Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(112)

He sighed, crossing the concrete floor to retrieve the wrench he’d thrown, when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. Swiping the screen, he looked at the incoming number but didn’t recognize it.

“Hello?”

“C-Cain?”

“Ginger?” he said. She was crying, and the hairs on his arm stood up as a shot of adrenaline made him freeze where he stood. “Princess, are you okay?”

“He’s g-gone.”

Cain’s eyes closed slowly as his heart ached for her. It had finally happened. She’d finally broken.

“He is, baby,” he said tenderly. “He’s gone. I’m so sorry.”

“C-Cain,” she sobbed. “C-can you . . . can you c-come? C-come to me?”

“Where are you?”

He threw the wrench into his toolbox, locked the showroom door, and grabbed his helmet from the back of his bike. Shrugging into his leather jacket, he straddled the motorcycle and twisted the key in the ignition.

“W-Woodman’s place.”

Woodman’s place? Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Be strong, lionhearted l’il gal. Be strong for me.

“I’m leavin’ right now,” he said, his voice raspy and urgent. “You stay put, darlin’. I’m on my way.”





Chapter 28


All the sadness.

It was like all the sadness in the world had suddenly engulfed her, swept her out to sea, and marooned her in a place of utter despair. Everywhere she turned in the sweet little house, Woodman was there: laughing as he showed her around for the first time, sitting across from her on the empty living room floor as they ate pizza on a moving box, pulling her hand up the stairs to his bedroom, exercising his leg in front of the TV, waiting for her with dinner when she’d had a bad day at work, kneeling before her—backlit by their first Christmas tree—when he asked her to be his wife.

Finally she lowered herself to the stairs and hunched over, weeping. She could barely catch her breath and couldn’t remember a time when she’d ever felt such intense and debilitating sorrow. And yet, through the bleak darkness, there was one unlikely point of light: Cain. Cain would come. Cain would come now. He would hold her and help her and remember with her. He would mourn with her—just as hard and just as deep as she. Because Cain, above all others, had known and loved Woodman as Ginger had.

As she recalled the poignancy of Woodman’s proposal, a year ago today, she pulled the engagement ring from her finger for the first time. She clutched it in her palm until the prongs drew blood as a slide show of Woodman—of the Woodman she’d loved deeply her whole life—played through her mind:

At six years old, holding her chubby three-year-old hand and leading her around a paddock to “say hey to the horsies.”

At eight years old, screaming for her mother when Ginger’s heart seized. He’d saved her life that day and was waiting on the front porch of the manor house when she came home, two weeks later.

At ten years old, sneaking her into the barn to see Cain on her seventh birthday. She didn’t know it until they’d gotten down there, but he’d hidden a big piece of cake and three forks under his sweater, and the pale skin of his belly was covered in frosting.

At twelve years old, taking her to the tack room for a Band-Aid when she’d fallen off her bike and scraped her knees. He cleaned them and blew on them and covered them up as Cain stood off to the side making her giggle.

At fifteen years old, on her twelfth birthday, giving her the prettiest bracelet she’d ever seen—with a horse and an apple and a banjo and his heart.

At eighteen years old, saving the day when he came to take her to the homecoming dance, bearing a fistful of forbidden flowers. He’d kissed her for the first time that night, and though she knew they’d never have the chemistry she shared with Cain, he’d proved his love for her in a way that Cain never had and—seemingly, at the time—never could.

At nineteen years old, coming home for his first extended visit after a long year apart. He’d swung her into his strong arms, holding her close and whirling her around before dropping a sweet, quick kiss to her lips. “Ginger!” he cried. “You grew up, and you’re so beautiful!”

At twenty-one years old, with every right to self-pity and anger, he’d come home ready to love her. And she let him. She gave herself to him, and he called it the best night of his entire life, holding her body next to his.

It was true that her feelings for him had never truly evolved from a place of profoundly loving friendship to romance, but memories of being held in Woodman’s arms would always twist the bindings of her heart. Until the day she died, she would remember how tenderly he’d held her, how safe she’d felt leaning into him, and how much he’d loved her. Truly, deeply, forever loved her . . . in a way she’d never been able to love him in return.

“Oh God, Woodman,” she sobbed. “We were never supposed to happen like we did. We were never supposed to end like we did. I’m so so-o-o-orry. So f-f*ckin’ sorry.”

Woodman was such a good man—such a kind, loving, protective person, such a good friend—surely there was a woman in the world who would have been lit on fire by the way his eyes could turn dark green with want, by the careful touch of his lips on her breasts, by the way his voice would get raspy when he told her he loved her. It just wasn’t her. And she’d lost him before she could let him go, before she could set him free to find a woman who could have loved him the way he deserved.