Sammie frowned. “But…”
“Did you expect something else? He’s married to his job. And he’s never shown me any affection beyond the friendship we have.”
“That’s not true?—”
“Oh, it is, I can assure you.” Hallie attempted a laugh to break the tension her confession had invited. “It’s fine. Totally fine. I’m good. It’s just… a little awkward right now.”
The empathy shining in Faith’s eyes was painful to say the least.
But Sammie didn’t seem to be deterred. “Do you think it could change?”
“What? His feelings?” Hallie scoffed. “No. Absolutely not. The man is a fortress. He’s not interested in me. Heck, he’s probably blaming me for what happened to him. If I had to bet, I’d say he wants me out of his house more than anything. He’s just stuck with me because he doesn’t have any family.” Come to think of it, she couldn’t think of a single conversation when he’d discussed his family since they’d met. Maybe he truly was alone.
“Hallie,” Sammie started softly, but Hallie cut her off with a shake of her head, refusing to let her friend make this into something it wasn’t.
Or something uncomfortable she couldn’t avoid.
“Like I said, I’m fine. Don’t go feeling bad for me. Things are… weird… but we’ll get over it.” She said it more to convince herself than to convince her friends. It was all too easy to accept the blame, to put fall victim to the guilt of spilling a secret she’d sworn to keep.
“Well, if anything changes and you need someone to talk to…” Sammie offered.
Faith nodded in agreement. “If you need somewhere to hide away when things get rough, you know where you can go.”
Hallie smiled weakly at them. She picked up her phone and sighed. “I should probably get back. I assured him I’d get lunch on the table.”
Hallie entered the quiet cabin,but Jacob wasn’t anywhere in sight. It felt almost too quiet. Like he wasn’t even here.
Immediately, that set her heart into overdrive and the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She put the to-go boxes on the counter and started a sweep through the cabin. His truck was here, so at least she knew if he’d gone somewhere, he was with someone. But if he’d gone somewhere without the truck, that could indicate something bad.
Jacob was known to overdo things when he shouldn’t. If he felt cooped up, she wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that he was wandering the property.
Red, hot fury exploded in her chest when each room was cleared and she could only come to the realization that he wasn’t here. Jacob lived in a more wooded area of Copper Creek. The landscape wasn’t exactly easy to traverse when one was healing from multiple fractures.
She clenched her hands into fists and stormed out of the house only to nearly collide with the man in question. Hallie gasped and overcorrected which sent her back against the house. Her legs were unsteady but whether from the surprise or her fury, she couldn’t be certain. Jacob didn’t seem any angrier than he’d been when she left, but his expression remained contemplative even if his eyes seared into her.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, bite in her tone as she drew closer to him. Her focus swept over his body, searching for any indication that he’d done something stupid like overworking himself.
One solitary brow rose and there was something in the way it added to his angry stare that made the breath catch in her throat. “Excuse me?”
She collected herself as quickly as she could and wagged a finger at him. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t flip this on me. You’re in trouble and you know it.”
This time he narrowed his eyes. “Am I now?”
“Yes, you are. You left.”
“So did you.”
She scoffed. This man was so infuriating. “I left because I needed a break.”
“Well, so did I.”
Hallie threw her hands into the air. “You can’t just up and leave without help. You were in the hospital?—”
“I’m not an invalid, Hallie. I’m fully capable of?—”
