Katelyn notices me first. “She’s in the bedroom,” she mouths, and nods toward the hall.
Quietly, I slip away from the group and head down the hall. Anastasia is just inside Linda’s room, the door partially cracked. She’s stretching a brand-new sheet over the top of the bed, her eyes glassy. She’s favoring her injured right side, but is clearly determined.
“Hey,” I say.
She stops and turns toward me. “Hey.”
With how fast everything has moved, Anastasia only gave me bits and pieces of what she went through while on that boat. In those panicked hours when I had no idea where she was. Had Jack not messed up by not discarding his cell phone before leaving the dock, we might never have found her.
There’s a fresh bruise on her cheek, right above her scar. Every time I see it, I almost wish I’d been able to let him drown.
Because I know she won’t just take a moment and sit, I step forward. “Let me help,” I offer and move all the way into the room to take the far corner of the sheet and stretch it over the mattress.
Anastasia smooths out the creases of the sheet. “I wanted her to have fresh bedsheets,” she explains. “She needs to be comfortable.”
Her voice wobbles as her bottom lip quivers.
She lifts a folded flat sheet and sets it on the bed, but I cross over toward her and pull her into my arms before she can stretch it out. Anastasia leans her head against my chest, her tears only evident in the way her shoulders tremble.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“I just can’t believe it was him this entire time, Sawyer. I betrayed my friend. I betrayed Weston.”
I pull away and cup her face in my hands. “How do you figure that?”
“I was literally dating her murderer. We kissed, Sawyer. I went to dinner with him. Let him stay in my guest room. He told me he was going to marry me and give me—” she trails off. “A good life and children. What if I had said yes? What if?—”
“You didn’t. And you have nothing to be sorry for.” But the trauma has already taken root. The survivor’s guilt I’ve seen so often in soldiers. It’s there, reflected on her face. “You have to stop focusing on what-ifs.”
“He killed my friend because of me.” She looks up at me. “He told me that he killed her because he wanted me.”
“Baby, none of that is on you.” More anger, but I beat it down because she doesn’t need that right now. Anastasia Knox needs my calm in her storm.
“Logically, I know that.”
“I’m going to remind you as often as you need.”
She opens her eyes and looks up at me. “Thank you, Sawyer. Thank you for coming for me. For rescuing me. And for being the kind of man who wouldn’t let him drown.”
“Baby, there is not a single thing in this world that could have kept me from you. As for not letting him drown? That wasn’t me. I wanted him to die. But Pastor Reeves had some words with me, and it put things into perspective.” I smile at her, hoping she can see the love reflected in my gaze. “He reminded me that vengeance isn’t ours to take. No matter how badly we want it. I wouldn’t have hesitated to pull the trigger if I had to, but there was another way. So I took it.”
“Well, thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me. You’re my entire world, Anastasia. Everything I am, everything I have…it’s yours for as long as you’ll have it.”
She rests her head on my chest. “How does forever sound?”
Love surges past the anger, filling me with a warmth I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before. “Baby,” I start, “forever sounds absolutely perfect to me.”
Chapter 32
Anastasia
With a small, wrapped box in my hand, I make my way across the parking lot toward Sawyer’s shop. The last bit of his new equipment arrived today, so he’s prepared to open up again first thing Monday morning. According to him, he’s booked out for the next few months on appointments.
It makes me so happy to see the entire town rallying around him as he has rebuilt.
