Chapter 17
Jason
She’s safe.
I didn’t lose her.
It’s what I keep telling myself in response to the nightmare playing on a loop through my mind.
But the reassurance isn’t enough to counteract the endless versions of what might have happened if I hadn’t reached her before that giant jagged branch, if I had fallen short and instead of catching her, my arm slipped through thin air.
If her fearful cry had been the predecessor to something pained and prolonged… or worse, to nothing at all.
Silence.
People died. Cars went off the road. Complications happened—
No. She’s safe. I didn’t lose her.
Not. Enough.
I pull her closer. Kiss her harder.
I need to feel the beating of her heart against my own, to taste the sweetness of her lips. I need her breath, rushing warm against my jaw, my neck, my mouth again and again and again.
I need to feel her beneath me, alive and unharmed and…
Safe.
Here.
Her knee shifts against my thigh, bringing me closer, letting me hold her tighter, giving me—
Her breath catches in a pained gasp that ricochets through this head-to-toe connection between us.
“Christ, Rowan.” I jerk away, shoving hands through my hair as the cold reality of what just happened kicks in the door. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
I’ve lost my damn mind, because there is no sane explanation for the way I’m devouring this woman with my mouth… on the ground… in the dirt and rain… minutes or maybe only seconds after a life-endangering experience.
“What?” She pushes up on her hands, peering at me with dazed eyes, kiss-swollen lips I never should have touched, and the muddy marks of my fingers on her cheeks and neck. “No, it’s my leg. I think maybe…”
I follow her eyes down to where she’s pulling her jeans away from her thigh.
“Rowan.” My gut hollows out at the two-inch hole in the denim, and beneath… blood.
“I think it’s just a— Jason!” she squeaks as I slip my arms under her legs and around her back, pushing up to carry her inside.
She’s hurt.
Not okay.
Bleeding, and she didn’t even notice. Because she’s in shock.
And I’m putting a damn move on her.
I should have made Rowan leave the minute she said this place belonged to her mom. Grabbed her bags and told Bruce to call the sheriff if she didn’t get on board with him.
I shouldn’t have let Marsha’s call spin me up.
I shouldn’t have locked that door.
I shouldn’t have let my guard down last night.
I shouldn’t have brought her out with me this morning.
And no matter how fucking bad she scared me, no matter how fucking relieved I was that she was okay… I never, ever should have kissed her.
I can’t believe I kissed her.
What the hell was I thinking?
Answer: I wasn’t.
Rational Jason left the building when a downed limb twice the size of my SUV and with more spear-style branches than a medieval torture chamber started falling on her.
And that fear— Christ.
Something just snapped, and I was running on nothing but adrenaline-fueled instinct.
And then, once I knew she was okay, once I heard her voice and saw the haze of fear and confusion clear… Once our eyes locked and her lips parted on that barest breath… I was fucking done.
For those few frantic heartbeats, all that existed was this woman I’d wanted forever, meeting me in the kiss I swore I would never take.
“It’s… just… a… scratch,” she manages through the bounce of my steps, clinging to me until I make it to the door, at which point she starts to wiggle and push. “Let me down, let me down.”
Squirming out of my arms, she stands at the stoop, the light rain leaving clean streaks down her cheeks. “Here, look.”
I brace for the sight of her blood again, but when she pokes her fingers into the fabric and rips it another inch… I sag with relief.
“See, just a scratch. Not even a big one. And the blood’s mostly washed away,” she says, pulling the soaked denim this way and that to make sure.
And then she’s peering up at me, her eyes soft and warm and promising me that she is somehow totally okay.
I look back to the shed. “You could have been really hurt.”
“I know. It was dumb.” She pushes the wet hair from her brow, the slightest tremor in her hands before she tucks them together at her chest. “I didn’t realize how much weight there was or that it wouldn’t just shift to the side. I should have listened when you wanted me to stop.”
She heard me? “Why didn’t you?”
“I wanted to be your hero.” Jesus, that saucy little brow lift. “Duh.”
I cough out a short laugh, mystified that humor is possible at all.
But then she’s looking at me, a shy uncertainty hovering in the mist between us, accumulating until it falls like tears down her face. I know better, but somehow I can’t stop myself from reaching out to—
The hollow wail of a boat horn echoes from the distance, then again.
A stitch pulls between her brows, but I know exactly what that is.
Bruce.
