No MIT this summer.
And no cupcake store.
There was nothing left of the fifteen years she’d given to her work, to her life, to her daughter’s future. After all that, she was left with no savings, nothing to fall back on, no safety net. Nothing for her daughter. She’d failed them both.
She’d failed.
Clare pulled into the driveway and parked beside Griffin’s truck. It was dark out, and the lights in the house were off. No one welcoming her home. Just an empty house.
Tears suddenly burst free and she hit the steering wheel with her fist. It wasn’t fair! After working so hard to build a life for herself and Katie, paying off loans, working at a job that she really didn’t like, she’d lost it all. In one minute, a group of undeserving heirs had stripped her of everything she’d accomplished.
What else was she supposed to do to get it right? How many times was she supposed to pick herself back up and pretend she could soldier on? She didn’t want to live this life anymore. She stared at the dark house. How could she go back in there? Sleep alone after Griffin had shown her what it felt like to have someone she loved hold her all night? Go back to her office after her imagination had envisioned that cupcake store? Harden her heart after Griffin had opened it?
She didn’t want to go back, and yet, here she was, not just returning to the life she’d had, but to an even worse one. No money. No nest egg. No options. “Dammit!”
The door to Griffin’s truck opened, and she realized he’d been sitting inside his cab the whole time. Relief flooded her at the sight of him. She needed him now, more than anything. She pushed open her door and raced around her car. “Griffin—” She threw her arms around him and buried herself in his bulk. “Hold me,” she whispered. “Just hold me.”
But he didn’t.
He stood there stiffly, his body rigid, his hands by his sides.
Clare slowly pulled back. “Griffin?”
“I’m going back to Boston tonight.” His face was hard as he gestured at his truck, and she saw his suitcases on the back seat. “I’m leaving.”
Her stomach dropped, and her hands started to shake. “So soon? But why—”
“I sign the papers on my new company tomorrow at nine,” he said, his voice still so harsh and unyielding. He was nothing like the man she knew. There was nothing soft and warm about him. Just emotionless and stoic. Cold, even. “Back to work at nine-fifteen.”
“But what about Brooke?” This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not in this way. Why was he so angry? What had happened to him while she’d been in Portland? She knew it must have been terrible, to make him so cold and furious. “Did something happen with your daughter?”
He said nothing.
Oh, it had. No wonder he was so upset! “Don’t give up on her. She loves you—”
“She’s staying here. She doesn’t want to come.” He raised his chin, shutting down the slight tremor in his voice. “I’m letting her go.”
“No.” She grabbed his arms. “She’s fifteen! She doesn’t know what she wants. You’re the grown up. Don’t let her—”
“Stop it!” He knocked her hands away. “Give it up, Clare! I’m not some doting father. I never will be. I work. I make money. That’s what I do, and I’m a stupid fool for thinking that fits with a daughter or family.”
“But you love her!”
And me? What about me? Don’t you love me?
But she couldn’t ask those questions. Not now. Not to the man in front of her, who was acting like the cold, emotionless man Hillary had accused him of being.
“Let it go, Clare,” he growled. “Stop trying to make me into something I’m not.” He glared at her. “You tried to convince me that I was something else, and I’m not. So back off, and let me go be who I am.”
“You’re not cold,” she said urgently. “You have a good heart. It doesn’t need to be like this—”
“No,” he interrupted. “Don’t try to make me into something that I’m not just because you don’t want to be alone anymore.”
She gaped at him. “What? I’m not doing that—”
“You tried to make Ed into something he wasn’t, and you tried to convince me of the same. Well, give it up. Pick a man who is actually what you want, and stop trying to change the others.”
Anger fueled inside her. “You’re a bastard!”
“I know.” He looked at her coolly. “And it’s time we both realized it.” He got back in his truck. “I’m going to Boston.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” He hesitated, and for a second, she saw a flash of vulnerability in his face.
That was all it took for her to realize that his anger and coldness was just a facade for the tremendous pain he was feeling. “Griffin,” she said softly as she set her hand on his arm. “Don’t run away from this. Please stay. Let’s talk about this.”
