Unstoppable (A Country Roads Novel) (27 page)

“Stop delaying. What’s going on with you and the blond Clark Kent?”

“Mel, really, we don’t have to talk about it.”

“Can you two stop it? At this exact moment, I’m okay, because of the two of you. And I’d really, really like to hear about something that’s making you happy. This is the distraction I need. Please,” she begged.

Harper looked at Mel for a second before she started talking. “Brad is good. He took me to dinner last Sunday—a dinner that was perfect, I might add. We talked the whole time, no awkward silences. He’s sweet and charming and not pushy at all. He walked me to the door, told me he had a good time, said good night, and then went home. He didn’t do that whole
wait two days
thing before he called, either. No, he called me five minutes after he left, and we talked for two more hours.”

“Harper,” Mel said, grabbing her hand and squeezing it tight. “That’s great.”

“He took me to lunch twice this week. And then dinner again last night.”

“Still no smooching?” Grace asked.

“Yeah…he, uh, broke that barrier last night.”

“Gooood?” Grace held out the word for entirely too long.

“Perfect,” Harper said, glancing at Mel. She must’ve seen something in Mel’s face. Longing, probably…and maybe a little pain. Okay, a lot of pain. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything,” Harper sighed.

“No.” Mel shook her head. “If anything, you two talking gives me hope. Not for Bennett to figure things out.” She waved her hand in the air and dismissed the thought. “But for life to figure things out. For
me
to figure things out.”

“Well, cheers to that,” Grace said, holding her almost empty wineglass in the air.

The other two women clinked their glasses to it before they took a sip. They’d shared many insights throughout the night. With each one they’d had a little toast, thus the dwindling wine.

“You’re shockingly okay at the moment. Level-headed,” Harper said, studying Mel.

“It’s ’cause you two are here, and I’m pretty drunk. Plus, I don’t think I have any more tears in me at the moment.”

“That’s understandable,” Grace said.

“I’m going to be okay. If I can survive what happened last summer, I can survive this.”

Harper grabbed Mel’s hand and squeezed. “Sweetie, you don’t have to be okay today.”

“Oh, there’s absolutely no chance of that. It’s going to be a while. A very long while, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I can’t see it yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s there.”

Mel closed her eyes. Light at the end of the tunnel? God, she was speaking a load of bullshit. She just wanted things to go back to how they’d been a week ago. How could things have changed so much in only a few days? How could everything just fall apart?

She wanted him back. She wanted the man she loved back. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. Why was that so much to ask for? Why couldn’t she have him?

It was stupid.

The whole thing was so incredibly stupid. And right at that moment she felt beyond stupid to want that man so desperately. A man who obviously didn’t want her and was able to throw away their relationship like it had meant nothing. Like she’d meant nothing.

Mel’s eyes started to water, and the tears started to fall.

Apparently she wasn’t all cried out. Nope. The last couple of hours had been just a little lull, the calm before the real storm. Because now Mel really lost it. Harper grabbed the glass out of Mel’s hand, and Mel lay down in Grace’s lap. A second after that, Mel’s legs were pulled into Harper’s lap. Grace ran her fingers through Mel’s hair, while Harper rubbed Mel’s back. And that was how they stayed for the next couple of hours.

It was after midnight when Grace and Harper helped Mel into bed. But they didn’t leave her alone. Nope. Both women crawled in next to her, and Teddy joined them, curling up on the foot of the bed.

Bennett hadn’t really slept since Mel had left. When she’d been there, he’d been able to relax enough to sleep for more than eight hours. He’d gotten four hours of sleep the night before, and he’d done it sitting up in the chair next to Danny’s bed. Yeah, his back and neck were still sore. But that was the kind of sleep he was going to be in for tonight as well.

Bennett could pull the chair out into the semibed thing it made. But after the last two nightmares he’d had, he didn’t want to chance it. It was eleven o’clock on Monday night, and exhaustion was beginning to overtake him, so he leaned his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. It took about a second for Mel to come to the forefront of his mind.

