Jerk.
When the loud knock echoed through her house, she wasn’t surprised. The doors were locked. An unusual occurrence during daylight hours, but she didn’t want him to think everything was okay and he could come on in. It wasn’t business as usual.
Then the doorbell rang and made her jump. She’d honestly forgotten the thing worked because nobody ever used it. She didn’t jump the second time, and the third time just pissed her off.
She yanked open the door and it must have been obvious she wasn’t happy to see him because Bear stopped wagging his tail and sat down next to Matt’s feet. “What do you want?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you for your apology.” She started to close the door, but he put up his hand to stop it.
If he’d actually made contact with the door and prevented her from closing it, she probably would have lost her temper. But he stopped short of it, his hand turning into a pleading gesture.
“Please hear me out, Hailey. Let me explain.”
“I asked you to talk to me two days ago. You ran away.”
“Because I was scared. I got scared of what I feel for you, so I tried to drive you away by being an asshole. But then Pete’s accident happened and you came for me. It hurts that I can’t be the kind of guy you want.”
Her heart clenched, but she clung to the anger she’d been nursing since he took off. “How could you still think I didn’t want you?”
“To sleep with, yeah. But I think we’ve already established I’m not your Prince Charming. I mean, look at me. I’m a guy who hasn’t shaved in two days and smells like woods and bug spray and the inside of a tackle box, with a dog who may have rolled in something questionable.”
“And I still wanted you.” Bear’s tail thumped against the ground. “Both of you.”
“Wanted. Past tense.”
The look in his eyes tore at her, but she wasn’t giving him a pass. “I deserve better than this, Matt. I asked you to stay and talk to me, but you ran away.”
“I needed to think.”
“Great. You got what you needed. Now I need to focus on what I need, and it’s a man who knows how to compromise and talk things out.”
“Please don’t do this, Hailey.” She could hear the strain in his voice and Bear must have picked up on it because he made a whimpering sound and thumped his tail some more.
“You said yourself we’re a bad idea. I don’t have a cabin in the woods to run off to, so you need to respect that I need some space.” She closed the door before he could say anything else, then rested her forehead against it.
This wasn’t going to work. Even if he stayed in his own yard, she couldn’t even begin to heal her broken heart with him so close. She needed to pack a bag and go stay with somebody else. Her mother, preferably, but she couldn’t exactly commute from Massachusetts. And Mitch was home with Paige and Sarah, so she could either throw herself on Rose’s mercy and beg a room at the lodge, or she could go to Tori’s.
She chose Tori, just because there were too many people at the Northern Star, a couple of whom worked closely with Matt. After packing a couple of tote bags with the bare minimum, she locked her house and threw them in her car.
There was no sign of Matt or Bear, which made it easier to back out of her driveway onto the main road. And she didn’t allow herself to look in the rearview mirror as she drove away.
TWENTY-TWO
FOR ONCE, MATT was thankful to live in a town that thrived on gossip. It hadn’t taken him long to hear Hailey was staying with Tori, which put his mind at ease. Of course, he also heard Hailey was staying with Tori because he’d broken her heart and was a horrible jerk, but he didn’t blame them for siding with her.
First, because she was born and raised in Whitford, so it was only natural they’d rally around her. And, second, because he deserved it.
The problem was that he had no idea how to prove he could be the man she wanted him to be.
Her house sitting empty was killing him slowly. Knowing she wasn’t there made him feel as if there was a void in the pit of his stomach he could never fill. He missed her and it was so painful he was surprised he kept breathing.
It didn’t help any that Bear seemed to miss her as much as Matt did. His expectant whines and his sad eyes when he ran next door only to find the pretty lady still wasn’t home just made her absence that much harder for Matt to deal with.
By Thursday morning, when he left for work, he was starting to wonder if she’d come back. He knew how much she loved her house, and the fact he’d driven her away from it just added to the guilt he was carrying around.
