Page 46 of Every Broken Piece

Chapter forty-four

Tess

I ’m standing in front of my plants, checking the soil, tenderly touching the velvet soft leaves when Gabe walks up behind me.

“Amelia will take good care of them.”

My hand drops to my side. “I know.”

“Spitfire, you’re killing me. I hate seeing you this sad. If you want to stay with your plants, I’ll—”

“No. You can’t stay here anymore than I can.”

Spilling my entire, sordid, history to Detective Hardwick took a lot of out me.

Learning to trust the police will be be an ongoing process.

However, something shifted in me when I was telling her my story, an unburdening that I never imagine could happen.

I’ve carried the weight of my mother’s actions my entire life.

Sharing that load with the detective and Gabe was freeing in a way that makes me believe that maybe they’re both right.

Maybe I can break free of Sandra’s shadow and finally live my own life.

Maybe—I don’t even want to put this out in the universe, but there’s nothing wrong with admitting it to myself—maybe I can find happiness in Colorado.

With Gabe. He seems to really want me to go.

He’s promised so many impossible things that my cynical self would normally scoff at and yet I don’t.

I don’t want to scoff. I want to believe.

I know that this hope, this improbable reaching for something so out of my grasp, will break me but what if I don’t try? What if I regret never taking a chance?

I don’t want to be stuck in this endless cycle of running from Sandra.

I want to live.

And I want to live in Colorado. Or at least try.

“We can take the plants with us if that makes you feel better.”

My grin is wobbly. “That would be silly. You’re right. Amelia will take good care of them.”

“You ready then? The plane takes off in an hour.”

I turn away from the plants and take a big breath. Am I ready? I’m packed. My suitcases are standing by the front door. But am I ready ?

I take a look around the home that kept me safe for two years. My refuge. My self-imposed jail.

Gabe touches my arm. “For as long as you want, Tess. You don’t have to stay in Colorado forever. Just as long as you want.”

What if I want forever?

The better question is what if I’m running away and all the mixed-up emotions inside me are based off fear instead of these new feelings germinating inside me?

Like the plants in the little cups of water on my windowsill, trying like hell to grow roots in a new environment. Will that be me in Colorado?

Am I ready?

Yeah. I think I am.

“Let’s go,” I say.

Gabe smiles and leads me to the door. He picks up my suitcases and when he shuts the door behind us, I feel the click of that lock down to my soul. This is literally the closing of a door to one part of my life. It’s up to me to open the next door.

He helps me into the ginormous SUV that I almost need a step stool to get into.

Before taking his seat behind the wheel he stops to talk to Roger.

Both men stand with their backs to the building, their gazes casting around the street while they talk.

After a few minutes he slaps Roger on the back and gets in the car.

I stare out the window as we glide through the streets of Cincinnati, feeling mixed emotions about leaving, but mostly relief that maybe this time I’m leaving the past behind me for good.

All too soon we turn into a small airport that services corporate and charter planes.

“I’ve never flown before,” I say as I stare up at the plane that will take us to Denver. I don’t know much about airplanes, but this one looks too small to carry us so far.

Gabe opens his door to get out. “You’ll love it. Especially when we land in Denver at around the same time we took off here.”

“I was expecting a big commercial jet.”

“I try to fly commercial as often as possible. However, we’re flying private today for two reasons. One, I have a lot of work I need to do on the flight. Two, I want you all to myself.”

See? He says things like this that give me this warm gooey feeling that makes me believe I’m not stupid to hope.

We climb the steps and enter the plane. I’ve seen enough movies to know what to expect from a private jet, but the opulence still takes my breath away.

Buttery, leather seats you can sink into.

Small sitting areas with tables between them.

I bet there’s even a bedroom somewhere but I’m not going to ask.

He leads us to a grouping of chairs. “Take the one by the window. Window seats are the best.”

I sit, suddenly nervous as Gabe settles in next to me. Am I doing the right thing? Should I have insisted he leave without me? He has a life in Denver, a successful business, his brother. His son. And I’ll be crashing into all that, bringing my extensive baggage with me.

“Stop thinking so hard, Spitfire, and just enjoy your first flight.”

I lower myself into the soft seats, willing my mind to stop spinning down dark holes. I’m not making a lifetime commitment to Denver. I can leave when I want. But I already know I don’t want to leave and I’m not even there yet.

The pilot speaks to Gabe. I tune them out. Something about winds and estimated time of arrival and a car waiting for us when we land. I’m always the one behind the scenes planning these types of trips for my clients. Living it is so very foreign to me.

