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“This weekend was incredible,” she finally says.
“It was.” I nod. “But I feel like there’s more to that statement than you’re saying.”
She looks over at me, her pale cheeks a rosy pink from the wind. “How do we just move on after everything? How do I tell West’s parents that I might have aborted their child? You guys were understanding but what if they shun me? Sometimes I worry that . . .” Her voice breaks and she tries to turn away from me.
I stop her with a gentle hand and guide her back to face me. “What do you worry about?”
Tears fill her eyes, anguish seeping from her every pore. She takes a shuddering breath and searches my face. I let her gather herself, regardless of how much I want to push for her answer.
“I worry that I don’t deserve love,” she says quietly. “What if losing my parents and then having the abortion are signs that I’m unlovable? I don’t know if you guys want babies someday, but what if I can’t get pregnant again because the universe or karma or God think I’m unworthy of it all?”
I squeeze her shoulders and lean down, forcing her gaze to mine. “Stop.”
“I don’t want to drag you guys down,” she says with a broken whisper.
“Violet,” I cup her cheek, “if you jumped off this ferry right now we’d follow you straight to the bottom. There’s nowhere we wouldn’t go and nothing we wouldn’t face for you.”
She bites her lip and nods through her tears. When I wrap my arms around her, she melts against me, her arms sliding under my jacket.
The longer we stand there together, the faster and harder my heart beats. Hyperawareness moves through me as love for her punches through my chest. I cup her cheeks again, holding her hair away from her face as I tilt her head back to meet gaze. She looks so vulnerable and lovely with the tracks of her tears still on her skin.
“I love you, Violet.”
“I love you, too.” She leans up on her toes and presses her lips to mine.
I swallow her moan as I deepen the kiss. No one is up here right now and part me aches to bend her over the rail and fuck her with the majestic backdrop of the sound as witness to our love. She makes me feel alive, like I’m home.
Part of me has always felt like I don’t fully belong anywhere. Growing up half Korean in a nearly all white mountain town could be rough at times, especially when my father was one of the golden boys of Roaring Forks growing up. West and Cody never once made me feel like I was out of place, and college was much better.
But in this relationship with Violet, deep down, I worried she wouldn’t want me like she does them. Ridiculous because for a short time I was her boyfriend. But her friendship with West runs so deep and Cody could make a wall fall in love with him.
We break the kiss at the abrupt creak of the interior cabin door. A middle-aged man with a large belly sits down and lights a cigarette and we take that as our cue to head back inside. As soon as I see the looks on West and Cody’s faces, I know something is wrong. Violet must too because she stiffens under my hand.
“What’s wrong?” she asks as soon as she sits down at the table.
They look at each other before Cody answers. “I just heard from Lars. Someone broke into your cabin.”
“What?” Panic fills her eyes. “Blue—”
“Blue is fine. Lars said he’s taking care of them.” West’s voice is calm, but his green eyes are hard with fury. “Your office and bedroom were trashed, though.”
Her hand lifts to her necklace and she fingers the pendant as she fights back tears. “Lars wouldn’t even know if they stole anything,” she says quietly. “I’ll have to go through it all.”
“He said the police should be gone by the time we get in, but they’ll want you to give a statement tomorrow morning.”
“Do you think it was John?” she asks, looking at West.
“He hasn’t shown up on the surveillance camera at his trailer in over a week. It could be.”
We fall into a tense silence as we all let the news and ramifications sink in. West and Cody barely conceal their rage, with clenched jaws and hard eyes. Cody’s leg bounces restlessly and West is unnaturally still. One thing I know for sure, whoever did this, is going to pay.
ChapterThirty-Nine
The mess inside my office and bedroom looks catastrophic, or at the very least feels that way. Drawers are ripped from my desk and papers litter the surfaces. Photos I’ve taken and hung on the walls are on the floor, the shards of glass from the frames crunching beneath my feet as I begin the arduous task of cleaning up.
The county sheriff just left, and I honestly don’t feel too hopeful. Even with the guys filling them in on everything, they think it was just a hit by someone passing through looking for easy money. That theory doesn’t really track with me, though. Because if that was the case, why wouldn’t the entire building have been burglarized?
Blake walks in with a large trash bag in hand. “Where do you want me to start?”
