“W-why?”
He pushed himself away from me, dropping his hands from my face to his sides before he sucked in two fierce lungfuls of air and then pulled on a pair of work pants that hung over the kitchen chair.
He shoved his red flannel over his shoulders and buttoned it quickly before he clutched his winter jacket and shoved his feet in his boots.
“Mav—”
He paused, hand on the door knob as the winter blast of morning air rushed through the kitchen. “She called me that.”
And with that the door slammed and Maverick left me alone.
Again.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Poppy
Maverick was still gone.
For three hours I simmered and wondered what to do, the tiny double-pink-lined positive pregnancy test still wrapped in napkins and shoved deep in my purse.
Not the beautiful announcement I’d planned in my head, and he’d done so well before that. Everything was so perfect, his tender words and caresses lulling me into a false memory of who this man was.
And now that I knew, now that I’d seen his true colors, he had more than hell to pay.
By the time the sun was setting and the shadows in Maverick’s cabin had grown deep and dark, I was on edge and ready to hike wherever to reach him, or search this house up and down and free it of its demons.
I started a fire and brewed hot cocoa on the stove an hour ago, but nothing could keep me calm without him here.
I was just thinking of grabbing my keys and heading back to my own apartment for good, when faint strains of violin music swept through upstairs. It started off slowly, the romantic notes haunting in the way they clung to the damp night air, but as the tune played on, the notes grew more shrill and fevered.
“What do you want from me?!” I shouted, ready to confront whatever hell was fighting me for the man I loved.
The wind chose that moment to blow in a window, the loud thud as the hinge came loose and one corner of the window banged against the wall sent a chill through my blood. A gust of wind, stronger than the first that’d knocked the window off its hinges forced the curtain into a whirling dervish before it reached the corner desk, a pile of paperwork spinning on the current.
A single white page fell softly to the bare wooden floor like a feather.
Something eerie crawled to life inside of me, the sudden silence as the curtain calmed.
I crossed the distance to the desk, bending to pick up the sheet of paper.
I realized then it was a letter.
My eyes crawled to the stack that sat on the corner of the table.
They all started with My Dearest, Mav: or Mav, My Love:
I rifled through the pages, afraid to read them, but desperate to know what they might contain. I wanted to know this man in ways that he didn't yet seem able to tell me. I wanted to help him, but how could I if I didn't know how?
I scanned the first love letter, confirming at the bottom that it was signed by Aspen's mom. The next few letters talked about how they met while he was playing football and she was a cheerleader, and then later how excited she was when she found out she was pregnant. She loved him desperately.
And then the focus of her letters turned to her unborn baby. Tears welled in my eyes as she talked about picking out nursery items and practicing baby lullabies on the violin at the window in the new nursery.
Physical pain clogged my throat like claws, air vacating my lungs as I dropped the letters to the desk, stacking a single book on top so the wind wouldn’t steal them.
Strings of violin music started in my ears, dancing to the currents of the curtain like they matched invisible harmonies.
I felt not so alone, even though I knew I was the only human here.
“Please let him go, whatever hold you have over him after all of these years, it’s killing him…” I dropped to my knees, hands covering my face as a wave of emotion trembled through me. This man had lost so much, everyone had lost so much. “Please, let him go,” I whispered like a prayer, “you have to let him go.”
The violin notes ended then, the faint notes fading to quiet.
I stood from the floor, backing out of the room and moving down the stairs. Frustration tunneled through me as I shoved my boots on my feet and threw open the front door. “Maverick Wright, if you don’t grow up, I swear to God you will regret the day you met me!”
Silence hung heavy, the wind rustling the leaves, before I heard footsteps coming from over my shoulder.
A shudder of terror crackled through me, awareness that I wasn’t alone crawling up my spine.
“Regrets.” His voice curled through me. “I have so many.”
He spun me in his arms, moonlight highlighting all the hard angles of the man that I hated I loved.
“I hate you, Maverick.”
“I love you, Petal, I don’t deserve you, but I love you.” He dropped to his knee and pulled a ring from behind his back. “I’ll sign everything I own over to you right now to prove it.” The diamond was big, the facets cutting the moonlight into fractured rainbows as tears pooled into my eyes.
Trembling, he pushed it over my left finger and then kissed it softly. He flipped my wrist, swiping the pads of his thumbs along my skin tenderly before kissing up my arm and standing to full height. He pulled me into his arms, cradling me close and holding me so fiercely he nearly stole the air from my lungs.
“Marry me. Today—tomorrow—I don’t care when. I had to find you the best, I’m sorry I walked out earlier, but I went to ask your dad for your hand, and I needed the best ring I
