Page 82 of A Lifetime of Afters
“Noelle…” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “I need to be able to give you all of me.”
Chapter Thirty - Tonight
My heart dropped to the floor just as the floor dropped out of my world because I knew what was coming. “Hawk…” I breathed.
“Let’s sit down.” Taking my hand, he led me to the couch that was not mine, in the cabin I rented by the week.
“I’m ready to talk about Hunter. To tell you what happened. The part I lied about.”
“I’m listening,” I promised, working to still the panic in my chest. I spoke through wooden lips, my fingers as cold as they’d ever been, including the night I slept out the storm at the bottom of his driveway.
“I told you Hunter loved you first. That I was only beginning to develop romantic feelings for you. I told you about his one-year plan, how he intended to get the promotion and date and get other women out of his system before pursuing you.”
“Yes.” Everything in me wanted to cover my ears and run for the bluffs. Climb to the top. Lie down among the wildflowers that flooded them in the spring.
“As you know, he continued to date. A lot. I assumed he wasn’t serious about you, and my feelings grew.”
I nodded.
He took my cold fingers in between his warm palms and rubbed life into them.
I’d wanted this truth. I’d asked for it. Begged for it. Knew, instinctively, I needed to take it from him. I turned my hands over and clasped his. I spoke, my voice strong and steady, “Go on, sweetheart. I’m listening.”
“I planned to talk to your dad. With our families being as close as they are, I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t serious.”
I smiled. “That’s sweet, baby. I like that. So different from the punishing Hawkley who doesn’t let me shop,” I teased, hoping to elicit a smile.
His beautiful lips tipped up, a spark of delight reaching his eyes. “I’ve no doubt you would have earned lots of punishments, my beautiful girl.”
I smiled back.
His smile faded as he searched my eyes for permission to carry on. “I need to finish. I feel like if I don’t tell you now, I’ll never be able to tell anybody, and I don’t think I can continue like this. The guilt, Noelle,” his voice rasped as he twisted to sit back against the couch.
I threw my leg over his lap and straddled him, cupping his bearded cheeks in my palms. “Truth.”
“Truth.” He nodded. “Hunter came home. Told me he was ready to move on with you. He was so excited.” He smiled. “You know how he was when he had a plan.”
I laughed even as tears pooled in my eyes as I witnessed the avalanche of emotions crushing the man beneath me.
“He asked me to be his best man.” He met my eyes. “I was heartbroken. Jealous. But he was my brother and he claimed you first. I told myself I’d get over you,” he confessed.
He leaned his head on the back of the couch and swallowed hard. “A couple of days later, you tried to talk to me, and I turned you away.” He looked away, gritting his teeth. “I went home and fucking cried.”
I pressed my fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, massaging the taut muscles. “No, Hawkley,” I whispered, tears filling my eyes. So much time wasted. “Why didn’t you tell him?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat.
I pressed a kiss to his trembling mouth.
A flash of old anger tightened his jaw.
“Then he started dating that model who worked at Susie Q’s. Do you remember?”
I sat up straighter. “Yes, I do, actually. I hated her. She couldn’t keep her eyes off you.”
“Well, she was more than happy to take a spin with Hunter. And did. After a week of watching him joke around with you and go home with her, I confronted him. He told me she’d be the last one. That you weren’t in love with him yet, so it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like he was hurting you.”
“He wasn’t,” I agreed quietly, still struggling to piece things together. Knowing I was missing some vital piece of information.
