Page 23 of Dare to Fall
I’m not ready to drive away, but I’m too antsy to sit here in this parking lot much longer. So I hop out of my truck and start walking, hoping the crisp autumn weather will help me get my bearings. How in the world did things go from so fucking good to so damn fucked?
A few blocks later, I’m no closer to finding any answers. But a familiar truck pulls up alongside me.
“Did you walk all the way to town?” Reid asks, ribbing me.
“Oh, now you’re available?” I fire back, not interested in talking to anyone. I’m definitely not in the headspace for jokes or anything that might threaten my grumpy ass mood.
“Yeah, get in.”
I raise an eyebrow at him in suspicion, but he just waves me over.
Because I can’t think of a good excuse to turn him down, I round the front of his truck and jump in.
He waits until we’re on a road headed out of town before he starts talking. “When were you going to tell me you bought a piece of land?”
“How did you find out?”
“It’s a small town,” Reid says. “And I thought we were friends. Why would you keep that a secret?”
“I didn’t want the lecture.”
“What lecture?”
“The one about being impulsive.”
“You’re allowed to spend that money however you want,” Reid says, referring to the unexpected inheritance I received from my dad. “God knows you’ve more than earned that right after everything that monster put you through.”
“I haven’t spent any of it yet.”
“Really? What about the RV?”
“Guy passing through sold Bertha to me for five hundred bucks because his wife threatened to divorce him if they didn’t sell it and move back home. She was tired of being on the road. I think she would’ve given it to me for free. Hard to pass up when it was cheaper than my rent.”
“And the land?”
“Annie Collins. She married a real estate tycoon in Spain who’s richer than God. She doesn’t need the money, so she quitclaimed the property to me for ten dollars. Refused to take a dime more. And get this—it includes all the logs she already ordered for the cabin build.”
“How do you do it?” Reid asks, shaking his head. “How do you just bump into people who want to just gift you shit?”
“It’s my secret superpower,” I say on a laugh.
Honestly, I don’t know how it happens. I’ve just always considered myself lucky in that sense. But lately, that luck feels more like fate. Which is why I can’t wrap my head around the Gabby thing. Why would fate bring her back to me just to take her away again? Why, when everything else in my life was finally falling into place?
“You’re building a cabin?” Reid asks.
“Starting tomorrow.”
“You’re really staying then?”
“I’m staying,” I say, though the words crack.
“What about Gabby?”
“She’s…not.”
“You sure you don’t want to go with her?” Reid asks. “No one would blame you if you did. You’ve been in love with her forever. You two always talked about traveling the world together. You have the money. Now’s your chance.”
“I’m home, man. Cinnamon Creek is the only place that’s ever truly felt that way, and now that I’ve found it, I can’t imagine leaving.”Even for love. The thought cracks my heart in two. “If I go with her, I’ll just end up resenting her for taking me away. And if she stays, she’ll resent me for the same. It’s fucked.”
