by Jill Shalvis
He let out a low laugh. “Okay, touché. But the last single male Kincaid, Sophie? Seriously? It’s like you want to be hurt. It’s like you want to be your dad, constantly down and depressed—”
She felt her spine snap straight. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said stiffly. “I’m nothing like my dad. And it’s not like he chooses to be sad, Lucas. It’s a chemical imbalance—”
“Sophie,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to start a fight and hurt your feelings. I’m just saying, I’m…worried about you.”
She blinked.
“I was an asshole,” he said. “There’s no doubt. Hell, I’m still an asshole. But why are you going after another asshole? Do you want to get hurt again? Is that it?”
She opened her mouth and then closed it. “Jacob’s not like you,” she said. “When he’s with someone, he’s with someone.”
“Okay, so maybe he’s not going to cheat on you with another woman,” Lucas said. “But he’s not going to be able to make you happy. He’s not relationship material, and that’s what you want. That’s what you’re looking for.”
No way was she going to admit to him that she’d learned that already, the hard way. “I’ll be okay,” she said.
He was quiet a moment. “I’ll have the accountant come up with an offer for the boat and get it to you tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” she said, and then paused. “Wait a minute. Did we just have a relatively decent conversation in which neither of us skewered the other?”
“Yeah,” he said, sounding as surprised as she. “Do you think it means the apocalypse is coming?”
“Maybe it means we’re growing up,” she said.
“Don’t tell anyone.”
She found a laugh and disconnected, and when she did, her laughter stuck in her throat and switched to tears. Dammit. Dammit, she still couldn’t find her happy. Because her happy was leaving with Jacob, like one of those duffel bags over his shoulder.
She turned back to the grilled cheese and gasped at the black smoke billowing out from beneath the pan. And in the next second, the sandwich burst into flames. It caught the kitchen towel next to the pan, and that also burst into flames.
“Oh, my God!” She whirled, mind blank. She ran to the sink, but only a trickle of water came out.
By this time, the fire had spread to the window shades. She raced over to the table and ducked down, reaching for the fire extinguisher that she always bumped her legs on.
It was heavy and she’d never used one before, which made her mad. She always hated the stupid chick, the one who in the movies didn’t know how to save herself. Don’t be the stupid chick! She yanked harder. “Come on, you motherfu—”
It broke free with enough momentum to take her down to her butt. She scrambled back up and wasted another precious few seconds trying to figure out how to use the extinguisher. All while the flames grew around her. Finally she pulled the pin and squeezed the lever.
And nothing happened.
Chapter 31
Jacob tossed Hud his truck keys. “She’s all yours for now.”
Hud looked down at them, swore, and then tossed them back.
“That’s the second damn time today my keys have been rejected,” Jacob noted far more casually than he felt.
“Maybe because the people doing the rejecting don’t want you to leave,” Hud said.
Jacob shook his head. He was having a hard time controlling his emotions here. Very hard. He was on a short leash and needed to get the hell out before he broke.
The two of them were standing in his driveway, next to Jacob’s truck. The cabin was locked up, and he was packed and ready to go. Hud had shown up and he’d immediately gone straight to pissed off without passing go, and had spent the past five minutes telling—yelling—about what a bad idea it was for Jacob to leave early.
“I was always going to have to go,” Jacob managed to say evenly.
“But you moved it up.”
Not by much, but yeah, he had. The fight with Sophie had reminded him that he wasn’t fit for society. He screwed things up and was clueless on how to make them better, so leaving felt like the obvious solution.
Hud was watching him. “Some of us aren’t ready.”
“Was I supposed to know that?” Jacob blew out a breath. “You’ve spoken more to me in the past five minutes than in the whole time I’ve been here.”
“Ditto.”
They stared at each other for an interminably long beat, and finally Jacob closed his eyes. “You’re making this harder than it has to be. We’ve done this before.”
“Say good-bye? Fuck no, we haven’t,” Hud said. “You left without a good-bye last time, remember?”
“How can I forget? You keep throwing it in my face.”
This time it was Hud’s turn to close his eyes. “Fine. That was a shitty thing to say, and I take it back. But you’re evading. Why leave before you have to?”
