“I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to make it for the service,” he said.
“I’m just glad you’re here,” she answered. “Come on in.”
They settled in her kitchen with a bottle of whiskey, and it was just like old times. They toasted her father, to the good memories, but with each drink, the bad ones began to come out.
“How’s work?” she asked, as they moved into the living room, sitting next to each other on the couch. She tossed her legs over his lap and he tugged at the little anklet—a string of stars—she had on, grinning.
“Cute,” he said.
“Be nice. Your niece gave me that,” she said.
“Which one?” he asked.
“Robin,” she answered. “She’s a sweetie. Very laid back.”
“You sound surprised,” he said.
“Well, she is Georgia’s kid,” Abby said, and he found this hilarious, laughing so long and hard that Abby found her eyes lingering on his lips, on the way his blue eyes crinkled at the edges. She could feel something stirring inside her—something that had nothing to do with the whiskey.
Something that would only be quelled with more whiskey. Because the other option?
The other option was swinging her legs on either side of him, straddling his lap and taking his face in her hands and kissing him.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t thought about it. Right now it was all she could think about.
It wasn’t like she didn’t know what it felt like, kissing him.
That other time, when they had been teenagers, had been fueled by grief too. By tears and by loss and by the two of them, too young and too desperate for some reprieve.
It would be like that now too.
You’re grieving, Abby, she told herself. Stop being weak. Dad wouldn’t want you to be.
Who the hell knew what her father really had wanted. He had loved her, she supposed, in his own way. But he’d never intended to be raising a daughter alone. Losing her mother had been an emotional blow the two of them had never managed to navigate.
And now they never would.
She knocked back another shot, trying to shut out the want and the grief and the pain. How many was that, now?
Did it matter? Her father was dead and Cass was dead, and now it was just her. And Paul, when he had the time to show up.
“Do you ever think about her?” she asked, suddenly, compelled to bring her up. Because if she brought Cass up, she wouldn’t have to think about the man next to her, how good he was, how right he felt, how his smile lit her up inside like Christmas.
How many times had she put Cass’s ghost between them? She’d lost count. It was such a convenient barrier against her true feelings.
You’re such a martyr. She could practically hear Cass’s voice in her head. She had clearly had too much to drink. She set the whiskey bottle on the wagon wheel coffee table and leaned against the couch.
“Sometimes,” he said, and she realized he was answering her question. “On her birthday, usually. I like to call Mrs. Martin and check in on her.”
“That’s nice of you,” Abby said.
“I don’t know about that,” Paul said. “Sometimes I think it’s more guilt than anything.”
“You have nothing to feel guilty about,” Abby said.
She, on the other hand . . .
Don’t think about that.
“I miss her,” she said softly. “I wonder about who she would’ve been.”
He was quiet. She wondered if he let himself ponder the same things. Or if it was just too damn painful.
“She would’ve been proud of you,” Paul said.
Abby tried to arch an eyebrow, but she had a feeling she looked funny, because his eyes were twinkling at her.
“With how much she teased me about joining the school newspaper freshman year?” She laughed.
“She was jealous,” Paul said. “She even told me so, when I pointed out she was kind of being a jerk.”
She could feel her mouth twisting, trying not to smile at this revelation. “Is that why she apologized to me? She baked me an apology pie and everything.”
“Well, I didn’t tell her to bake a pie,” Paul said. “But yeah, I told her she was being mean. She was being mean. She was afraid you were going to go off with the smart kids and leave her behind.”
“I would’ve never,” Abby whispered fiercely, her heart heavy that Cass ever even thought that for a minute. It was still hard to accept that near the end, Cass had thought a lot worse of her.
“I know,” Paul said quietly. “And she knew, deep down. She was just scared of losing you. She knew you’d go off to college someday and she . . .”
“She wanted to stay,” Abby finished. Cass had always wanted to stay in Castella Rock. She had never been that small-town girl who harbored bigger dreams of the city. To her, all those big dreams were right there at home. “But then she never got to leave.”
“Hey.” He shifted in his seat so he was facing her, and he cupped her cheek, brushing away the unexpected tear. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We shouldn’t talk about heavy stuff. Not after today.”
Because she’d buried her father today. God, she was exhausted. She let out a shuddery little breath, the realization hitting her as the warmth of his skin spread against hers.
It felt so good, his skin on hers. Like the memory of something she’d lost a long time ago. His hand came up, almost as if it had a mind of its own, covering hers.
Her eyes met his, and her heart flipped over in her chest, a rush of yes coming over her as his thumb stroked down her neck and he murmured her name.
The kiss was feather-soft. Almost a suggestion, full of hesitation, of tightly restrained desire. And then her mouth opened underneath his, a surge of heat and finally rushing through her, blotting out everything else, just for a moment.
For a moment, it was the two of them and nothing else existed. It was his hands in her hair and his lips moving against hers and his taste—spice and whiskey—on her tongue.
For a moment, there was no history, no past, no future. Just then.
Just them.
But when that moment shattered, she remembered.
Cass.
She jerked back, pushing herself away, off the couch entirely, trying to ignore how even as she was retreating, he was reaching for her.
“You’re drunk. I’m drunk. We . . . this isn’t right,” she said, trembling, trying not to feel like there was a hole forming inside her. Like the memory of his lips against hers wasn’t going to haunt her till the day she died.
“Abby,” he said, a slow rumble of sound that shot through her like a bullet.
“Don’t,” she begged. “Don’t let me dishonor her memory. Please don’t do that to me.”
“Wait—” Paul said, but she had whirled around, hurrying upstairs, her heart aching for so many reasons.
The next morning, she woke hungover as hell.
When she went downstairs, the living room was empty. But there was a note on the wagon wheel coffee table.
All it said was: I’m sorry.
Chapter 7
Paul looked out across the meadow that separated his family’s orchard from Abby’s. The rows of picnic tables had been set up in the center of the meadow, lupine and California poppies speckling the tall grasses. There were big tin tubs of ice set all over, full of bottles of specialty old-fashioned homemade sodas—his father’s hobby after he had quit drinking, and one his sister Faye had picked up. A huge BBQ pit had been set up, the coals already layered with a fine coat of ash as the tri-tip and chicken sizzled above them.
It had been a beautiful memorial. They’d risen early and gone out to the hill at the very back of the property, where a simple wooden cross lay. His father’s ashes were in an urn on the mantel, but the hill, his father’s favorite place, was sacred to his mother. He knew she went there often to feel closer to him, and it was fitting that each year they gathered at the hill, to speak their piece and their hearts about the man who’d helped shape them.
And now it was time to celebrate him in the style he would have loved, with good music, good food, and good friends.