by Marta Perry
“Jess,” he said again, but when no more words came, he simply took her in his arms. He might not be able to tell her how he felt, he thought as he drew her to him, so close that their breath intermingled, but he could certainly show her.
With a groan that came from deep in his chest, he slanted his head and centered his mouth over hers. Her lips were soft and pliant, and without conscious thought, he deepened the kiss.
She was so sweet and giving. He heard her murmur as she clutched her fists into the lapel of his bomber jacket, but he didn’t know what it was that she said, if it had been real words at all.
Time ceased to have meaning. There was only Jess. Sweet, wonderful Jess.
“Nate.”
He loved the sound of his name on her lips.
“Nate, stop.”
It was only then that he realized she was no longer clutching at his jacket to pull him closer, but was pushing him away, her hands flat on his chest.
His mind was still reeling with the discovery of his feelings for Jess, but he didn’t miss her troubled expression, nor the tears that welled up in her huge brown eyes, making their depth seem infinite.
He sat back, giving her the space she obviously needed. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“I’m sorry, Nate,” she choked out, scrubbing her palms across her eyes as if she were angry at her own tears, as if it was a show of weakness.
Nate didn’t think there was anything weak about Jessica Sabin. She had a strength of character he could only hope to aspire to, and she had the kind of faith that could move mountains.
But he had clearly upset her with his actions, and he felt like a big oaf for not realizing it sooner. If she needed more time, he would certainly give it to her. He’d only wanted to express what was in his heart, not cause her any kind of distress.
“I’m sorry, Jess,” he apologized, his voice low and gravelly.
“No,” she replied, so softly he could barely hear the word. She had been looking down at her hands, which were clasped in her lap, but now she gazed up at him. “I’m the one who should apologize.”
The sorrow in her gaze took his breath away. He mentally scrambled to figure out what he had done to make her react that way.
“What?” he asked at last, still clueless as to what he had done, and even more as to what he should say, only knowing he needed to do something to make things right between them.
“I—I’m really sorry, Nate,” she stammered. “But things just cannot go on this way.”
Without another word, and without giving him the opportunity to say anything—not that his cloudy mind could think of anything to say—she reached behind her for the door handle and scrambled out of the Jeep and into her cabin, slamming both the car door and the cabin door behind her as she went.
Nate didn’t try to follow her, gathering himself up enough to realize he wouldn’t accomplish anything by pushing her too hard. But he sat for a long time in front of her cabin, his arms crooked over the steering wheel and his head on his arm.
What was wrong?
How could he fix it?
Not knowing where else to turn, he began to pray.
“Dear God, if You are there, and Jess believes You are, please help me. Please.”
* * *
Sitting in the corner easy chair with the lights off, Jessica chastised herself as every kind of fool. And the worst thing was, the only one she’d been fooling was herself.
How had she thought, after the first time Nate had kissed her, that they could continue on as friends? Something foundational had changed between them in that moment, and she had either failed to recognize it or, more likely, had simply shoved it to the back of her mind and refused to acknowledge it, hoping against hope it would go away on its own.
Like that was going to happen.
She was an idiot.
And now she had hurt Nate.
She’d seen the pain of her rejection in his eyes, and that was the very last thing she ever wanted to do. She remembered his expression when she’d made her escape, and it broke her heart.
Of course the man was confused by her sudden emotional turnaround. She had sent him every mixed signal in the book.
If only she was the sweet, innocent woman Nate thought her to be. If only she had half the strength Nate attributed to her.
The memory of his voice warmed her heart even now—the way he laughed, how he tenderly shortened her name to Jess. He was the only one who called her that, and oddly enough, it was rubbing off on her. She was beginning to think of herself by that nickname.
If only there was no past—only the present and the future.
But all the wishing in the world would not make it so. It was what it was, and it was high time she stopped ignoring the facts.
Why, oh, why had she not been honest with Nate from the beginning?
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had plenty of opportunities to tell him the truth about her past. She’d just chosen not to, despite the fact that he had opened up to her early on in their relationship, and had trusted her with the depth of his secrets.
Yet she had remained silent. And look where that had gotten her.
All this time she’d been telling herself that she was protecting herself from heartbreak, and now she faced the truth.
No more excuses. She cared for Nate—and Gracie—very deeply. And that raised the stakes to intimidating odds.
How could she now bring her past into casual conversation? Dinner was lovely, and by the way, I’ve been married before.
No. That would never work.
What she needed to do, she realized, was to confront the whole situation head-on and tell him everything she’d been hiding. She couldn’t go on living a lie.
She had to revisit her past, and take Nate along for the ride.
Yes. That was what she would do. She would talk to him.
But not now.
Nate was up to his ears with the situation with Vince. Jessica thought it was best to give him time to work that out before she sprang anything new on him. He was in enough emotional turmoil without her adding dry kindling to the flame.