It had been about thirty-eight hours since she’d left. Yes, he’d been counting, not that it’d done him any good. For the last couple of months, the longest Bennett had gone without speaking to her was a few hours. There was this void from the absence of her that he’d never felt before, a void that he had no clue how to deal with. But he was just going to have to deal.

It should be easier to get over her now as opposed to later, easier for him to just move on, but at the moment he couldn’t think of anything more difficult.

Bennett woke up, practically jumping out of his chair.

Shit. He didn’t need one of these again. But the routine was second nature at this point. He leaned forward and put his head between his knees.

“I see you’re still getting panic attacks,” a raspy voice said.

Bennett’s head shot up. Danny was awake.

Bennett stood at the edge of the room as doctors poked and prodded Danny, asking him a hundred questions while they did it. Cindy was standing by Danny’s side, holding the hand that hadn’t been broken with tears streaming down her smiling face.

The doctors were hopeful about Danny’s recovery, but only time would tell, and there would need to be a lot of time.

It was after one in the morning before everything settled down. And Danny was in desperate need of some morphine and sleep.

“I’ll be back in the morning. I’m glad you’re awake, man,” Bennett told Danny before he turned and headed for the door.

As was Bennett’s routine lately, he went and walked around outside for a little while. He needed some air. He’d snapped out of the panic attack he’d been having pretty quickly after he’d seen that Danny was awake, but he wasn’t quite over it yet. Just thinking about that dream had his heart rate going up.

He’d told himself so many times in the last two days that he just needed to move on from Mel. What he hadn’t thought about was her moving on from him.

God, he was an idiot.

What did he expect? For her to forever pine over him? To never be with another man? Mel deserved every happiness in the world. She deserved to find a man who was going to love her every single day for the rest of her life.

The thing was, whether they were together or not, Bennett would love her every single day for the rest of his life. He knew he’d never get over her.

By the time Bennett got back to his hotel, his fingers were numb. Cindy had taken the kids over to her parents’ room, so his room was empty. He didn’t even bother changing. He just pulled off his boots and climbed into bed. The pillow he was using smelled vaguely of Mel; it was just a soft lingering touch of her. He buried his face in it and breathed deeply, searching for her.

But she wasn’t there.

He woke up to sunlight streaming into the hotel room. His heart was pounding hard, but it had nothing to do with a panic attack.

Bennett had to get to Mel.

Mel stayed at Jax and Grace’s house until the morning of Christmas Eve. She had spent the entire previous day watching Christmas movies with Grace and Harper. They sat on the living room floor making table decorations for the reception, drinking spiked eggnog, and eating more bags of potato chips than any of them could possibly count.

But after an entire day of wallowing around and trying her hardest to ignoring certain things, Mel decided it was time to get back to her life. Or at least
try
to get back to it.

Both Harper and Grace insisted that they would go back with her and stay the night, but Mel said no. She needed some time alone, she needed some time to regroup, to adjust to how things were now.

Besides, her family was getting back in town after a short trip to visit Mel’s aunt in Mississippi. Mel was going over to their house on Christmas Day, so she was going to have to face the inquisition in about twenty-four hours. She needed to prepare herself, because breaking down in front of them wasn’t an option.

When Mel and Teddy walked into the house, she had to pause for a moment in the hallway. It was cold and quiet. It felt hollow. She felt hollow.

Teddy was sitting in the living room, looking at her with his head tilted to the side. He apparently didn’t understand what she was doing. Well, he could join the club because she had no freaking clue, either.

She took a deep breath before she stopped stalling and headed for her bedroom.

“First things first,” she said as she dropped her bags at the door.

She walked straight over to her bed and grabbed the teddy bear. She had to get rid of it. Throw it away. Never, ever see it again. She went into the kitchen, her intentions clear, but when she got to the trash can she stopped. She looked down past the open lid, into the trash that she’d forgotten to take out before she left.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t throw something that meant so much to her into the garbage.

She took her foot off the pedal that lifted the lid and it closed with a clang. Mel reached up to the cabinet above her head and shoved the bear in there, right next to the Tupperware bowls.

