Chapter 12
Hudson
Torture.
Beautiful, amazing, sweet, terrible torture.
That’s what it felt like having Amelia pressed into my back, her arms tight around my chest. She held on as though I was the only thing keeping her from falling through the bottom of the dinghy and sinking straight into the ocean.
Could she hear my heart racing through my lifejacket? Would she know it was for her?
For years, I’d tried to get over Amelia.
I’d dated other women. I’d given her and Shiloh space when their relationship grew serious.
I placed her firmly in an off-limits box in my brain.
And over the years, it became easier to convince myself that my feelings for Amelia were nothing more than friendly.
Never sisterly—I wasn’t that delusional—but the kind of friends where we both wanted the other person to be happy.
And she’d been happy with Shiloh. Anyone could see it.
They were perfect for each other. Where Shiloh was intense, she provided calm.
She met Shiloh’s extroverted, outgoing energy, kindness, and a genuine interest in the people they met.
When she’d wanted a wall of bookcases in their dining room, Shiloh had flown me out so I could help him and Dylan build it for her.
I knew they’d had their hard times and their struggles.
But I had no doubt their marriage was the kind built to last until they were old, gray, and still holding hands at the dining room table in front of those same bookshelves.
No one expected Shiloh would be taken from us so soon.
So tragically. In one blink, he was gone.
I still didn’t like to think about the accident on the ice. It was during a game. He’d uncharacteristically fallen, and a player from the other team wasn’t able to stop in time and the sharp part of his skate found a vulnerable spot on Shiloh’s neck.
Amelia hadn’t been there. It was one of the few games she’d ever missed.
Quinn wasn’t feeling well—a minor ear infection, but it had given her a fever and runny nose—so she’d decided to stay home with her.
I knew it ate at her that she hadn’t been there, but I was glad.
That was one image she didn’t need to have in her head the rest of her life.
It was bad enough to have heard about it.
Shiloh had been the best of brothers. And yet, here I was. In love with his wife. It was getting harder and harder to keep that off-limits box stuffed away where it should be. Distance was the only thing that would help.
And distance was the exact opposite of what was happening now.
At least it was too loud to talk. I knew Amelia well enough to understand that she had come on this trip with me because she wanted to talk to me about something.
I’d seen the determined look in her eye when she said she was coming, and knew there was no dissuading her.
Once Amelia decided something, that was it. She never looked back.
On the horizon, the sky was looking darker. I blinked and took in the whole of the sky and the ocean around us. I’d been so lost in my thoughts of Amelia, and the feel of her arms around me, that I wasn’t paying attention to how the weather was turning.
I hadn’t even checked the forecast before leaving, which was an absolute necessity when taking a boat trip across the channel to these small islands. If it turned inclement, a person would be left vulnerable to the whims of enormous waves that could easily take out a dinghy like this.
I kicked up the dinghy’s speed with a protesting whine from the engine. We were closer to the Forresters’ island than we were to Winterhaven, even if it was taking us into the approaching storm.
Amelia’s arms tightened around my chest, and there was no way she couldn’t feel the wild thudding of my heart.
Not just from her touch this time. The waves around us grew higher, from one- and two-foot swells, into three and four feet.
If we got up to six, we’d be having major problems. I pushed the dinghy to max speed, feeling the entire boat shudder as it hit wave after wave.
The engine groaned like an overworked animal. This dinghy had to be thirty years old. I was sure my parents did regular maintenance on it—Dad wasn’t one to let things fall into disrepair—but an old engine, no matter how well-taken care of, was still an old engine.
Amelia shouted something to me, but the wind tore her words away and flung them back out into the ocean. As the waves grew, it felt like hitting cement as we ran through them, jarring us both with teeth-rattling intensity. Amelia’s fingers were white as she gripped the front of my life vest.
The sky was completely gray, and the mist that had been falling turned into a heavier rain.
Finally, I spotted the Forresters’ island.
I pushed the dinghy harder toward our destination.
We were going to make it. It was going to be fine.
We’d hole out on the island until the storm passed in a few hours and then head back.
It grew closer and closer, and some of my tension began to ease.
We were on the opposite side of the island from the cabin, but we could hike through the forest to get there.
I’d done it many times, and it wasn’t too hard.
Harder in the cold, and while being wet, but possible.
While I was calculating the distance to the cabin, a wave came from our right side and crashed into the dinghy.
“Hudson!” Amelia screamed as the dinghy was flipped onto its side, and she flew into the dark, hungry waters of the ocean.