She wrapped a blanket around her legs and curled into the chair. She was no longer in denial, but she would put Nate’s needs before her own.
It wouldn’t be easy. She knew the next time she saw him, the weight of her decision would likely cause her to blurt it all out to him. And that was the last thing he needed right now.
Perhaps the best thing, for the time being, was not to see Nate at all.
Chapter 12
Nate had never been so frustrated in all his life. He was angry at himself for pushing Jess too far, too fast. In his rush to make his feelings known to her, he had trampled all over hers. He had clipped the wrong wire on the bomb and it had exploded.
He should have known better.
What concerned him most, however, was not the sad state of his own heart. It was Jess.
She was avoiding him.
At first, it had only been a suspicion on his part. He’d brought Gracie to the day care so he could go to Boulder to pursue getting the permit for Vince, and Jess had been nowhere to be found, even though her SUV was parked in the lot.
But what had started out as mere conjecture was now, in Nate’s mind, an unavoidable fact. Not only was Jess not visible at the day care, but in the following week, she hadn’t once called or come over.
And that wasn’t like her.
No more shared dinners. No more quiet evenings. Nate was going out of his mind.
He could have sought her out, visited her cabin in the evening like he used to do. But if Jess was avoiding him—and she clearly was—it was for a reason. He hadn’t a clue what that reason might be, but he sensed the right thing to do was give her the time and space she had asked for in her actions, if not with words.
But after an entire week of not seeing her pretty face, it was killing him to stay away. He didn’t know how much more of this forced isolation he could take. It was sheer torture.
And because it was Saturday, he had nothing to do except think about it. Even caring for baby Gracie’s needs didn’t do more than mildly distract him.
It was still early morning, Nate realized when he glanced at his watch. How was he possibly going to make it through a whole, long empty weekend?
With Gracie fed and changed and now playing quietly in her playpen, Nate found himself pacing back and forth from the kitchen to the living room and back, feeling caged in by his own tiny cabin.
On his tenth trip from the kitchen to the front door, he finally decided he couldn’t stand to be cooped up inside for another moment. He was so wound up mentally, and his muscles were so tense and tight, that he couldn’t think straight.
“How about you and I go for a run, baby girl?” he asked Gracie, sweeping her into his arms and tossing her into the air. Her laughter echoed in the small cabin.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
It only took him a minute to bundle Gracie up and prop her in the backpack. He was getting better at this baby stuff, he realized as he took off down the mountain path nearest to his cabin.
Now, if he could only adjust his learning curve with Jess. He knew it was pointless to beat himself up about it, but he felt as if he’d somehow failed in nearly every relationship in his life. He’d failed God. He’d failed his father, and then Vince.
And somehow, he’d failed Jess.
He’d been running down a little-used path, mulling over the situation with Jess, when she suddenly materialized in front of him.
At first he didn’t believe his own eyes when she burst over a hill, her thick blond ponytail swinging behind her. Had he finally lost his mind completely, conjuring her up from some messed-up part of his brain?
But as she approached and slowed before him, he knew he wasn’t dreaming.
She had obviously been running hard. Her face was flushed from exertion and she pinched at a stitch in her side as she struggled to slow down her labored breathing. Sweat poured from her brow, and wisps of hair that had escaped her ponytail framed her face. She looked like someone had sent her through a tumble cycle in a clothes dryer.
And Nate thought he’d never seen her look as beautiful as she did at this moment. Relief rushed through him at finally having the opportunity to see her face-to-face, just to be able to talk to her.
“Jess,” he exclaimed, not able to keep the enthusiasm he was feeling from his voice. “I wondered when I would see you.”
Jess’s face showed a combination of shock and panic. Her eyes were wide, and her nostrils flared. She reminded Nate of a cornered wild animal, and he thought she might bolt at any moment.
He couldn’t let that happen.
His meeting with her in the woods like this was nothing short of divine intervention. Had God been listening to the prayers he’d uttered only with his heart?
“Did you get the permit?” she asked politely. Nate thought she sounded almost as if she were speaking to a stranger, not a man with whom she’d shared so much of her life, a man with whom she’d shared kisses.
“It took the better part of a week, but yeah, I did finally get it. I’m glad Vince was tied up in Denver or this never would have worked.”
“I’m happy to hear it went well for you. What did Vince say when you told him?”
Nate shrugged. “I haven’t told him yet.”
He wanted to add that he’d waited because he’d hoped she would be with him when he told his brother the good news. She had more than a vested interest in this, after all. It had been her idea in the first place.
But she’d already flashed him a distant smile and was jogging in place.
“Good to see you,” she murmured, and then pulled herself up as she started to jog by him.
Nate’s hands snaked out of their own accord, blocking her way. He didn’t know what to say, but he knew he had to keep her here with him, so he blurted out the prominent thought on his mind.
