And the touching. She’d never been comfortable with much touching, but him? He touched her like it was new—well, of course, it was new with her, but like touching was new. He watched where he touched her. Watched her react. Not like slow and weird but sure and careful. Her arm. Her face. And he never once made her feel uncomfortable or manipulated or—
Jace touched her neck as he kissed her, and there was nothing she could think of to convince herself that this wasn’t where she should be, which was a huge feat considering all that hazy stuff calling to her from way far away . . . something about jade cages and wings . . .
Dang, she was in trouble.
She gently pulled away from him, as difficult as that was, and walked to the open back door, breathing in fresh air. Her heart pounded, but her head cleared a little.
He’d been fine with the burned food. He’d been fine with her oddness. He’d been more than fine. And even now as she’d pulled away from him without a word, he stayed back, giving her space. She could feel him, where she’d left him near the stove.
“Are you for real?” she heard herself say.
He didn’t answer, and for a second, she hoped he hadn’t heard her. But for another second, she hoped he had.
“Why do you ask that?”
He sounded both amused and wary. So often she’d seen him carry off two contradicting emotions like that. She closed her eyes against the sunshine, willing herself not to compare him to Ian again. It wasn’t fair to any of them. She felt Jace now, walking in her direction. He stopped a few steps behind her.
“I’m not just . . . playing around, Georgie.”
She glanced behind her and was surprised to see a look of confusion on his face.
She faced the sunshine again. “Well, what if I am?”
“Are you?”
A lump rose in her throat, and her eyes began to sting. Why? Why was she attempting to brush him off? She swallowed and asked again, “What if I am?” A traitorous tear slipped down her cheek. What if that’s all I can do?
She heard him shift his weight.
Was she testing him? To see how far she could press this trust thing they’d built? To prove him to a fault?
“I’d like to ask you a question now, if the offer still stands,” he said, sounding faintly perturbed.
She shrugged and nodded without turning. It was only fair.
But he moved around to face her. She couldn’t meet his steady gaze.
He carefully lifted his hand, and she must have flinched, because he paused. But then he continued and brushed her hair away just over her brow.
“How did you get this scar?” His voice had become soft again. He brushed his thumb across it like a feather, and she shivered.
“I—” Emotion stopped her words. She wrapped her arms around herself.
He stepped to her, and she stepped quickly back. She couldn’t help meeting his gaze this time, and she knew he regretted asking. Maybe he regretted it all.
He dropped his hand. “You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
No. She wanted to tell him. She swiped at a tear. “I—” The words stopped again. She couldn’t find them. The right words. She’d been able to tell Tyler. Not everything but more than just I.
Jace reached for her hand, and she withdrew again. She looked around for her jacket. On the peg behind him.
“Georgie, forget I asked. I shouldn’t have even . . . I’m sorry—”
“Stop saying that!”
He flinched. She knew she’d hurt him, and pain tore through her like fire. She tried to breathe, and he moved to turn away.
“No—Jace. You . . . you have nothing to be sorry for. You’ve answered my questions, and I want to tell you. I—” She pressed her fingers over her scar and tried to find the words. “I . . . don’t know.” She felt the beginnings of panic, not because she couldn’t find the words but— “I don’t know how I got this scar. I don’t remember.” Her panic rose. “I can’t remember, and I try, and I try, and I tell myself it doesn’t matter, but it does. Because if I remember how I got this scar, I’ll remember the car accident.” She gasped for a breath. “And if I remember the accident, then I’ll remember how he died . . .” She drew in another ragged breath. “And then maybe . . . maybe it wasn’t my fault . . .”
Or maybe it was.
She wasn’t shivering. She was shaking. But Jace had drawn her into his arms again. She gripped his shoulders, and he held her for several minutes, not asking any more of her. She sniffled to keep her nose from running.
“Pretty irresistible, huh?” she thought out loud. “All of this?”
Jace shushed her.
She whispered. “I told you I’m a basket case.”
He nodded into her shoulder and whispered back. “I believed you.”
Somehow that didn’t hurt.
He pulled back, and she reached for a towel and dabbed her face.
“I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” she said, not without regret.
“Ready for what?” He watched her with that steady gaze of his. How was he doing that?
She pointed to him and her and the space between them and all around them in slightly manic circles. He reached and held her hand still. He brought her finger to his lips and kissed it before gently releasing it. Quietly, he asked, “Was he your boyfriend? The one who died?”
She breathed out the truth. “I had just broken off our engagement. He was driving me home. That’s all I remember.”
He looked down and nodded, a frown on his perfect mouth. “The guy with the motorcycle.”
“Yeah. It had become—he had become . . . I had to get out. I had to. I just . . . didn’t know how.”
“And you were hurt? In the car accident?”
She nodded. “Ribs. Back. Arm.” She took a shaky breath. “Head. I have metal pieces in me.”
He swallowed hard, reaching for her, then stopped himself. “I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“It’s complicated,” she whispered. “I think . . . I thought somehow telling you meant having to give you a piece of me. And I just—” She drew herself up straight, despite feeling like crumpling. “I just can’t afford that.”
