Page 136 of Never Quiet

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kjell.”

* * *

From a dilapidated warehouse that ran alongside the bridge, Hayden and Noel watched the scene. Noel interpreted the conversation through binoculars. Hayden removed his cell phone and dialed his older brother’s number.

Harper picked up on the first ring. “Are you alright?”

“Fine. I need you to buy a piece of property. Deed it to Amanda for a homeless supply shelter and let’s stock it.”

“Where is it?”

“An old warehouse near the largest accumulation of homeless people within the boundaries of Boulder.”

“Is she...there now?”

“Amanda and her entire staff brought several trucks offering showers, haircuts, clothes, clean needles, and food.”

There was a long pause. “She’s in disguise?”

Hayden laughed. “As much as she can be. She doesn’t know Noel and I are here.”

“Give me the address and a day to get it done.”

Disconnecting, Hayden switched to the gallery on his cell.

There were fewer than forty images on his phone. All but two of them were of Amanda.

One was of Callileah, saved from her Facebook profile – the daughter he didn’t know he had. Another was of her mother – a woman who’d been thrust back into his world after the happiest year of his life.

He stared at the photo of Isabella. She was a beautiful woman who’d endured hell for the boy she loved.

She didn’t know the man he became.

They’d tried to find their way back to a love they once shared but...he never wanted to be who he’d been all those years ago again. As Amanda had asked him to do, he tried.

He talked to Izzy about some of the things in his past, why he became a junkie and why he never felt worthy of giving or receiving love.

Being with her, as much as he’d imagined it for two decades, was painful. It reminded him of everything he’d done wrong.

All the mistakes he’d made.

All the time he’d wasted.

They fought constantly for months.

She couldn’t forgive him for not overcoming his addiction, his pain, years before, and for not knowing she needed his help to slay a dragon.

He couldn’t forgive her for expecting him to.

Swiping through his gallery, he stared at a photo of him with Amanda. It was taken in her bed.

It was the only image ever taken with a woman in such a scenario. Of all the lovers he’d had by the age of forty, no one had ever captured his image in a moment of vulnerability. They hadn’t wanted to and he wouldn’t have allowed it.

He stared at Amanda’s smiling face where she laid beside him. Before she took it, she told him, “I want a picture of this moment. Lying here with you, happy and in love.” Tugging her lip between her teeth, she whispered, “So I always know it was real.”

It was real.

Simply seeing her made his heart ache. Even eight months after she left his arms to give him what she thought he needed.

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