Southern Heart, Madison, Natasha [the little red hen ebook TXT] 📗

I don’t know why, but I let go of the sob I’ve been holding. She’s always been the one whose arms I’ve cried in. Always the one to hold me up when I couldn’t hold myself up. It was a tough couple of years when Ethan left, and to be honest, we both had to hold each other up.

"I’ll let you handle that one," Quinn says. "I’ll be at the barn."

"Baby girl," she says in a whisper as she rubs down my hair. "Are you hurt?" she asks, and I slowly slip out of her arms, rubbing away the tears with the back of my hand.

"I’m fine, Mom," I say. "It’s nothing." I shake my head. "It’s stupid actually, and I shouldn’t have."

"Don’t you ever apologize for the way you feel,” she says. "Now, let’s go sit outside, and you can fill me in on what I missed."

I grab a glass of sweet tea and walk out to the backyard. The sound of birds fills the air. "You haven’t missed anything,” I say.

"From what your father said," she says, sitting with me on the L-shaped couch they have outside right next to the fire pit. "You’ve have a rough couple of weeks."

I shake my head. "I wasn’t the one who was shot."

"It took everything your father had not to rip you out of your own house," my mother says. "Me, on the other hand, I had different feelings about it.”

"And what was that?" I ask.

"Oh, honey, please," she says, rolling her eyes now at me. "You have been in love with that boy for eight years." I just look at her, my mouth hanging open. "Who do you think you’re talking to? If there is anyone who knows about loving someone from afar, it has to be me."

I laugh. "I thought I hid it so good."

"Oh, Jesus, anyone could take one look at you and know."

"Well, it doesn’t matter,” I say, sipping my tea. "The feeling is one-sided,” I say and rub away a tear. "I was hoping that…"

"You were hoping that you would save him, and he would see how much you love him?" She puts the words into my mouth.

"I don't know what I was hoping," I say. "He thinks he can’t be loved. He thinks I’m perfectly wrong for him." Saying the words out loud just cements what I was feeling. "He doesn’t think he’s worth it." My voice trembles as I think about how wrong he is.

"I know how that feels," my mother says. "To be from the opposite end of what everyone else is. To want so badly to be accepted but then be so scared that once you do, everything will be stripped away from you." She shakes her head now and wipes her own tear. "It’s a fear I still have to this day." I look at her. "I love your father so much." She smiles through her tears. "And I know he loves me, but that fear lingers. Of course, it’s less and less, and if you tell him this, I will deny it.”

"He will never leave you," I say. "He would move heaven and earth for you."

"I know that," she says. "But…"

"I love him, Mom," I admit. "So fucking much that it hurts, and love isn’t supposed to hurt like this.”

"Oh, baby girl." She cups my face. "That is where you’re wrong. The harder we love, the more it hurts."

"Yeah, well, I have to admit that I’m the only one on that street, and I don’t want to be on it anymore." Saying it out loud is almost as if I’m admitting defeat.

"The heart wants what the heart wants,” she says. "You can say what you want. You can vow to never look at him that way. You can even tell yourself that tomorrow you are going to wake up and not care." She smiles at me. "I lied to myself for eight years. Instead of the feelings going away, they just got stronger. They got even deeper and stronger."

"Well, that answers that question," I say, not sure I can handle it any more. "Good news is that once this is finished, he’ll leave, so it might be a little easier."

She laughs. "Baby girl." She puts her arm around me. "Good luck with that."

Chapter 21

Mayson

The door slamming shut makes my stomach sink down to my feet. I walk out of the house, and my feet feel as if my shoes are filled with concrete. Every step was harder and harder than the next. I sat with her and watched the sun come up while she poured her heart out to me, and all I did was walk out on her. I wanted to run back in and kiss her goodbye. I wanted to tell her all the things. But instead, I walked to the truck.

"You ready for this?" Ethan says when he puts his truck in park. I look up, seeing the massive white barn in front of me.

"As ready as I’ll ever be,” I say as I get out of the truck. I put my head down, and all I can do is think back to how I left Chelsea. A burning forms in my stomach and rises to my chest.

We walk into the cool barn, and I look at the five white desks in front of another wall. "Are you ready to have your mind blown?" Ethan says, walking to another door and putting his fingerprint on it. The door unlocks, and he walks in. I follow him, and I’m in shock.

The whole back wall is filled with five big screens side by side. Five desks on each side of the room with full computers on it. "This looks like a military base."

"My uncle can be a little over the top," Ethan says to me. A side door opens, and Casey walks into the room with Jacob and Beau.

"Welcome to my playpen," Casey says with a smirk, and I shake my head.

"I thought he was a cowboy?" I