Page 40 of The Backdraft
EIGHTEEN
DARCY
The next morning, I woke to an empty bed. For a split second, my heart was light and unaffected, and then everything Archer told me last night came crashing down on my consciousness, making my heart ache with renewed vigor. I’m not sure when I fell asleep, or if I moved out of Archer’s arms before I did, but his side of the bed was now cold, and he was nowhere to be seen.
I dressed quickly, stopping in front of the mirror resting against the wall to notice a slight curve to my lower abdomen. It wasn’t much—no one else would probably notice—but it was something. The second I pulled my sweater on, though, it was as if it were nonexistent.
By the time I made it to the kitchen, the Thanksgiving preparations were already in full swing, with my mom—and Archer, of all people—at the center of it. He was dicing potatoes,his back to me, but my mom caught my eye, shooting me a wink as she walked to the fridge.
“Good morning,” I said, approaching the sink next to Archer.
He glanced down at me, a small smile on his face. “Good morning. How’d you sleep?”
“Like a rock, actually,” I said, then lowered my voice. “And you? Did you go back to sleep?”
Shrugging, he peeked over at me. “Not really, but I rested.” Sliding the freshly chopped potatoes into the enormous pot on the counter next to him, he lowered his voice slightly. “Probably had something to do with how hard you kicked me.”
Joking was a good sign, right?
“It was the best I could come up with on the spot,” I whispered defensively, before sobering slightly. “But really, how are you—”
“As much as I love seeing my Darcy girl finally with someone, there’s a lot to do!” my mother interrupted, ushering me toward a bag of apples and handing me a knife. “Those need to be apple pie.”
“On it,” I said and grabbed an apple, taking a bite and swallowing my frustration at my mom’s interruption. The only meal the Adlers ate on Thanksgiving was Thanksgiving dinner itself. The rest of the day was spent snacking on everything that went into preparing it, so that’s what I did.
When I peeked over at Archer, he’d already started on the next bag of potatoes, his back to me once again, and after that, we were too busy to talk. We did Thanksgiving on the earlier side, and my parents only had one oven, so timing everything just right was an art my mother had perfected over the years. The turkey was already in the oven since that took the longest, and then it was a matter of throwing in each of the sides according to their bake times, and what could be put back in the oven later to reheat.
Linnea arrived right in time for dinner, and despite coming off a twelve-hour overnight shift and immediately getting in a car to drive the six hours here, she looked amazing. She told us about her night as we sat down at the dinner table, and my parents gushed over her, peppering her with questions about the deliveries and the babies. The conversation eventually moved onto Garrett and the exciting things that were happening at his work, and then to Cory and her shop. After everything that happened two years ago, there was almost always an update on her front, and my parents loved hearing all about it. Then, of course, it turned to Archer, which kind of meant it turned to me, but everyone was mainly curious about his fighting fires.
By the time we were cleaning up after dessert, I think I’d said all of ten words, and almost all of them were to Archer when he’d asked if I was okay—three times. I was fine. It was probably for the best that we didn’t talk about me anyway. Linnea probably would have let my baby news slip, and if I was being honest, the only new things in my life were the baby growing inside me, and the man sitting next to me; the latter of which I desperately wanted to get alone so we could talk.
Everything that happened the night before felt unfinished. I had so many questions about all of it, but especially about the last thing he’d said. Did he really believe that his father was an indicator of how he’d be in the role? Was he scared the violence had rubbed off on him, or was he worried that his dad would come back? Was his dad still alive?
However, as badly as I wanted answers, what I wanted more was to be alone with him. Last night had felt like a turning point, at least to me it had, and I wanted to see if I was imagining it or not. There’s no way I was. He’d trusted me with his past, with his trauma, and I got the sense that that wasn’t something he did often or with very many people. Sure, we were sharing a bed when he started thrashing and screaming, but he could’vetold me it was a nightmare and to go back to sleep. He could’ve brushed me off, but he didn’t, he let me in.
I had just finished the last of the dishes, and was about to snag Archer so I could pull him aside when my mother stopped me with a cup of coffee and a look that dared me to try to slip away. It wasn’t that I was avoiding talking to my mom, but I wasn’t exactly dying to get one-on-one time with her. I’d never kept a secret of this magnitude from her before, and being alone with her meant I had those too-perceptive eyes trained on me.
“Archer seems nice,” she started, taking a sip of her coffee.
“Yeah, he is.” I smiled.
“Makes me wonder why we’re only just meeting him now.” She wasn’t even trying to be subtle. I wanted to blame that on age, but I don’t think Shelby Adler had ever been one for subtleties.
I swallowed, hoping she didn’t catch the movement. “We’re still pretty new, Mom, and I live six hours away.”
She pinned me with an unamused look. “What? Is your phone broken? You could’ve called me.”
If it were real, I would’ve. Probably. I still might have waited a month or two to make sure we were steady, but I definitely would’ve told her before now. A part of me felt bad that I hadn’t, but it wasn’t real, not that she knew that, and the guilt over upsetting her niggled in my chest. I couldn’t fault her for wanting to know what was going on in her daughter’s life—she merely cared. Really and trulycared, which made me feel like a terrible human being for lying to her about all of this.
It’s only temporary,I reminded myself.
Shrugging, I took a sip from my mug. “Yeah, well, I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure of what we were. And like Archer said yesterday, we had a bit of a rocky start.”
“So he said. What happen—”
My lovely, darling, beautiful saint of a sister chose that moment to pop her head into the kitchen. “Game time!” shecalled, glancing between the two of us. And either she didn’t see my mom’s “not now” look, or she saw mine that said “thank God, please now.” Either way, she announced, “You’ll never guess what we’re playing.”
“Oh, I can’t wait!” I said, a little too enthusiastically if my mom’s narrowed eyes were anything to go off of, but I’d worry about that another time. Right now, I needed to get out of this conversation.
