Page 6 of Against All Odds (Ember Falls #3)

four

Everett

I open the door to my house and pause, waiting to see if my ridiculously gorgeous former love of my life is in the driveway again.

She’s not.

Relief—or at least that’s the word I’m going with—washes over me.

Not that I don’t want to see her.

No, that’s actually the damn problem. I want to see her all the time. I want to touch her, remember the way her lips fit against mine, and make her smile.

Which I do not have the time or should not even consider in the first place.

So best to avoid Violet Stewart—Leone—as much as possible.

Back to the mundane, that’s what I always say.

And by always, I mean never, but that’s my new catchphrase because since she returned, everything is backwards. I need forward facing.

I remote start my truck, toss my lunch in the passenger seat, and see a note sitting underneath my windshield wiper.

That’s odd.

I open it, wondering when the hell someone put this here.

Everett,

You didn’t give me your number and I didn’t want to be that girl who was waiting outside your door at seven in the morning again, so I just left a note.

I’d like to have you over for dinner tonight as a way to thank you for helping me.

Here’s my number, if you can text me and let me know what time works or just to say you’d rather not.

Thanks again,

Vi

My point is made, but instead of getting irritated, I find myself smiling and then plug her number into my phone and shoot off a message.

You know, stalking is illegal in Virginia. Also, it’s Everett.

Violet

Is it stalking if I leave a note?

Pretty sure showing up outside someone’s house two days in a row would establish a pattern, even if the person knows.

Violet

I’ll be sure to ask my lawyer to add these charges to my tab.

I didn’t say I didn’t like the stalking ...

Violet

Some things never change.

I laugh as I start to walk back to the barndominium.

So you want to make me dinner?

Violet

I’d love to have you over if you’re open to it. I was going to make a pie too.

Is it Granny’s recipe?

Violet

Of course.

I’ll be there.

This is a bad idea. I know it even as I say it. Spending time with Violet isn’t going to be good for me. I’m busy, living my very structured, very meticulously planned life. I don’t have time for any woman other than the one who lives on the other side of this door.

I push the front door open, putting any thoughts of Violet behind me, and Brutus, my bulldog, lifts his head. He sees it’s me, and if a dog could roll his eyes, he would. “Hello to you too, Brutus.”

He does huff this time before he lays his pudgy face on his paw and returns to his nap.

Dismissed, like usual.

I scratch the top of his head and then kiss my mother on the cheek. “Good morning, beautiful.”

She sits in her recliner that she’s had since I was a kid, staring at the television. Our routine is practically the same. Before I leave for work, I come over and make sure everything is exactly as it needs to be for her day.

“Everett, be a dear and help me find the remote. I might have thrown it out.”

“It’s in the pouch right next to you.” Where it stays tethered so she can always find it.

She looks down and her eyes widen. “Oh, I didn’t see it. I thought I knew it was here, but I can’t remember.”

I smile, knowing the cadence of her life, and sit in the chair opposite her. She puts on her favorite game show, the familiar voice of my childhood filling the room.

There are times Mom is perfectly lucid and it’s as though the accident never happened. Those are the good days. Where I have my mother back, even if I know it’s fleeting. Then there are the days when she’s belligerent, angry, and hateful because her mind won’t work correctly and she misses my dad.

Most of the time, this is the mother I have, though. The one who is partially still her, warm, loving, and understanding, only she can’t function fully.

I walk over to the calendar in the living room, writing today’s agenda so she can see it easily. I put the approximate hours that I’ll be at work, when I’ll stop in for lunch to check on things, and that I’ll be out for dinner, but I’ll come by after.

“Mom, can you pay attention to me for a minute?”

Her blue eyes meet mine, and she puts the remote down. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

I squat in front of her, taking her hand in mine. “Nothing is wrong. I just wanted to go over your day with you again.”

Every day, for the last six years, is identical to the last. I say the same things, show her the same routine, keep everything exactly in the same place, and prepare for the next day.

“Are you leaving? You’re not driving, are you?”

I give her a reassuring smile. “I’m going to be fine. I drive every day.”

Her breathing accelerates. “I can’t go.”

