Nobody But You

Safe but not happy—in spite of the fact that she’d promised herself she was over that. “I haven’t been easy on him either,” she whispered. “I need to fix that.”

“Me too,” Hud said.

Sophie nodded. Spinning on a heel, she headed to the cabin. To her great relief, she found Jacob in his room, zipping up one of his duffel bags. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey.” But he didn’t look at her, and she felt her heart lurch. “What are you doing?”

He shouldered the bag and turned to her. “What does it look like?”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m going to give you an ass pass because we both know I was an ass first.”

He shouldered the second duffel bag like neither weighed a thing. The irony wasn’t lost on her. For a very long time now, this was how he’d survived, by packing light, both physically and metaphorically.

But she also knew that he was fooling himself if he thought he could just leave. He loved it here in Cedar Ridge, and no matter what his grim, closed-off expression told the world, he wanted to be here with his family.

And hopefully her. “Don’t go,” she said. “Not like this. Your family—”

“I have to go.”

Her heart stuttered to a stop. Her entire world stuttered to a stop. “Why?”

“I called in. Cut my leave short. I’m shipping out to finish my tour.”

“You tell everyone?”

“My mom knows. I’m going to see her on the way out. I just this very second texted Hud, so he’s hopefully on his way over.”

“I was with him,” she said. “He’s…giving me a minute with you.” Or so she hoped. “Jacob, what about after? When you’re finished. You’re coming back, right?”

He turned to look around the cabin as if making sure he wasn’t leaving anything behind. Which they both knew was ridiculous. He was always careful to leave nothing of himself behind. She tried not to resent that since this was all her own doing. “Jacob.”

“The way I get through this is by not looking too far ahead,” he said.

She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you on the beach. I’d like to listen now.”

“I don’t have time.”

She nodded as her poor, abused heart took another hard tumble. “What about the cabin?”

He held out his hand. For an instant she thought he was reaching out to touch her, but he was handing her a set of keys.

She stared down at them and then lifted her head in confusion.

“You hate that boat,” he said. “The cabin will be just sitting here. Stay in it. Make yourself at home.”

Yes. Absolutely. If he’d been staying in it with her…But she didn’t need his pity. And more than that, she was having a hard time with this conversation at all. Her ribs felt like they’d shrunk and were constricting her breathing. Her heart hurt, physically hurt. Shaking her head, she pushed his hand away.

“Sophie, don’t be stubborn on this. The cabin will be empty—”

“I know.” She didn’t need the reminder. “I’ll be fine, but thanks.”

He looked at her for a long beat, nodded, and walked around her to the door. She didn’t turn to watch him, couldn’t believe he was just walking away—

“Soph.”

She whirled around and found him there, right there in front of her. The man moved like a cat. He touched her face, his own carefully blank. Then he leaned in, brushed his mouth to hers, and was gone.

She boarded the boat in a fog. Not wanting to see Jacob drive away, she went directly belowdecks. She didn’t hear his truck start and figured he was waiting for Hud.

Didn’t mean she had to wait. She went straight to the tiny galley and attempted to light the sole burner. “Please,” she begged it.

And surprise, surprise, it went click, click, click and…turned on. One thing going her way…She pulled out her pan. She needed a double grilled cheese sandwich stat, with a tall chocolate milk on the side. Maybe laced.

Cursing the small quarters, she pulled out the bread and the rest of the ingredients, during which she remembered a question Jacob had asked her all those weeks ago now.

Why did she stay on the boat?

If he’d asked her even yesterday, she would have stopped and said she honest to God didn’t know. And yet here she was, constantly bitching about her circumstances. So why hadn’t she done anything about it?

If he’d asked her today, just now, she’d have known the answer. Just as he hadn’t thought he deserved his family, she hadn’t believed she deserved to be happy.