Page 88 of Feels Like Falling
And he never will.
It’d be easy to slink back into the shadows, to hide myself away and wait for him to leave, but a bigger part of me doesn’t want to give Evan Mills the satisfaction of being able to hightail it out of here without a word.
If he wants to talk, we can talk.
For Ellison’s sake.
Moving slowly, I close the distance, Evan rounding the hood and meeting me in the middle.
It’s almostpoetic.
“Evening,” he says, his voice quiet but determined, so I nod as he looks around. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking. In all my years of knowing him, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this casual—sonormal.“You’ve done a lot since we’ve been gone.”
“Had nothing but time,” I say and watch as his lips press into a firm line. We stand like that a moment before he turns toward me and speaks.
“My wife, soon to be ex-wife, was friendly with the former mayor around here. I don’t know if you remember him.”
“I do,” I say, my voice even because there’s not a soul in Tennessee who doesn’t know what that man did to one of our own. It took years, but justice had finally been served.
Evan nods. “A total bastard.” I grunt before he goes on, “But he had influence. Small town or not, he made a reputation for himself in certain circles.”
“Why are you trying to rehash this? He’s in prison—has been for a couple of years now.”
“But he wasn’t when y’all were eighteen.”
I feel the color drain from my face as I will my legs to hold me under the weight of that single sentence.
“I knew you loved my daughter, Montana, and I knew you weren’t going anywhere. Hell, I was hoping we’d be able to start over and I could support you the way you both deserved. I could see the way things had shifted between you two that summer.” Clearing his throat, Evan shoves a hand into the front pocket of his jeans. “I told Sherri Ann as much in the days before Ellison left for college.”
“And?”
“And she threatened the farm.” He motions out toward the land before letting his arm drop back to his side. “Inspectors. Grants. Funding. Legislation. Ordinances.” His tired eyes meet mine. “And that was only the beginning.” He doesn’t mention her illegal plans although I’m sure they’re just as cold and calculating as the woman herself.
“We could have fought it if we’d known. We could have?—”
My retort dies on my lips as he shakes his head because maybe wecould havefought but we wouldn’t have won. Not in Grandad’s lifetime and not in time to send my sisters to college.
“I thought maybe you’d keep doing what you were doing while she was in college—being friends and maybe a little more—but then you came to see me.” He blows out a shuddery breath. “I couldn’t let it happen, because I knew she’d say yes.”
He doesn’t have to say Sherri Ann would have lost her shit over that announcement and would have unleashed hell on my family. I’d like to think that if he’d trusted me with that information back then, that I would have been able to have Ellison and protect us both.
I’d been just a kid with love in my heart and the need for reassurance that I was worthy of his daughter.
But I hadn’t been reassured—I’d been gutted.
He’d been unusually cruel that day, the words almost menacing and giving life to all the fears I’d kept at bay since I first learned her name.
“I’m sorry, Montana. I haven’t always been a good man. I won’t stand here and say I made all the right choices or that I didn’t take the easy way out in my life. Every single one of my days is filled with regret, but I’m trying.”
“How’s that goin’ for you?” I ask wryly, making the corner of his mouth twitch with the barest hint of a smile.
“So far, not good.” It’s an understatement and we both know it. “But I would rather work for Ellison’s forgiveness, for Arden’s, and for yours until I’m old and gray than live another moment in the past. I’m sorry, Montana. I’m sorry I took so much of the time you could have had with Ellison, and not that you need it, but you have my blessing and you always have. I just hope that you’ll both let me witness what comes next.”
I stand there in the driveway of my family’s farm—my legacy—myhome,and not for the first time I’m thankful for the simplicity of it all. I’m humbled to do what my father and grandfather have done and generations before. The man in front of me has wasted half his life just trying to keep his head above water. At first glance, I would have said that time had been good to him just living without a care in the world.
But the stress lines around his eyes and mouth tell a different story.
He looks exhausted and, more startlingly, sincere.
