Page 57

Lila cupped my face in both of her hands and stared right into my eyes, her expression soft. “Of course you were a mess. When you met me, it had only been five months. You can’t expect yourself to recover from that kind of trauma in five months. The thing is, though…” With a deep breath, she released my face and stepped back.

“Tell me,” I said quietly.

She twisted her fingers together. “I thought we had this fairytale romance. Love at first sight, you know? Soulmates. But that wasn’t what really happened. When we met, your head was a mess, and I had no idea.”

“Lila.” I reached for her, but she jerked her arm back.

“Tell me the truth.” Her eyes were shiny. “If we had met five months before your last mission instead of five months after, what would have happened? Would you have married me after a two-week vacation fling?”

I swallowed. I wanted to say yes, but I couldn’t. I knew who I was then. Would I have wanted to date her? Absolutely. Marriage? Hell no. That mission had changed everything. It had changed me.

“It’s not that simple. Those months after the mission were so fucking dark. And then I met you.” My throat clogged, and it took a moment to push the next words past it. “And you walked into the ocean so the jellyfish stinging you wouldn’t die even though jellyfish don’t even know they’re alive, and I felt like I was that goddamn jellyfish and I…I couldn’t go back to the dark.”

“Seb.” Her head bobbed quickly, and her gaze dropped. A tear slid down her cheek. She dashed it away, clearing her throat. “But, see, it wasn’t the same for me. I didn’t have this terrible thing I was running from. I was just…in love.” She spread her hands with a self-mocking laugh that made me want to break something.

“I was in love,” I rasped. I’m still in love. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“You were in pain. You just wouldn’t let yourself feel it. It’s like…” She rolled her lips together, thinking. “It’s like an addict who finally gets clean. You know what they tell them? Focus on healing. No big decisions for a year. No romantic relationships. Because you don’t really know who you are or what you want. They definitely do not suggest marrying your vacation fling.”

Every word was a knife in my heart.

And then she twisted it.

“I get it now, why I was so easy for you to leave,” she said softly. “I was a distraction. A Band-Aid so you wouldn’t have to feel anything.”

“No,” I said hoarsely. I caught her hand, kissed her fingertips, and placed her palm over my heart, covering her hand with mine. “Lila, no. You were the only way I could feel something.”

“But none of it was real.” Her lips tipped up in the saddest smile I had ever seen. She gently tugged her hand free. “That’s why you didn’t tell me about them.”

Panic clawed at my chest. “I should have told you. But I’m telling you now. And I admit that I was fucked up back then, and I’m still a little fucked up about it. I’ll always be a little fucked up about it. I know that, and I’m not pretending otherwise. But it’s been four years, and the place I’m in now is so much better than where I was then. Mercy River has been good for me. It was exactly what I needed when I didn’t know what the fuck I needed.”

Her face was so soft when she looked at me. “I’m glad, Seb. I want you to be happy.”

“I think I always hoped I’d see you again. And now you’re here, right in front of me, and I feel…” I swallowed hard and rubbed at my aching chest. “It’s not nothing, Lila. So don’t tell me it wasn’t fucking real, because if it wasn’t real then, I wouldn’t feel like this now.”

Her hazel eyes searched mine. “Then why did you leave? If you loved me then, why didn’t you stay?”

I stared at my hands, rubbing my palms together slowly. Fuck. I didn’t want to do this. But I had to. “Your rock climbing accident. The hospital wouldn’t tell me anything, and all I knew from your mom was that it was a ground fall, and you were in surgery. I didn’t know if you hit the ground from fifty feet or a thousand. It…it sent me to a really dark place. Even after I found out you were going to be okay, I don’t think I fully processed it. I wish I could explain why I left, but the truth is, I didn’t know how to stay.”

She was quiet. I could feel her gaze on me. “And what if I get hurt again?” she asked finally. She tipped my chin up with her finger, forcing me to look her in the eyes. Her lips quirked wryly. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been getting hurt a lot lately. So what’s going to happen if I’m back in the hospital and you don’t know if I’m going to live or die? Are you going to walk away? Or will you stay?”

I could picture it. My wife in a hospital bed, tubes and wires everywhere, eyes closed. My chest tightened. Loving Lila felt like razor blades in my lungs. Every inhalation hurt. I couldn’t breathe past it. I couldn’t speak.

“Right.” She exhaled slowly and pushed to her feet. “I’m sleeping on the couch tonight. If you care about me at all, you’ll let me.”

22

LILA

He did let me.

I woke up with a crick in my neck and a feeling of overwhelming sadness. The sun wasn’t up yet and it was too dark to see, but I rolled onto my back and stared into the black nothingness above my head. All the puzzle pieces had finally clicked into place yesterday. I got it now. Our entire marriage had been a lie. It broke my heart all over again.

Sadness turned to annoyance as I gingerly stretched my back. My neck wasn’t the only thing hurting from a night on the couch. Most of my body ached. I would have been better off sleeping in my truck. At least Relly had a retrofitted mattress in the back. I couldn’t believe Seb really let me sleep on the couch. He could have at least offered me the bed—I wouldn’t have taken it, of course. Seb wouldn’t fit on this tiny two-seater sofa. Hell, I didn’t even fit.

Groaning, I sat up and swung my legs off the couch. My feet landed before I expected them to, several inches above the ground on something not exactly soft, but definitely not the pinewood floor. I drew up my knees with a startled gasp, but it was too late. A hand wrapped around my ankle in the dark. I screamed and kicked and⁠—

“Dammit, Lila.” Seb smacked my calf. “Stop kicking me.”