She came to a stop in front of me. “Hadley, it’s good to see you.”
“Jackie,” I greeted. I couldn’t return the rest of her sentiments. If she’d never returned to Wolf Gap, I would’ve been a happy camper.
“How are you?”
I studied her, trying to read beneath the question. The woman had a vibrating energy, something humming just below the surface. “I’m doing well.”
Jackie’s lips pursed when I didn’t reciprocate the question. “Listen, can I talk to you for a minute?”
I glanced up at the clock on the wall. “I’ve got two minutes. Then I need to head to the station.”
“That’s plenty of time.” She moved away from the counter and towards an empty corner of the shop. I didn’t know what she thought she’d accomplish with that. The eyes of the five people currently in The Bean were glued to us.
Jackie picked an invisible piece of lint from her pants. “Hadley, this isn’t easy for me to talk to you about, but I’m beyond having any sort of ego at this point.”
I braced myself for what might come out of her mouth next.
“I made a lot of mistakes years ago.”
“You did,” I agreed.
A flicker of annoyance passed over her features. “I’m trying to make that right. I want to put my family back together again, but you’re standing in my way.”
My mouth slackened, falling open a fraction. If a fly had been in the area, it could’ve flown right in. “Excuse me?”
“Birdie and Sage are my daughters. I know you like to play at being their mother, but you’re not. You never will be. What’s best for them is for Calder and me to give them a family again. To heal some of those hurts. I know you’re not a bad person. You want something that simply isn’t yours to have. It’s time you realized that.”
I blinked a few times. “Did you take a hit to the head recently? You might want to get that checked out by a professional.”
Heat hit Jackie’s cheeks. “You can’t brush this off with your sarcasm, Hadley. It won’t change the truth. Calder marriedme. He gavemetwo daughters. Not you. He had plenty of time to choose you, but he never did. Not until I was out of the picture. He’s still mad, but he’ll come back to me.”
I wanted to laugh, to scoff and tell her she was being ridiculous. But some of her words hit their mark.
“Hadley, your order’s ready.”
I sent a million silent thanks up for Calla in that moment but kept my focus on Jackie. “You can live in whatever delusional world you want, but I’ll be over here in the real one. The one where I’m in Calder’s bed every night.”
I turned on my heel and grabbed my coffees. Everything was a haze as I left. The drive to the station was a blur. I barely remembered handing Jones his coffee.
As I walked to my room to drop off my stuff, an arm caught my elbow. “Hey, you okay?”
I blinked, bringing Calder’s face into focus. “Fine.”
“Let me rephrase. I know something’s wrong, so why don’t you tell me what it is.”
I needed to work on my poker face, but something told me even if I could fool the rest of the world, I’d never be able to fool Calder. “I had a lovely little encounter with your ex. Is there a reason you didn’t tell me she was in town to get you back?”
I wasn’t one hundred percent sure she’d revealed that little tidbit to Calder, but he wasn’t an idiot. He would’ve read between the lines of her approach, even if she hadn’t outright said as much. The wince he gave at my words told me that Jackie had already made her pitch to the man in front of me.
“It doesn’t matter what Jackie wants because she’s not getting it.”
I stared into those dark eyes that had been my refuge for so long. God, it would kill me if he walked away. “You might want to make that clear to Jackie because she’s pretty sure she has an opening.”
I turned and strode towards my room. I needed space to breathe. What I really needed was a good ride, taking my bike over jump after jump and down a hellish mountain pass. I needed to remember that I was alive and breathing, that I’d made it through worse before, and I’d make it through this, too. Even if Calder walked away.
29
Calder