“No.” He took her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm, holding it for so long she thought she was going to start to cry. “I can’t pretend anymore, Clare. I can’t pretend to fit where I don’t.” He met her gaze, so much torment in his dark eyes. Gone was the cold shield, and there was nothing hiding the raw anguish tearing him apart. “It’s too damn hard.”
“I know it is,” she said. “It hurts. But it’s worth it.”
He laid his hand on her cheek. “I can’t do it, Clare. I can’t do it anymore.” Then he leaned forward and kissed her, and it was a kiss of farewell.
Of a final good-bye. “Griffin—”
He shook his head. “No more, Clare. Let it be, so we can at least hold onto the beautiful memories.” He gently pushed her back out of the way, shutting her out of his life.
She couldn’t believe it was happening.
But it was.
She wanted to scream and berate him for leaving her, like she’d done to Ed. But protests hadn’t kept Ed home, and it wouldn’t keep Griffin from leaving. His departure had always been part of the deal, but she’d had no idea how badly it would hurt.
She wouldn’t kill another man’s spirit.
She wouldn’t lower herself to begging for whatever crumbs he would give her.
Not this time. Not again. Even if she kept Griffin for another hour, or another day, the end would be the same. Another Ed. And she couldn’t survive that again.
So, even while her heart was breaking, Clare didn’t fight for him. She simply wrapped her arms around herself as he shut the door. The bang of the door shutting made her jump, and he shifted into reverse without even looking at her again.
His truck reached the end of the driveway. “Please come back,” she whispered, knowing it had to be his choice, his decision, his own heart’s calling. “Please don’t give up.”
But the tires spun on the dirt, and then the truck peeled down the street, until the dark vehicle disappeared into the night, and all she could see were the taillights.
And then even those disappeared.
* * *
As Griffin drove away from Clare’s house, all he wanted to do was turn the truck around, haul ass back up the gravel driveway, and claim his woman.
But for what purpose? For nothing. He’d played all those cards, and it was a dead hand.
So, instead, he forced his attention toward the life that he actually fit, and he dialed up his business partner. Phillip would give him the fire he was looking for.
“I’m on my way,” he said the moment Phillip picked up. “I’ll be down by midnight. Let’s meet at the Cafe Florence for a drink.” Like a full bottle of Grey Goose, straight up. Because right now, all he wanted to do was erase the memories beating at him and find a way to look at his new company without wanting to blow the damn thing to hell and beyond.
“You got it.” Phillip sounded so psyched that Griffin felt like his partner was talking at him from another planet. “It’ll be good to be back, won’t it?
Griffin fisted the steering wheel. “Yeah,” he lied, unable to muster the matching excitement. Once he was back at work though, the rush would return. He was sure of it. It was what he lived for. After Hillary and Brooke had left him, his work had taken away the pain. Work had filled the void, and it would do so again. The office was his oasis, and he’d been a damned fool to try to play in someone else’s fountain. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Drive fast,” Phillip ordered. “Let’s get going.”
Drive fast.
Griffin snorted as he disconnected. Clare would have commanded him to drive safely—
Clare.
Her name bit deep.
Driving out of her place had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. So much more gut wrenching than he’d anticipated. After his hellish day in River Junction, all he’d wanted to do was pull Clare onto his lap and tell her about Brooke. He’d wanted to hold her in his arms and listen to her arguments about why he was a better dad than he thought. He wanted to feel her body against his as she talked him down from his bottomed-out state of mind.
Except the moment for delusions was over.
It was time to let go of certain dreams and focus on the ones that mattered. In Your Face. That was what he was good at. That was his calling. That was where he fit.
Not in this town.
Not as a lover and a partner.
Not as a father.
Son of a bitch. He felt like shit. He tightened his grip on the gear shift and hit the gas. He needed to get away from this town. Go back to where he was from. Reclaim the life where he excelled. Connect with the people who thought his business genius was a veritable blessing from the gods.
