Page 47 of Finding Home (Willow Valley #1)

FORTY-SEVEN

EVERETT

I pull the door open, about to leave for the store with Lila, but Brinley is standing on the other side, hand raised to knock. Seeing her is a stab to the gut I wasn’t expecting. When Chloe walked out yesterday, the last thing I expected was to see her best friend on my doorstep.

“Chloe’s not here,” I say, and she nods.

“I know. We need to talk.”

“Peanut, can you head up to your room? I’ll call you when it’s time to go.”

“But I want ice cream, Daddy. You said we could buy some at the store.”

I sigh and run my hand down my face, exhaustion fighting to take over. “Peanut, please. We can still get ice cream at the store, we’re just going to go in a bit.”

She pouts, bottom lip out as she stares at me. When I don’t relent, she sighs, shoulders sagging as she slowly climbs the stairs to her room.

I lead Brinley into the living room, and we settle on the couch. She doesn’t beat around the bush, diving right into it.

“You need to fight for her.”

“I need to respect her,” I say.

“How is letting her run in fear respecting her? As much as she says she didn’t want to teach in the city because she missed home, I know it was rooted in her fear.

She feared that everything could go right there and everything could change.

Willow Valley is her safe space. You made it not so safe, and now she’s running from you, and I know that if she doesn’t face this head on now, she’ll run from Willow Valley. ”

I dip my head between my shoulders, running my hand over the back of my head. “I can’t fight her fear for her, Brinley. It’s not a matter of want, it’s a matter of not being able to.”

“I know, but all she needs is someone who’s going to stand by her as she fights it. You’re telling me you don’t know anything about fighting fear?”

She’s got me there. Chloe and the thought of Lila was all I needed to fight through the fear two days ago, and Chloe knew it.

It’s exactly why she mentioned Lila and the fort and movie night.

Why she showed up at the damn fire dressed completely inappropriately for the weather. She knew what I needed to fight fear.

I’m not someone who will work to convince someone to be with me.

But the way Chloe kept saying she loves me and has given me a piece of her soul was almost like her begging me not to let her walk away.

I’m hoping some time away allowed her to gather herself, because I have no plans of letting her spend another night not under this roof with me.

“You look like you have a plan,” Brinley says.

I nod and head down the hall towards what was Chloe’s room. She only took a small suitcase with her yesterday, meaning the rest of her stuff is still in her room. I find her suitcase at the back of the closet and open it on the bed as Brinley walks in.

“What the fuck are you doing, Everett Lawson?” she practically yells, and I stare at her with a raised brow. She crosses her arms waiting for an answer.

I turn and head back to the closet, grabbing hangers full of clothes, and take them back to the suitcase dropping them inside.

“Dumber than I thought,” Brinley muses. When I don’t respond she says, “So what? Your plan is to shove all her stuff into suitcases and leave it on the front porch for her to collect? Or do you plan to drop it off at her parents’?”

I shake my head. “My plan,” I nearly growl, “is to get all of her stuff out of a room that’s not hers and upstairs and into ours.”

“Oh,” she says, deflating. “You could have just said something and I’d have been all over helping you pack.”

I grunt, and she starts working her way around the room, putting stuff into one of the other suitcases she found.

We head upstairs, and I open half the dresser, showing empty drawers that I may have prepared for Chloe a couple weeks ago as I tried to figure out how to ask her to move her stuff in here. Now, I’m not giving her a choice.

Brinley unloads stuff into the drawers while I make another trip downstairs, making sure I grab anything and everything she brought with her when she moved in, and the things she’s collected over the last few months.

I hang up Chloe’s clothes in the closet while Brinley does the bathroom, talking at me while she’s in there.

She’s snooping and asking questions, and I give her one word answers, but that doesn’t stop her.

She’s full of energy, but not in the way Chloe is that somehow calms me.

Brinley is full of energy that has me not wanting to spend days on end with her.

I’m grateful for how she’s helped me and Lila and her showing up today to talk about Chloe and not let me sit and wallow, but this girl is going to need someone who can match her energy.

When we’re both finished and everything is put away, Brinley says, “I’ll chill with Lila. Chloe is at her spot by the lake. You’ll need to park at the B&B. It’s not the path beside the B&B, it’s behind, and you’ll walk into the forest first. It’s the first left once you’re in the forest.”

I nod, hoping that’s enough for me to find her. I pop into Lila’s room and let her know I’m leaving and Brinley is staying with her and jog down the stairs, collecting my keys and slipping on a hoodie before driving towards the bed and breakfast.