The hand that was a scant inch from sifting into her hair lands on her shoulder in a firm press. “Wait here.”
Rowan
I’m left standing, a little stunned and a lot confused as the man who just kissed me senseless races inside only to return less than thirty seconds later with a coat I don’t recognize.
A chilling gust blows past, reminding me that I’m soaked through and making me wish that I was back in his arms. That he was looking at me with that hungry desperation.
I don’t understand what’s happening. What that kiss meant… what the rest of our time together will be like. But for the first time in longer than I can remember, there’s this buoyant sense of hope filling my chest, and for the first time in even longer, I am letting myself want it.
“Quick, put this on.” He’s got me half wrapped in it before I can even take a breath. But when I do…
Ed.
It smells like the woodsy aftershave that he once told me he’d been using since the first time he shaved.
“W-what are we doing?” I ask, running my hand over what is likely to be the last remaining item that carries the scent of the man I loved like a father.
Jason doesn’t skip a beat, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the path. “We have to hurry. Are you okay on your feet?”
“Yes, fine,” I say, widening my steps in an attempt to outpace him. He’s still faster, but at least I think he’s accepted that I’m not going to lose the leg over this.
At the top of the path, I see it. A small boat with a single figure hunched against the wheel. “Is that Bruce?”
“It’s not his boat. Too little. But crazy bastard probably couldn’t stand not being able to check on us.”
We pick our way down the steps, Jason’s grip on my hand moving to my arm as he navigates ahead of me, somehow managing to pull me along and keep me from going too fast all at once.
When we get to the downed tree blocking the path, he stops and lifts me over before I can even decide the best way around.
Bruce is watching our progress, his hands looking like some involuntary reaction has taken over in an attempt to guide us down the slope. Waves to the left, stop signal, OMG STOP signal, keep coming…
“I can’t believe I’m finally going to meet him.”
Nod. “You can spend the whole afternoon with him.”
I squint at the hunched form again. “He can make it up these stairs in this weather?”
Is he waiting for us to help tie him off and give him a hand out of the boat?
Jason’s head swings around, brow furrowed. And it clicks.
No.
NO.
But it’s written all over his stupid, gorgeous face.
That. Dick!
Digging my heels in, I pull back with a gasp. “Jason, so help me. If you’re trying to put me on that boat with him…”
After kissing me like he literally could not stop himself from doing it? After I told him from the first night that I wasn’t leaving?
“Not trying,” he states flatly, taking my hand again, a steely determination in the eyes I was swimming in mere moments ago.
The look he’s giving me would probably have the average opposing player second-guessing all their life choices. But I’ve been seeing this look for so long, I’m immune. Besides, this look has nothing on the one my mother whips out at the first inkling of rebellion.
Try again, buddy. “Oh, really?”
He blinks, all those big, scary my-way vibes crumbling beneath the confusion of challenge.
“Rowan, the fact that Bruce is in someone else’s boat means he couldn’t get the Mae Belle out of the harbor.
Which means there’s no telling when the power or phones will be restored.
And in case you missed it, you were half a second or less from being impaled by the three-inch-wide branch that’s now embedded in the ground, dead center between where your gloves are still stuck in the mud.
What if I hadn’t gotten there? What if you needed medical attention and the only damn thing I could do to help you was fire a flare that may or may not have been seen from shore? ”
Impaled? And now I can see it’s not just confusion in his eyes, it’s worry.
I mentally retract calling him a dick in my head, reassigning the label to myself.
Only it doesn’t change what’s going to happen in the next five minutes.
“I’m so sorry I scared you. I’m sorry I didn’t listen and put myself in danger.
And I know that you are trying to keep me safe. ” I shake my head. “But I can’t leave.”
We stare at each other, rain streaming down our faces and soaking our hair. Then— “The hell you can’t. There’s no power. No refrigeration—”
“It doesn’t matter.” I gently pull my arm free of his grasp, and to his credit, he lets me go.
But he isn’t done. “Marsha will understand. But right now, it’s not safe for Bruce to stay out. We have to make this quick, and we have to do it now.”
“My mother most definitely would not understand. But this isn’t about her.”
I tuck my nose into the collar of this gigantic raincoat and take a breath, thinking about why I came here. What I still need to do.
“I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head.
He swallows, looking down to the waiting boat. “I have no idea how long it will be before the power is back or your phone works. I have no idea how long it will be before Bruce can even get across again. You’ll be stuck here. With me.”