Page 68 of Shades of You

His face was completely inscrutable as he stared at me. I swallowed, thinking I might have just made a big mistake. Maybe this woman was something he couldn’t talk about. “Hunter, if you can’t talk about her, tell me. There is such depth to you, and I have a strong feeling she’s part of it. But I don’t want to push too hard.”

Hunter scrubbed both hands over his beard, the gesture one of defeat. “I’m not ready to talk about her. Not yet. Look, I need to go. I can’t do this right now.” He turned on his heel with military precision and headed toward the back door, each step carrying him farther from me. From us.

“Where are you going?” The question was weak and feeble, even to my own ears.

“Somewhere I can breathe,” he said, the door closing behind him with an ominous click.

Left alone, I wrapped my arms around myself as if they could hold together the pieces of my heart, which had just splintered. My shop seemed emptier and smaller without Hunter in it. The silence echoed around me, yet our words still hung in the air, their sharp edges cutting through my thoughts.

I picked up a discarded book from the table near the front door, its pages worn and dog-eared. It was an old copyof Romeo and Juliet. My fingers traced over the faded cover as I thought about our own star-crossed predicament.

As I flipped open the book randomly, a bitter laugh escaped my lips. My eyes had landed on Juliet’s famous line: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Would it? Would Hunter be any less a Markham if he bore another name? And would I be any less a Coleridge? I resisted the urge to hurl the book across the room. Was there even room for us amidst all this chaos?

Hunter said he needed space to breathe. Maybe I needed that too—to step back and look at everything from afar. Maybe we both needed time to figure things out separately before trying to piece them together.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I stared blankly at the deserted area around me—the place where our story had begun again. Now, it was a stark reminder of the gaping chasm between us. I stared at the two lovers on the cover of the book. Were Hunter and I destined to stay divided like some modern-day Romeo and Juliet? Unlike them, we still had a chance to change our ending—to write our own story.

But would we let history dictate our fate instead?

Chapter Thirty-Two

Hunter

Crouched low,the hem of my pants brushed against the grass as I punched the catcher’s mitt on my left hand. The Big House stood sentinel in the background, its windows reflecting the light as the sun looked down upon us. And sixty feet, six inches away from me, Evan wound up for another pitch.

The argument with Brenna hung over me like a thunderhead. After I’d stomped out of the bookshop, I called Myles and had him take over the security system installation I’d scheduled. Instead, I sat in my car and watched the bookshop to make sure Knox didn’t return. I was pretty confident the guy was gone for good—Knox was impulsive, not a planner. And he’d been clear-headed and utterly defeated when he’d left.

But I had to be sure.

No matter where things stood between Brenna and myself, I wasn’t going to let her come to harm. I was done failing. And being too late to make a difference. In the pastfew days, neither of us had reached out as we let our tumultuous relationship simmer. Which was why I was here throwing a baseball instead of trying to figure out if she and I were off for good. Because even if I’d screwed things up with her, there was still hope of fixing things with my brother.

I caught the ball with a satisfying smack, and the sting vibrated through my hand. But it couldn’t distract me. She’d completely floored me with that talk about my lost love. Where had that come from?

And how could I tell her thatshewas my lost love?

Especially now?

Because shit had gotten very complicated during that argument. And Brenna wasn’t the only one who was upset. So was I.

I’d woken up determined to hash it out with her one way or the other. After a brutal weight-lifting session, I’d been lying on my couch and stewing as I stroked Pedro, but coming to zero conclusions. When Evan had texted and asked if I could work with him, I couldn’t say no.

We had wrapped up hitting practice, where his coaching had sharpened my line drives substantially. Now he was working on his throwing. His next pitch was well off the plate, and I shifted and snatched my glove out to catch it before tossing it back to him.

“Sorry,” he called out. “That one got away from me. Good catch.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

Again, I focused on Evan, but I couldn’t shake Brenna’s angry, frustrated words echoing in my ears. The unresolved tension between us was an invisible barrier I wanted and needed to tear down. But Evan needed me too.

As he took a brief pause, tossing the ball up and down inhis hand, my eyes darted to my gear bag nestled against the vibrant bougainvillea hedge. The contents hidden inside, and the risk I was taking at last, made nerves knot in my stomach. Brenna’s words had rung of truth when she’d told me I had to deal with the whole Evan thing. He and I had come a long way, but he didn’t know the whole story about that dive.

Would it make a difference? I had no idea, but what was in my bag might tell me.

I’d become the bad boy who couldn’t escape his past, but with Brenna, I wanted to be something more. She was the bridge I needed to get there. But she was right—I couldn’t even get to that bridge without Evan.

“Another round?” I called out.

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