Chapter 14 #2
Before she'd started believing he might actually stay.
The unspoken words settled heavily between them while Johanna leaned back slowly in her chair, trying to process the timeline.
A few months ago meant before the auction, before Baltimore, and before falling asleep wrapped in Blaze’s arms again.
Even knowing that, the revelation still felt painfully personal, like the ground beneath her had shifted without warning. “You never mentioned it.”
Blaze studied her carefully. “Because the minute things changed between us, Seattle stopped feeling important.”
“But you considered it.”
His jaw tightened slightly.
“Jo—”
“You just got back here and you’re already thinking about leaving again.”
The words came out softer than she wanted.
More hurt than accusation.
Blaze leaned forward immediately. “Baby, that was before—”
“Before what?” she asked quietly. “Before you remembered you wanted me again?”
The question landed harder than she intended.
Blaze’s expression changed instantly with concern. “Jo.”
But fear was already spreading through her chest, cold and familiar.
Because suddenly she wasn’t sitting across from the man who held her while they walked the Baltimore Harbor. She was twenty-three again listening to Blaze dream about a future that might not include her.
And the worst part was he hadn’t told her.
He'd let her fall back into the fragile hope that this time might be different.
Blaze reached across the table and touched her hand. “Look at me.”
Johanna stared down at her untouched lunch while silence stretched heavily between them.
“Jo.”
Reluctantly, she lifted her eyes, and the second their gazes met, she knew Blaze recognized everything she was feeling.
“Baby, don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“That thing where you start emotionally checking out before anything’s even happened.” The accuracy of it made her flinch. However, Seattle hadn’t happened years ago during some reckless phase in his twenties. It had happened now, recently enough that the possibility still existed.
Blaze exhaled slowly and leaned back in his chair while frustration and concern battled across his face.
“I interviewed in Seattle when I thought my life was headed in one direction,” he said carefully. “Then you walked back into it.”
Johanna’s throat tightened painfully. “But they’re still calling.”
A long silence stretched between them, then Blaze answered honestly. “Yeah, because I haven’t given them an answer yet.”
A job offer meant Seattle had been more than casual curiosity or a random application submitted on a whim. Blaze had seriously considered building a life somewhere else.
And for the first time since Blaze came back into her life, Johanna wondered if she'd mistaken a second chance for a temporary stop on his way somewhere else.
* * *
Blaze knew he was losing her halfway through lunch.
Johanna still sat across from him at the waterfront table. She still answered his questions, still nodded occasionally while the harbor breeze drifted softly through the restaurant patio.
But emotionally, she had already started retreating.
Watching her retreat twisted something inside him.
He recognized the fear creeping in, the instinctive retreat, and the emotional distance already beginning to build behind her eyes.
He’d seen that same fear years ago when Baltimore first became more than a fantasy and he was younger, restless, and trying to prove something to himself before he understood that ambition and loneliness weren’t the same thing.
Blaze leaned back in his chair, jaw tight, while Johanna pushed food around her plate without eating.
Dammit.
He should’ve told her sooner.
Not because Seattle mattered, but because Johanna mattered enough not to have found out like this.
“You really thought about leaving Sheraton Beach again?” she asked quietly after several long seconds.
The hurt underneath the question twisted low through his chest.
Blaze answered honestly anyway. “Yeah. I figured there wasn’t anything keeping me here anymore. Seattle was offering the promotion to lieutenant I’d been working toward for years.”
Johanna nodded once like she expected that answer. And somehow that made it worse.
Blaze rubbed one hand slowly across his jaw. “That was before us.”
Johanna looked up then, and the sadness in her eyes hit him harder than anger would have.
“There’s always been an us, Blaze.”
The truth of it settled heavily between them again.
Because she was right.
Even during the years apart, unfinished emotion had remained stretched tightly between them like a live wire neither one had ever fully walked away from.
She didn’t raise her voice, accuse him of anything, or make a scene. Honestly, that would’ve been easier. Instead, she grew quieter. And Blaze had always known silence was more dangerous with Johanna than anger ever would be.
The restaurant buzzed softly around them while sunlight shimmered across the water beyond the patio railing, but suddenly everything at the table felt tight and unbearably heavy.
