Page 96 of Love Me Gently

And what did I want?

I’d loved him once and broken his heart. I’d loved a monster and broken my own.

I wasn’t sure I had any idea what love was anymore, or how I could give that to someone else.

My phone rang, startling me and I set down a pot of water I was filling and made my way to the counter.

The screen flashed with Ashley’s name and I answered it. “Hello?”

“It’s half-priced bottles of wine at Max’s tonight. You’re coming with me to go see Heather.”

I glanced at the clock, the food all over the counter, and the half-filled pot of water I’d just started boiling. “I’m cooking dinner,” I said, and through the phone Ashley laughed at me.

“I didn’t mean right this very second, although with the day I’ve had I could use it. Heather’s heard you’re in town and mad she wasn’t invited over last week. You’re coming with me so she stops hounding me every five minutes to see you again.”

“Oh… I don’t… I’m not sure that’s smart right now.”

I wasn’t sure Cole would let me out of his sight. Not with Jonathan still threatening to make an appearance. And with the threat he’d told him about me, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go into town.

“Maybe you guys can come here? Tomorrow or something? Or next weekend?”

“No way. You need this. You’ve been hiding up there for weeks and Max’s is the safest place you can be. My parents will watch the kids so Robbie and Cole can come. Or his parents can watch mine there. But you’re doing this.”

“Ashely… I’m just not sure it’s smart.” We hadn’t heard from Jonathan all week and there’d been no sign of him. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing considering the only text I’d gotten from Valerie all week had said:Sit tight. Trust me.Cole hadn’t gotten much more information out of Kip, either.

As for me, Brock had driven me to a lawyer’s office in Boone so I could talk about filing for divorce. Since I wasn’t a resident of North Carolina, though, and the state’s divorce process was longer and more complicated than Georgia’s, I had it on my to-do list to find a Georgia attorney first thing Monday.

I wanted to make it clear to Jonathan I wasn’t returning home, ever, and I wanted that done as soon as possible so I could keep moving forward. Regardless, I knew that would upset him even more when he learned.

“What’s going to happen? It’s not like he can waltz into Max’s and take you out. Please. The entire bar would tackle him and then tear him apart piece by piece if he so much as laid a hand on you.”

“Lovely visual,” I muttered, and then turned on the water to finish filling the pot. “I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to Cole.”

“Perfect. We’ll see you at eight. I’ll let Robbie and him figure out the kid situation.”

The call went blank, and I gaped at my screen. That hadn’t been a yes at all, and I was sure Cole would see the problem with it, too. Shaking my head, I set down the phone and got back to work on dinner.

Heather had always been the wildest one, and Ashley had been the sweet one.

She’d grown bolder over the years. Feistier.

All around me people had changed, but all of them for the good, at least the ones I’d seen so far.

Maybe it was time I started doing the same.

“You want to go?”

That was Cole’s response to me telling him about Ashley’s phone call.

“I assumed you’d say it wasn’t safe,” I replied.

He glanced at his girls, sitting on opposite sides of the dining table from each other. They weredevouringmy stroganoff. It wasn’t that it surprised me, because I’d perfected this meal years ago and it was one of the few comfort, simple foods Jonathan allowed me to make instead of the fancier dishes he’d required me to.

“It’d be fine. If you want to go, we’ll go. If you don’t want to go, we don’t.”

“I don’t…are you sure?”

He rested his forearms on the table, and while his gaze was stormy, it was also warm. Patient. I imagine being looked at like that every day for the rest of my life, and my body heated. “It will never be my job or my place to tell you what you can and can’t do. It’s my job to keep you safe while you do it. You want to go, we’ll make that happen. We’ve got Kip’s mountain men with us and an entire town who knows us. Is it thesmartestthing to go and do? Probably not. Absolutely not, really, if you want my honest advice. But I can guarantee you’ll be safe while you do it. So if you want to go see Heather tonight, we’ll go see her.”

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