“I know, you’re not going anywhere,” I say, doing my best to reassure her.

She releases a shaky sigh, and I watch the panic recede from her eyes. “I can’t go in the car, Everett.”

“Mom, you’re not going anywhere.”

Six years ago, my parents were driving home from a school charity event when my father went off the road.

The car tumbled, end over end, until finally coming to a stop in a ditch.

We aren’t sure how long the car sat like that, my mother going in and out of consciousness as she screamed her throat raw for my father.

Since the accident, I’ve done everything I can to give her the best life possible. We’ve gone to every specialist that handles traumatic brain injuries, hoping there’s an answer or a glimmer of hope she’ll return to the way she was, but there’s no guidebook for this type of injury.

We just have to wait and hope.

“Okay, because I can’t. I can’t go in a car. I can’t die. I can’t.” Her voice trembles and I move forward, squeezing her hand.

“Look at me,” I say sternly. Her eyes meet mine. “You are okay. You aren’t going in the car. Do you see what it says on the calendar?”

Mom stares at it—it sits in her line of sight—but she often forgets it’s there or why it’s there.

“You have work?” she asks.

I nod.

“Then you’ll come here for lunch, and then you’re going to dinner with a friend.”

“See? I’ll come by a few times.”

“Are you going out with Hazel?”

This is the worst part of her injury. She will probably forget what I tell her in an hour, or maybe she won’t even recall it at all. “Yes.”

“Oh, good, she’s a very good friend.”

I smile. “Yes, she is.”

Mom taps the top of my hand. “Did you come here yesterday?”

“I did. I was a little late because I had to help a friend. Do you remember Violet?”

My mother’s eyes soften and her smile grows. “Doreen’s granddaughter? Oh, is she here? Did she come to visit?”

Doreen passed away after the accident. There are times my mother can recall it, but it’s almost as though there is a before and an after. Anything before and even during the accident, she remembers, but after is harder for her.

“She’s visiting, yes.”

“Is she going to come say hello?”

“I’m not sure,” I say, even though I know there’s no way I’ll allow that. New people, new things, set her off into a possible bad day.

I work to avoid that.

She pats my cheek. “You should tell her you love her. You always have, and everyone knows it. Do it before she gets away. Trust me, Everett Finnegan, life is short.”

I know that all too well. “I agree.”

“I miss him every day,” Mom says wistfully.

She loved my father more than I ever could grasp.

Even though all the cards were stacked against them—she was sixteen, he was in trade school, and they had no help from their parents—they had love.

Dad became an electrician and worked hard, and Mom was a librarian.

They longed for a family but weren’t able to have children.

When someone left me with a note on the steps of the police station, my parents didn’t hesitate.

They took me in, loving me in every way possible.

When I was officially adopted, my mother says it was the single-most-beautiful day of their lives. I like to joke that it was when their luck turned around, but the current state of her life would suggest otherwise.

The accident took everything from her. Losing her short-term memory was hard, but losing my father was unbearable. I almost wish it went the other way. That she could forget the accident, my childhood, her life, her family, because then she wouldn’t feel his loss so deeply.

Instead she relives the pain.

“I do too, Mom.”

She shakes her head. “Where’s the remote?”

I close my eyes, doing my best to hide the devastation that washes over me. “It’s right next to you.”

She glances down. “That’s right. I have it here.”

I smile. “Good.”

I kiss her forehead and get up to head into the kitchen and then to the other rooms. I update the calendars that we’ve placed throughout the home so everything is the same, check that all the doors are closed and the locks are in place for the things that are unsafe, and grab the knobs to place them back on the stove.

My phone pings with a message from one of the techs in the office, and I see that she’s added two emergencies to my schedule, so I head back into the living room.

“I need to head to the office now. Justine will be here in a few minutes.”

Justine was a nurse for fifteen years, and when her mother was sick, she quit her job to take care of her. Instead of returning to the hospital after her mother passed, I hired her to care for Mom.

“Will you be home for dinner?” she asks, even though we went over all of that earlier.

“Not tonight, Mom. I’m going to dinner with a friend.”

