this guy down and getting hurt, or worse. God, I can’t even think about that without panicking.
“I am not. Is this really how you want to spend our last few days together?”
That takes him down a peg. His shoulders drop and he turns back to the shovel at his side.
“No, it isn’t. But . . .”
His throat works.
I touch his arm, desperate to eliminate the distance between us. “What? What is it?”
“Forget it,” he breathes.
Forget it.Just like that.
I guess he’s got a point. No argument we could have holds now. I’m leaving. Everything we could ever fight about is a moot point.
So I turn back to my beautiful crop of tomatoes, admiring all I have done here in nine months.
A yellow butterfly lands on a branch by my hand. Somehow, I have become fond of these pretty little yellow flutterbys.
A tiny, ever so minuscule ray of hope stings my senses.
Maybe one day I will come back.
If my heart can stand it.
Thirty-One
CALLUM
It seems we are both putting distance between us. Evie’s been holed up in the bedroom, working on the last pages of her novel, I assume. She rarely talks about it lately. And I don’t know the first thing about writing fiction to even ask. With the clipboard in one hand, I hold the old-school weather station’s slatted door open. I scan the gauges and take down the recordings. The summer sun, high in the sky, sears into my skin.
Wiping the sweat from my brow, I return my cap, pulling it down. The button-down work shirt I picked this morning sticks to my back, damp from only the smallest task. The days are getting hotter by the second. Another humid coastal summer to mark another year.
Gravel crunches behind me. I glance over my shoulder, hoping it’s her. Maybe she decided the distance is too much.
