Broken Barriers (Barriers Series Book 4) (29 page)

Before I shuffled around to find Cole, a few people parted, and I noticed her. The overhead track lighting literally spotlighted her just for me. My eyes zoned in on her as she spoke with Morgan and Everett. I noticed Everett’s arm wrapped around Morgan’s waist. Marty’s talk obviously allowed him to finally go after what he never would before. It was Cole who seized my attention, though. She stood there with her curled hair glimmering in the light as though it were laced with glitter. A simple burgundy wrap dress hugged her frame in all the right places. My eyes roamed to where the hem ended just above her knees and finished at her platform peep-toe nude heels. Thoughts of things I could do to her in those heels had my feet trekking firmly to where she was standing. Morgan spotted me moving in their direction before tapping Cole’s elbow. Cole turned her head toward me, and I saw all of her then. Her sultry glossed lips parted as she dropped the wine glass from them, and her blush across her cheeks deepened as her eyes traveled every inch of me.

“Hi,” I said before kissing her cheek. I noticed a look in her eyes as I pulled away, causing me to wonder if she expected a more than casual greeting. I wasn’t quite sure how to act since we had never really been anything more than friends in public, and as I glanced around while people looked at us, my palms began to sweat, and it was suddenly hot in the room.
God, why was I nervous?

Everett took the bottle of wine from me just as Morgan broke from the group and walked toward a large easel covered by a cloth. Her voice gathered everyone’s attention as she announced that since everyone was
finally
here we could move forward with presenting the latest piece to be included at her family’s Boston gallery.

I wasn’t sure if that was a jab at me, but I certainly assumed from the ice-cold stare I received from her that they were all waiting for me to arrive.

A single light highlighted the shimmering black cloth, and as I glimpsed at Cole a few times, she seemed slightly nervous about something. Her fingers tapped the edge of her wine glass followed by a few long sighs as she played around with the silver solitaire necklace around her neck.

Suddenly, Morgan jerked the cloth from over the piece, and my eyes literally did a double take. “What the…” I managed to stammer out, my voice disbelieving as I moved to get a closer look. I didn’t care that Cole was calling out my name as everyone quietly clapped and gasped at the piece.

My feet nearly stumbled to a stop as I took in the entire photo. It was large—maybe three feet high and four feet wide. A layered group of six puzzle pieces with thick black frames made up the outlines. It was something I had never seen before and had everyone in the room staring holes into me at that moment.

Various black and white candid images of me had my body tensing and my eyes blinking rapidly. The title of the piece was engraved onto a silver plaque at the bottom of the frame.
Missing Pieces.
For a split second, my breathing stopped. Missing pieces? I didn’t quite know what I was supposed to think of this. I never knew the pictures were snapped of me. I looked at the still image of me lying on the dock outside my house. Another of me at the farmers’ market talking with Marty. Me at the tavern. Me sitting in her living room watching movies. Me paddling the kayak the first day here.

While my mind tried to process everything, soft fingers tugged at my elbow. My head turned to see Cole standing next to me. Her concerned eyes searched for my reaction. “Drew, tell me you aren’t upset.” She dropped her hand, trailing her delicate fingers running along the edge of my leather belt.

“Cole.” I released a full, calming breath. My eyes fixated on one picture that I struggled to look at.
How did she capture it?
It was taken the afternoon I was sitting on the deck during the rainstorm, my back leaning against the beam of the porch. But, it was the look in my eyes she captured. It haunted me just to look at it. “Was this the only reason why you got close to me? For this?” I tilted my head in the direction of the frames.

“N-No…God, no, Drew.” Her hands wrapped around my arms, shaking me to grab my attention away from the photos. “After everything, do you really think I would use you for my benefit? Why?” she answered, wetness forming in her eyes.

“I don’t know what to think, other than the fact that you somehow believe I’m missing a ton of puzzle pieces.” My voice carried a bit more edge than it had before. “Jesus, Cole, I don’t give a shit that you took these without me knowing, but to plaster me as the guy who’s got pieces of his life missing? What the hell? You know what I’ve been through. You know I’ve worked hard at getting things on the right path. What happened to
fighting
for each other?”

Cole’s head shot back, and her hands immediately fell from my arms. “Are you done? Because maybe if you actually asked before coming to your own conclusions about the truth behind the title of the piece, you wouldn’t be so quick to cast me out as the bad guy.”

The energy in the room was still abuzz over the picture, and most people had gathered around it to take a closer look. People continued to pat Cole on the back as they circled the café, and some of the ladies planted quick kisses on her cheek before returning to the wine bottles on the table. Cole pushed me into a quiet corner away from everyone else.

“You want to know what that piece is all about? It’s about me.” She pointed her finger at herself before resting her hand flat against my chest. “I’m the broken one here. That piece out there is of you. You’re the missing pieces to my puzzle.” Tears streamed from her eyes as she shook her head. “You might believe you’re the only one who needed to figure out his life this summer. Truth is, until you came back here, I never knew that my future could truly be happier with someone else in it.” Her voice cracked more with each word. “You just have to decide for yourself now. Can you truly be happy here, too?”

For a while, we stood there silently staring at each other. I scrubbed my hands over my face and exhaled a quiet yet painful breath. This was where I needed to make my choice.

Was this where I wanted to stay? Cole deserved an answer, but there was still so much unknown here, so many unresolved issues with my past. Shit, I hadn’t even talked to my parents about living up here permanently.

“Choice is yours, Drew. I can’t make it for you. When you come to your decision, you know where to find me.” Cole walked away without glancing back in my direction. As she joined the rest of the people in the café, I didn’t notice anyone else.