Then she headed back down the hallway, passing a clearly confused Teddy, who followed her around the house. She stripped her bed of the blankets and sheets and hauled them all off into the laundry room. And when she closed the lid on the steaming hot water, she started to cry.

It didn’t matter what she did. Nothing was going to wash him away.

D
anny was asleep when Bennett made it back to the hospital. Cindy was sitting by his side reading a book.

“How’s he doing?”

“Good.” She smiled as she stood up and stretched. “He was up earlier, but he was in a lot of pain, so they gave him some more morphine. He was asking for you, though. He wants to talk to you.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere. No plans.”

Cindy nodded, biting her lip as she studied Bennett. “What happened?” she asked.

“With what?”

“With you and Mel?”

Everything in Bennett froze. How was he supposed to explain that he’d flipped his shit and done the stupidest thing of his life?

“To be honest, I’m not exactly sure.” He ran his hand along the top of his head and town the back to his neck. “I kind of lost it and took it out on her. I told her to leave.”

“You love her.”

It wasn’t a question, but he answered anyway. “Yes, I do.” He knew the pain in his voice was evident.

“She loves you, too.”

“She told you that?” Bennett asked.

“Not in so many words. But she drove up here to be with you. She wanted to take care of you.”

“I don’t need to be taken care of.”

Cindy just laughed and shook her head pityingly. “Just because you’re a big, strong man doesn’t mean you don’t need to be taken care of. We all need to be taken care of at one point or another.”

“I guess.”

“No, we do,” Cindy said seriously. “Bennett, I know what you’re scared of. You’re scared of letting somebody in and then losing them. You think there’s going to come a day when that person won’t be there anymore.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bennett, did you forget for a second that you’re my husband’s best friend and that I know everything about you—including everything about your birth mother?”

He shook his head. “This isn’t the same thing.”

“You’re right. Mel isn’t the woman who walked out on you.”

“I’m not scared of her walking out on me.”

“No, you’re not. You’re scared to love and be loved back. You’re scared to have that in your life. You were scared after the accident three years ago, and your scared again after what’s happened to Danny. You’ve seen how easy it is for someone to get ripped out of your life, and the thought of it being Mel is more than you can handle.”

Bennett stood there, stunned. Apparently Cindy knew exactly what she was talking about.

She crossed the room and stopped right in front of him. She reached up and cupped his jaw with her hand.

“Stop hiding. It’s not worth it. Danny almost died. But you better believe that over the last week I didn’t doubt being with him for a single second. There was never a moment when I thought it would’ve just been easier had I never been with him. He’s made my life better. Loving him has made my life worth more. If you walk away from Mel, it isn’t going to make your life easier. It’s going to make your life harder.”

She patted his cheek a couple of times before she pulled his face down to hers and she gave him a kiss on the other cheek.

“I pray to God you figure it out, Bennett. Because I know she’s hurting just as much as you are.” She pulled back from him. “Now you stay and sit with my husband and think about that while I go get us some breakfast.” And with that she walked out of the room.

When Bennett turned to look at Danny’s bed, his friend’s eyes were open. “She’s right, you know.”

“Is that so?” Bennett asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah. Don’t tell her this, but she’s usually always right. Come here.” Danny raised his good hand and beckoned.

Bennett crossed the room and stood at Danny’s side. Danny held his hand out and Bennett grabbed it. Danny’s grip was weaker than normal, but still stronger than Bennett had expected.

“I can’t thank you enough, man.”

Bennett shook his head. “It was nothing.”

“No, it was everything. Cindy told me everything you did.” He let go of Bennett’s hand and motioned to the chair next to the bed. “Sit down. Stay a while.”

Bennett couldn’t stop the small smile that turned up his mouth as he took a seat.

“What’s with the panic attacks?” Danny asked.

And with that the smile disappeared. “Don’t waste time before you start the interrogation, do you?”

“Nope. So what’s going on?”

“They happen every once in a while.”

“Did Mel ever see you have one?”

“Two days ago.”

“Haven’t the two of you spent like every night together for the past three months or something?”

“Yeah.”

“And you didn’t have any panic attacks then?”

