Scarlett held a finger up. “No. You were too afraid to lead them on. You didn’t want anyone to get hurt because of you. So when Boyd was the one to hurt you—you could cut things off.”
I blinked at her. Was she saying I’d been a scaredy-cat the whole time? Yet wasn’t that minimizing everything about Eli? He’d lost his life. Of course I was fucking scared to be honest.
“I tried to tell myself I wasn’t to blame.” I’d tried to move on. And when Jonah had chased me out of his hospital room, I’d assumed that was my due for being an awful person. A shitty girlfriend to a great guy.
“But deep down, you took all the blame.” Her expression was full of compassion. “And maybe you care so much about Jonah, more than any other guy you’ve been into, that you’re terrified that if things go south, neither one of you will come back from it.”
We’d already been through a sort of hell. All because of me. “I couldn’t do that to him. He’s forgiven me for Eli.”
She leaned forward, and put a hand on my knee, catching my gaze and refusing to let go. “There was nothing to forgive, but I know you’ll never believe that. So you need to forgive yourself.”
I bit the inside of my cheek as tears seared the backs of my eyes. I’d thought I had. I’d thought I’d come toterms with my part in Eli’s accident and Jonah’s injuries and the anguish their parents went through. “I’ve never told Eli’s parents.”
“Maybe you should talk to them. What if keeping it to yourself is part of why you really ended things with Jonah?”
A hot tear tracked down my cheek. I didn’t want to hurt his parents, but part of me felt they should know the full circumstances behind that day. I couldn’t ask Jonah to keep it a secret. He meant too much to me. “I think I’m in love with him.”
Compassion rolled off her. “I think you’re both head over heels and it terrifies each of you.” She gave my knee a pat. “If you need me to, I’ll talk to Autumn. The Bourbon Canyon Bachelor Auction is coming up soon, and since Teller and Jonah are friends again, we can recruit Teller to sign him up, and we’ll make sure you win the bid.”
I chuckled before everything she said sank in. “Teller and Jonah are friends again?”
“They even stopped here so Teller could show him the boat. I think they’re going fishing soon.”
Happiness for Jonah swept through me. He and Teller would’ve never thought to use a boat to fish before. If they weren’t hauling a canoe to the middle of nowhere, they weren’t interested. But Teller was showing Jonah there were ways to adapt the activities they used to love. “That would be so awesome.”
She grinned. “Chance is thrilled. That kid tells so many people about his and Tate’s secret fishing place that I wonder if he knows what secret means.”
I laughed, but my mind ruminated over everything she’d said. Jonah was moving on, maybe not relationship-wise. Or he could be, but I’d made that not my business. Regardless, what Scarlett had said about why I clung to connections that I knew deep down were wrong hit a hard chord in my chest.
Would talking to Eli’s parents help?
Every time I saw them, I felt like I should duck and hide. Like they knew what had really happened and hated me. They had no idea, and they could be tearing themselves up inside worse than me. Yet I hadn’t wanted to make things worse.
Too much time had passed for that. I hadn’t forgiven myself, and having an open discussion with them might help all of us.
Would it help me and Jonah? I didn’t know, but if I didn’t fix me, I couldn’t help us.
Jonah
I parked by my dad’s shop. Chickens waddled all over the yard behind the shop. They’d be Rhys’s chickens soon. I wandered in. Dad was sorting through tools. He had some laid out on the workshop bench. A small rolling red tool box stood behind him with various drawers open.
I shoved my hands in the pockets of my jeans. I’d worn work clothes for a reason. These were the old clothes I’d worn to work on the ranch. I’d had to go upstairs to the guest room to retrieve them, and I’d had to sit on the bed and remember how my life hadchanged in that room when I’d gone to bed and woken up with Summer.
Deep down, I knew I wanted that for me for forever. And smothering that fact was the thought of how scared I was. “Can I help?”
Dad glanced up, surprise lining his brow. “Jonah, hey.” He glanced at the organized chaos he was making. “I started with a plan, but now I’m just making a mess.”
I wandered closer. “What are you doing?”
“I’m taking one tool box with me to the new place. Did your mom tell you we found a house?”
“She did.” I’d called her before I’d stopped in to make sure they were both around. She’d gushed about it. Enthusiasm had lit her voice and she’d mentioned at least three times how new the house was and wouldn’t it be nice to live in a place that didn’t have such a long to-do list. I didn’t think their current house, the place I’d grown up in, was bad, but it was old. The plumbing needed constant maintenance and they’d upgraded electrical years ago. Then there were the drafty windows they had slowly been replacing, and the cabinet upgrades and overhauls Mom had done over the years. I had assumed she’d enjoyed all those projects, and maybe she had. Maybe she’d needed to be busy. But now perhaps she wanted to not have to constantly keep up an old house.
“Congrats.”
Dad’s smile was broad. “I might not need much for tools, but Rhys is going to have his own. I might as well make sure I take what I foresee needing. Need a wrench set?”
“I have two.” One had come from this shop.
