Chapter 22 #2
She just couldn’t go through it again, even if the circumstances were vastly different this time.
She couldn’t do it—and she couldn’t do it to Ethan, either.
He was already bonded to Paul, Alex, Jenny and Marion.
It would be hard enough to leave as it was.
To get even more involved would be a fool’s errand.
And then Paul was behind her, his arms encircling her waist and his forehead leaning on her shoulder. “Whatever you’re thinking, knock it off.”
“How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“I can see it in the tension you carry in your shoulders.” He gently massaged her neck and shoulders, sending a sigh shuddering through her. “Talk to me.”
“Is Alex with your mom?”
“Yeah, I asked them to stay so I could come talk to you. Tell me what’s on your mind, Hope.”
“This. Us.”
“That’s on my mind, too.”
“We need to stop this, Paul.” As she said the words, a sharp pain registered in the area of her heart, which was exactly when she realized that at some point over the last few weeks, she’d fallen in love with him.
He turned her to face him, his hands on her hips. “Please don’t say that. I can’t take any more bad news today.”
“And I can’t take any more heartache in this lifetime. We’re setting up ourselves—and Ethan—for disaster by pursuing this when we both know it can’t last.”
He tucked her hair behind her ear, and the simple gesture made her heart flutter. “Why can’t it last?”
“Because! When your mom goes, I have to go, too. I need a job, Paul, and it’s not like there’re tons of nursing opportunities here.”
“If Lizzie succeeds in getting the health care facility opened, they’ll need qualified nurses.”
“Who knows how long that’ll take? It could be a year or more before they get the renovations done, permits filed and the many other details seen to. Something like that doesn’t happen overnight. I can’t sit around and wait for something that may or may not happen. I don’t have that luxury.”
“Hope…”
“This isn’t what I want to do, Paul, but it’s what I have to do. I just can’t—”
He kissed her, and she forgot everything she’d been about to say, as well as the many reasons this was a bad idea. She could only remember the exquisite pleasure she’d found in his arms. Hungry for more of it, she returned his kiss with an ardor that equaled his.
“Please don’t take this away from me, Hope,” he whispered many passionate minutes later. “I need you.”
“I need you, too, but I can’t do this. I just can’t.”
He once again dropped his head to her shoulder.
She rested her hand on his neck, wishing with every beat of her heart that things could be different for them.
But their reality was that once his mother was moved from their home, Hope’s job on Gansett Island would be done.
Paul’s life and his business were on the island.
So there was no point to continuing a romantic entanglement that would lead straight to heartache when it ended.
“I’m so sorry,” she said as tears slid down her cheeks. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”
“I think I have a pretty good idea.”
“It’s not what I want. If things were different…”
“I know.” He kissed her so softly, so tenderly that she wanted to whimper from the bolt of desire that zinged through her body and settled into a sharp throb between her legs. Drawing back from her, he looked at her for a long moment before he turned and went out the door.
The glass of wine he hadn’t gotten to enjoy stood beside hers on the counter as a metaphor for the many things they’d never get to enjoy together.
Leaving the glasses on the counter, she shut off the lights and went to bed alone.
She’d done the right thing sending him away.
But knowing that didn’t lessen the ache of loss that had her crying herself to sleep for the first time in a long time.
Over the next few days, Paul forced himself through the motions.
He got up, went to work, helped take care of his mother, attended an emergency town council meeting that turned out to be about nothing, made himself eat and sleep.
He finalized the plans for Alex’s bachelor party, took Ethan with him to help harvest the pumpkins and worked with Jenny on the plan for closing the retail store for the month of November before reopening to sell Christmas trees in December.
He did what was expected of him. And every time he laid eyes on Hope, which was several times each day, he died a little more on the inside.
They’d had a taste of heaven that had been yanked away before he’d begun to satisfy his appetite for her.
Of course he understood where she was coming from.
When his mother left home, her job would be done, and she and Ethan would have to go elsewhere.
It was the wise thing for both of them to take a step back, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier.
Staring into the mirror as he got ready for Alex’s party, Paul tried to summon the cheerfulness he’d need to see his brother through the party and the wedding.
He was determined not to let his own problems—and the larger, more pressing issue of what to do about their mother’s care—take anything away from the joy of Alex and Jenny’s big day.
A long, lonely winter stretched ahead of him.
He could tend to his own wounds then. It occurred to him that if they moved Marion to the mainland and Hope and Ethan left, Paul would be alone in the house that now teemed with activity.
Alex and Jenny would move into their own home, and with Marion gone, there’d be no reason for David and Daisy to come by every day or the women from the church, who had been so generous about providing regular meals for them during Marion’s illness.
The house would be awfully empty and lonely without the endless activity, a thought that only added to his profound depression.
“You gotta snap out of it, man,” he whispered to his reflection. “Alex has waited a long time for this. It wouldn’t be fair to bring him down.” He gave himself a couple of minutes to summon the celebratory mood the night demanded of him before he left the bathroom.
Dressed in a gorgeous black dress, Hope came into the house as he stepped into the kitchen.
Paul stared at her. “You look amazing,” he said after a long, charged moment of silence.
“You look great, too.”
His mother’s friends had taken Marion to bridge night so Hope could attend Jenny’s bachelorette party.
The ladies were fully briefed on what to expect from Marion.
Paul and Alex had agreed that they should let her spend as much time with her friends as she could, while she could.
Ethan was spending the night with his friend Jonah.
Paul couldn’t help but wish that he could look forward to spending the night with Hope after the parties, but he couldn’t let his mind go there.
“Have a good time tonight,” Hope said. “Be careful.”
“I’ll be fine. My job is to stay sober so he can go nuts.”
She smiled, and he had to fight the overpowering urge to cross the room, haul her into his arms and kiss her senseless. It took everything he had not to give in to the need that drew him to her. “I’m sure it’ll be a great time.”
Alex and Jenny came into the house through the front door, holding hands and laughing about something.
Paul experienced yet another profound feeling of envy that his brother had his life worked out to his obvious satisfaction. Why was it that he couldn’t seem to do the same? The brief brush with happiness he’d experienced with Hope had only served to make him want it more than he had before.
“You ready to roll?” he asked Paul.
“Whenever you are.”
Alex wrapped his arms around Jenny and laid a deep, sensual kiss on her that had Paul squirming with discomfort as he tried to look anywhere but at Hope.
“Behave tonight, you hear me?” he said when they finally resurfaced.
“You do the same.”