Page 84 of Dirty Fighter

I reach out and brush his cheek with my thumb. “That wasn’t a mistake. That was two people who cared enough to let the other go when they realized how good they were at living without each other.”

Ron holds my stare, and it occurs to me that this might be the longest we’ve ever looked into each other’s eyes. What a stark contrast it is to Jason and how I could get lost in his eyes forever. How he begged me to let him see me.

How he looked at me like he’d never get enough.

The distraction of that thought is my only defense for not noticing that Ron is moving in… to kiss me.

It’s so completely unexpected, it takes a beat to fully register the closed-mouth press of his lips against mine. I don’t respond.

I don’t slap him or shove him away.

I pull back, putting my hands up between us.

His head drops. “Okay,” he says, resigned. “I get it. That was a mistake.”

He’s embarrassed and apologetic, and I don’t know what to say that won’t make him feel worse.

I didn’t want to hurt him. He came all this way, was willing to sacrifice his plans for me. And I think he deserves to know. So I tell him about the man who has never been a brother to me returning to my life.

I tell him that I don’t know if it will last. But that I hope it can.

He gives me that earnest smile and says he hopes it can too. Then we start back to the cabin and the man I’m desperate to return to.

The closer we get, the more nervous I get.

The phones are working.

Jason might have the answer he’s been waiting for.

I haven’t wanted to bring it up before, but depending on what his lawyer says, I wonder if we might be able to work it so that my mom doesn’t realize she’s selling the island to Jason.

“I’m back,” I call, as Ron closes the screen door behind us and steps into the kitchen for his bag.

Maybe Jason’s on the phone. I walk to the bedroom, increasingly aware of the quiet.

He could be listening to messages. Have his headphones on.

At the doorway, I blink, unease coating my skin at the sight of the neatly made bed and no Jason.

The lack of damning evidence, should Ron have happened back here.

I wouldn’t have let him, but Jason didn’t know that.

I turn for the bathroom. The door is open, a solitary toothbrush in the short glass that held two this morning.

He’s being sensitive. Moving his things out of plain view. Just in case. He isn’t… he wouldn’t have…

A wave of panic suddenly swamps me, narrowing my vision and tightening my lungs in ways only the worst storms have caused before. “Jason!”

Ed’s door is still locked, the utility room is empty, but coming from the kitchen, Ron catches me. Then quietly, “He left a note.”

Thank God.

I take a steadying breath. It’s fine. He just had to… do something somewhere on the island. So he left a note, so I wouldn’t worry.

Except one step closer to Ron’s outstretched hand, and my blood runs cold.

I recognize the lined paper from the narrow pad that chronicles the history of this cabin and its loving occupants. Only this sheet has been torn free, and instead of the neat print populating all the pages that came before, there are only two hastily scrawled lines…