He exhaled slowly. “Jo—”
“You always wanted Seattle.”
Her voice stayed calm, but Blaze recognized the strain underneath it.
Years ago, he used to talk about Seattle constantly. He talked about the mountain rescue units and the advanced emergency response programs like they were part of some bigger future waiting for him somewhere else.
Johanna turned toward the ocean view, blinking once like she was trying to steady herself before her emotions became too visible.
“So what?” Her voice remained painfully calm. “You were just going to tell me eventually?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows against the table. “It stopped mattering.”
“But not enough to turn down the job offer.”
The quietness in her tone unsettled him more than yelling ever could have.
Blaze sat there staring at her because now he understood exactly where her mind had gone.
Not to the present.
To the past.
To every moment she’d ever spent loving him while wondering whether some bigger dream would eventually pull him away from her.
Blaze reached across the table for her hand.
Johanna let him touch her. But her fingers no longer curled naturally around his.
That tiny difference punched through his chest.
“You really think I’d spend all this time trying to get you back while planning to leave?”
Johanna finally looked at him. And there it was.
Fear lived in her eyes now, not the dramatic or irrational kind, but the quiet sort that settled deep enough inside somebody to permanently change the way they loved.
“You didn’t tell me,” she said softly.
Blaze opened his mouth.
Then closed it again.
Because there wasn’t a good answer for that.
Johanna swallowed slowly before forcing a small nod. “That’s the part that bothers me.”
“Baby—”
“You looked me in my face every day these last few weeks.” Her voice tightened slightly now. “Baltimore. Staying at my apartment. Talking about futures and feelings and all this…” She gestured vaguely between them. “Meanwhile, there was still a possibility you could leave.”
Blaze’s jaw tightened. “It wasn’t like that.”
“But you interviewed, and I overheard you say you’re still considering their offer.”
The truth settled heavily between them.
Unmovable.
Blaze lowered his voice. “I interviewed before things changed between us.”
Johanna’s eyes lifted again.
Their history was filled with almosts, timing issues, fear, distance, and love that never stayed settled long enough before life pulled them apart again.
And now Seattle had found its way between them too.
Blaze leaned forward again while frustration crept quietly beneath his calm exterior.
“What do you want me to say, Jo?”
“I don’t know.”
The honesty in that answer hurt worse than anger would have.
Because suddenly she looked tired.
Emotionally tired.
Like she’d just remembered why falling back into a relationship with him was reckless in the first place.
The server approached carefully with the check resting on a handheld payment device, clearly sensing the shift in energy at the table.
Johanna pulled her hand back silently.
Blaze paid, jaw tight, while she stared toward the window instead of looking at him.
The silence between them felt entirely different now.
The easy intimacy that had existed earlier was gone, replaced by something fragile enough to crack beneath the weight of everything left unsaid between them.
By the time they stepped outside, the March wind rolling off the water had turned noticeably colder, stinging against their skin while tension settled heavily in the space separating them.
As they walked toward the hotel, Blaze reached automatically for her waist but before his hand could settle there, she subtly moved a step ahead of him.
Blaze fell into step beside her. “Talk to me.”
Johanna finally lifted her eyes to his, and the sadness waiting there nearly undid him on the spot. “You know what the worst part is about all of this?”
Blaze stayed silent, already bracing himself for whatever came next.
Johanna swallowed hard before finally admitting, “I finally let myself believe this was safe.”
The words landed harder than anything she'd said all afternoon. Because safe was exactly what he'd been trying to give her. Before Blaze could find an answer, Johanna looked away.
He walked her back toward the Beaumont Hotel with his jaw locked so tight he could barely breathe normally. The entire walk back felt wrong, wrapped in a silence that felt far too careful between them.
Less than an hour ago, Johanna had been teasing him about wedding spreadsheets while they shared lemon pie beside the harbor. Now she walked beside him with her eyes fixed on the boardwalk ahead, moving slightly faster than usual like she needed distance before her emotions caught up to her.
Blaze hated the growing space between them far more than the silence itself.
He reached for her hand. “Jo.”
She didn’t look at him. “Hmm?”
That soft distracted response hurt worse somehow.