I don’t know how to respond to him. Everything is in shambles around me. Nothing makes sense. Nothing seems right, except when I’m near him. This week I have constantly felt unsure, unbalanced, and just unlike myself. When he is here though it’s like everything evens out. Like there is nothing that I can’t deal with as long as he is with me. “I’m not in any way ready to be with you again. Maybe later on down the road, but not now. There is just too much that we need to move past. Too much that is still unsaid and unaddressed.”

He looks over at me and the sadness in his eyes makes me want to cave. To tell him everything he wants to hear, but I can’t because that wouldn’t be fair to either of us. He nods as he seems to take in what I just told him. “As long as there’s hope that’s all I needed to hear.”

He stands up and leaves without another word, without a goodbye. Lacey walks in the door a few minutes later and I’m still in the same place on the couch trying to work through what just happened with Brian.

“So, you finally let him in?”

I look over at her realizing she must have seen him leaving. “Yea. I don’t know what to do, Lace. I still love him with every inch of my heart, but is love enough? I just don’t know if I can move past all the other stuff that has happened. Everything I found out, everything he hid from me, the things he has done.”

“To answer your question, love is only enough when it is strong. That isn’t something I can tell you, only you know how strong and resilient your feelings are. As for the other stuff I don’t know what to say. When you look at his intentions, they were obviously good he just wanted to protect you. I don’t even want to think about how that night would have ended if Brian hadn’t been there. You might not be here, Julia.” She sits down next to me. “None of us saw Dan for what he was and I know that is haunting you. You’re thinking that maybe there is a part of Brian that you can’t see, in my opinion there isn’t. He may not have told you what happened, and he should have, but I couldn’t ever imagine that man hurting you in any way. It’s easy for anyone around the two of you to see how much you love each other.”

“I’m scared.” I let my admission set in. “I’m scared that he is still hiding things from me, that I’ll always feel like this. I’m scared that he has such a huge power over me that, no matter what, I can’t resist him when he is around. I’m scared to commit myself to someone again after everything that happened with Dan. I’m scared that even after everything, even after trying to distance myself from him, that all I want to do is be in his arms.”

“Maybe you need to listen to your heart, girl. When he first came back I would have never said those words to you, but I think that you guys belong together. Just watching the two of you when he first came back into town, anyone could see your connection even though you were constantly fighting. Some things in life are just undeniable and no matter how much you fight them, it’s meant to be.”

I stand up and grab the keys to my car. “I’m going to go see him.”

Lacey stands up, walks over, and gives me a hug. “Good luck.”

The drive to Brian’s is short and I am completely overcome with nervousness the entire time. When I pull into the driveway, I can’t bring myself to open the door. Taking a deep breath, I try to calm the emotions raging through me and get out of the car. I knock on the door and when he answers I can tell I was the last person he expected to see.

Now that I’m here, standing in front of him, I have no idea what to say. Instead, I decide maybe it’s better to say nothing at all. I walk into the house and once he closes the door I wrap my arms around his waist. I just need to be close to him right now. To feel the comfort that only he has ever been able to really provide me. After a few seconds, his arms wrap around me and I get the feeling I had been searching for all week.

Peace.

Epilogue

Two months later

Julia

I follow my GPS to the address Brian texted me and end up in a residential neighborhood. I guess I assumed that it was a restaurant or something and that I was meeting him for lunch. He messaged me earlier and said that he wanted to meet me to celebrate last night.

After two months of this awkward, back and forth, half relationship, half friendship I told him I was ready. It’s been hard for me to get past everything. The fact that he killed Dan, no matter what his intentions were, still gets to me. I think it’s more the fact that he killed someone. I’m sure in the time that he and the guys served that there were numerous casualties but this isn’t war, and murder isn’t really something that is easily accepted.

I have been spending more time with him and the guys lately. Luckily, Ryan made a full recovery. I asked him once if he told his chief about what really happened that day and he just kind of brushed me off and changed the subject. I haven’t had any contact with those people since that day, and I hope it stays like that for the rest of my life.

I’ve been having nightmares of that day, of Brian’s dad shooting him instead of Ryan, of losing him. I haven’t told Brian about them because I knew he would insist on me staying with him. I have been sleeping at Lacey’s house because I didn’t want to jump into things too quick with Brian. As hard as it’s been I’ve been determined to take things slow. He fought me at first but after realizing it was that or nothing he came around.

Brian’s biggest supporter came from an unexpected source: Lacey. She is half of the reason that I took the leap that I did with Brian. Every night that I came home doubting him, doubting us, she was there. She has helped me work past my relationship with Dan, or what I thought was a relationship. In all reality it was just a huge web of lies.

My parents and I haven’t spoken in over a month. I told them in no uncertain terms that if they couldn’t deal with me being involved with Brian, I didn’t want to be involved with them. I needed to eliminate the negativity from my life and they are a huge source of it. They blamed him for me taking the money from my trust, which I never really explained what it was for. They just automatically assumed that I gave it to him because he is some sort of con artist, when really the golden boy they loved was.

As for my trust, I donated what was left of it to charity. I never wanted that money and if it hadn’t been for Dan’s debt I would have never touched it. After Dan died, I really neglected the bakery and have been working overtime to try and catch up on everything I had been pushing to the side those couple months. My first task was to check the books to make sure Dan didn’t scam me there as well, thankfully he didn’t. I finally have things back on track there and Brian comes in everyday around lunchtime to visit me.

Brian couldn’t let go of the fact that someone had to have known his dad was alive and never told him. He called his aunt and in the few words she gave him she said that they told her. She figured since his dad never came for him that it made no difference to tell him that he was actually still alive.

I pull up to a two story brick house with a white porch that seems to wrap around the back of the house. I check the text with the address on the house and get out of the car once I realize I’m in the right place. I raise my hand to knock on the door when I see a note.

Come in

I open the door stepping into the house and looking around to see another note hanging from the doorway.

Follow the trail…

On the floor is a line of white roses. They lead into the living room and I see another note on the floor. My heart speeds up realizing the game that Brian has set up. Each note a clue.

I can see us watching TV in here, you yelling at me for hanging a picture crooked, and sitting by the fire to get warm on cold nights.