Soon the engines whine causing the plane to vibrate and I hastily buckle my seatbelt. Like a seatbelt will save me if the plane goes down. This is a very, very bad idea.

Gabe places a hand on my bouncing knee. “Relax. Millions of people travel by air every day.”

I know this, but it doesn’t help. My nerves are caused by more than the plane ride.

It’s everything. His sudden appearance in my life right when I needed him.

The things I’m beginning to feel for him that I don’t know what to do with.

I’ve never loved anyone. Maybe Sandra once when I was too young to remember.

I relied a lot on Scarlett until she abandoned me to drugs. But that was about survival, not love.

Isn’t that what I’m doing with Gabe? Survival?

Yet, my feelings for him are different. Yes, he makes me feel safe. Yes, he takes care of me. However, it goes deeper than that. I’ve told him more about myself than I’ve ever told anyone and that was when we were only texting each other, before I really got into the nitty gritty of my life.

The plane starts moving and my muscles lock tight. My gaze jerks to the window. I’m not so sure sitting by the window was the right call when the trees begin to blur as we race by them.

My fingers dig into the armrests until Gabe’s hand comes down on mine. I flip my hand over and our fingers tangle together. He moves my hand to his hard thigh, holding tight to me.

Suddenly we’re separating from the Earth. The ground disappears and we’re airborne.

“Ohhhh.” I lean toward the window until my forehead bumps the thick glass and there’s Cincinnati laid out before me in a way I’ve never seen before.

The Ohio River a ribbon of brown, dotted with tiny barges.

Yellow, purple, and gray bridges span the slowly winding river.

It’s like a miniature scene you see in toy train displays.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Gabe asks.

I nod. Already the landscape has changed, the river lost from my sight.

Eventually the cloud cover blocks my view. The flight attendant arrives with two bottles of Gabe’s bougie water and a bottle of ibuprofen. Gabe shakes out two pills, opens my water, and hands everything to me.

I swallow the pills while simultaneously trying to swallow my tears. What the hell did I just do? I uprooted my entire life to be with a man I barely know.

But you do know him. You spent months getting to know him through emails and texts.

And now I’m flying across the country with him with no plan, no calculated next move.

The tilt of the plane jerks me out of a deep sleep. I hiss when I jostle my wrist, then realize that I’d fallen asleep leaning against Gabe’s shoulder. I check my lips to make sure I didn’t drool. Geez, I hope I didn’t snore. How embarrassing.

His left hand comes up to press my head back to his shoulder while his right hand continues to type on his laptop.

“Sleep well?” he asks.

“Mmmm.”

He turns his head to kiss the top of mine. It’s such a natural gesture for him that he doesn’t even take his eyes off his computer screen. He tugs my blanket over my shoulder, and only then do I realize I’m covered in the blanket from my bed. The bright yellow one with white daisies.

“Where did this come from?” I pluck at the blanket.

“Everyone needs to travel with their favorite blanket. I brought the pillow too, but I liked you using my shoulder too much to pull the pillow out.”

I stare at him, but he’s still studying a document on his computer. “Gabe.”

He grunts and types something.

“Gabriel.”

“Theresa.”

“You brought my favorite blanket?”

“Yes.” He’s wearing those sexy glasses, and I want to kiss him, but I don’t know how to initiate that, or even if it’s appropriate with the flight attendant flitting about.

He glances at me and pauses, then closes his laptop to turn to me. “Back when we were texting, you told me you loved your blanket cocoons.” He tucks my blanket more firmly around me. “You said it makes you feel safe, so I brought one with us.”

“Gabriel,” I whisper.

He looks up from his tucking and I grab his cheeks to pull him to me and smash my mouth down on his.

It isn’t pretty, or practiced, or probably even the right way to kiss, but I press my lips to his and he makes a surprised sound.

Then suddenly he’s taking over, softening my amateur approach, nipping at my lips, his tongue caressing the seam, teaching me, prodding me to open up.

And I do. I open up and let his tongue sweep in.

With a groan his hand goes to the back of my head and his other arm wraps comes around my waist to tug me into his chest. I’m halfway out of my seat and halfway in his lap, my good palm pressed against the rapid thud of his heart.

A throat clearing tears us apart. The flight attendant is standing next to Gabe, her cheeks red. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “But we’re preparing to land, and I need everyone to buckle their seatbelts.”

Mortified I rapidly slide back into my seat, fumbling to toss the blanket off so I can find the two ends of the belt buckle.

When I’m situated, Gabe leans over, his lips close to my ear. “We’ll finish that later.”