The Road to Rose Bend, Naima Simone [jenna bush book club .TXT] 📗

his eyes. Not that closing his eyes had been an issue these past four days. Sleep hadn’t even been an option.

“For the love of... The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree with that one. Hell, I wish we could just saw that whole damn tree down,” she grumbled. Her fingers tightened around his, and he lifted his head, meeting the compassion in her soft gaze. “I’m sorry, Cole. She had no right to do that. But, why hadn’t you shared that information with Sydney?”

Gently pulling his hand free of his mother’s hold, he leaned back in his chair and scrubbed his hands over his head. Then he tipped the chair back, staring at the ceiling.

“I’ve tried to convince myself that it had nothing to do with her. But as she pointed out, it has everything to do with her—with us. The truth is I didn’t want her intruding on that part of me, of my life. My time with Tonia...it was mine. Sydney accused me of hoarding my memories, and she wasn’t wrong. I married Sydney thinking I could keep her in this safe box where she wouldn’t bleed over into any other part of my life. But obviously, that didn’t happen,” he said with a harsh bark of laughter. He splayed his hands wide on the table, studied them. “The house... Moe, it’s all I have left of them. I can’t remember her voice as clearly. Or her laugh. I can’t recall her scent anymore. If I lose the house, it will be like saying they never existed. That they weren’t...important to me.”

“Oh, baby, how long you grieve doesn’t determine the depth of your love for a person. Cole.” Moe sighed, and the chair creaked as she shifted her slight weight. “I’ve never lost a child, but I have had to grieve a grandchild and watch my own son drown in his grief. I didn’t understand what being powerless truly was until I could only stand back and let you suffer without being able to fix it for you. I was so worried that we would never have you back. That you wouldn’t make it. But you did. Because that’s who you are. Strong. Stubborn, yes, but unbreakable. Also so emotionally bottled up, I both anticipated and feared what would happen when or if you ever popped.”

She paused, and the silence in the kitchen hummed between them, the bright sounds of a chirping bird filtering through the open windows along with the whine of Wolf’s saw from his workshop in the back of the inn.

“When I first saw you with Sydney, I started to cautiously hope again. With her, you weren’t...numb. I saw the flashes of the old you, when I was doubting if I ever would see them again. When you told us about marrying her, that hope grew. Even knowing the reasons why and your insistence that it wasn’t a love match, that you were just helping a friend, I still hoped. And now, seeing the pain you’re trying to hide, I’m more certain than ever you’re going to be just fine.”

Cole jerked his head down, narrowing his gaze on his mother, who smiled at him with the telltale brightness of tears glistening in her eyes.

“What?” How could she say that? He felt a lot of shit at the moment, but fine wasn’t one of them.

She nodded. “For two years, you’ve mourned Tonia and Mateo. But finally, you’re in pain over someone else. Over losing Sydney. Cole, if you didn’t love her, you wouldn’t care that she walked away. You would be relieved and eager to return to that lonely existence you’ve been living. Not sitting here in my kitchen because you don’t want to go back to an empty home.”

Did she possess some sort of ESP? He had been so fucking lonely since Sydney left him. Before she came back into his life, he’d been perfectly fine with being alone in that cottage. Alone with his memories. But now, he was this ghost rattling around his home. He couldn’t even bring himself to sleep in his bed anymore, because Sydney’s citrus and chocolate scent lingered on the pillows, the sheets. He’d tried that first night, and the ache of missing her, of not having her there was too much. The couch had become his temporary bed where he stared at the television all night until morning came and he could lose himself in work again.

But love her?

“I don’t love Sydney,” he protested, voice sharp—sharper than he’d intended. But then, desperation tended to do that.

Moe arched an eyebrow high, the corner of her mouth quirking.

“I can’t love her, Moe.” What had barreled up his throat as a shout emerged as a hoarse, serrated whisper. He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head. “I can’t love them.”

“Cole.” A small hand with calluses on the fingertips once more wrapped around his. And he held on tight, as if his mother’s hand was his lifeline that prevented him from crashing into a churning sea hungry to drag him under and never let him surface. “Cole, look at me.” She didn’t speak again until he complied. “What are you scared of, son?”

“If I—” He broke off, swallowed hard to moisten his suddenly dry throat. “If I allow myself to love her—if I love her too much, too hard—if I let myself feel any amount of affection for the baby she’s carrying, I’ll lose them both.” He laughed again, and the jagged edges of it scraped him raw. “Believe me, I know how irrational it sounds. But I can’t shake it. I’m scared they’ll both be taken away from me like Tonia and Mateo. So, I told myself if I didn’t love them, if I didn’t make them my whole world, then maybe, just maybe, God would let me keep them.”

The truth exploded out of him in a furious torrent of words. And once he started, he couldn’t stop.

“I feel so guilty. For not being able to save Tonia. For living.