by Vivian Wood
“He was a good man. He had a little girl. But here I am, coming back to this stupid town and with nothing to show for it. I’m a wreck; I can’t be anything but a soldier.” He didn’t break eye contact with Rose, like he could somehow convey what he meant through his gaze. “I can’t do this.”
She shook her head. Tears spilled from her eyes. She tried to take his hand, but he wouldn’t let her.
“I’ve made my decision: I’m doing that fourth tour. I’m taking Sergeant Loyd’s offer.”
Rose stared at him, astonished. “What are you talking about? Seth, this isn’t the time to make that kind of a decision.”
“How is it not? Tonight proved that I’m not meant to be here.” He shrugged. “And if it ends up being my last tour, then so be it.”
Rose’s jaw clenched. “So that’s it? You don’t deserve to have a life of your own at all?” She wiped the tears from her cheeks, but they kept flowing. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I’m thinking more clearly than I ever have before.”
“So what we have is nothing? You’ll leave and never return because you don’t deserve any better?”
He looked away; he wished Rose would leave him in peace. He closed his eyes.
“Say it to my face, Seth Thornton. Say you don’t care about me. Say you don’t love me.” Her voice rose with each word. “Because guess what? I love you. I love you so much that you’re breaking my heart right now.”
Seth’s eyes flew open at her declaration. Tears shimmered on her cheeks, and she was flushed and angry—and so goddamned beautiful that he wanted to fall at her feet.
“You can’t love me,” he said, his voice cracking. “You don’t know what you mean.”
“How dare you say that to me. Do you think I’m some stupid child? I know exactly what I mean.” Like she was lobbing a bomb at him, she said again, “I love you.”
He got up from the couch, running his fingers through his hair. He wanted to rip a hole in the wall, or scream, or maybe sob until he was nothing but a dry husk.
“You should go,” was all he said. His voice was cold, emotionless.
Rose laughed. “Of course I should go. That’s all that you’ve wanted, right? So you can be the great big hero. You know what? Take the offer. Go kill yourself in some godforsaken place, Seth Thornton. I’m not going to watch you do it.”
Her voice broke on a sob, and he watched in despair as she cried.
Right then, he hated himself, and he wished desperately that she would find someone better than him.
She got up, her fists clenched. “You know what you are?” she whispered. “You’re a coward. You’re afraid of what we have, and you’d rather throw it all away.”
“I’m not the one running, Rose. You are.”
“Maybe I am running. But at least it’s not toward my own death.”
The anger burst inside him like the fireworks from that evening. It spiked his blood, and with a quick grab, he yanked Rose into his arms. She gasped.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You have no idea.”
Her smile was so sad right then. “Don’t I?”
They stared at each other, their chests sawing for breath. The moment heated, expanded, until the tension made him tremble. He dipped his head toward her, needing her taste, her touch, but she pushed at his chest.
“Let me go.”
He hesitated. Then he freed her from his embrace.
“I’m going, just like you wanted. And I won’t be back.”
When she slammed the door behind her, he didn’t even flinch.
Chapter Eighteen
Rose entered her own apartment and stood in the middle of her living room. Her brain couldn’t compute what had just happened. She stared at the dirty dishes currently sitting in the sink, the mug on the coffee table where she’d left it this morning. It had seemed ages ago, drinking from the mug.
Callie whined and sat next to Rose. She whined again, but Rose didn’t respond.
It was over. After everything that had happened to her, she’d fallen in love with a man who didn’t want to fight for that love. He wanted to let himself fall deeper into his own doom, and she could do nothing about it.
A stray firework exploded some miles away; she flinched. She waited for a second one, and she breathed a sigh of relief when that seemed to be the only one.
She washed the dishes that had been sitting in the sink all day. She washed her face, brushed her teeth, got dressed for bed. Pulling out the futon, she realized that her pillow smelled like Seth. Exchanging it for another pillow, she almost screamed—all of her pillows smelled like him.
She rolled up a blanket and used that as a pillow instead. She tried to close her eyes and sleep, but it was pointless. Her mind wouldn’t settle. Over and over, she saw Seth tell her to go, tell her not to love him.
Rose squeezed her eyes shut. She heard someone gasping, like through a tunnel, only to realize a long moment later that it was her. She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound. She refused to let Seth know how much he’d hurt her.
Sleep, sleep, sleep, she chanted inwardly. If I can’t sleep, then I can’t stop thinking about what happened.
Yet her mind wouldn’t let any of it go. She went over every word, every expression, everything conveyed tonight. She felt like she was going to choke, and she finally sat up, coughing and panting. Tears burned her eyelids. That familiar friend—panic—climbed up her throat and threatened to strangle her.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she muttered. She put her head in her hands. Rocking back and forth, she chewed on the inside of her cheek to muffle the sounds of her sobs, but after a while, she couldn’t keep them contained anymore. Grabbing the rolled-up blanket, she buried her face in it and cried until her eyes were swollen and her head pounded.
She cried until she could barely rise to go the bathroom. When she saw her reflection in the mirror, she instantly switched off the light, but that one glimpse had shown her that she looked like she’d been dragged to hell and back again.
