Page 84 of Blindsided By You

As the last gentle notes reverberate like a sweet hum through the room, he lifts his hands and swings around, stretching out his long legs. One foot in a size eleven cowboy boot, the other, heavily strapped, peek from beneath his jeans. He draws me in to stand between them and, through the haze of tears, I smile down at my beautiful piano playing cowboy.

“It’s over Jenna.” His eyes sweep across my face. “I can’t do it anymore.”

My face crumples, while inside my heart disintegrates into a million tiny painful shards, as a rush of despair like I’ve never known before courses in my veins.

He takes my hand and I clamp my fingers around his, desperate to hold on to him. I can’t let him go—I need him like oxygen—but I don’t deserve him to stay, not after the shit I’ve put him through.

“Not the lying. Not the sneaking around,” he says. “There’s no going back.” He reaches up, tracing a thumb over my trembling lip. “I love you, Jen. All of you. The bits you show the world and the bits you don’t want anyone to see. I’ll take every one of them. Even the parts you think are hard and ugly, they’re beautiful to me, because they’re you.”

My grip tightens on his hand like a lifeline, my way back to who I used to be. I can still be that woman who faces the world with confidence, who does what needs to be done without letting it define who I really am—as a daughter, a friend, a lover. What others see doesn’t have to be all of who I am. What matters is who I am to those who know and love me.

This guy knows me.

This guy loves me.

Geordie rises to his feet a little shakily, placing one steadying hand on each of my arms, insistent fingers warming my bare skin. His eyes blaze with determination.

“We’ve got a chance to make something here, Jenna. Together. And I’m not hiding anymore. I can take whatever shit anyone wants to throw at us. And anyone who thinks we’re a bad idea? Fuck them. I know we’re not. I’m ready to fight for us. What I need to know is, are you?”

He searches my gaze, and I close my eyes, uncertainty flooding through me.

“I want to be,” I choke out. When it’s other people, I’m fearless; but when it comes to standing up for me, something inside me shrinks. I become small, timid even.

“Come on, sweetheart, you know you are. A woman who has Wonder Woman on her wall can take on anything and anyone.” He gives my hand a playful tug, and despite my tears, my lips curve upward.

“And you have one superpower she doesn’t.” He looks into my eyes, his soft blue gaze calm, yet intense. “You’ve got me loving you. For as long as you’ll let me.”

Epilogue

JENNA

“There,alldone.”Skylarplaces the folder in the filing cabinet and turns to me with a smile. It’s not her old high-beam blast, but it is a smile, and I feel a flush of guarded relief. My gentle coaxing her back to work seems to have paid off, giving her a way to fill her days. While the life she had mapped out for herself has been irrevocably changed by Brandon’s death, she’s started to see it’s still there waiting for her. She’s doing well, only her third day back, but each day brings small victories—she talks more, moves with growing confidence, no longer the silent shadow of a girl who could barely stand unsupported at the funeral.

“Thanks, Skylar,” I say. “And you did that one all on your own.”

There it is again, a second smile, this one tinged with pride at my praise. An unexpected urge to hug her surges through me, an impulse that seems to be ambushing me more often lately, but I resist. I’m still not much of a hugger, so that would be weird. Although strangely, this past six weeks, I’ve learned to accept them with barely a flutter of my old awkwardness, my angular shoulders and elbows relaxed, welcoming even when someone closes in on my unsuspecting body.

“That’s me, then,” she says, gathering her things. “Come on, little buddy.”

Andy stands instantly, ears perked forward, ready to follow. While still snoring away most of the day in his doughnut-shaped bed under my desk, he snaps to awake the moment Skylar stirs, tracking her every movement from under his shaggy black brows. He trots after her as she heads for her mother’s car parked out front of the summerhouse, and leaps in, claiming his spot in the passenger’s seat, ready to go home.

Andy’s been Skylar’s since the day I placed him in her lap on that awful morning. Strangely, I miss him a little sometimes, but he’s where he should be, needs to be. It’s fitting that the grieving girl and the dog who I know mourned Mum in his own way, have found comfort in each other.

I’m just closing my laptop, when an unearthly rumble, like distant thunder, rolls through the air, even though the cloud cover today is the usual grey sheet of late autumn stretching across the Cluanie sky, not the towering thunderheads preceding a storm. I stand and peer out into the gloom, my wool blazer pulled tight against the chill, and my mouth falls open.

A hulking beast of an American muscle car sits parked out front—the kind Geordie drools over in magazines scattered throughout what was once my bedroom and is now decidedly ours. Its dark charcoal finish gleams almost black in the dusk. The engine growls with a deep throaty burble before falling silent. The door swings open and Geordie climbs out. Even in the dimming light, I catch the proud smirk on his face as I appear at the door of the summerhouse. He’s been gone all day and now I know why.

“What the hell is that?” I ask as he wanders towards me with his casual loping walk, long legs in jeans, cowboy boots peeking from beneath. The determined bugger has proved the doctors wrong, dedicating himself to rehab, and now there’s not a hint of a limp as he strolls across the terrace.

Today was the day of the doctor’s verdict. I’d expected to hear from Geordie, checking my phone repeatedly, but there hadn’t been a call or text. I have to admit, I was starting to worry. It’s stupid, I know, but I can’t help the fear that although we’re together now, the universe will take against us, snatching Geordie away from me, a punishment for squandering the time it gave us through my weeks of doubt.

He’s here now, and something in the way he carries himself, shoulders back and head high, tells me it’s not just this spectacular car that’s put him in such a cheerful mood.

“Your carriage awaits, m’lady” he says with a little bow and a flourish of his hand, an unlikely fawning courtier in his plaid shirt. “I’m cleared, so I’m off to practice. You’re coming too, right?”

“That’s great,” I say, the words falling far short of the kaleidoscope of emotions spinning through me. Elation tangles with relief.

Geordie would have been gutted if they’d denied him clearance to play again this season. After all those hours of physio, all that time in the gym rebuilding his ankle strength, watching from the sidelines would have crushed him. Especially with finals next weekend.

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