Page 11 of Bleeding Love (Hope Town 2)

I stayed on the floor until my face was stiff with dried tears. My bottom was asleep and my chest hurt with the force of my sobs. But I finally got up. Instead of going to my bed though, I went to my daughter’s room and pulled her into my arms.

My daughter who looks everything like her father even though I wish she looked like Jack.

LAST NIGHT I STOOD AT the other side of her door and fought every instinct I have in my body to not break that door down while I listened to her sob. I waited until I heard her tears stop. Then I waited even longer while the lights through her house turned off one by one. It wasn’t until I could uncoil my body from its position outside her front door that I was able to leave. Pulling each of the palms that I had resting against the wood of her front door to stand up straight and force my legs to take me to my truck.

Even then it was another ten or so minutes before I was able to turn the key and pull out of her drive. Leaving her tonight, knowing she was in pain, is even harder than it was to walk away from her in the club owner’s private bathroom.

I make a mental note before pulling out of her drive that her grass is about a week past the point of really needing to be cut.

When I turn out of her neighborhood I press the button on my steering wheel that will allow me to make a phone call. Wincing slightly when I see it’s almost past ten.

“Call Dani home,” I say into the silence around me.

“Calling Dani home,” I hear before the sound of ringing comes from the speakers.

“Hey,” she says softly into the phone.

“That . . . God, Dani,” I say in lieu of a greeting.

I don’t need to say anything else. Dani has been my best friend since before we were out of diapers. She knows me better than I know myself sometimes. There isn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for her and the same goes with her.

“That bad?” she asks.

“I knew I would be in for a fight. I knew it, but it still doesn’t make it easier to leave when I know she needs me. Do you know how hard it was to wait a full fucking day to come over here?”

“Lee. ”

“Don’t Dani. Don’t tell me I might not be the one she needs. I didn’t give you that shit when you were fighting for Cohen to see you. ”

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“That’s not fair,” she gasps.

“How is it not?”

“Cohen and me are completely different and you know it, Lee. Megs is . . . she’s been through a lot. ”

“It’s Megan. ” I say harshly. The look in her face coming back like a physical slap when I saw how much pain that nickname brings her. The nickname her dead husband called her.

“What?” Dani demands, clearly confused with my anger.

“I used to think it was cute how she always corrected me when I called her that. Well, it wasn’t cute tonight, Dani. Jack called her that. I have enough against me here, I don’t need to be bringing that pain to her every time I call her that. So just don’t okay?”

She doesn’t say anything for a second. “I didn’t know. ” I can hear her shifting through the line and she tells Cohen she’ll be right back before I hear her moving through her house. “She never told me Jack called her Megs, Lee. Hell, I call her that all the time. She’s never once corrected me. ”

“That’s because she’s locked up tight, Dani. She doesn’t tell anyone anything that might cause her to feel a thing. ”

“She’s been through a lot, Lee. Do you think . . . I don’t know, maybe this won’t end how you are hoping it will. ”

My fingers curl around the wheel and I let out a deep breath. “That isn’t something I can accept, Dani. ”

“I’ve never seen you like this Lee. I don’t know how to help you when I’m not sure that this is best for you. ”

“What did you feel when you were without Cohen? When he went overseas that last time? What did you really feel like?” I ask, clearly confusing her yet again with my change of subject because she’s silent for a few minutes.

“I felt nothing, Lee. You know that. I felt nothing but pain. ”

“Yeah? And you knew he was coming back. You were scared for him, understandably, but you knew he would be back. Take that feeling out of the equation and then add three years of locking yourself tight, then tell me what you have left. ”

She lets out a shaky breath. I hate bringing up when Cohen was gone. I know it was the hardest time Dani ever had. But in order to understand Megan, to understand my fight for Megan, she has to go back there.

“I felt nothing, Lee,” she sighs, her breath choppy. “I felt like I was living half a life with him gone. Half a life that I knew wouldn’t get better without him. ”

“Yeah, and thank fuck it didn’t happen, but if he hadn’t come back to you? Then what would you have felt?”

“Nothing, Lee. ” She stops and I know this is costing her. “I wouldn’t have felt alive. ”

“Bingo, Dani. Bingo. ”

“She feels, Lee. She has Molly. ”

“She feels, but she’s forgotten what it feels like to be alive. ”

Dani gasps and I hear Cohen ask her if she’s okay in the background. “I’m fine, baby, I’ll be just another second, okay?”

