Carry You Home (Carry Your Heart #2) (38 page)

I narrowed my eyes at him right before chucking the closest thing I could find at him, which just happened to be a pen. Fucking Shakespeare.

Saul easily ducked out of the way with a laugh and smirked at me. "Ah. I hit a nerve. Figures. Oh, and before I forget to tell you, Lucas made a fool out of himself hitting on your girl before. Just figured you'd wanna know."

Something ugly and dark clouded my judgment and I shot up from my chair, stalked to the door and threw it open. It just took a quick scan of the garage to find my target and when I did, all the blood drained from his face and he started shaking his head furiously as Saul chuckled behind me.

"Hey, Lucas!" I barked across the garage.

He gulped and winced. "Yeah, boss?"

I grinned back at him maliciously. "Bitch duty for a month."

Lucas's eyes popped out of his head as a round of snickers echoed around the garage. "Wha—"

"Don't even start," I cut in sharply and jabbed a finger at him. "If that's the way you talk to all the female customers who come in here, you and I need to have a serious conversation."

Lucas shook his head furiously, but it was too late.

Another round of cheers and jeers passed around the garage as Lucas ran a hand over his face and swore under his breath while Jared, one of my mechanics, gleefully tossed him a broom.

With that business taken care of, I shut the door behind me again and sank down heavily back into my chair. I didn't even bother messing around on my computer anymore—I wasn't getting any work done for awhile.

Now, as I sat here in silence, I still had to shake my head in disbelief that I was even sitting here like this in the first place. It was sort of a miracle. No. It really
was
a miracle. And while everything professionally was going my way, personally, I was still in pieces. I'd accomplished almost everything I'd set out to do, but it wasn't enough.

Because the truth was, nothing felt right without Isabelle here next to me. Nothing felt complete. Nothing felt like it even really mattered. Even the triumphs and successes I'd achieved along the way felt deflated without being able to share it with her.

I knew, with clear certainty, that what I needed in my life was her. Seeing her again today just reinforced what I'd always known. I needed her support. I needed her guidance. I needed her love. I needed her to be my wife.

None of that was going to happen and no amount of wishful thinking would ever change it. I'd seized my own destiny long ago, shedding the chains that held me back and building something real for myself with my own two hands, but maybe it was for the best if I just accept that fate would never really be on my side. The stars, it seemed, still held a little of that control when it came to Isabelle.

Since nothing else was getting done, I unlocked the bottom drawer on my desk, pulled out my notebook, and flipped it open. I skimmed through the last entry I'd made the night before where I'd related the details of the new addition I was planning for the shop. I'd long switched to just keeping everything in a notebook since I never actually sent them, but it was a habit I'd never been able to shake. And I was okay with that.

So I put my pen to the paper and scribbled out the way I started all my entries:

Hey, Iz...

Isabelle

I gave my dad a full hour after the nurse left before I descended, which given the circumstances, was pretty damn patient. The nurse did her thing, checking all his vitals, and reminding me to pick up his prescriptions today and then she left.

Just another day in the Martin household.

When he finally settled down on the couch and flipped on the History channel, I knew it was time to strike. I swooped down, grabbed the remote out of his hand, and turned the TV off before he had a chance to even get a word out.

"Dad, we need to talk."

He shot me an exasperated, tired glance like he already knew how this was going to go down and sighed. "Alright, Isabelle."

"I found that contract you signed with Caleb."

He didn't even have the decency to look surprised. "Okay."

I blew out a deep breath, gritting my teeth in frustration. "You need to tell me what's going on and you need to tell me now."

My dad just lifted a shoulder. "Where would you like me to start?"

"How about at the beginning? You know when you got your diagnosis almost a whole year before you even bothered to tell me?"

"Well," he exhaled loudly. "I know you're upset and I understand that. I just didn't want to burden you with any more of my problems."

My heart twisted violently in my chest. "Dad, I—"

"No," he shook his head. "Just listen, okay? I waited to tell you because my doctor still wasn't sure if I could get on the transplant list. I didn't want you to get your hopes up and I didn't want you to be more upset than you had to be. I was just trying to spare you more pain, Isabelle, that was all."

I couldn't necessarily argue that if he'd told me earlier, we could've found out if I was a donor match sooner. It hadn't mattered because I wasn't a match. That alone was a shock—I'd completely expected to give my dad part of my liver because I just couldn't fathom any other alternative.

"
It doesn't matter anyway,"
my dad had told me when he'd finally been honest about his failing health. "
I did this to myself. I'd never risk your health to pay for my mistakes."

And as his doctor had explained with careful sensitivity, it wasn't uncommon for parents and children
not
to be matches for each other, which sent me spiraling down into a tornado of rage and grief.

Story of my life.

An endless black march of tragedy after tragedy and disappointment after disappointment.

"Look, Isabelle," my dad sighed as if he could read my thoughts and he covered my hand with his. "I've been a terrible father—"

"Dad," I cut in, ready to protest, ready to tell him it wasn't quite as awful as he remembered, even if it really was, but he just shook his head with a grim smile.

"I've neglected you. I've disappointed you. I've hurt you in more ways than I can stomach, let alone even think about. I didn't even really support your art and your talent until you were almost done at UNC. I think I was just too wrapped up in my own demons to really see what I was doing to my only family."

"Can we please focus on something else?" I squeezed my eyes shut. Hearing him list it all out like that brought back too many painful memories. He was right about everything, but what was the point in rehashing all these things that couldn't be changed?