“No.” Bennett sat back in the chair, more than a little shocked. How had he not made the connection? There had been no panic attacks ever since Mel had been around. He’d almost had one the night that stupid article had come out, the night of the anniversary of the crash. But he’d woken up with Mel in his arms and he’d gotten past it.
She’d
gotten him past it.

“What’s going on, Bennett? What are you doing?”

“Are you kidding me?” Bennett couldn’t stop himself from laughing. “You’re lying in a bed, half-broken, and you’re asking
me
what’s wrong?”

Bennett didn’t think it was possible for Danny’s face to get more serious. “I might be broken physically, but that’s nothing compared to being broken mentally. I told you not to fuck it up with Mel.”

“That you did.”

“Why didn’t you listen? Cindy told me everything Mel did, too. Did you know that she went back to our house and got all of the kids Christmas presents so they’d have something to open tomorrow? Did you know that she arranged for Santa Claus to come see my kids tonight? Did you know that she arranged and paid for meals to be brought here every day so that they didn’t have to eat McDonald’s? Did you know that she sat and talked to my wife for hours and comforted her? That she took care of my family that she barely even knows? That she took care of them because of how much she loves you? Did you know all of those things?”

Bennett sat there, stunned. It took a moment for his brain to make his mouth move. “I knew a few of those things.”

“That should’ve been enough. Don’t ruin it, Bennett. Don’t ruin the best thing that’s ever happened to you. I almost missed out on my best thing, and I thank God every day I didn’t. Go to her. Go get her. Apologize for being an ass and beg that woman to come back into your life. You both deserve to be happy.”

“What if she doesn’t take me back?”

“Do you love her?”

“More than anything.”

“Then you try. You fight. You get off your ass and you get down there and you get on your knees and beg that woman for forgiveness. What is this
what if she doesn’t take me back
bullshit? You
get
her back. You do everything in your power to make that woman realize you are the only man for her. Do you want to look back on this, on her, and realize that you made the biggest mistake of your life? You see it now, so fix it now. At the moment, you’ve already lost her. So what else have you got to lose? Your pride?”

“No,” Bennett shook his head. “That’s long gone.”

“Good, because it’s going to take some massive groveling, my friend. But if it works, it’ll be worth it. Do you know why?”

Bennett nodded. “Because
she’s
worth it.”

Mel sat on the floor and stared at her Christmas tree. She’d dragged Bennett out to get one the day after Thanksgiving. It was right around when their relationship had started to change.

Bennett had spent a good hour fixing the strings of lights she had. A lot of the strings were only half-working, so he’d sat on the floor switching out fuses until he could get a whole strand to light up. Then they’d decorated it together, laughing and purposely brushing against each other as they went back and forth for ornaments.

Mel had spent the whole day trying to remove Bennett from her house. She’d put all his things in a bag and shoved it in the trunk of her car. But she couldn’t bring herself to move the presents from under the tree. She just couldn’t do it. She’d tried. She’d reached for them, held them in her hands, but she couldn’t pull them away.

No, she’d wound up plugging the lights in, putting on a thoroughly depressing CD by one of her favorite musicians, pouring herself a glass of wine, and sitting down in front of the tree. And that was where she’d sat for the past hour.

It was dark outside, had been for a while now. The sun was long gone and Mel was cold. She’d grabbed a blanket a while ago and wrapped herself up in it.

The presents weren’t the only thing she hadn’t been able to pack up. She was wearing his gray air force T-shirt. It was the same one she’d worn after the first time they’d had sex. The same one she’d worn more times than she could count. Bennett had laughed at her because she’d pretty much steal it the second it came out of the dryer. He’d given up all claims on it months ago.

Just like he’d given up all claims on her.

Damn, she was pathetic.

Teddy was lying down on the floor next to her, his little head resting on her thigh while she trailed her fingers through his fur.

“I think I need more wine,” she said, looking down at him. “I’m starting to feel sorry for myself again.”

Teddy stood up when Mel shifted. As she got to her feet, he stuck his butt in the air and stretched his paws out in front of him, yawning. He followed her into the kitchen, sat, and patiently waited for a treat that he knew was going to come. But before Mel could get one for him, his head perked to the side. He stood up and left the kitchen, heading down the hallway with his tail wagging.