Rose returned to the futon and curled up into a ball. Stray tears leaked from her eyes, and she was too tired to wipe them away. Callie lay on the floor next to her the entire time, full of canine concern.
“I love him,” she whispered. “I still love him.”
This hurt more than what Johnny had done to her because she knew Seth cared for her. Loved her, even. Yet he’d turned his back on her when she’d made herself vulnerable and confessed her feelings. Even worse was knowing that he was punishing himself for losing Max. He’d accused her of being a coward, but if anyone was a coward, it was Seth.
Everything—Johnny, the money, the threats—seemed unimportant. She couldn’t bring herself to care. She knew she was going to meet Johnny tomorrow—or was it already today?—at the Sanditon Pass. She’d already set her alarm to get up early to catch the bus. But when before she would’ve been a bundle of nerves, now she was numb.
She began to fall asleep, but then she felt something solid drop into the palm of her hand. She opened her eyes to see that Callie had brought her that damn hummingbird figurine that Seth had let her keep. The tears sprang up again, and she burst into a second bout of tears. She clutched the figurine to her heart until she was so exhausted from crying that she finally went to sleep.
It was early afternoon by the time Rose arrived in the last town before you hiked up to the Sanditon Pass. As the bus traveled closer and closer to her destination, she began to feel the nerves again. The money in her jacket pocket, along with her gun, seemed inordinately heavy.
She took a deep breath, glanced at the directions Johnny had given her, and started walking.
It was about two miles into a wooded area, bursting with evergreens and wildflowers. The grass whistled in the breeze, dry and yellow from the summer dry spell, and if Rose weren’t walking to what she knew was her certain doom, she might have enjoyed the walk. When a butterfly fluttered past her, she had to stifle a
hysterical laugh.
She’d done as Johnny had asked her: she hadn’t told anyone where she was going—at least not yet. She checked her phone to make sure she still had cell service, and she sent off a quick text to Heath. I’m at Sanditon Pass was all she wrote. By the time Heath saw the text, she’d be without service.
At least this way, her brother could find her if she didn’t come back.
Fear crawled up her spine, and she sent up a silent prayer to whoever was listening that she would get out of this alive. If she could just persuade Johnny to take the money…
She arrived at a cabin around a long bend, and it looked so idyllic that Rose was afraid she’d taken a wrong turn. Then she saw Johnny’s car before Johnny himself walked outside.
“You’re here!” he said. He had a cigarette in his hand as he embraced her. “I thought you’d never come.”
The hug lingered, and Rose gritted her teeth to keep herself from wrenching away. Slithers of disgust ran up and down her body from his mere proximity. He smiled down at her, his teeth flashing in the bright sunshine.
“Let’s go inside. Are you hungry? It’s almost lunch.” He acted like this was some bizarre picnic, and Rose wanted to strangle him.
“I’m not going inside with you.” She pulled out the envelope of cash and held it out. “Here’s your money: every cent is there, including interest. Now leave me and my family alone. We’re done.”
Johnny looked at the money like she’d tried to give him a dead frog. “Didn’t I say I didn’t want your money?”
“I’m paying you back. Take it.”
He didn’t speak for a long moment. Finally, he took the money, and Rose breathed a deep sigh of relief.
Until she saw the smile forming on Johnny’s face.
“Rosie, Rosie, Rosie. So sweet and naïve still. You amaze me. Did you really think you could pay me off and I’d let you go?” He moved so close to her that she felt his clove-scented breath on her face. “There’s no way in hell you’re going home now,” he whispered.
“You have your money. What else do you want?”
He touched her cheek, and this time, she did flinch.
“Now, are you going to come inside, or am I going to have to persuade you to?”
The second he stepped away, she pulled out her gun, aiming it straight at his heart like she’d done at the park weeks ago.
“I’m not going anywhere with you. Either let me leave, or I’ll shoot you.” She knew that this time, she wouldn’t even hesitate.
He shrugged. “Do it. Shoot me. But I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Rose had her finger on the trigger now. The sun beat down on her neck, sweat breaking out on her forehead. Licking her lips, she rasped, “Let me go, Johnny.”
“You can leave if you want, but like I said: there will be consequences.” He smiled again as he reached inside his pocket for something.
Rose expected a gun, but when he pulled out what looked like a dark ribbon, she hesitated. It wasn’t a ribbon, though: it was a lock of hair.
“Just so you know, we have one of your friends here. What was her name? Jenny? Julie? Jubilee!” He laughed. “Interesting name. I wonder if it’s a family name.”
Rose felt the blood drain from her face as she stared at that long strand of dark hair, the same color as Seth’s. Only Jubilee had hair that long. Her heart stuttered as the lock blew in the breeze, taunting her.
Oh God, not Jubilee. Why Jubilee? She was innocent in all of this. Rose struggled to understand why Johnny would choose her, but to him, any person who knew Rose could be used against her. If he had hurt her, or God forbid, raped her—
She closed her eyes for a split second. She couldn’t give into panic, that was what Johnny wanted.
“So, you have two choices,” Johnny said conversationally as he swung the lock back and forth. “You can leave and we’ll kill your friend. Or, you can come with me, and we’ll let her go.”
