Page 7 of Anything for You (Veterans of Silver Ridge #7)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Stone

O ther than a wave here and there, one stop into her place to fix a faulty outlet while she was away at work, and the occasional polite acknowledgement in town on the rare occasion we were there at the same time, I hadn’t seen or interacted with my new tenant.

Dove.

I’d done my level best not to think about her or worry about her either.

Most of my concerns centered around the nonsense cropping up thanks to the commune and of course the excitement now that Jo and Adam had finally set the date for their wedding.

This coming December, a little over a year after they got engaged, they’d tie the knot.

Everyone expected them to do it sooner, but with Elizabeth coming back, Jo insisted on waiting until her sister was settled.

Now that she had wrapped up everything in DC and would be home for good, Jo had wasted no time .

I wondered how Dove would feel. She struck me as the kind of person who would delight in her friends’ happiness, but I knew from experience that so often, life and emotions weren’t that simple.

My own response was at once delighted for my friends and tinged with something hidden and aching.

Maybe not a fully formed desire for the same thing for myself, but the intrepid inhale acknowledging I wanted to be capable of it.

My thoughts about Dove counted among those complex things.

And when we’d shaken hands the other day, I’d felt it in my entire body.

In some way, it felt like her hand slid against mine, our palms pressed together, and the world stopped turning for a breath while my mind wrapped itself around the contact.

A faint buzz had lit under the skin where we’d touched, even after letting go. The sensation had remained even after I’d clenched my fist and released it. And it was one more thing running around in my head, bringing my thoughts back to my neighbor.

Try as I might, she was often on my mind, so finding her right in front of me after days of merely thinking of her sent a jarring thrill through me as I eased into my parking spot between our houses.

Since I hadn’t interacted with her much, I had no idea what would cause the woman to be sitting at the base of the cabin stairs with her head tucked down into her arms, but there she sat. Was she sleeping? Resting?

Far be it from me to criticize someone for wanting to simply be outside and soak up the beauty of the surroundings. I’d found and purchased this place for the express purpose of just that.

But something about her posture had me on alert as I parked and exited my truck. After my own experience with severe depression and coming back from being suicidal, I couldn’t ignore the worry in my gut. So, I rounded the vehicle and approached her slowly.

When my shoe crunched against gravel, her head popped up.

My heart seized.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, the sight of her red face and swollen eyes gripping me by the throat.

She spoke as she wiped her eyes with the bottom hem of her royal blue scrub top.

“Oh, um…” Shaking her head slowly, she pressed her lips together, so much so they disappeared. After a moment, she said in a grief-roughened voice, “I’m just having myself a little meltdown. Never ye mind.”

Even in crisis, she was an oddball. But it wasn’t enough to convince me to leave her. Knowing all too well how hard it could be to take help and solace when we needed it, I stepped closer. “May I?”

“You don’t have to.” She dabbed at her eyes again.

“I know.”

Slowly, she looked up. I sat down, moving with purpose and caution, not wanting to do anything that might make her doubt my desire to sit right here with her.

Her brows pinched together, her chin trembling, the tears slipped out again.

“I’m just sad. And so terribly lonely. And I hate myself for that because I have so much.

I still have Nan and my friends. I have this place—” she gestured to the cabin behind her.

“—I have so much, but I’m so, so sad and I hurt with how lonely I am. ”

And then, she cried. She sobbed out a gut-level grief I didn’t fully understand the details of but which I knew well, folded over on herself again, letting her hands and knees muffle the sound.

Instinct sent me toward her, my hand reaching out, but I hesitated, wondering if it was okay to touch her.

Would she want that? Should I ask? But as she let out all her grief and sadness, that same gut-level knowledge of what someone might need in this moment urged me forward.

I’d been there, in those same trenches, and I trusted my heart.

So I settled a hand on her back, fingers splayed wide, willing her to know she wasn’t truly alone.

Whatever pain she was feeling, she wasn’t alone in it.

At times, that’d been the most overwhelming part of my depression. I’d felt certain no one understood the depth of the problem or how impossible it was for me to climb out. I’d been terrified my mind might convince me the world was better off without me.

If it hadn’t been for my friends, my brothers, I wouldn’t be here. They’d sat with me. At times, they’d held me. More than once, they’d fed me by hand when I was too ravaged by grief and mental illness to lift my head.

Sometimes, those days felt like a lifetime ago, and sometimes, they felt close, like something in a rearview mirror that looked far away but was still closer than it appeared.

I would never stand by and watch someone suffer because we never knew what was going on. And if my friends hadn’t stepped in, if they’d left me to battle the demons that rose up unbidden for fear of overstepping, who knew where I’d be?

So with my hand on her back, she wept with a kind of agony at first, and then eventually, it softened. She sniffled and sighed between now-silent tears, then eventually sat up and scrubbed at her eyes and nose.

“Perfect day for mascara, huh?” she asked, then huffed.

My hand fell away, not wanting to linger and overstep now that she was talking. She wouldn’t want that, and now I could show her with words I was here for her.

“I’m so sorry.”

I shook my head once. “Your feelings are valid, Dove. Please don’t apologize to me.”

Her chin wobbled again. “Okay.” And then she tipped sideways and fell over so her head settled on my shoulder. “Thank you.”

I tried to stay still so she wouldn’t feel the jolt of shock at the movement, the utter trust in me she’d displayed with this simple lean against me.

The shock waned in an instant and determination set in—I wouldn’t move or do anything to disturb what little peace she might find here with me, no matter what.

The stars could fall down around us and I’d stay here on the porch with her until we crumbled into dust.

She exhaled slowly, and I could feel her letting a bit more weight lean into me. On instinct, I turned my hand so my palm faced up. She must’ve felt my arm move a little, because she sat up and noticed my hand sitting there atop my thigh, open.

With a slow swallow, she held my gaze with her brilliant blue eyes and slipped her small hand into mine. My fingers wrapped around hers, and we sat there, hand in hand, just breathing together and sharing the moment.

After another breath, she turned back to the view of the trees and tilted her head against my shoulder again.

My mind stilled, quieted. Something in me gave way, and I breathed in the scent of her shampoo and the summery breeze. I’d stay right here as long as she needed me.

And so we sat. Together.