“I just let you out. I’m not going out there again—it’s freezing!,” she called out after him.

Mel grabbed her wineglass from the counter, went back into the living room, and sat on the couch. She was tired of sitting on the cold, hard floor. She took another sip of wine as Teddy whined at the front door. “It’s too cold. I’m not standing there while you play around in the leaves.”

But Teddy didn’t stop. Instead, he got worse, getting up on his back legs and scratching at the door.

“Fine. Fine,” she said as she got up off the couch and put her wineglass on the coffee table. She slipped on her fuzzy slippers and pulled the blanket tighter around her. “I’ll take you out, but I swear, if you don’t do something productive I’ll…I’ll…I don’t know what.”

She opened the door—and that was as far as she got. Bennett’s truck was parked in front of her house. He was just getting out and slamming the door shut.

He stopped when he saw her standing there, and just stared at her for a few seconds before he said anything. “If you never want to talk to me again, I’ll completely understand and I’ll leave you alone.”

It took her a moment to remember how to speak. “I…I…um.”

He’d been holding his breath, and his whole body showed relief that she hadn’t ordered him away.

“How’s Danny?”

“Awake and coherent. He’s going to be okay.”

“Thank God,” she said, feeling a little relieved herself.

“Can I come up there and talk to you?”

She nodded, unsure of what to say or do. He quickly crossed the space to her and mounted the steps. The porch light illuminated him. He looked exhausted. It was etched all over his face, especially in those icy gray-blue eyes that she loved so much. He stopped a few feet in front of her and the distance felt like miles.

“I messed up, Mel. I screwed up so bad that I don’t even know where to start. Telling you I’m sorry doesn’t seem like it’s enough. It won’t ever be enough. Those two words can’t even begin to express the remorse that I feel. I was an ass. A colossal moron.” He took a step forward, but just one.

“Mel, you’ve changed everything for me. I didn’t think it would happen. When this started between us, I’d found that list of yours, of all these mottoes you wanted to live by, of all these things you wanted to do. These adventures you wanted to have. I wanted to be a part of them. I wanted to experience them with you. And in the process of doing all of those things, and in doing none of those things, I fell in love with you.” He took another step forward.

Mel couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t properly formulate words or remember how to move her mouth. She was dreaming. She had to be.

“I didn’t think I’d ever find someone that I’d fall in love with. But it happened. And it scared me more than anything else ever had. I didn’t know how to deal with it. When everything happened with the helicopter crash, when my life was torn apart, I let this overwhelming fear stop me from truly living. And then you came around, and I started living again.

“And then Danny’s accident happened, and I saw what the worst-case scenario was. He’s my best friend, and I didn’t know what I was going to do if he didn’t make it. And then I thought of you. Of losing you.” He reached out and caressed her arms. “All I could think about was that I wouldn’t survive. I wouldn’t survive losing you like that.”

“What changed?” she asked in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

“In my mind all I could think about was losing you like that, to some freak accident. But the thing is, I can’t survive not being with you at all, either.”

Mel wouldn’t have been able to stop the tears streaming down her face if she’d tried. Bennett gently pulled her to him. He brought his hands up to her face and swiped his thumbs under her eyes.

“You have to let me in,” she said as she put her hands on his chest and balled up his shirt in her fists. “You have to let me be a part of the good
and
the bad. To be a part of everything.”

“I know.”

“Do you really? You scared me up there. I didn’t know who you were or what was going on, and it was because you wouldn’t talk to me. When something happens you can’t push me away. You can’t say you don’t want to talk about it. You have to tell me. This,
us
, has to be more than one-sided, because I can’t do it this way, Bennett. I can’t do it alone.”

“I can’t, either,” he said. “Mel, if I were to write a list of everything I wanted to do, spending the rest of my life with you would be at the top. Without you in my life, none of it would mean anything. I stopped living before, but with you? With you I can’t stop living. You’re my big adventure. The best adventure I’ll ever be on.”