A minute of silence skulked by. Jace rubbed his jaw, his brow drawn downward.
“Now what?” Georgie finally asked, though her voice came out barely above a whisper.
“Well,” he said, still watching the ground. “Seeing as I’ve recently committed to bachelorhood, done with women and dating and all of that . . .” He paused and cleared his throat. “And you need . . .” He lifted his brow.
“The psych ward?” she suggested.
“Time,” he offered. “Maybe I should just”—he looked around, and she suddenly missed him looking at her—“go get more pork chops and try this again.” He glanced toward the cooler, his brow furrowed. “Without the vegetables.”
She swallowed the returning lump in her throat, flicking a look toward the cooler, and nodded her head. “You still want my help?” She was afraid of the answer.
He turned to get her jacket off the hook and studied it for a second. He handed it to her. “Yeah. Apparently we’re neighbors in Crazytown.”
She took the jacket, relieved and dejected at the same time. They were going to the store. But it would be a strained trip.
Jace turned toward the door. He paused in the frame. “For the record, Georgie?” He didn’t look back at her.
“Yeah?”
“I wasn’t playing around.”
She watched him not looking at her, and she realized with a sick feeling that he meant it. He wouldn’t do that. Because Brenna had played around with him.
He was for real.
And Georgie was broken.
Chapter 18
Rain began to plop in the mosaic-tiled birdbath next to the azalea bushes. Drops slowly dotted the walk to the driveway as Georgie watched out the window of her aunts’ house. The sun still shone, and Faye had opened
the windows to let the fresh air in.
Georgie couldn’t keep her thoughts from returning to earlier that morning at the restaurant. She and Jace had gone to the store and returned to the kitchen. They’d made garlic, honey-glazed pork chops. Reuben had come in soon after they’d returned and suggested asparagus spears as a side. Jace had simply written the addition of asparagus into his notes.
Throughout the rest of the morning, she and Jace had been quiet and careful around each other. They’d seldom made eye contact as they’d worked side by side to get the job done. Jace had become very technical about it all. Polite. And technical.
She’d kept her distance physically and emotionally, as she should have done all along. As she should do from now on.
But as she watched the rain gather strength, the heat of Jace’s kiss washed over her without her permission. Her heart beat double time as though he was standing right there touching his lips to hers, drawing his hands around her waist. Georgie leaned against the windowsill, closing her eyes and inhaling the scent of new rain.
Her stomach sort of dropped at the memory of what had followed. Heat had turned to cold humiliation, which had then turned to resignation that she’d done the best thing for both of them.
After a couple of minutes, and feeling steadier, she called behind her. “Faye, I’m going for a walk.”
“Okay. Don’t go too far. Dinner is just about done.”
“I won’t.” She stepped out into the light but steady rain. The south side of the house was narrow and bordered by the neighbor’s fence and clusters of hollyhocks getting ready to bloom, but once she reached the beach, she kept heading south. The family usually went north on their walks, keeping to the long rocky stretch of beach, but the way south curved outward to the sea and led to towering pines and woods.
This was the direction the seagull had flown in that downpour weeks ago. She hadn’t forgotten that seagull, nor the dread she’d felt watching it getting pelted in the choppy water.
She flies with her own wings.
She’d come a long way. But she was far from where she needed to be, wherever that was. She wasn’t going back, but she wasn’t ready to take to the sky yet either. She was still shivering in the waves.
Georgie picked up her pace as she left the rocks behind for rich soil, pine needles, and moss. She breathed deeply and picked her way through the trees. These woods weren’t dense, and she could see the water to her right and homes and fences to her left. She considered that perhaps she was on private property. She didn’t much care. The rain dropped on her head and face and hands, just lightly enough to let her know it was still coming down. She may have gone mental on Jace, and that was hurting more than she could admit, but she didn’t feel caged.
However, she did have to show up for work in a couple of hours. Maybe she could find a different job. Maybe she was strong enough for that. Somewhere off the island. Jace would just be a neighbor. A friend at church. With a kiss between them that had turned her insides to honey. Lava honey.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out. An unfamiliar number with a Utah area code showed up on the display. She frowned but answered. “Hello?”
“Georgiana. This is Shannon Hudson.”
Georgie pulled up short, turning in place. Shannon Hudson—Ian’s mom. “Hello.” Her heartbeat started an uncomfortable staccato in her chest. She hadn’t spoken with either of Ian’s parents since they had come to see her at the hospital not long after Ian’s funeral. She’d barely been conscious and didn’t remember most of the visit, only that the feeling had been dark and sorrowful.
Ian’s parents had left her alone after that.
Sister Hudson continued in her businesslike tone of voice. Pleasant and in charge. “You’re probably wondering why I’m calling out of the blue. Your mother gave me your phone number. I guess I understand you not wanting to give us your new contact information.”
Georgie opened her mouth to protest. It hadn’t been that she hadn’t wanted to—
“No matter. Your mother says you’re doing much better? I do hope that’s true. At least one of you—” She paused and made a little sniff noise.
Georgie carefully answered. “I am doing better. Little by little.”