“That’s…complicated.”
“You fucked up with Sophie when she came to apologize,” Hud said.
“I fucked up with more than Sophie.”
Hud looked at him, long and hard. “If you’re talking about me,” he said, “or the others, you’re wrong. You didn’t fuck up at all. You came home. That was all we ever wanted.”
The words took a surprising load off Jacob’s shoulders.
“At least look me in the eyes and tell me you’re coming back,” Hud said.
Jacob turned his head to meet Hud’s gaze and saw the smoke and flames licking out from Sophie’s boat. His heart about stopped. Dropping the duffel bags, he hit the beach at a dead run. “Call nine-one-one!” he yelled back at Hud.
“On it,” Hud said right on his heels.
They hit the dock in tandem. At the boat, Hud tried to pull Jacob back from jumping on board. “It’s not safe!” he yelled.
“Sophie’s in there!” Jacob leapt to the deck, calling out for her.
Someone landed right next to him.
Hud.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jacob yelled at him.
Hud was tugging up the vinyl seating, and Jacob knew why. He was looking for the fire extinguisher that was hopefully on board.
“Sophie!” Jacob yelled, turning to go belowdecks. The door was open, and black smoke was pouring out. “Sophie!”
“Here!”
She appeared in the opening holding a fire extinguisher. Hud immediately took it from her while Jacob pulled her up and off the boat to the dock.
“Are you okay?” he demanded, running his hands over her, looking for injuries. It was hard to tell. She was sooty from head to toe.
“I’m”—she stopped to cough—“fine.”
He didn’t stop touching her, couldn’t.
“Jacob.” She cupped his face and brought it to hers. “I’m fine. I just couldn’t get the extinguisher to start and the flames were quicker than me.”
Still holding on to her, he turned to see that Hud had abandoned the extinguisher as well and had jumped lithely to the dock beside them. He immediately turned to Sophie and looked her over as Jacob had.
Sirens sounded in the distance, and in the next minute, the fire service had arrived, along with a sea of other first responders, including Aidan.
Twenty minutes later, Sophie was sitting in the back of the ambulance, an emergency blanket wrapped around her shoulders, being looked over by a paramedic. Jacob stood hovering, especially when Lucas drove up, ran to the shore, and stared at the shell of his boat, hands in his hair. Then he turned to Sophie.
She grimaced. “I’m sorry—”
“You okay?” Lucas asked.
“Yes, but the boat isn’t.”
“I know.” Lucas let out a long breath. “It might be karma.”
She stared at him. “You really believe that?”
“I’m working on it.” He started to walk off, then hesitated. Glanced at Jacob and then back at Sophie. “You need anything?” he asked her.
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She shook her head.
He nodded, looking more than a little relieved. “Take care of yourself.” And then he was gone.
Hud came up next to Jacob and pulled him aside. “How is she?”
Jacob shook his head. “They were worried about shock, but she’s doing well, considering what could have happened. A small burn on her arm, that’s it.”
Hud let out a breath of relief and nodded. “They caught the flames pretty fast, but there’s also massive soot, smoke, and water damage. Probably not salvageable.”
Jacob nodded. He’d known this. What he didn’t know was how Sophie was going to feel about it. “You tried to hold me back from jumping on board,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“And yet you followed me,” Jacob said.
“Yeah, and if you’re about to ask why, you’re going to piss me off,” his twin said. “Don’t you get it yet? Where you go, stupid or not, I go. And vice versa. I’ll beat that into you if I have to. We do the right thing by each other, always—you got that yet?”
“Yeah, I got it.” Jacob paused. “Do you really not remember our handshake?” he asked, referring to the day he’d run into his brother and Hud had acted like he’d never seen it before.
Hud blew out a sigh. “You’re not the only one who can be an ass. We do share DNA.”
Jacob nodded. How well he knew that. “You know I’m sorry, right? For leaving without a word. For not keeping in contact. For coming back without a word. For everything.”
“I know.” Hud paused. “Me too.”
“Yeah? What are you sorry for?”
Hud heaved out a sigh. “For letting you walk. For holding a grudge. For using being mad at you as an excuse to not take any blame on myself.”
