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FIVE
It pissed her off to no end that for the second time today, Jackson Coleman had seen her run away like a damn child.
But right now, it was safer for everyone for her to just go.
Hopping in her car, she sped out of the driveway just as Jackson was coming out the front door and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he was coming after her.
She wasn’t overly familiar with the town of Laurel Bay, but she’d bet good money that she knew it better than he did and that she could easily lose him.
The place she had gone to the most since arriving in this town was the beach. The ocean had fascinated her. She’d grown up near water—the Puget Sound and Lake Washington—but this was her first experience with the ocean and whenever she was feeling particularly stressed, going down to the shore and sitting in the sand calmed her.
“And boy do I need to be calmed,” she murmured.
Part of her knew that eventually Cash was going to share why he had left Magnolia six months ago.
She just hadn’t expected him to do it while she was in the next room.
Or that he’d be telling it to the one man she had considered herself attracted to in years.
“Shitty timing, shitty situation, shitty life…”
Yeah, that just about summed it all up. Everything about her life had pretty much been a nightmare, and it was just going to continue.
Hearing Cash say, “Now it’s my turn” was her breaking point. All this time, she’d been able to compartmentalize things. She wasn’t delusional; she knew he wasn’t going to get better. Coming back to Magnolia Sound—to his family—was the end of the line. Once he made peace with his family and they hopefully embraced him, she would go.
She had no idea where she would go, but she would go.
They weren’t her family.
Hell, they were all strangers to her. So there would be no reason for her to stick around once Cash…
Well…once Cash was settled.
Tears stung her eyes, and she furiously wiped them away as she took the most convoluted route to the beach. She took every side street she could think of and went more than a little out of her way before finally pulling into the small public access parking lot. There were only a handful of cars there and as soon as she found a spot and parked, Savannah was on the move, practically running toward the sand.
“Savannah! Wait!”
Son of a bitch…
It was childish, but…she didn’t wait. She simply kept going, kicking her sandals off and scooping them up in her haste to get closer to the water. There was no way to prevent Jackson from following her, but she certainly didn’t have to make it easy on him either, not after the way he talked to her earlier.
Plopping down in the sand about ten feet from where the waves were crashing, she let out a long breath and simply waited.
Jackson quietly sat down beside her and she couldn’t even bring herself to look at him. Closing her eyes, she tilted her face up toward the sun and instead focused on the sound of the waves and the warmth on her skin.
And the stupid awareness of the man beside her.
Damn him for ruining her calming place.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice low and gruff and barely audible over the other sounds around her.
Without looking at him, she asked, “How did you find me?” She was so damn certain that she had been stealthy.
“Cash said you favored coming to the beach, so…”
“Nice to know I have zero privacy.” This time she did open her eyes but stared out at the ocean.
“I’m not really sure what to say here except…it helped.”