“Good.” The word sounded forced from her throat. “I’m so glad.”
The next pause seemed too long, and Georgie toed a fallen pine branch. “Is there something I can do for you?” she asked quietly. Like a mouse. She hated the mouse voice.
“Well, there is something.” Sister Hudson cleared her throat, and her party-planning voice returned. “I know it’s been some time, but we’ve been sitting on some confusing information, and I feel enough time has passed that I can come to you with questions.”
She felt enough time had passed? Georgie’s muscles tensed, and she began to walk, watching the ground, her arm pulled tight around her. “What questions?”
Sister Hudson took a deep breath. “Well, I’ll just come right out and say it. Results from the investigation after the accident told us that Ian’s car was going approximately one hundred miles per hour when it left the road.”
Dread pushed through Georgie.
“Jack and I have been wondering all these months what in the world possessed you to be driving that fast, especially in the canyon.”
Georgie frowned. “I wasn’t driving.”
The woman made an exasperated sound. “Well, I know that, but you were in the car.”
Georgie’s mind spun with the information and near accusations coming from this woman who had lost her son in this wreck. One hundred miles per hour? Georgie recalled how once, out on a flat, lonely highway in southern Utah, Ian had pushed the speed of his car to ninety-seven. It had been a thrill for him, but it had scared Georgie to death, and she’d begged him to slow down. He’d reassured her by letting her know he did this all the time on his motorcycle. A shiver ran down her spine.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t remember the accident.”
“Yes, your mother said that. But surely you remember what happened before it.”
Georgie hesitated. While it was true she remembered some of that night, the accident itself was still a blank, including most of the drive back to her apartment and what had caused the crash. Now her head reeled with not knowing, fearing why Ian had been driving that fast when he knew they would be taking the curves in the canyon. She rubbed the place above her eye, her fingers wet.
The rain had become irritating, and she suddenly didn’t like feeling damp. She turned back to her aunts’ house.
“I’m sorry, Sister Hudson. I only remember our walk to the car after the wedding reception. That’s all. I didn’t even remember that until recently.”
Sister Hudson didn’t say anything right away, and Georgie could only assume she was trying to decide whether or not to believe her.
“Your mother says you’re still in therapy.”
Georgie clenched her jaw. What had her mother not told the woman?
Just then Georgie’s phone chimed, and a text flashed across the top.
Shannon Hudson may be calling you. Call me ASAP.
Georgie rolled her eyes at the text from her mom. She squared her shoulders. “Yes, I’m in therapy. I’m sure you can understand that I’ve been climbing out of depression. I’ve been learning how to deal with everything that resulted from that night.” She paused, searching for the next words. “I was hoping to reach a point where remembering the details didn’t matter. But learning that Ian was going that fast . . . I don’t know. I wish I had an answer for you.” She wasn’t so sure of that. Something told her she’d rather not know the truth.
She was breathing a little heavily now and realized her walk had taken on a frenzied pace. Her body had warmed with perspiration, and she felt faintly sick.
Sister Hudson paused again, probably considering why Ian had ever wanted to marry such an unstable girl in the first place.
Georgie hadn’t told Ian’s parents how she�
��d really felt about him when she’d woken up in the hospital. They’d just lost their son. She couldn’t find it in her to add to their pain. Everything had been so foggy. Only her parents, Deacon, and her shrinks knew about her confusion and fear of Ian upon waking. Oh, please, Mom. Please say you kept that to yourself.
“Well, I hope you continue to heal, Georgiana. We’re all doing our best. I do have one more question. I hope you don’t take offense.”
Georgie braced herself. “Okay.”
“The ring.”
“The ring?” Her stomach knotted.
“Yes, the engagement ring Ian gave you. Do you have it?”
“No.” She didn’t. The memory of that night had shown her giving the ring to Ian and his casual insistence that she take it back. Before those memories had returned, she’d assumed the ring had been lost in the accident, just like her shoe. She couldn’t remember what he’d done with the ring. He’d taken it and told her she was just tired, like he was only keeping it for her until she’d had a nap. And then he’d taunted her with it and told her she was nothing without him.
Georgie wrestled with whether or not to tell Ian’s mother those details. Before, keeping her feelings to herself had been out of concern for their sorrow, but now Georgie couldn’t ignore the sick protective feeling building inside her. She kept her voice steady, her mind ricocheting around for the words that would keep her safe. Words that couldn’t be used against her. “I promise you, I don’t have the ring. If I did, I would give it to you without question, if that’s what you needed.”
“Oh. Well. We were more curious about where it was. I don’t know that we would necessarily ask for it back. It was rather expensive, but it was given to you.”
The half-karat diamond had been the cause of many stares. “I’ve never had it since that night. You could’ve claimed it on the insurance. But Sister Hudson . . . it was a ring. I mean . . . your son—”
“Yes, I understand. Thank you.” She cleared her throat daintily. “Anyway, I ask that if you do remember what happened with the ring or the car, if you could find it in your heart to let us know why you were going that fast—”
I wasn’t going that fast. I would have never gone that fast.
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