If Forever Comes (Take This Regret #2)(44)
Author: A.L. Jackson

Night steadily swallowed the heavens, a blanket of darkness strewn across the sky. Under it, I felt caged. Edgy. My headlights splayed across the road, the cabin dim, the high whine of my engine nipping at my ears as I sped the short distance from Matthew and Natalie’s house to Elizabeth’s.

I didn’t matter if she was there or not. I’d wait.

It was time.

Time to bring all this shit out into the open. Grief fisted my chest, thrashed at my ribs as words that needed to be said, hurt that needed to be confessed.

I knew Elizabeth had plenty of her own that needed to be shed.

Impatience bounced my knee as I stopped at a red stoplight. Thirty seconds passed like an eternity. Finally, it changed, and I accelerated, surging through the thick evening traffic. I merged into the turn lane and made a left onto the narrow road. Trees rose up on every side. Lights glowed their warmth from the windows where families ate dinner within the walls of their houses, where they played and laughed and loved. This neighborhood had always felt that way. Safe. Peaceful. Like home.

Twice I’d driven this road when I had been certain my heart would pound right out of my chest. Falter. Cease to sustain my life.

The first was the day I’d come here not even knowing my daughter’s name, not knowing the circumstances of their lives or the pain my decisions had brought them. I’d been unprepared then for what I had found. Elizabeth living alone, without love, solely supporting the daughter I’d abandoned.

That day had broken me, thrusting all my regrets and mistakes to the forefront. I’d finally had to accept the true consequences of the appalling choices I had made. But in that day, I’d still found light. A purpose. Hope. An inundating swell of devotion had pulsed steadily through my veins as I watched the two girls I loved with all of me embracing each other at the end of Elizabeth’s drive. That moment in time marked the day when I made the decision to take my family back. When I’d stood up, taken on the responsibility that had always been mine. When I finally knew I had to make it right.

The second was today.

As I inched my car down the quieted hush of the neighborhood street, my heart rate ratcheted high. It thundered to a roar in my ears and sloshed blood through my veins, pushed and pressed and tugged.

I approached slowly.

Three long blinks shielded my disbelieving eyes, the air punched from my lungs. I didn’t want to see. Still, I couldn’t help but look, as if I were drawn to the slaughter.

Like I’d done that first day, I pulled to the curb on the opposite side of the road and concealed myself behind the cover of another car.

But unlike then, today was without that hope. Without the bright flash of light that had been injected into my weary life.

Today, there was just anger and pain and anguish that shocked across my skin.

A tremor shook me, rattled to my bones, and I struggled to draw in a breath of stifled air. But there was none to be found.

Part of me was screaming at myself to get up, to get out, to stop the ruin playing out in slow motion in front of me.

The other was frozen, pinned to that wall that seemed impossible to break free from.

Pain slammed me, sliced me in two, severing the few frayed threads that were holding my sanity together. That one that had held the last piece of my heart.

My vision blurred.

That ass**le was here, standing at the passenger door of his car, holding it open as if he were some kind of f**ked up knight in shining armor.

Playing a bastard’s game where he won and I lost my family.

Elizabeth rushed down her driveway to where he waited for her on the street.

And she laughed.

She f**king laughed and got in his car.

He slammed her door shut and ran around to the driver’s side. Brake lights flashed as he shifted the car into drive. Easing back onto the road, he headed in the opposite direction than the way we normally came in from the main street.

He was taking her to his house.

I knew it.

Motherfucker.

Images assaulted my mind. My fingers constricted around the steering wheel, my knuckles white. Furiously I blinked, struggling to see through the madness that clouded my sight. Anger singed my blood, pounded faster and harder and consumed every inch of my being.

Had they been doing this? Sneaking away? When Lizzie was at my house, was she with him?

Unable to stop myself, I followed, knowing there was no other choice. I fought to grasp onto one rational thought as I trailed them at a distance. Taillights burned a path ahead of me, like a beacon. Or maybe a warning flare.

Because the end result of this night remained unknown.

But it would have a result.

And it very well may be the end.

Chapter 18

Present Day, Early October

Logan pulled his car into his garage.

I spent the entire ride over fretting, questioning the decision I made to come here.

And the ride had been short.

That didn’t mean a million thoughts hadn’t spun through my overactive mind, confusion and contention and doubt.

Inside, I’d warred.

I guess what scared me most was I really didn’t know myself anymore. Didn’t recognize the woman sitting in this seat who was going to another man’s house.

What was I doing here?

Was I fool? Because any wise woman would know a man didn’t take her back to his house to talk. Logan wasn’t looking for a friend. He was looking for something I wasn’t sure I was ready to give.

He reached up to the visor and pushed the button to lower the garage door. The loud chain ran, spinning on wheels as the door slowly settled to the concrete floor. In it came a silence, a claustrophobic sense that made me want to jump out of my skin.

Logan patted me on the thigh. A flirty smile curved his upper lip as he looked over at me. “Come on, Liz, let’s get some dinner, I’m starving.”

We climbed out. He spun his keyring on his index finger as he walked toward the door that led into the house. He stepped aside as he held it open for me. “After you.”

Dropping my head, I acquiesced, ignoring the warning blaring within my head.

I promised I would try, and I knew I had to see this through.

Stepping inside, I found myself standing within cluttered piles of dirty clothes that sat in heaps on the floor in the small, enclosed laundry room that led into his house.

Self-conscious laughter seeped into the small room from behind. “You’ll have to excuse the mess. I wasn’t expecting company, although I have to admit, I’m really happy to have it.”

From over my shoulder, I forced a smile as I sidestepped around the mess. “Don’t worry about it. You should see mine. I think I have enough laundry to keep me busy for the next three months.”