She walked away so easily that I didn’t know if I could do the same. I only knew my time was up, and I needed to decide what to do quickly.

My feet hit the gravel hard and fast, but with each stride, it was in the right direction. Classic rock tunes blasted through my earbuds as I found my pace during my early morning run.

The sun barely crested over the surrounding mountains. Cool morning fog still lingered in the air blowing against my heated skin while I pushed through with each step. Warm sweat beaded against my skin and trickled down my cheek.

It only took a few short weeks for me to see the light in the darkness, but I almost tasted it since it was so close.

Since the day at the farmers’ market, the pieces had all started coming together. To hell with my screwed-up choices and past decisions. I saw my future now.

I spent the morning again yesterday with Marty at the Veterans Center and met some incredible people. People who had been through deployments like me. We shared stories of our time overseas and how it affected us once we returned stateside.

I realized I wasn’t alone in any of this. Some of the guys I met had been through much worse than me, but through the efforts of the Center and its purpose in the community, veterans like me had a fighting chance.

Marty introduced me to a few of the men he had been talking with the last few months. The living room setting made what typically were considered harsh conversations to outsiders much more comfortable. It felt good to hear that I was not the only one who came back with haunting flashbacks and trouble finding my own way.

When Marty dropped me off at the lake house, I immediately called my parents and told them this was where I was destined to be. Then with a quick call to Josh, I was on my way to my first step in becoming a New Hampshire state trooper.

In one week, thanks to Josh, I would take my physical aptitude test and written exam to see if I moved forward in the group of potential new recruits.

While she was working at Vines, her wine bar, Sam texted me shortly after I talked to Josh to say how proud she was of the path I had found in my short time home.

Funny how our roles had reversed. It was still hard to believe that a few years ago I was telling her just how proud I was of her. How she found her strength herself and fought through to the life she now had with Josh.

I continued to hit the pavement with persistence. My lungs burned, and my legs were tired, but I pushed on. If I withstood eighteen months in a war zone and still had all my limbs, I could endure this pain. Some guys never had this luxury, as I so unwillingly found out.

I blamed myself for far too long when it came to the convoy accident that went wrong. My mind was never physically there with my unit—always wondering if
she
would be here waiting for me when I returned home.

As I paced myself and rounded the corner to downtown, soft white lights beckoned me from a few yards away.
She
had been here the entire time waiting for me, and I never realized it until I opened my eyes and really looked.

The music beat in my ears, and with each stride closer, a bigger grin formed on my face.

She
was my future. Always had been. I was just too blind to actually see her for who she really was. The light grew brighter the closer I got. My feet stalled the moment I crossed the street to Trouvaille, and I took a second to catch my breath. I bent over, holding my hands on my knees, staring at the ground. My chest heaved heavily, and my breathing wheezed as blood pumped fast and fierce through my ears, blocking out the sound of The Eagles.

As I righted myself and walked closer to the front window, I glanced inside. Only one other customer sat in the café at this hour of the morning.

Marty.

I turned to look at the parking lot down the street to see his old pickup sitting there. Through the morning haze, I saw Cocoa’s big brown head resting on the edge of the open passenger side window. She was waiting patiently for Marty to come back from his morning coffee run.

Life was never simple, nor was it easy and all wrapped up in pretty bows. Yet, with each waking morning, I had to get up and fight for what really mattered in life.

She
had always been the one who mattered, and I was not wasting another moment without her knowing.

I pushed through the front door and waved to Marty. The bell chimed over the door, giving my presence away as I pulled the earbuds from my ears and turned off the music. Marty lowered the morning paper in his hands to peek over the edges. His coffee mug steamed against his gray beard at his lips. He curtly nodded as if knowing why I was there.

My determination was set in stone this morning. I had an idea of what I wanted shortly after making love to the woman I was now going after, but I had no idea if she felt the same way.

Pausing in the doorway to her kitchen, I stared at her as she sashayed her hips and sang along to “I Put a Spell on You.” She mixed and poured a thick, dark chocolate batter into cupcake tins. She hummed to the instrumental parts of the tune before turning and gasping when she finally noticed me standing there. Her hands nearly dropped the bowl in the process. “Drew.” She held her hand over her chest while catching her breath.

I walked a few short steps into the kitchen, careful not to sweat over anything, and my nose instantly picked up on the number of flavors filtering through the room.

Cole turned the volume down on the radio and stepped around her stainless steel cooking island and headed toward me.

“What smells so good in here this morning?” I asked her, eyeing the small wall oven in the back.

“Typically, a ‘Good morning’ is the usual greeting, but I tend to lose you the minute food is involved, so I guess that’s the best I’m going to get.” Cole turned when her oven timer buzzed and grabbed the oven mitt from the table before removing a tray of steaming cupcakes and placing them onto the trivet on the counter. She reached for the bowl next to the one she was using before and a clean spoon from a tray before walking back over to me.

She stuck the spoon into the bowl and then brought it to my lips. “Try it.” Rolling my eyes, I opened my mouth slightly as she shoved the spoonful of frosting into my mouth. I almost died and went to heaven.

Cole pulled the spoon back, but I fought her in the process. I wanted every speck of frosting on that spoon. “I take it you like it?”

I nodded, finally releasing the spoon from my lips. “Whatever that is, I want it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

Cole giggled as she placed the bowl into the fridge next to the finishing table. “Well, they aren’t quite finished, but since I had a little bit of my coffee-flavored tequila left over, I figured I might as well try something new.” Cole quickly clapped her hands together as her smile ignited the room. “I’m just glad it tastes good. Now, I can put something new on the menu.”