Page 63 of Where It All Began
How could he not care? After all those nights drowning in each other, pleasing each other, worshipping each other. How could it just end?
All he needed to do was ask her to stay. One little word. “Stay.” And maybe three more words. “I’m an idiot.”
But he was loading her suitcase into the trunk of her Triumph and then taking her typewriter and loading it, too.
John shoved his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched, his expression unreadable.
“Well, I guess this is it,” Phoebe began, staring down at the dirt and stone of the drive under her sandals.
“Guess so,” he said. His face was stoic, not a hint of emotion. He could have been watching a golf tournament on TV instead of saying goodbye to the woman whose life he’d changed.
It wasn’t fair. She was eviscerated, and he was fine. Absolutely fine. Just another day to him. He was probably excited to get his life back. He and Murdock could enjoy the peace and quiet of the farm without her.
She, on the other hand, would turn into a hysterical blubbering mess every time she smelled hay and sunshine. Memories of John Pierce haunting her forever.
“Thanks for… everything,” she said. Her voice quivered, and she wanted to punch herself in the face. If he wanted to do this the emotionless way, who was she to make a scene?
Oh, fuck it all.
“Damnit, John. Ask me to stay!” She shoved at his chest with the flat of her hand.
His jaw clenched at her demand. But the twitch at his eye, the one that appeared when she’d pushed him past his breaking point, was absent.
“I can’t do that, Phoebe.”
“Why the hell not?”
“You know why not,” he snapped the words out. “You have a job lined up, you have plans, you have a family to support. You can’t do any of that from here.”
“Help me find a way.” She hated herself for begging. Hated herself for wanting him to offer a solution. “Please. Help me, John.”
“There’s no way, Phoebe.”
All softness was gone. This was a perfunctory goodbye. If he’d cared, he would have tried harder… or at all.
She cleared her throat, trying to reassemble the pieces of her dignity.
“Nice knowing you,” she snapped out and climbed behind the wheel.
“Phoebe.” His hand gripped her door.
Finally, she breathed.
“Drive safely.”
She almost flipped him the bird, barely resisted the urge as she eased down the drive toward the road. After everything that had happened, she’d been the one to fall, and that son of a bitch had broken her heart. She hoped his farm burned down and he had to move in with the Nordemanns.
Phoebe headed east instead of west not paying attention to the landscape that blurred through her window. She wasn’t in any shape to see the town she’d fallen hard for one last time. Blue Moon Bend would always be home to her, even if she never saw it again. She rounded a curve and broke through the wide swath of woods and slammed on the brakes.
This was still John’s land. She was sure of it. The field he’d told her he was leaving fallow was no longer empty. In it bloomed thousands and thousands of sunflowers, reaching their lemon-yellow faces toward the sun. Soft green leaves, giant dark centers. They stretched on forever, staring at her, leaves waving gently in the breeze.
It was the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen. And that asshole had planted them for her. He’d planted her a field of sunflowers andstilllet her go pretending that he didn’t love her.
She maneuvered a sloppy three-point turn on the skinny ribbon of road and headed back to heartache. She plowed down the driveway and braked in a cloud of dust.
John was sitting on the front porch steps, his head in his hands.
Phoebe hopped out and slammed the door hard enough to make the car shake. “Do you evenknowthat you love me?”