"You're right," he nodded tightly. "We should focus on the time we have left and we will. But before we do that, I need to say this to you: it's taken me too long to figure out how to be a real father to you, the kind that loves and supports and protects you no matter what. And I wish the reasons for it were better than they were, but I thank God everyday we finally figured it out. I have so many regrets, Isabelle, and I don't want to die with them. I want to let them go, but I can't do that without your help."

I sucked in a harsh breath as tears pricked my eyes. This was just one more thing I wasn't ready for.

"Okay," I croaked through my tears.

"And I promise that me going to Caleb for money wasn't about manipulating either of you. After a while, my insurance wouldn't pay for any more rehab or counseling and I guess, when you consider how much I needed through the years, I can't really blame them. It all ate up my savings and I legitimately couldn't make the payments on my own. If I hadn't done something, we would've lost the house and after everything I've put you through, I didn't want to burden you with my debt. This house is all I have to give you after I'm gone and I want to make sure you get it."

For the life of me, I couldn't come up with a counter-argument, save for one little detail.

"I guess I can understand all that," I allowed carefully. "But I still can't understand why you went to Caleb. I mean, you've
never
liked him. The two of you could barely stand to be in the same room together. It just doesn't make sense."

"Well," my dad lifted a shoulder a little too nonchalantly for my liking given the topic of conversation. "I'll be the first one to admit I never thought he was good enough for you and I still think that's true when you first got together. Between his reputation and the club, I didn't want you anywhere near him. And I can still remember him threatening to throw me in an unmarked grave very, very clearly, even though he wasn't exactly wrong to feel to feel that way."

"So what?"

He just smiled at me. "I know you don't want to hear this, but I knew I was wrong about him right around the time he went to prison. And ever since then, he's done nothing but continue to prove me wrong because the cocky, womanizing kid with danger and guns trailing after him just doesn't exist anymore. Everything that scared me about him, how he might use you, how he might hurt you, how he might put you in danger, it's just not an issue anymore. He's a man now and a hell of a good one, too. I know you don't want to see it, but you also haven't been around to watch the changes in him like I have."

I didn't want to think about Caleb any longer than I had to, so I moved to wrap this up already. "Alright. Maybe he has changed. I don't really care about that. What I want to know is why you went to him and not me or a bank or any other option out there besides him."

Maybe I already knew the answer, but I was too far gone to back down now.

"I knew he wouldn't say no," he just shrugged.

Right. Even though he'd claimed he wasn't trying to manipulate me, I'd be an idiot not to think he was completely full of shit. He'd had plenty of other options, but he'd chosen the bank of Caleb Sawyer instead for one very specific reason that I couldn't say out loud. It would just hurt too much.

Not to mention the fact that he put that contract right where he knew I'd find it.

"Besides," my dad laughed heartily, showing a little bit of rare energy I hadn't seen in him for awhile. "He can definitely afford it."

I laughed in spite of myself and shook my head. "Yeah. Right."

"It's pretty amazing, isn't it? For him to do what he did, leave everything behind, and build that business from the ground up, not to mention make it actually successful. Talk about beating the odds."

My eyes narrowed. "Right."

I didn't need a history lesson. He'd already related the details as they went down and I didn't see the point in hearing them again. When I'd first heard he left the club, I just couldn't believe it. In fact, I'd thought my dad was flat-out lying to me. But after a little time passed, the evidence was too real to ignore. I never thought he'd actually do it, but somehow, he'd shaken the life that could've easily destroyed him, the same life that had destroyed us.

At the end of the day, I just couldn't understand why he'd go through the painful, and potentially fatal, process of breaking ties with the club just to set up shop here in Claremont. He could've gone anywhere and probably should have, but why the hell did he choose to stay
here
?

I'd be lying if I said him leaving the club hadn't sparked a glimmer of hope, as selfish as it was, that I hadn't thought about what would happen if he actually showed up in New York, free of the chains keeping him in a life neither of us deserved and ready for a second chance.

He never called. Never wrote me another letter. Never texted. Never reached out. And I was irrationally and foolishly bitter about that. It wasn't fair—after all, I left and I never called, wrote, or texted either and it was just as selfish as it was immature to assume his decision to leave the club had anything to do with me or why our relationship had crashed and burned the way it did.

All he'd done was given me the space I'd needed, but there was still something comforting about getting those letters in the mail. It meant he was thinking about me. It meant he cared about me enough to take the time to put his thoughts on paper for me, even if I never read them. It meant we were still connected somehow.

Yeah. I knew how insane that sounded. But when those letters stopped coming in the mail, it was really over. It all just felt so
final.
As if it wasn't over already. And I'd cried myself to sleep for a whole week after I realized I'd never see one of those letters in the mail again.

I guessed I just thought I meant more to him than that. I guessed I just thought he would fight a little harder for me.

Story of my life.

"Isabelle," my dad's soft voice ripped me out of those dark thoughts. "What I'm trying to say is that all I want is to see you happy and at peace. Let's face it, you haven't been either of those things in a very long time."

My eyes narrowed into dangerous dark slits. "And you think pushing Caleb on me is the solution?"

"That's not what I'm doing," he shook his head carefully. "I know that's exactly what it looks like, but you're 30-years-old. I can't fight your battles for you and I'm not sure I ever really did. I just think you and him have unfinished business and you'll never really move on until the two of you sort it out."