Chapter 7

chapter

seven

Joy

Somehow I manage to finish the gingerbread despite the tears that are free falling. Leave it to Shawn to continue to ruin my life from all the way across the country. Jackass.

It doesn't help my current situation, but I probably shouldn't be surprised.

As if some super-hot rich guy was going to rescue me from a snow storm, then fall madly in love with my hot mess self. I'll be able to chalk this experience up to that one time I hooked up during a blizzard.

But something tells me Eli's not the man I'll forget. Despite all reasoning, he's the man I want. The man I've already fallen for because I'm evidently a masochistic idiot.

I can't even really explain the connection. I've only known him a handful of days, yet I feel like our souls are connected. Like we're meant to be. But judging from the way he glared at me, then stormed out of here, that is all in my imagination.

I finally get the last tray of gingerbread out of the oven to cool, and maybe I'm ready to look at my phone.

I should have blocked Shawn's number. Why didn't I do that?

My stomach is full of that sick nervous feeling that I always got right before he'd come home. I didn't know it then, at least not on a conscious level, but it's fear. Gut deep fear. He never hit me, he wasn't that kind of guy. But the abuse was still there. It took me a distance of nearly two thousand miles to see it. Over the time I was with him, he made me believe I couldn't do better. That I wasn't worth more. It took my Grammy dying for me to see what I'd let happen to my life. Well, Grammy dying and him selling her shop out from under me.

But that comment about me being a baby? That really drove it home.

That was exactly what he said when he broke the news to me that he was foreclosing on my loan. That I was being a baby. Irrational. That if I would just give up my dream of making candy like Grammy, we could get married and he'd take care of me. And then it wouldn't matter if I had no way to support myself. Nothing of my own.

Looking back now, I can't believe I didn't see him for the snake he was all along.

I wipe my hands on the kitchen towel, then pick up my phone.

I scan through his texts. Fat ass. Yep, that was his nickname for me. Why did I date a guy like that? Well, he wasn't always like that. And his changes were slow and subtle and by the time all of his ugliness came out, we were living together. Suddenly I'd become one of those women who puts up with being degraded and belittled by someone who supposedly loved her.

Staring at the messages he sent me, I type out a few quick lines of response.

Me: You foreclosed on my loan. That doesn't make me a baby. It makes YOU an asshole.

Me: If you ever contact me again, I will get a restraining order.

I don't know if that's a realistic threat. I don't even care. Because I am done with him.

Feeling resolved, I scan Eli's kitchen...opening a few drawers, I'm looking for a hammer. I don't find one, but my gaze lands on the fat wooden rolling pin I used to roll out the ginger bread.

So I head outside to the porch. "You were a mean son of a bitch and I'm glad you're not in my life!" I yell, then I slam the phone onto the wood planks. I drop to my knees.

"I am not lazy. Or dumb." I slam the rolling pin into the phone with each word I yell. "I deserve love!" Smash, smash, smash.

A throat clears behind me and I yelp and fall right on my ass. The wood beneath me is freezing and seeps straight through my borrowed sweat pants.

Eli chuckles as he climbs the stairs. "Didn't mean to startle you."

"It's okay." I'm still clutching the rolling pin to my heart and I look up at him.

He's smiling down at me and in his hand he's got a cluster of scarlet blooms. He hands them to me and eyes the phone particles smashed on his porch.

"I hope I didn't break your house."

"If you did, it would be worth it." Eli pulls me up and walks me inside and straight in front of the fireplace. "It smells fantastic in here."

"Homemade gingerbread will do that."

"I'm so sorry, Joy. I shouldn't have yelled. I shouldn't have accused you of lying. And I shouldn't have been angry. I know you don't belong to me. I was just pissed because I'd realized that I wish you did."

My heart thunders inside my chest. "What?"

He pushes on my shoulders until I sit on the stone hearth. Then he kneels between my legs so that we're basically eye-to-eye. "I know it's fast. We hardly know each other, but it doesn't feel that way. When I look at you, all I can think about is a future with you. You make me feel more settled. I've smiled more in the last few days than I think I have in all my years before now." He cups my face. "I'm crazy about you."

"I'm crazy about you, too."

His kiss is tender and so full of affection that emotion clogs in my throat and my eyes fill with tears.

"I do want to tell you about Shawn," I say.

"You don't have to. I trust you."

I nod. "You still should know. He's part of my story. But not part of my life." So I give him the basics.

He curses when I get to the part about Grammy's shop.

"He's a dick."

"Yes, he is." I bite down on my lip and look at the red flowers in my hand. "What are these?"

"Winter Camellias. They bloom in the snow. And I was out there huffing and puffing and fuming as I tend to do." He pauses and meets my gaze. "But you know I'm all bluster. I'd never." He shakes his head.

"I know that. I'm not afraid of you, Eli. You're a good man. And I should have known better with Shawn. I'm not saying it's my fault or I deserved how he treated me. But I should have paid attention to how he talked to the women in his family. I've seen how you treat yours and you and Shawn are nothing alike."

He nods. "I was actually talking to my sister on the phone and she was telling me what an idiot I was. And I saw the blooms. This brilliant splash of color in the midst of the bleak landscape. All I could think about was that was you. That's how I see you. A beacon of bright happiness right there in the middle of my gloomy existence. Your parents named you appropriately. You are Joy incarnate."

I'm sobbing now because OMG how could I not be? This man is everything. "So what happens now?"

"Now, you stay with me and we live happily ever after."

I nod and throw my arms around him. "But first we need to finish the gingerbread house and kick Colton Brigg's virtual ass."