Her eyes narrow just slightly, and she looks at the calendar. “I know you told me.” She takes my hand in hers. “I’m sorry. My brain is just tired, that’s all.”

I shake my head, giving her my most charming smile. “You have nothing to be sorry for. The calendar is on the wall, and you can always read it to know where I am.”

“Bye, sweetheart.”

“Bye, Mom. Be good and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

She huffs a laugh. “Since you’re a hellion, that doesn’t bode well for me.”

I give her a wink and head into the office, hoping my day is calm so I can mentally prepare for dinner tonight.

“Dinner? Just the two of you?” Miles asks as we’re sitting at Prose & Perk.

“Yup. She wanted to thank me.”

“Because you opened her pipes so she could get hot?”

I roll my eyes. “Fuck off.”

“Oh, sure, you are the one who gave all of us the most shit when we met the women we wanted to date, but you think I should fuck off? Not a chance, buddy. I’m riding this train until the wheels come off.”

“I did it because I’m not nearly as annoying as you are.”

Miles laughs once. “Sure you’re not.”

Whatever.

“Anyway, this is a bad idea, right?”

He shakes his head. “Nope, not even a little. I think it’s a great idea.”

I raise one brow, not believing him. There’s a mischievous gleam in his eye, one I know myself.

“You think this is a good thing?” I ask in a different way.

“It could be.”

“Right.”

He grins. “You’re not going to back out, I know you better than that. Do you think it’s a good idea?”

Nope. I actually think I’m the stupidest man who’s ever lived. One look at that woman and I was like a teenager making heartsick eyes at her. Hell, this morning I jacked off in the shower thinking of her. So, no, it’s absolutely not a good idea to spend any more time around her.

I need to avoid Violet and her beautiful cognac-colored eyes.

“Probably not,” I finally answer. “Actually, I know it’s not.”

“But you’re going to go?”

I shrug. “I already said yes and she lives next door. It’s not like there’s a mystery to finding me. I’ll go to dinner, get it over with, go home, and move on with my life.”

Miles chuckles. “That’s a good plan. Absolutely nothing can go wrong there. It’s not like there’s underlying feelings or emotions. I mean, go have dinner with an old friend.”

I flip him off. “So, do I bring flowers or something?”

Of my group of friends, Miles is the least of a dick, and he is willing to look like an idiot for a woman he cares about.

Lord knows he’s made himself a fool for Penelope more times than not.

It worked, though, because now they’re living together and are secretly engaged.

After all that’s happened, they wanted to make sure her son was comfortable before springing more changes on him.

“I always brought flowers on a date—or a shovel.”

I’m not even going to touch that one. “Yes, but you’re stupid and this isn’t a date.”

“And yet here you are, asking for my advice.” He grins.

I should’ve just searched the internet and let it tell me. “That’s a mistake I won’t make again.”

“Honestly, don’t bring flowers, go there empty-handed, show her what a douchebag you are. I think it’ll just solidify that she made the right choice all those years ago when she ghosted you.”

I really wonder why I’m friends with him or anyone in this town, honestly.

“She didn’t ghost me.”

“Then what do you call it? Disappearing by choice?”

“We grew up and moved on. That’s what I call it.”

Miles spins his coffee cup. “Look, from what Hazel said, it’s very clear that you two are due for a conversation, where you actually lay that part of your past to rest. So let’s just say that it’s a friendly dinner—bring a bottle of wine so the two of you can be relaxed.

Skip the flowers, since it’s not a date. Wine is a friendly gesture.”

I sigh, get up, and push in the chair. “Thanks for the advice.”

“Everett, in all seriousness, I was there when things fell apart. I remember how fucked up for you her disappearing was. She’s not planning to stay, so just ... you know, remember that.”

I nod once. “I know.”

I hear him loud and clear: Be careful because she’ll break your heart all over again.

“Well, no matter what, we’re all here for you.”

I huff out a breath. “Look, I’m not stupid, I have both eyes open. She’s getting divorced, here for a year, and I have a sick mother, a veterinarian clinic, an Ultimate Frisbee league, and did I mention my mother? I’m not going to get sucked into some already doomed relationship.”

Miles chuckles. “Famous last words.”