Memphis yipped her greeting to Hap, but Hap ignored her, and Luci only glanced at a now pale Kia before she found her hand seized and she was pulled out the door.
She was being led quickly along the deck when Sam called, sounding just as angry, “Hap, we’re not done.”
“We so fuckin’ are,” Hap bit out, dragging her toward the ramp at the side of the house that led to the drive at the back.
Luci looked back to see Sam had his feet planted, his arms crossed on his chest. Kia was out with him, her hand on his biceps, her head tipped back to look up at her husband, but Sam’s eyes were on them and his face was no less stony.
Luci was angry at him even not fully knowing what was happening, but she had to see to Hap.
So the only thing she gave Sam was a look of disappointment, a short shake of her head to further share that, and then she hurried along to catch up with Hap as he pulled her around the corner of the house and down the ramp.
He took her right to her side of the truck, opening the door, and before she could even lift a foot to climb in, he had her in his arms and he dumped her in her seat.
He also slammed the door.
Luci let out a stunned breath.
It was then, through the window, she fully caught the look on his face.
Dio.
This was the temper he’d been talking about.
She watched as he prowled around the hood and angled in beside her, even that movement feeling violent, and switched the ignition like he held grave hostility toward his truck.
He, however, did not turn around in the drive or pull out in a spray of gravel or a peel of tires like she expected him to do. He drove with iron control, carefully, deliberately, and again Luci found herself falling a little more in love with him because, even if he was clearly immensely angry, and perhaps would let some of that loose with his driving if he was alone, he was with her so he did not.
She assessed her options and decided against saying anything, allowing him his thoughts as they made the short drive to her house.
They’d stopped there when they’d arrived at the beach in order to bring in their bags before they’d gone to Sam and Kia’s.
So now they had nothing to take up when he parked in front of one her two garage doors.
“That bay is empty, bello,” she said quietly as he used great force to shove the truck into park. “I’ll get you the remote.”
“Right,” he bit out, turning off the vehicle.
She got out.
Hap got out.
He prowled to the foot of her stairs before her but stopped and swung his arm in an exaggerated move of gallantry to indicate she should precede him up the steps.
She scurried to do so and used equal haste in unlocking the door.
She’d just brought her keys and her phone, both she kept in her pockets, so she didn’t need her purse. Therefore, when she went in, she went to the kitchen and tossed the keys on the counter, pulling the phone out of the back pocket of her jeans to do the same.
She did this saying, “I also need to get you a key.”
“Yeah,” Hap stated, and she turned to see him stalking to and up her stairs.
When he disappeared, she looked to the sun shining on the sea in hopes that vision would calm her, as it often did.
This time it did not.
Then she hurried to the stairs and up them.
She found Hap in her bedroom, hands in the pockets of his jeans, standing at the windows but with his side to them, also staring at the sea.
She gave it a moment, but he didn’t turn to her.
“Would you like time?” she asked gently. “Or would you like to talk about it?”
He finally gave her his attention, but did it only twisting his head and shoulders her way.
“Or would you like to shout?” she added another option.
“I wish . . .” he began, but he trailed off, said no more, and looked back to the sea.
“You wish what, luce mio?” she queried, taking a few more steps into the room.
“What does luce mio mean?” he asked the sea.
“My light.”
“Your light,” he muttered.
“I didn’t call—” she started.
He twisted again to her and interrupted. “I know. You’d never do that. To him or me.”
He was right. She would not. She called Travis cuore mio (my heart) or tesoro (treasure) and sometimes vita mia (my life), but she never called him her light or even bello.
She fell silent.
Hap looked back to the sea.
Luci took another step toward him and prompted, “You wish?”
“I wish they were alive.”
She wasn’t expecting that, and getting it, even not exactly understanding who he was referring to, just the words made her entire frame go solid.
Hap kept speaking.
“I wish they were alive. I wish I could take you to Iowa and walk into a restaurant with you on my arm and they could meet you. I wish they could see the man I became, the woman I earned being that man. I wish they could see that it was worth all the effort and headache and pains in their asses to believe in me. I wish they could see that in the end, I didn’t let them down.”
He was speaking of his grandparents.
Oh, Hap.
Her Happy.
So much regret.
So much melancholy.
She unlocked her frame and moved across the room to stand with him. Once there, she gingerly lifted a hand to put it on his chest.
He didn’t move, his body stayed tense, strung tight, a vein pulsing up his neck, a muscle twitching in his jaw.
She said nothing, just stood there with him as he battled whatever demons were plaguing him.
“I wish,” he went on, “they could come visit here. Stay downstairs. Have nothing to do but walk the beach, or Gram helping you cook and them opening the windows and falling asleep to the sound of the waves.”
“I wish that too, amore,” she whispered.
He didn’t nod, didn’t glance her way, he just kept speaking.
“I wish I could sit with Gramps and buy him decent beer and you could have wine and Gram could have her tea and we could just sit on the deck, talking and laughing.”
“I wish that too, Happy,” she said softly.
Again, no acknowledgement of her words, he simply kept going.
“I wish I could buy them a little place, wherever they wanted to be, here with me, or in Iowa, or in Florida, I don’t give a fuck. Somewhere they liked. Somewhere where there were no worries. Gramps would demand that he mow the lawn and Gram would can and make jam, but they’d do that only because they wanted to, not because they had to. Nothing weighing on them. Nothing heavy. Nothing suffocating.”
She shifted a bit closer and pressed her hand into his chest.
“And I wish they’d come. One of them. Both of them. I don’t give a shit. But I wish they’d come when you were there. At my house. I wouldn’t lose my shit. I’d open the door and let them get a load of you and then tell them to fuck off.”
He was now speaking of his parents.
So she shifted even closer and murmured, “Oh, Hap.”
“I actually wish they’ll come just so they can see you, see the man they had no hand in making, who made a woman like you fall in love with him, then shut the door in their faces.”
Luci wished that too.
But before she could share that, suddenly, he looked directly into her eyes and the feeling burning in his made Luci forget how to breathe.
“I didn’t lie. If something happened to me, I saw you lose Gordo, I wouldn’t want that for you. That would kill me again, a thousand times, just the thought of it fucking destroys me, Luci. I’d want you to move on. I don’t care if it’s a man, a woman, a dog, a fuckin’ alien, whatever you needed to make you happy, I’d want that for you. I’d want you to find that. My spirit would lay restless or wander lost until I knew you were happy.”