I have a woman I need to try to forget about too.
Though, since it’s been almost two decades and I think about her at least once every day, I don’t think that’s going to be happening anytime soon. Deep down, I still love her, and I always fucking will.
Chapter Seven
STEPHANIE
My hands shake as I drive back to town. I don’t go to the hotel or to the diner, instead, I drive straight toward my childhood home. I don’t know why, but I need to be here. Instead of parking across the street like I did the other day, I pull into the driveway.
I don’t know what I’m going to find here, aside from scorpions and possibly snakes. But after that intense encounter with Ford, I feel the need to be here for whatever reason.
Taking the key out of my purse, I unfold from the car and slowly make my way up to the front door. I’m surprised that the grass in the yard isn’t waist high. It’s actually maintained at a decent level.
Sliding the key into the lock, I suck in a deep breath as I turn the handle and make my way inside. Flipping the light on, I’m also surprised that it works. Apparently, my dad has been paying the electric bill all these years.
I blink, surprised at the sight in front of me. It’s not a dusty, scary mess. In fact, it looks clean, as if someone has been coming to clean it and often. It also looks as though it’s been frozen in time. It looks the exact same way that it did the day that I left seventeen years ago.
Taking another step inside, a shiver rolls through me, there are even photographs on the walls. When I moved my father out to Los Angeles, after my mother died, I never paid attention to what he did or didn’t bring with him.
In fact, I didn’t really pay attention too much to what my dad did, or didn’t do. I was too busy with my life, with my career, and my men. I only saw my dad on holidays, sometimes I’d make time for him if I had a long break between shooting, but generally, I just didn’t have the time.
I always promised myself when I was able, I was going to carve out a big chunk of time and we’d go on a trip together or something. Then he died.
My eyes travel the space, then I find the hall. My bedroom is the first door to the right, a bathroom is across the hall from my bedroom, and then my parents’ room is the second door on the left.
Slowly, I make my way toward my bedroom. I don’t know what I’m going to find in there. I do know that it will be haunted with the memories of the past, of Ford. Because at the end of the day, Ford is Gallup, he is this house. There is no getting away from him, not here. Not ever.
Wrapping my fingers around the doorknob, I twist, then push it open. Standing at the entrance, I wait for some kind of vortex to suck me in. When it doesn’t, I force myself to take one step slowly, then another.
My eyes land on my old bed, immediately, tears fill them and fall down my cheeks. I don’t even try to hold them back, because my mother, my fucking mother. She didn’t touch a single thing in here. Not even my wedding dress that is, seventeen years later, still neatly laying across my made bed.
Running toward the dress, I fall down at the bottom, gripping the hem of the fabric in my hands, I cry. I full-on cry, pinching my eyes close tightly, I allow the images of that day, images of me, in this dress, to flash in my mind.
Then, I do something that I hardly ever do, I allow myself to think about the look on Ford’s face when he saw me at the end of the aisle on my daddy’s arm. He was in awe. He looked as though he couldn’t believe that I was going to be his forever, like he couldn’t wait.
What did I do? I turned around and ran as fast as I could from him.
He’s not married, doesn’t have any children, and it’s because of me. I broke something inside of him the day that I left, and if I’m truly honest with myself, I broke that same piece of something inside of me as well.
I’m a fucking bitch. That’s what I am—I am a fucking bitch.
I don’t know how long I stay on the floor crying, minutes, hours, I’m unsure, but my ass falls asleep. The house that I’d imagined finding, dusty, and scorpion riddled isn’t what I find at all. Instead, it’s a shrine to the past.
Perfectly preserved, in every way, the life that we, as a family, had before I ran off to California. Before I broke Ford’s heart and my own. Before I became a movie star, before I abandoned everything and everyone that I once held dear, and I did.
I haven’t even talked to the two girls who were my best friends since I left, either. I don’t even know where they are, I’ve never even tried to find out. I just fucking left. I abandoned my entire family.
No longer did I look forward to the holidays like I once did. Christmas was just a day where I didn’t work, one where I wrote checks for bonuses to my staff. A season of extra parties to be seen, to mingle and network under the guise of socializing.
That’s what the holidays have become to me, and I hate it. Now, my father is gone and I regret all those years I stayed away or begrudgingly went to visit him for only an hour or two. I can’t get any of that time back, they’re both gone and I’m completely alone.
Standing, I shake off the tingly feeling in my ass cheek and thigh as I decide to brave the rest of my room. I have a feeling that I know what I’ll find if I look around. Memories of my teenage years, of Ford. Walking over to my small bulletin board, I snort at what stares back at me.
Actual printed photographs of high school. Dance pictures, homecomings, but looking harder, I see what truly stares back at me.
My life in pictures.
There’s a shot of me on the front of Ford’s horse, Ford with his arm around my waist, both of us smiling. Me and Ford sitting on the tailgate of that same truck I rode in today with him, both of us with a red Solo cup in our hands, both of us in tank tops and shorts, grinning because we were most likely drunk.
Reaching for one picture, my breath is stolen. Ford is leaning his ass against the truck. He’s in tight-fitting Wrangler jeans, boots, a tight white t-shirt, and a baseball hat. He’s tan, really tan, so I assume it’s toward the end of summer.
I’m standing right in front of one of his thighs, leaning back against him. One of his arms is wrapped around my chest from behind, the other is around my waist, holding me tight against his front.
My hair is long and down, my face bare of makeup, but tanned just like Ford’s. I’m wearing a pair of short cut-off shorts, a bikini top, flip-flops, and a smile. We look so young, both of us smiling widely, both of us happy to be right where we are and nowhere else.
There’s a knock on the wall behind me and I scream, turning around, coming face-to-face with Wyatt and Rylan. I blink, my lips parting as I stare at the men who are standing in my parents’ house.
“Knew were the hide-a-key was, saw your car in the drive. Dropping Rylan off at home, it’s getting late, wanted to make sure you were okay,” Wyatt says.
“How’d you know where the hide-a-key was?” I ask.
Wyatt smirks, shaking his head once. “Bought the house down the street. Before your dad left, he asked me to keep an eye on the place. He’d call me every now and again to check on shit,” he informs me.
“They kept it like a shrine,” I whisper.
Neither of them speaks right away, their gazes roaming over my face from the bedroom doorway.