He tried to picture how it had felt to walk into that conference room to seal the In Your Face deal. The excitement of working on a project until four in the morning, taking a nap on his couch and then being back at work an hour later.
It would take only a day, maybe two of being back in the office, and he’d be in his groove again. He wouldn’t remember this town. The thought of Clare’s blue eyes wouldn’t make his chest hurt. He wouldn’t lie in bed at night and remember what it was like to make love to her. He would stop replaying that moment last night in the restaurant when she’d shouted her love for him loud enough for the whole damn place to hear.
Shit. He shook his head, trying to get the thoughts out of his mind as he sped around the corner onto Main Street. Emergency vehicles were crowding the front of Wright’s store. What the hell was going on?
There was an ambulance, a fire truck and two police cars, probably the entire fleet of emergency vehicles in the service area. Adrenaline spiking, Griffin peered intently through the windshield, checking out the store, but he didn’t see any smoke coming from it. The place wasn’t burning down, so that was something, right? So, it was okay.
People were crowding around the front of the store. People he recognized. Eppie and her friend Judith. Some of the guys from the softball team. Jackson and Trish. Ophelia. People he knew. He slowed the truck so he could get out and check on everyone, and then he realized what he was doing. This wasn’t his deal. This wasn’t his world. He was leaving, and sitting around here wasn’t his deal.
He didn’t belong here.
He never had.
He never would.
It was time to let it go and return to where he belonged. To the place that accepted him for who he was. The life that made him happy.
He gunned the engine and drove on.
He made it as far as the fork that would take him to the highway before he turned around, unable to leave until he knew that the people he’d come to care about were all right.
A few minutes later, Griffin parked his truck in front of Clare’s office and got out. He strode across the street to where Jackson was standing, his face reflecting the blue and red from the emergency vehicles flashing lights. Two minutes. That’s all he would give it, and then he was gone for good. “Jackson,” he barked. “What’s going on?”
Jackson looked at him, and Griffin tensed at the anguish on his teammate’s face. “It’s Norm.”
“Norm?” Griffin took a sharp look at the building as a stretcher was wheeled out the front door of the store. “Norm!” He raced toward the stretcher, and then stopped hard when he saw that the sheet was over the old man’s face.
He was dead?
Holy shit.
Norm was dead.
Griffin stood numbly while he watched Ophelia run over and take Norm’s hand. She was sobbing openly, her whole body shaking with grief. Eppie clasped her shoulders, and Trish supported her waist, keeping Ophelia from falling as she stumbled down the front steps beside the stretcher that was taking away the man she’d loved for fifty-three years.
Griffin realized everyone around him was crying. Some of the women were sobbing, and the men were silent, but there were tears on their cheeks. Men, women, even some kids.
As the paramedics walked Norm’s body down the stairs, Jackson took off his ball cap and laid it over his heart. Everyone else did the same. Those without hats used their palms, and the town went quiet.
Then one old man, a guy that looked as wizened and wrinkled as Norm, began to sing. At first Griffin couldn’t make out the tune, but then the man beside him joined in, and then others, and he realized they were singing the national anthem. Hailing Norm with the song of their whole damn country.
The paramedics stopped wheeling Norm toward the ambulance, and they put their hands over their hearts and joined in. And standing there, beside the man she loved, was Ophelia, holding his hand while the town showed their respect and their love for the man who had held them together for so long.
Griffin thought of the stars that Norm had taught him to see, and he slowly placed his own palm over his heart, and he began to sing, joining in with the town that had become his own. Emotions welled deep, and he felt tears burn in his own eyes as he paid tribute to Norm.
When the song ended, the night was silent. Not a sound. Not a movement. Just townspeople honoring a legend, a man who had been the cornerstone of their community.
Ophelia raised her chin, and, with tears still streaming down her cheeks, she spoke, her voice strong and determined. “Norman is smiling right now, because his greatest joy was to provide a place to bring the community together. To have everyone here, in this moment, is everything he would ever have wished for. He loved you all.” Then her voice broke, and Eppie and Trish wrapped their arms around her and helped her into the ambulance.