He was an idiot. There wasn’t really any way to sugarcoat that fact, and he accepted it. He’d lost the best thing that ever happened to him and he had nobody to blame but himself. He’d been so afraid of losing her, he’d driven her away.
Once his workday started, he managed to keep busy enough to not drive himself crazy. Outside of holiday weekends, Tuesday through Thursday tended to be quiet on the Whitford trails, with only a few local riders out, so he was in his truck, patrolling the roads over by the lake. Hailey was never completely out of his thoughts, though. She’d asked him to respect her need for space and he was trying like hell, but he needed to see her. He just wasn’t sure if showing up at Tori’s apartment was the way to go or not.
When a call to help convince a confused moose to leave town and go back into the woods came and he spotted a florist, he decided it was time to act. Once the animal situation was taken care of and his shift was pretty much over, he popped in and bought a bouquet of red roses. It felt a little cliché, but he was a man with few options.
Then, of course, his radio squawked and his plan had to be delayed. By the time he rolled into Whitford, he was tired and second-guessing himself. It didn’t seem like showing up at the place she’d gone to be alone was the way to answer her request for space.
But when he saw her car in her driveway, the frustrations of the day fell away. She’d come home. Whether or not that meant anything where he was concerned remained to be seen, but at least she was back in her own house.
When he got out of his truck, Bear ran around from the back of her house, then stopped. He barked, then headed back toward where Matt presumed Hailey was before stopping again. The dog was obviously ecstatic to have Hailey back and wanted Matt to go say hi.
He clutched the bouquet of roses in his hand, trying not to squeeze them and break the stems. Then, after taking a breath to steady himself, he followed Bear into Hailey’s backyard. She was sitting in a chair, a glass of lemonade on the table next to her, and she gave him a sad smile.
“Bear missed me, I guess.” The lab was bumping his head against her knee, begging for more attention.
“He’s missed you a lot. So have I.”
“I was at Tori’s. Which I’m sure you already knew since Fran knew.”
“I did know, but I was trying to give you that space you asked for.” He held out the bouquet, breathing a sigh of relief when she took it and buried her nose in the blooms.
“I’ve never gotten roses before. They’re beautiful. Thank you.”
“They’ll need water soon. After I bought them, I got a report of an RV being driven erratically. I had to find him and then wait for a drug dog and...whatever. They had to sit in the truck longer than I anticipated.”
“They’re still beautiful.”
“I’d like to take you out to dinner.”
She looked at him over the flowers, a wry smile twisting her mouth. “Because it went so well last time.”
“I’m sorry for that. I was so nervous and I got defensive and I was an ass. That’s why I went to the cabin to think. I was so afraid I’d say something stupid again and I thought if I could just lay it all out in my head, like a script, I’d get it right.”
“All I wanted was for you to talk to me. Getting called out for emergencies and never knowing exactly when you’re going to be home is part of your job. I was learning to adjust to that. But running off to your cabin because you don’t want to have a conversation? I’m not dealing with that.”
“I know that, and I’ll never ask you to again. I’ve never felt what I felt that morning. I realized I was in love with you and I was so afraid I’d ruined everything, so I ran. I should have stayed.”
Tears glistened in her eyes, and she shook her head. “Don’t tell me you’re in love with me when I’m mad at you.”
“Okay.” He wasn’t sure he understood that, but he was prepared to do anything she asked of him. “I’d still like to take you out to dinner. A nice dinner, tomorrow night. I’ve missed you. You became my best friend and, even if I’ve ruined any chance we had of being together, I’d like to at least try to save our friendship. Please.”
Her sigh was heavy, shuddering a little with unshed tears, and Matt watched Bear drop his head on her lap, wondering why she was sad. She scratched his ears idly, then nodded slowly. “Dinner tomorrow sounds okay.”
“Thank you.”
It was a second chance—or maybe third—and he intended to make the best of it. He had twenty-four hours to figure out how to convince her he could make her happy.