“I hated being without you,” Jacob admitted.
“Me too,” Hud said. “It sucked.” He didn’t look particularly happy at this admission. “We don’t have to keep talking about our feelings, do we?”
“Hell no,” Jacob said. “I’m good now. You?”
Instead of answering, Hud held out his hand, fisted.
Throat suddenly tight, Jacob bumped it with his, and then they went through their age-old complicated handshake by rote, his body still having the muscle memory to do it without thinking.
And then they hugged.
Hud squeezed him hard. “You fucking come back this time, and I mean right back—you hear me?”
“I will.” He turned and sought out a view of Sophie.
Hud’s gaze followed. “What are you going to do there?” his twin asked.
Jacob didn’t take his eyes off of her. “The right thing.”
Chapter 32
Sophie felt Jacob long before she saw him. As always, that sense of awareness came in the form of a tingle at the back of her neck. She lifted her head, and her gaze locked on to his.
She was still sitting at the back of the ambulance wrapped in a blanket when he crouched at her side and put a steadying hand on her thigh.
“Hey,” he said quietly, eyes warm. “How are you holding up?”
“Great.” Even if she had to bite her lower lip and look away or lose it, because the look in his eyes said he was there for her.
But he wasn’t.
He’d made that clear.
And damn. Damn if that didn’t have a tear sliding down her cheek. She swiped at it angrily and stopped breathing so she wouldn’t break into sobs.
But Jacob didn’t back up. Instead he shook his head at her and gently ran a thumb beneath her eye. “I’m going to ask you again,” he said. “How are you holding up?”
She sucked in a breath. “You mean other than the boat is essentially gone and so are all of my things and—” She broke off before she could say the rest. And you’re no longer mine…
“You’ll get insurance money and find a place you love. It’s a new start.”
She stared at him, resentful. “Since when do you see the glass half full?”
“Since you taught me to.” Without warning, he rose and scooped her up with him.
She gasped. “What are you doing? I can walk!”
Ignoring her, he turned to the paramedic. “She’s all good, yeah?”
“All good,” the paramedic said with a thumbs-up.
With a nod, Jacob turned and strode up the deck and toward his cabin, where some of the best memories of her life had taken place. “Jacob, put me down.”
He did. On his bed. He set the keys to the cabin on the nightstand. Then he sat on the edge of the bed, a hand on either side of her hips as he leaned over her. His shoulders eclipsed the sight of the room behind him, leaving nothing to look at but him. Dark jaw set. Dark eyes serious. “I have to go,” he said quietly.
Huh. Turned out her heart could break in two over and over again. She looked away. Or tried. But his broad shoulders took up all of her view. Stupid broad shoulders. “So you’ve said,” she managed.
He brought her face back to his. “I have to, Soph,” he repeated.
“There’s nothing wrong with my hearing.”
“It’s not that I want to go,” he said.
“You’re the one who made the call.”
“I signed up for this. It’s my job and my duty, and I’ll finish it. I want to finish it.” He pulled her to him. “And then I’m coming back.”
Her gaze flew to his as she tried to pull back, but he just held on to her. With those big, warm, strong arms around her, it took her a moment to speak calmly, but even then she shoved her face into his throat first so as not have to look at him. “I’m sure that will make your family very happy,” she whispered.
With a rough sound of…regret?…he slid his fingers into her hair and pulled just enough that she had no choice but to look at him again. “My family’s not the only reason I want to come back,” he said.
“What else is there?” she managed.
For a long beat he said nothing, and she thought that was it, the end of the conversation.
But then he spoke, his voice lowered to the tone that always reminded her of when he was lusciously deep inside her, whispering naughty nothings in her ear.
“Thirty seconds,” he said.
She blinked. “What?”
“I saw the flames on the boat and knew you were in there. It took thirty of the longest seconds of my life to run from my driveway down the dock to the boat and find you alive and kicking.”
Her breath caught, but she wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she tried something new and kept her mouth shut.
“I keep getting these pictures of you in my head,” he said. “You lying in my bed, your hair a wild disaster all around your face.”
“Hey.”