Rediscovering Peace (Military Love Book 1) (6 page)

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S
kye

“Call me if you need anything. Even if you just want me to beat the shit out of Oliver.”

It was time for me to leave Colorado and I was ready. I had spent the last two days crying and getting drunk with Paisley. Oliver had been blowing up my phone every five minutes, and I was considering changing my number so I wouldn’t hear from him anymore. I hugged Paisley goodbye and made my way through security. Luckily, everything went smooth and soon we were up in the air. I put my earphones in getting lost in my music. When “What Hurts the Most” came on I lost it and started bawling all over again. Just when I thought I didn’t have any tears left, I was proven wrong. It had only been two days, and I was already over being such a mess. I wonder if this feeling would ever go away.

“Here, sweetie, looks like you need this.”

I looked at the elderly woman next to me as she handed me a tissue. I faked a smile and thanked her.

“Broken heart? I know how that feels. Let me tell you from experience, it gets better and one day in the future you will be ready to open your heart again to someone who deserves it.”

“I doubt that. I was going to marry this guy and spend the rest of my life with him. But he had to go off and find comfort in another woman. I am done–I will never fall in love again.”

“Look at it this way, at least you found out before you got married. Imagine being married and finding out he has been cheating on you. Saves you the headache of a divorce. I went through the same when I was about your age. However, it opened the door to something better and my Stan and I have been married for thirty-five years now and have three beautiful children and six grandbabies. I couldn’t be happier. I promise you will find that once in a lifetime love. He wasn’t it.”

I thought about that for a while. Though her words were comforting, I doubted I could ever open my heart to someone else again. Oliver had left it in pieces and no one would ever be able to put them back together. I sighed and closed my eyes, trying to doze off so I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.

I was glad when my plane finally landed. I was ready to get back to my everyday life again just to distract myself. I had already called my boss to let him know that I would be back to work early. He knew me well enough not to question my decision. Tomorrow I would tell him that I wanted to stay here instead of moving to the new office in Colorado Springs–I had no reason to move there anymore. I was hoping he would not ask me for any explanations because I didn’t want to share the new developments of my life just yet. They would notice soon enough that I wasn’t wearing my engagement ring anymore. Ugh. The thought that my life had been turned upside down within a few days made me sick to my stomach. I just wanted to hide from the world and never appear again.

“There you are. I hate to tell you but you look like shit. Come on and let’s get you home.”

“You’re charming as ever, Faith. You know every once in a while it would be nice if you wouldn’t tell me the truth. Is it too hard to tell me how great I look?”

“Okay. You look great, Skye. I think your vacation was really good for you. Happy?”

“No.”

I heard her mumbling something about never being able to make it right for me. I couldn’t help myself but I start to laugh. My best friend was a hoot, and I would be lost without her in my life.

During the ride home she rambled on and on about the stupid people at work and how she was going to kick her boss’ ass one of these days. I loved that Faith wasn’t pushing me for answers–she knew I would talk when I was ready. We made it home relatively fast and I was happy to be there. The more distance I put between Oliver and me, the better.

I opened the door and was greeted by Caige, who pulled me into one of his bear hugs. He didn’t say anything and I welcomed the silence. He had always known what I needed and right now it was his hug. I finally let all my emotions out and started sobbing. Caige led me over to the couch and I curled up in his lap.

“Why, Caige? What did I do in my past life to deserve this heartbreak? I was going to become his wife. I can’t believe he would treat me like this. And she wasn’t even pretty, I saw pictures. Ugh. I hate men!!”

“Hey now, we aren’t all bad. I am not going to tell you that you deserve better because you already know that. I am going to tell you that life goes on. There will be days where you think you can’t breathe because it hurts so badly but every day the pain will become a little less. Eventually you will move on. You are strong, and I promise that Faith and I will be by your side through this whether you want it or not. Oliver is lucky that he is so far away or I would make him disappear. I am sorry you have to experience this, sweetie. Just know that we love you.”

