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Just before she melted, she stepped back. Nodding.
“Of course.” At last, she managed to mask her emotions, a trick she’d perfected that day she’d won two events in the women’s swimming championship and no one was there to see her moment of triumph. “Travel safe. And thank you.”
With that, he was gone.
Her eyes followed his progress down the yard and onto the pier. Onto Keith’s 45’ power catamaran that could practically drive itself. Jack flipped the engine on and engaged the self-steering mechanism to back away from the dock – the engineering a modern miracle it was so damn precise. The boat seemed to surgically remove itself from its moorings, much like Jack neatly extricated himself from her life and a chance reunion that was never meant to be.
Lifting her hand to wave goodbye, she congratulated herself on putting up a good front. Right up until the tears broke through the dam the moment he’d cruised out of sight.
ChapterThirteen
“You just took off?”
Jack realized the story sounded stupid in the re-telling. But his brother – Danny – hadn’t been standing there with him and Alicia. He didn’t know how prickly Alicia LeBlanc could be about accepting help. About maintaining independence.
And Jack sure as hell still didn’t understand how to be what this woman needed.
He’d been back in Chatham for all of three days, trying to figure out his next move with Alicia – assuming he even had one. Somehow he’d ended up at his parents’ house since he couldn’t sleep on theVestanow that Keith had it. Or so he assumed. Keith had been incommunicado with the family after apparently finding an interior decorator aboard theVestathe night after Ryan’s engagement party. As if Jack would ever hire anyone to lay a finger on the vintage sailboat. But the woman had misread the slip numbers on the pier and next thing Keith knew, he was out to sea with a stranger.
Jack had sent his brother ten different messages asking him not to sell the thing. After realizing that he still had feelings for Alicia – no, damn it, that helovedher - he didn’t want to get rid of it. Not yet.
Which brought him back to the conversation with the next to youngest Murphy brother, Danny, over brandy on the back porch just past sunset.
“Bro? You in there?” Danny wadded up a cocktail napkin and pegged him in the temple with it. “Why the hell would you buy her a million dollar property and then run for the hills? Are you trying to mess with her mind or do you get off on playing hard to get?”
His brother was younger than him by three years, but Jack related to Dan more than any of the others since long before their decision to each enter the Navy. Not that their similarities helped them to get along. Dan was the crustiest of the bunch, unwilling to embroider the truth for any reason whatsoever, determined to live by his own light and consequences be damned. He wasn’t the life of the party like Keith, but there was a grounded quality to Dan that Jack appreciated.
“No.” Jack whipped the napkin back, taking dead center aim at his brother’s beak. “Don’t you have any sense of tact? I couldn’t make a big play for her the moment I purchased the inn. How tacky would that be? She’d think I was trying to buy her affection.”
Although, maybe she would have thought differently if he’d told her that he loved her. It had been tough enough to admit it to himself and face up to the magnitude of the mistake he’d made four years ago. But now he’d compounded the error by not telling her how he felt.
He hadn’t thought the whole thing through well enough when he’d bought the bed and breakfast. That was the main problem. He’d been so determined to help her achieve her goals — unwilling to undermine what she wanted the way her old man had – that he’d moved too fast and hadn’t thought through the consequences. That was totally unlike him. But indicative of how she affected him.
Still, he hadn’t felt right asking to be a part of her life when she’d been reeling with the news that he’d bought the bed and breakfast. However that shook down, it needed to be separate and distinct from the business they did together.
“No wonder she isn’t speaking to you.” Dan chugged the rest of his brandy, settling his work boots on the railing where they looked out over the Atlantic just past dusk. He ran his fingers over the scruffy goatee he’s been sporting for the last year. “I’d cut you off too if you shipped out right when things were starting to get interesting. Especially since you did that to this same girl once before. Am I remembering that right?”
Jack slammed his drink down on the wrought iron table between them. He hadn’t told his brother the more intimate details of his reunion with Alicia-obviously– but he’d outlined the highlights of what had happened after Dan had hounded him about why he looked so hang-dog and down in the dumps.
“Don’t go there.” He jammed a finger in Dan’s face, unwilling to listen anymore. “You know why I went in the Navy.”
He knew a moment’s regret for even bringing it up when the shadow passed through his brother’s eyes. Dan had been wrecked when Stephanie Rosen had been taken captive. The guy had always been a rebel, so Jack was convinced he’d try to pull some lone wolf vigilante crap if left to his own devices. No one else had known what Stephanie meant to Dan. But Jack had been in the city to see Danny’s band the weekend they met.
He’d give his eye teeth to know if his brother had tried to contact her since they’d returned home. Last he’d heard, Stephanie was still single, recovering from her ordeal through work at a counseling center.
“Free pass this time, bro, because I know you’re in a bad place.” Danny shot him a level look, a vein pulsing hard down the center of his forehead. “But you’ve got no excuses for letting her slip away. And I can tell you first hand, the longer you wait to see her, the harder it’s going to be to...”
His words trailed off until he plucked the brandy bottle off the floor and topped off their glasses.
Jack eased back into his chair, gaze fixed on the horizon where the lights of a handful of boats blinked in the misty summer night. His brother was right. Danny might be messed in the head with his own love life, but his advice was sound. Jack had checked out on Alicia once before. How could he have done it a second time? Why hadn’t he stuck around and talked it through even if that talk – or fight – had been tough.
That day, it had seemed like a good plan. He’d thought he was being a stand-up guy to keep his business offer separate from what he wanted from her personally. But he hadn’t explained that to Alicia, falling into that same old dumbass thinking that he knew what was best.
“You’re right.” He set down the brandy and stood, wishing theVestawas in its old slip at the marina so he could take off tonight. Then again, why not take a page from Kyle’s book and ring for a plane? That would put him back in Bar Harbor before midnight. “I’m going to talk to her tonight. Now.”
“Seriously?” Danny’s feet slipped off the railing. “You’re taking my advice?”
“Yes.” He clapped his brother on the back. “You’re not a head case all the time. Now and then, I could swear you know what you’re talking about.”