“Have you been avoiding me?”
It was a rhetorical question. Of course she’d been avoiding him. The question was, why?
As he hadn’t given her room to run by him, she stopped and took two steps backward, crossing her arms in the age-old line of defense. He wanted to reach for her and erase the tension on her face, but he knew that was probably the last thing she would want him to do, so he jammed his hands in the pockets of his gray sweatpants.
Jess stared at him for a long moment without answering him.
“Does it matter?” she finally asked, her voice so low Nate could hardly hear the words.
Her question angered him. And flustered him. And frustrated him. His pulse pounded in his ears.
What did she mean, does it matter? Did she think he was stringing her along in some way, toying with her emotions?
“You matter,” he replied gruffly. “Jess, what’s wrong? Talk to me. Whatever is bothering you, we can work through it together. Just please don’t shut me out of your life. Please.”
The fight instantly went out of her, and she physically drooped before taking a seat on an old log that had fallen along the side of the path.
“Okay, Nate,” she said softly. “You’re right. It’s time you knew the truth about me.”
* * *
Jessica sighed and folded her hands in her lap. This confrontation was inevitable. She’d known that since the moment she’d walked out of Nate’s embrace a week ago. But that didn’t make it any easier.
How would she ever find the words to make Nate understand what she didn’t really comprehend herself? How could she tell him that she couldn’t go forward without moving back?
“I think—” she started, and then stopped and cleared her throat. “That is, I—”
She stared down at her hands, unable to find the courage to look Nate straight in the eye. He crouched before her and gently lifted her chin with the crook of his knuckle.
“Know this,” he whispered raggedly. “Whatever it is that you need to say to me, it won’t change the way I feel about you.”
Jessica wanted to exclaim in disbelief, but his warm, gold-flecked gaze stopped her. He really believed in what he was saying.
He believed in her.
And she trusted him. Not because she had to, or because he was pressuring her to come clean with whatever was bothering her.
She just did. When he smiled at her, she felt as if she could see right into his heart. And she liked what she viewed there.
“There are some things about my past I haven’t told you about. Things that make me nervous about a new relationship.”
Nate nodded. “I know. Go on.”
“You know?”
Nate nodded again and smiled in encouragement. He brushed his thumb along her cheek. “Nothing specific, of course. But I’ve been around you long enough to know that something’s been bothering you, and I’m glad you want to talk to me about it.”
The deep end wasn’t going to suddenly become shallow, no matter how much she wished it to be so.
Jessica swept in a breath to calm herself before she could speak, and then dove in. “I feel really close to you and Gracie.”
“We like you, too, Jessica Sabin.”
“That’s just it,” she muttered.
“What? I don’t understand.”
“Jessica Sabin is my married name.”
* * *
Married? Jess was married?
Whatever Nate had thought she was going to tell him, this was not it. His heart dropped through his shoes and his mind struggled to catch up.
“I didn’t know,” he breathed raggedly.
He reached for her left hand, gently uncurling her
fingers and staring down at them.
Just as he thought. No ring.
“You aren’t wearing a wedding band,” he pointed out softly.
“Oh, no. I’m not married now,” she clarified briskly. “I was married. It ended.”
“I see,” he said, although he wasn’t really sure he did. He didn’t know whether or not to be relieved at her words. “I’m sorry.”
He was still struggling to mesh the mental picture he had of the Jess he knew with the woman who was sitting before him now, telling him she’d had a whole other life before him that he knew nothing about.
“I had a baby,” she said, her voice cracking under the strain of emotion. “A baby girl. Her name was Elizabeth. Sweet baby Elizabeth.”
Nate reached for her other hand and pressed them both to his lips, and then close to his heart. He couldn’t bear to hear the agony in her voice. He wanted to erase the suffering from her countenance.
When she hurt, he hurt.
And he hadn’t missed the tense she’d used in reference to her daughter. Had a baby. Her name was.
When she didn’t elaborate, he slid onto the log beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. She had to know he would be there for her, no matter what.
Still secured in the backpack, Gracie hadn’t hollered or squirmed, so he thought she must have fallen asleep as she usually did from the rhythmic rocking movement of his jog. He was glad for it, since at the moment, Jess required his full attention.
“Was?” he asked gently.
“Elizabeth was eight months old when she passed,” she said, her breath ragged. “I put her to bed one night as always. I checked in on her before I went to sleep myself, and she was fine. When I woke up the next morning, she wasn’t breathing.”
“Crib death,” Nate whispered. He’d heard of the horrible term, but had never known anyone who’d lost a child to it. He couldn’t even begin to imagine losing Gracie that way. Even the thought of it sent sharp stabs of panic through his chest.
What kind of horror had Jess lived through?
“Oh, Jess. I’m sorry.”