Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Sweating, pale, pulling on a rope while a trainer directed him from behind.
And pinned on the wall in front of Burgess was . . . Tallulah.
A picture of her.
Conversations grew muffled in her ears, the sound of her heartbeat quickening and growing louder until it drowned the whole room out completely. Her whole world narrowed down to the photograph. How he stared at it while he labored.
She’d been his incentive.
“He was interviewed for the article, of course. He doesn’t mention the woman by name, but . . . let’s see . . .” He used the candle to highlight a passage. “He said, ‘Am I motivated by a return to hockey? Sure. But mostly, there’s a woman. There’s an incredible woman. The thought of her is getting me there. Healing me more than any medicine ever could.’”
Tallulah’s air passage was full of cement by the time he finished reading. The candlelit table blurred in front of her, and she quickly swiped at her eyes; if only she could look at Burgess, but he was standing up from the table, phone pressed to his ear. He left the room, exiting onto the patio, and she felt the sudden lack of his presence like a full-body chill.
She stood up on legs that were as insubstantial as air, holding on to the back of the chair for support while she got her bearings. Where was she going? What was she going to do?
If she really thought about it, there was only one answer.
She was in love with a man who’d had a bad day and said something regrettable, but that moment didn’t define him. His words might have struck her where it hurt, yes. He’d said so many things to her that made her feel . . . alive and safe and loved, though, too. Right? She didn’t want to go any longer, let alone the rest of her life, never hearing his voice, seeing his face, feeling his hands and breath on her body. Loving him. Being loved by him.
“Excuse me,” she said, forcing her legs to carry her across the dining room.
Burgess had walked down to the edge of the patio and sat down on one of the lounge chairs, a nearby fire pit highlighting the planes and shadows of his face. There was so much noise from the dining room, he must not have heard her approaching and it took her several steps before she could make out what he was saying into the phone, but she finally did.
“I know, Liss.” He massaged the center of his forehead. “I did. I tried.”
Tallulah abruptly stopped walking, hands pressed to her chest to keep her heart from leaping out.
“Of course, I told her that I love her. Believe me, she knows.” He listened. “It’s not that easy. There’s not always a way to fix something when it breaks.” Whatever his daughter said next caused him to tip his head back and exhale at the night sky. “Yes, of course, I’ll tell her you love her. But maybe—”
“Maybe she can tell me herself.”
Burgess went still, a beat passing before he turned his head. His eyes were guarded and God, that tore her up. She didn’t ever want him to guard himself around her again. Not ever.
“Do you want to speak to Lissa?”
More than anything, she did. But . . . “I was kind of hoping she could tell me in person?” Those words flooded her with so much hope and faith in the future, it almost hurt too much to say them out loud. “Back in Boston?”
A section of the barrier Burgess had erected around himself slipped, a comet of hope streaking across his expression, before it winked out. “You’re more than welcome to come over—”
“Burgess,” she blurted, heartsick and exasperated. “I’m trying to tell you I want to come back permanently.” She took another step forward. And another, until her knee bumped up against the side of his thigh. “I want to come home.”
The hand holding the phone dropped like a stone and he struggled bringing it back to his ear, almost like he suddenly lacked the strength. Once he got it there, he listened for a moment, a lump bobbing up and down in his throat as an excited twelve-year-old voice screeched down the line. “She heard you,” he said, looking at Tallulah, still slightly guarded but getting closer, getting closer. “Lissa, I’ll call you back.” He paused. “We will call you back.”
And then he dropped the phone and lunged off the lounge chair, catching Tallulah in a bear hug and lifting her off the ground with a choked sound, his hands raking all over her, down the back of her head, continuing down to her spine and drawing her impossibly closer, his breath loud in her ear. “I thought you were done with me. I thought you were done.”