Rose took her finger from the trigger. “You swear to let Jubilee go?”
“Of course. I always keep my promises.”
A bird cawed in a tree nearby. Johnny waited, his eyebrows slightly raised. The lock of hair looked like a tiny noose now.
When she lowered her gun, putting the safety back on, Johnny laughed. Then before Rose could react, Johnny slapped her—hard—the gun skittering across the ground. She staggered as Johnny grabbed her forearm, his fingers digging into her skin.
“You’ve made the right choice, my dear,” he said as he dragged her into the cabin.
She struggled, trying to free herself from his grip, but he only grabbed her by the hair and shook her.
“Behave yourself.” He pulled her head back, exposing her throat. “Or your little friend is going to have a very bad time.”
Johnny took her to a bedroom in the back of the cabin. There was no furniture to speak of. It was a prison cell.
“Where’s Jubilee?” Rose demanded. “If you’ve hurt her, I’ll kill you. I swear it.”
“Where’s Jubilee? Funny you should ask that.” He turned his brightest smile on her—so bright that she almost had to close her eyes. “I hate to say this, but I lied.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I lied. We don’t have the girl. You gave yourself up for no reason.”
At her stricken expression, he laughed. Then he slammed the door and locked it, leaving her to scream at him from inside her makeshift cell.
“Seth, it’s Jubilee. Open up. I have cupcakes.”
Seth heard Jubilee’s voice and winced. What time was it? He groaned when he saw it was almost noon. He couldn’t remember when he’d fallen asleep last night after…everything.
Even the mention of cupcakes from The Rise and Shine wasn’t enough of a temptation to rouse him from his bed.
“I’m sleeping!” he yelled and burrowed below the covers.
“I’m not leaving until you open the door. Or I’ll just call Mom and have her come by—”
Seth opened the door to see his little sister beaming up at him.
“You’re evil,” he said as she came inside.
“No, just effective. Here, I brought one of each flavor. I thought you’d need it.” She looked at him and sighed. “Are you okay?”
What a question! No, he wasn’t okay. He’d told Rose he couldn’t love her and that they were over. He was going to accept Sergeant Loyd’s offer and leave for another tour in the fall.
All in all, he was a damn wreck.
“Fine,” he said as he plucked a chocolate cupcake from the platter. It tasted like sand in his mouth, but he needed to eat something. “You didn’t have to come by.”
“I wanted to. I had the day off, and Lizzie texted me… I heard about what happened last night. Do you want to talk about it?”
It struck him then that his little sister wasn’t a child anymore. She’d grown up while he’d been away fighting. It depressed him. What had happened to the sweet girl who’d hung onto his every word? Who’d had to be protected and coddled because she’d suffered from leukemia twice in her short life?
“I don’t want to talk about it.” At her sad expression, he sighed. “You can sit with me, though. Tell me what’s going on with you.”
Jubilee sensed that he wanted peace and quiet, though, and she didn’t chatter his ear off. The younger Jubilee would’ve taken the opportunity to tell him everything, but not this Jubilee. She had a maturity to her that Seth could barely reconcile with the girl he’d known.
“Do you love her?” Jubilee asked suddenly.
He didn’t need to ask who she meant. “Yes. But it doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters. Have you told her how you feel? Because she feels the same.”
He narrowed his eyes. “How do you know?”
“You know, when you’ve been kept in a bubble your entire life, you tend to pay attention to other people. You don’t have any interesting stories about yourself, so you have to discover someone else’s.” Her smil
e was bittersweet. “Point being, I saw the way she looked at you at the party last night. It was obvious to anyone with working eyeballs.”
That made him groan. He dropped his face into his hands. “I’ve fucked it all up, Jubi.”
“Come on, tell me. I’ve seen Harrison, Caleb, and Mark all screw up with their soulmates and look at them now. They figured it out.”
That doesn’t mean I will.
He told her about Sergeant Loyd’s offer, about how last night had made him sure it was the right decision. He told her about his fight with Rose, how things had fallen apart. He didn’t tell her about Johnny, although the thought of what Rose had gone through—and the fact that he’d added to her burden—only made him feel worse.
He needed to talk to her. He couldn’t be the right guy for her, but he’d made her a promise to keep her safe.
“Love sucks,” Jubilee said, “but it also makes you a better person. I’ve seen how you are around Rose. We all have. It’s like you’ve come back to yourself.”
“I’ve always been myself.”
She shook her head. “When you came back last year…you weren’t the older brother I’d known. I knew you wouldn’t be—it’d been so long since you’d really been home. But sometimes I couldn’t find that person in you still. Does that make sense?”
“You’re not the little girl I left behind, either.”
“I hope not. I haven’t been a little girl in a long time.”
Looking at Jubilee, he knew she spoke the truth. He’d returned to Fair Haven a shell of a man, but Rose? Rose had awoken a purpose within him, and she’d loved him despite everything he’d done. He swallowed, a lump in his throat.
Maybe I can make a life here. Maybe I can be the man Rose thinks I am.
It was a heady thought, and one he wanted to make happen more than he’d ever wanted anything.