I squint at him. “The way you fight for Isla?”
His jaw ticks. “Isla’s not mine to fight for.”
“You’re full of shit.”
“Maybe.”
“If you keep pretending you don’t notice her,” I say, “you’re going to beat Reid out for the most emotionally constipated man in Blue Willow.”
Jack isn’t the only fool fighting his own heart. Reid’s been carrying a torch for Winnie since they were kids—quiet, stubborn love that’s lodged itself so deep it probably burns when he breathes.
Honeywild’s in his blood, and so is she. Everyone knows it.
But she’s got a daughter with someone else, and Reid ... he’s the kind of man who’d rather break his own heart than make hers heavier. He’s always been more willing to hurt quietly than risk losing the family he chose for himself.
Which is why I’m worried Jack’s going to let the same thing happen. That he’ll drag his feet long enough for Isla to get tired of waiting, pack up her sharp tongue and soft heart, and let herself get swept off her feet by some out-of-towner with a boat and a trust fund. Someone who sees her for what she is and doesn’t need a decade of bickering to figure it out.
Jack and I finish our beers on the porch steps, side by side. He doesn’t say anything else about Isla, and I don’t press. But I see the way his thumb taps against the bottle—restless. Thinking of her and all the words he still hasn’t said.
Eventually, he stands, tosses both empties into the bed of the truck.
“You know where to find me,” he says. “If you need somebody to tell you you’re being a jackass.”
“Don’t worry,” I mutter. “You’re always first on the list.”
He barks a laugh. Then he climbs in, starts the engine, and lets the gravel swallow him whole. When he’s gone, the porch goes still. I stay there a while, rubbing my thumb along the grain of the railing, thinking about everything I shouldn’t be thinking about.
How deep I already am. How deep I’d go, if she’d only ask.
By the time I start packing up the tools, I’ve almost convinced myself to head in and keep my head down. Then the screen door bangs open.
Elsie wanders out. She’s wrapped in one of Elspeth’s old coats, curls pinned up with a pen stuck crooked through them, clipboard clamped under one arm. It’s almost funny how serious she looks.Almost.
She stops at the top of the steps, flips to a fresh page. “I had another question about the trust, if you’ve got a minute.”
“Go for it.”
“If it’s set up as irrevocable, does that mean—”
I lose the thread. Not because she stops talking but because I stop listening. Her breath ghosts in the cold. Her brow creases when she concentrates. Her mittened fingers tighten on the clipboard.
She has no idea how much of a wreck she makes me. Beautiful. Contrary. Breakable. A woman I can’t stop wanting, even when she’s bristling at me.
“Wells?”
I blink. “Sorry—what?”
She huffs, impatient. “I said, in the event of dissolution, does it freeze the assets, or does it only restrict liquidation?”
“Depends how it’s written,” I answer slowly. “But most times, yeah. It freezes.”
She nods, writes something down, lips set tight. All I can think about is the morning after the storm—the way I wanted to gather her in, press my mouth to her shoulder, ask her if she could just stay here, staymine.
How instead, I walked her into town like nothing happened. Acted as if my whole world hadn’t shifted. Let her keep the silence between us, as if holding it might somehow keep her close.
Maybe that’s what this is now. Me waiting and letting her pretend. Letting her decide if I’m something she wants or something else she needs to make herself forget.
24
