“Nowhere near it,” I said.
“Oh, my gosh. I didn’t kill John.”
She placed her head back into her hands and began to sob again, only this time scooted my chair close to her and wrapped my arms around her. I stroked her head, trying desperately to get her body to stop shaking as I felt her heave into my chest. I could feel her tears dripping on the thighs of my jeans while her beautiful body broke down against me, and all I could do was think about John, about how disgusted he would be for the way I’d treated his guardian angel.
Even years after his death, my brother inspired us. Even after all he’d been through and the way he’d died, he had somehow linked me with the one woman who’d brought so much love and light into my life for the first time since high school. Even in his death, he somehow knew what I needed, and he brought it to me in the form of this woman.
This trembling woman whose hair I continued to stroke.
I thought about how wonderful my brother had been. His life had seemed so full, even in the last few months of it. I thought about how Hailey’s entire gallery was inspired by what she’d experienced with my brother. She’d helped him, even though she was only now understanding she hadn’t killed him herself. I thought about how my brother had been my initial inspiration to dip into the homeless community, and I could feel the tether between Hailey and me growing stronger.
Without thinking, I dipped my lips to Hailey’s head and planted a small kiss on top of it.
“How’s your head feeling?” I asked.
“It hurts,” she said.
I wrapped my arms around her further and pulled her into my lap, her head finding its natural home in the crook of my neck as her sobbing finally died down. I held her close, kissing her pounding head as I simply soaked up the beauty of her art gallery. The bareness of the walls and how that communicated a success that probably still shocked Hailey to her core.
John would’ve loved this place.
“Can you stand to shut down the gallery for a little while?” I asked.
“Why?” she asked.
“I’ve got some migraine medication at my house. You’re more than welcome to it. I just don’t have it with me right now.”
She lifted her head while her swollen eyes searched mine. I could see her eye wincing with every pound her head took, and all I wanted to do was make sure she was better.
“I’ve gotta hang these paintings before I can go,” she said.
“Then sit in this chair and tell me where to put them,” I said.
“What?”
I moved, grasping her in my arms while I stood. I got up and placed her in the seat I had been sitting in, and I heard her sigh into its warmth. She allowed her head to tip off to the side, her eyes closed and her hands curling tightly around the armrests of the chair.
Then, I picked up the first painting and began to describe it to her.
“There’s a painting of a black horse in the middle of a field. Looks like it might be a dusk setting. There’s an apple tree off to the
side.”
“Put that one on the wall over there,” she said as she pointed. “The third slot in from the right.”
Chapter 16
Hailey
I looked over at Bryan, still not believing where I was. His bed was so soft underneath my body, and the way he was looking at me was almost as if he loved me again. I tried to shake the thought from my head as his migraine medication finally started kicking in, but there was a part of me that wanted to believe it.
Because as I laid there staring into his beautiful brown eyes, I realized I still loved him.
“Hailey, I owe you a tremendous apology,” he said.
But all I did was look at him in shock as his hand wound around mine.
“Blocking your number and ignoring your emails was immature, but ripping you into the house like I did, taking your body the way I did when you only wanted to talk, and then tossing you out like that.”