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I left, cut myself off from everyone but my mom, and basically became a ghost. Maybe that made me a coward, but I couldn’t handle it. And I knew that it was only breaking my mom’s heart every time she looked at me, because there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to fix it for me.
So, I wound up in Maryland, got a job, and never looked back.
But now, after all this time, I had returned.
Steel Ridge.
So much had changed, and yet, everything was the same.
I’d done what I could do to protect myself from this place for all these years—to hide from the guilt, the blame, and the crushing disappointment. It was awful.
And if it wasn’t for the fact that this was a life-or-death situation, I knew I never would have stepped foot in this town again.
They hated me.
All of them.
Nobody wanted me here, especially not him.
But I prayed that the time and distance might have done something to soften his heart toward me. If nothing else, I convinced myself that he would have never wanted to see me dead if he could prevent it. I didn’t know how I managed to tell myself that was the case when I already knew precisely how he felt about that, too.
His words that day at the cemetery had destroyed me, but I believed he wouldn’t still be holding a grudge. This was Jesse, after all.
I knew he wasn’t in the right state of mind all those years ago when I sat beside him, and he said all that he did. He had been consumed with grief. Everybody was.
I had weeks and weeks of letters from him that came before then, which showed me just who he was.
Plus, I was here.
Herebeing Harper Security Ops.
If Jesse wasn’t the man in those letters, if he wasn’t the guy I’d believed he was all those years ago, he wouldn’t be working here.
Yes, even without remaining present in Steel Ridge, I still knew what was happening here. Not only did my mom keep me updated on things happening in town, but I also did a bit of my own research. Once I learned about Jesse being a part of the Harper Security Ops team, I did a little digging.
I learned about the company, what they did, and what they stood for. That was the reason why I knew that Jesse was the man in those letters.
But if I was being honest, it still terrified me to be sitting here in my car at the far side of the parking lot in the middle of winter. Because I could have been wrong.
It wasn’t that I believed Jesse wasn’t a good man. Deep down, I knew he was incredible. But maybe his kindness, compassion, or even pity might not extend to someone like me. It was possible that he hated me now as much as he did the last day I saw him.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
I’d never wanted anything to be truer in all my life than that single statement.
I could handle shock and surprise. I’d take the anger and the blame. But I didn’t think I could bear it if he still hated me.
The next thing I knew, the front door to the building opened, and two men walked out.
It might have been twelve years since I last saw him, but I recognized him immediately. Jesse had come out just behind another guy who was about the same height as he was. They both had dark hair, but where the other guy was handsome with his neatly groomed facial hair and solid body, he didn’t compare to Jesse.
The guy I’d crushed on for years was even more breathtaking than I’d considered him to be back then. Though he’d always been a bigger guy, it was plain to see that he’d put on a fair bit of muscle over the years. The last time I’d seen him, Jesse’s hair had been a bit shorter, but now it was slightly longer on top and much more unruly.
God, he was gorgeous.
I was suddenly unsure if I could do this.
No.