I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to Caige before he met me. I had never heard him talk about heartbreak before. Did someone break his heart and was that why he didn’t date anymore? It would make sense. I would have to ask Faith–she’s known Caige longer than I have.

“I love you too. Thank you for helping me through this, Caige, I don’t know what I would do if you guys weren’t here. Can we get ice cream and watch Netflix all day? I am going back to work tomorrow, but today I just want to be a lazy bum and forget.”

“You got it. I will go to the store and get you some ice cream. We are out. Do you want me to pick up a bottle of vodka on my way?”

“No thanks, I have been so drunk the last two days that I am surprised I am not still hungover. I need to work tomorrow, and it would suck showing up still drunk.”

While I waited for Caige to come back I checked my e-mails and caught up on some work. I wanted to get a head start on things before going back to work. I was interrupted by my phone going off and saw that it was my mom calling.

“Hey, Mom. What’s up?”

“Hey, Skye, I just wanted to check up on you? How is Colorado? How is Oliver?”

“Umm... I am back at home, Mom. I don’t want to talk about it right now but I promise I will come by this weekend and explain everything.”

“Did you finally dump that guy? I always told you he wasn’t good enough for you.”

Anna Donovan didn’t miss a beat when it came to letting you know that she didn’t like someone. Though she had accepted my engagement she had never liked Oliver. She tolerated him but that was about as far as it went. Maybe I should have listened to her from the beginning.

“Mom, I love you. I am starting to think I should’ve listened to you about Oliver. I found out that he was cheating on me while I was planning the wedding here. So I left him and came home early. Paisley wants me to tell you hello and she misses you. Do you want to have lunch Saturday? We can meet up and I can explain everything to you.”

“Sounds good, I am sorry that your ex fiancé is a cheating douchebag. You should’ve kicked his ass. Though I didn’t like him I wish it would have ended differently. Do you want to tell Dad or should I?”

My father, Pete, was a kind man but when it came to his family he wasn’t someone to mess with. I wouldn’t put it past him to get on the next flight and personally kill Oliver.

“I will tell him. You know he will be on the next flight to Colorado if he can’t see for himself that I will be okay.”

“Yeah you are right. I will leave it to you. Plus he is in a good mood and I would like it to stay that way. Maybe I can talk him into a date night. Well anyways I got to get back to work. I love you, babygirl.”

“Love you too, Mom. See you Saturday at lunch.”

I went to my room and changed into my pajama pants. If I was going to be a bum I might as well be comfortable.

“Did you get lost on your way to the store? What took you so long?”

“I ran into an old friend. He asked if I wanted to show him around town since he just moved here. We talked for a while and we are all meeting him on Saturday at Cowboys. Before you try to say no, you’re going. You need a distraction and what better way to do that than to dance the night away?”

“I don’t have a choice do I?”

“Nope. Now what do you want to watch?”

Caige and I spent all day lounging around on the couch watching some show about a motorcycle club. I wasn’t really interested but he insisted that I needed to watch this. Faith had left shortly after we got home. I wondered if she would be home tonight. She had a tendency of leaving for days without letting anybody know where she was. I had come to accept it and stopped worrying about her. She would let me know when she had problems.

“Don’t be mad but I am going to go bed. I want to go into work early tomorrow so I can get caught up. Plus I scheduled a meeting with a client for nine.”

“Okay. But, babygirl, don’t drown yourself in work to get over Oliver. Trust me it doesn’t help. I’ve been there.”

I decided then that I would ask Caige soon who broke his heart. I couldn’t believe I didn’t know about this. I always thought he just wasn’t ready to settle down.

The next day I got up early and got ready for work. I had gotten several texts from Oliver during the night. I really needed to get a new number. I wanted nothing to do with him and he just wouldn’t get the hint. He could shove his apologies and declarations of love. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. He made his bed, now he would have to lay in it.

“Good morning, Skye, you’re here early. You okay?”

“Yeah I am fine, boss. I have a 9:00 a.m. appointment with a client and wanted to look over the presentation before he gets here.”

“Are you going to tell me why you cut your vacation short? I know I am your boss but I am a good listener.”

