Page 97

Tess
After Conner leaves,I decide to throw myself a pity party. I lower the roll-up and lock myself in. Raid the fridge in the laundry room and dig all the Trilliums I hid out of the crisper. Toss a couple of old moving blankets into the bed of the truck and make myself a nest. Climbing into the back of it, I fold an arm under my head and stare at the vaulted ceiling above my head. Drink beer and listen to Axel sing about cold November rain.
Patrick asked me once why I kept it. Insisted on working on it. I told him it was a good truck. That a lot of good things happened in it.
A lot of bad too.
That’s what he said to me.
I didn’t argue with him because he was right.
We both were.
This is the truck Declan bought me for my eighteenth birthday. The truck we drove to his cottage on the Cape. There were wildflowers on the seat between us. Shad, curled up in his lap while he drove. This is where I gave myself to him.
Where he told me he loved me.
Asked me to run away with him.
Asked me to marry him.
I’ve never told anyone. Not even Conner. Mainly because sometimes I’m not sure it really happened. That maybe I just made it up. Some kind of sad, desperate fantasy I concocted to try to keep him with me. Something I wanted so bad and wished for so hard that I convinced myself it was real. That Declan looked me in the eye and told me he loved me. That I was his forever and he wanted to be mine.
I close my eyes and I can see him. His unwavering, dark blue gaze. Feel his large, warm hands wrapped around mine.
I know it’s crazy. I know that but, I love you and I don’t want to live one second of my life if it isn’t with you. Marry me, Tess. Let me take care of you. It’s all I want. Every minute of every day—let me take care of you.
Maybe I’ve never told anyone because I know the truth. That it did happen. That Declan did ask me to marry him. He did tell me that I was his forever.
He just didn’t mean it.
Because this is also where he told me it was all a lie. Where he destroyed me.
“I hate you.” I whisper it out loud. Want so much to mean it that I say it again. “I hate you.”
“I know.”
I open my eyes and there he is.
Declan.
Standing over me.
I feel myself blink, slow and stupid, before looking at the box of beer bottles next to me. The majority of them are unopened.
I feel like Con, having one of his episodes. I need to remember to ask him if his hallucinations usually talk back to him.
As soon as I see him he moves. Along the side of the truck, to the back of the bed. “You finished it,” he says, running his hand along the fender, admiring my handiwork. “You painted it blue.”
Holy shit.
He’s really here.
I raise myself up onto my elbows and look at him. “How’d you get in there?”
“Door was open.” He shoots me that asshole smirk of his before planting his hands on the side of the truck bed. The truck lists to the side, its axels groaning as he vaults over it, landing in a crouch.
“No it wasn’t.” I should be moving. Scrambling to get away from him. To protect myself. I can’t. All I can do is lie here and stare at the hurricane kneeling at my feet.
“No.” He shakes his head at me, planting a hand on my ankle. “It wasn’t.” He grips the pant leg of my coveralls and drags me toward him, the moving blanket I’m lying on sliding easily across the bed of the truck.
“What are you doing?” Another stupid question. I’m on a roll.
He plants my boot on his thigh and yanks its laces free. “I’m getting you naked.” As if to prove it, he pulls my boot free and tosses it over the side of the truck. He has the other one off and tossed over the side before I can blink. Both of my socks are gone before I find my voice again.
“Dec—”
“I told you last night, Tesla.” He jerks me even closer, his knees planted between my thighs, pushing them open so fast I feel my breath catch. He leans over me, his huge, rough hands on either side of my head, caging me in. “We aren’t finished.”