‘Okay.’ Her voice was a choked whisper, and his heart broke a little more.
At the door, she reached up and planted a kiss on his cheek.
‘Happy New Year, Nic.’
‘Happy New Year, Bennett.’
He closed the door behind her, and even though his heart still hurt, he felt lighter. Maybe the exorcism worked. Maybe this really would be a new year.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The lights were still up at the end of January, because this was her place and she made the rules. Which she rather enjoyed. Besides, the twinkly lights made it easier to come home to her dark house.
‘See you next week?’ Iris asked as she shifted the car into park in Kira’s driveway.
‘Wouldn’t miss it.’
Iris smiled. ‘Great! I’ll wait until you get in. It’s so dark out here.’
‘Thanks, but don’t worry, Benny is here to protect me.’
Iris laughed as Kira wrestled her yoga mat from the tiny back seat before closing the door and giving her friend one more wave goodbye. She’d been taking Iris’s Tuesday evening yoga class for three weeks now and she’d done Warrior 3 tonight without toppling over onto her head, so she was feeling very zen.
Or at least she did feel zen before she opened the door and was nearly bowled over by her over-enthusiastic roommate.
‘Hi! Hi, baby! I’m home!’ She rubbed Benny, her big, not at all scary, pit bull rescue dog between his ears. His tongue lolled out of his mouth in pleasure.
‘Did you miss me? You big baby.’ She patted his giant head and attempted to wedge herself further into her house. ‘You gotta let me in, bud.’ She pushed him aside and he only gave an inch but it was enough to close the front door. He stuck to her like glue as she unraveled her scarf and hung up her coat. The radiator hissed happily in the hallway, filling the house with warmth. That new boiler was working like gangbusters.
She’d even taken down her blanket doorways and with Iris and Jeanie’s help had hauled her mattress back upstairs. The little snowglobe-world in her house that she and Bennett had existed in for two weeks was officially gone.
And yes, she realized it was pathological to adopt a dog with the name of the person she was trying to live without, but at the time it had seemed like fate.
At least one Ben belonged with her.
‘Come on, let’s get you some dinner.’ That got the big galoot detached from her side and running toward the kitchen, his claws scrabbling along the hardwood floors. Kira laughed, following along behind him.
It had been a strange month since Bennett left; hard but good. Now that she’d officially decided to emerge from her self-imposed isolation, life in Dream Harbor didn’t seem quite so bad. In fact, she might have overdone her reentering society a bit. In the past month, she’d signed up for yoga, joined the book club, attended three different cooking classes at Annie’s bakery, and picked up a few shifts at Mac’s pub to bring in a little extra cash. Not to mention the meetings she’d had with Logan’s agricultural engineer, and with Logan himself, for tips on how to run a farm and all the time she’d spent writing up a business plan for Chloe.
She was even starting to dream up ideas for that old barn. If she fixed it up, she could host events here.
Kira had been busy. And it had been … wonderful. And exhausting.
Benny whined at her feet as she heated some leftover soup for dinner.
‘You already ate,’ she reminded him, but he looked up at her like he was near death from starvation. She sighed but couldn’t help her smile as she slipped him a little piece of chicken from the pot. This big guy had been the main thing keeping her from begging human Bennett to come back. At least for a while.
Because even though she’d filled her days and made friends and got her heat working and built a business plan and finally, finally convinced herself she could do this, she could exist in the world on her own, she still just really missed him.
She didn’t want to exist in the world on her own.
Which was why she’d sent the letter.
She poured her soup into a bowl and moved to the table trying and failing to not think about the contents of the letter. It filled her with anxiety every time she thought about it.
Had he gotten it yet? She’d sent it a few days ago. How long did it take mail to get from here to there? What if it got lost? Mail got lost all the time, didn’t it?
And worse, if he had gotten it, what did he think about it?
Maybe she’d been inspired by Edwin’s prolific letter-writing. She was still sorting through them all on the off-chance he’d put a treasure map in one of them, but a letter had seemed like a good idea at the time. She wanted something less instant. Something that would let Bennett formulate his answer before he sent it. Something that wouldn’t be like staring at the thinking dots on a text message. Those dots would have broken her for sure.
But now the waiting was just as bad.
Just say the word…
Had he meant it?
Maybe he’d gotten back out into the real world, away from their snowed-in fantasy land, and realized it had been just the circumstances. Just the magic of the season. Or the loneliness.
But even if that was true, she was still glad she’d sent it. He’d said so many beautiful things to her during that last fight, and she’d given him nothing but icy silence. He deserved to at least know how she’d felt about him. How much she’d loved their Christmas together.
And anyway, it was too late now. The letter was out in the world, in her sloppy handwriting, and there was no taking it back. She could still remember every word she’d written since she’d rewritten the damn thing so many times.
Dear Bennett,
Even after reading so many of Edwin’s letters, I don’t know how to start this one (sorry but it’s not going to be dirty). I guess I just wanted to say a few things I didn’t manage to say before you left, even though I probably should have.
I thought I was doing the right thing, the selfless thing, by ending things between us. I thought I should insist that you go home, but once again I wasn’t thinking about you. About what you wanted. I shouldn’t have doubted you. If you wanted to stay, I should have let you.