“Thanks, Jake, I appreciate it. I don’t really want to talk about what happened. I will when I am ready. For now, please cancel my transfer. I am not moving to Colorado.”

“What? Why not? Oh right, you don’t want to talk about it. Well, I am glad you decided not to go. I love having you on my team and you’re invaluable to this company. I will let the people responsible in Colorado know that you’re not transferring and that they need to find someone else.”

“Thanks, boss! I knew there was a reason I liked working for you.”

“You’re a funny one. I am here if you need me, Skye, I mean it. You don’t look too good if I can be completely honest. I don’t like seeing that sad, defeated look on your face.”

What was it with people telling me that I looked like shit? I already knew that, why did they have to keep rubbing it in?

I spent my first two hours working on the presentation for my client. I started getting the conference room ready for the appointment and was confident I would nail this meeting. The customer had asked to put together a marketing strategy for their new product. Of course, my boss would toss a vodka campaign my way. I had laughed when he told me I was the perfect fit for the job.

“Skye, you did an amazing job with this presentation. I will talk to my partners but I think you will be hearing from us soon. I can’t officially say that you got the campaign, but you got the campaign.”

“Are you serious? Thank you so much, Mr. Logan. I look forward to working with you. I promise this campaign will be a full success.”

This meeting couldn’t have gone better and with the hours flying by, I was too distracted to think about Oliver. Work was just what the doctor had prescribed. I couldn’t wait for my boss to get back from lunch to tell him the good news.

“How did it go?” Jake was peeking into my office.

“Why don’t you take a seat?” I said as serious as I could be. I watched his face fall prepared for bad news. This campaign was a big deal for our company. Our former boss had ruined the reputation of our company by promising things he couldn’t uphold. It was Jake’s and my job to build our reputation back up.

“Well, I am sitting, now tell me.”

“I am sorry, Jake. I was so distracted all morning that my head wasn’t in the game.”

“Skye, I understand we all have bad days but why did you schedule the meeting if you weren’t ready for it yet?” He looked at me confused when I couldn’t stay serious anymore and busted out laughing.

“Calm down. Mr. Logan said he couldn’t officially say we had the campaign yet, but we have the campaign. We are on board.”

“Really? Are you messing with me? If you are, it’s not funny.”

“I am dead serious. We are doing the campaign for the vodka. Although I still think you were trying to imply that I am an alcoholic when you gave me this project.”

I couldn’t grasp what was happening when Jake came over and hugged me hard.

“What would I do without you here? Yeah, I am really glad you are not going to Colorado.”

He didn’t know any better but his words started the waterfall of tears. I didn’t want to think about Colorado.

“What did I say now?”

“It’s okay, Jake. I guess I should tell you so we can get this over with. I found out Oliver was cheating on me. I broke the engagement and that is why I am not moving to Colorado. I don’t want to be anywhere close to him.”

“I am so sorry, Skye. I didn’t know. I just thought you ditched him. Obviously you would ditch him because in my eyes he would be stupid to let you go. Well he is stupid for what he did anyways.”

“Thanks, boss. It’s hard. But somehow I will get through this.”

“Why don’t you call it an early day and go home?”

“I’d rather not. Work helps me not think about it. I have a lot to prepare for the campaign and the more I can get ahead the better. I am just going to go grab some lunch then you can find me at my desk.”

“Okay, if you ever feel too overwhelmed and need to take a day off, feel free to do so. You work too much as it is.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about. I never work too much.” I laughed and walked out of my office to grab lunch. I wasn’t really hungry, but I knew I needed to eat. My phone rang, and it was Oliver again.

“Oliver, what do you want from me? I told you not to contact me anymore.”

“Skye, please just hear me out. I miss you and I know I hurt you. I promise it meant nothing. It will never happen again.”

“You are right. It will never happen again because I won’t give you the chance to. I am done with you, with us. You threw it all away when you decided to crawl in bed with some skank. Now if you would excuse me, I have better things to do than to spend my time talking to your pathetic self.”