“Yeah, Dani-girl. You tell Lee if you’re still crying in five minutes I’m going to come kick his ass though. ”

“Noted, Dani. ” I tell her and she laughs softly and I hear her give Cohen a kiss.

“What can I do?” she asks after a beat.

“Help me show her that she’s alive. ”

“I’m not sure that’s something that can be shown so easily, Lee. ”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I tell her and feel that flicker of hope start to burn a little brighter when my plan starts to take form. “Tomorrow, meet me at the house for lunch? I’ve got something I need to take care of in the morning, then . . . then we plan. ”

She laughs and agrees, not before telling me I’m crazy. When we get off the phone I take a deep breath and let the surge of excitement that this plan gives me, to douse that flicker of hope until it’s a full on burning inferno.

Luckily I have the day off. Last night I had been coming off a two-day run of ten-hour shifts, giving me the next two days free. When I pull up to my house at eleven thirty, Dani’s SUV was sitting in the drive. My sweaty skin sticks to the leather seat when I pull my body out of my truck. I reach in and grab my sweat-drenched shirt that I had tossed on the floor earlier and make my way up the walkway to the front door.

“Dani?” I yell into the house.

“Back here in the kitchen. I think something’s dead in here. ”

I smile at her words and make my way toward her voice.

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“Yeah, might be last week’s Chinese. Or maybe that was two weeks ago. ”

I turn the corner into my kitchen and see her with half her body in the fridge and two full garbage bags at her feet.

“Christ, how long have you been here?”

“You’re lucky I’m not your mom. She would kick your ass for letting things get this gross. ”

She pulls herself out of the fridge and turns toward me right when I’m about to give her a hug. “Don’t you dare come near me when you’re wet with sweat, Liam Beckett!” She backs up when I smile and go to do just that. “Hell no, you nasty pig!” She laughs and jumps over the trash bag she had been working on filling up and holds her hands up. “Do it and I tell Cohen you touched my boob!”

That stops me in my tracks.

“First, uh no. Second, not funny. The last time you pulled that shit I had a black eye for two weeks. And I’ll add that I didn’t even touch your tit, my shoulder brushed against it when we were stuck playing drunk twister. ”

“Whatever,” she smiles.

“Yeah, whatever my ass. You didn’t get the black eye AND you spent an hour after it laughing your ass off. ”

I

reach past her and grab a bottle of water out of the fridge. Turning to look at her again.

“Why is there only water in here?”

“You should be thankful I considered that was safe enough to stay. I figured with them being in sealed bottles they could stick around. I thought about calling the CDC in to make sure there wasn’t something dangerous living in that fridge!” She throws the towel she had been wiping the fridge out with and I just barely move out of the way.

“So, I’ve been busy. ”

“You work too much,” she says, changing the subject and grabbing a water of her own before heading to the sink to wash her hands.

“So you’ve told me, Mom. ” I sigh.

She sticks her tongue out at me, same old Dani, when she can’t think of an insult back, out comes the tongue.

“I have my mom’s lasagna cooking and it should be ready by the time you hose your nasty smelling ass off. Then you can clue me in to why I left my family to come over here. ” She smiles and I know she doesn’t mean it, but I feel guilty for pulling her away.

“Sorry, Dani. I could have waited a day or two. ”

“Don’t be sorry, Lee. You know I’m joking. Plus, when I left my boys were watching a baseball game. They probably won’t even notice that I’m gone. ”

I tip up the water and down the whole bottle in one go. I should have thought to bring water with me earlier, but I was in a hurry to get everything done.

“Where have you been anyway?” Dani asks before lifting her own water to her lips.

“Megan’s. Mowed her yard, weeded the flowerbeds and fixed up a few boards that had started to warp on her fence. Stuff like that. ”

I turn and walk out of the room leaving a shocked face Dani with water dribbling out of her open mouth.

“Jumping in the shower!” I call over my shoulder and head off to get cleaned up.

Twenty minutes later I walk back in to my now sparkling kitchen to find Dani impatiently tapping her foot with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Tell me all of it. Now. ” She demands with a smile.

“What do you want to know?” I ask, pretending I have no idea what she wants.

“You can’t drop a bomb like that and just walk away, Lee!”

“I told you everything. I went to her house this morning, did some work and came home. ”

“Uh uh,” she nods, her smile growing. “And? Did you see Megan? Talk to her? Anything?!”

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