It’s been too long. I’m in town and missing you. Tell me when the coast is clear and we can hook up.
Apparently it wasn’t just a small-town issue that people from forever ago still had your number, because she wasn’t even from around here. Jenny had wanted things as uncomplicated as possible, which had suited me just fine. She didn’t do families, so whenever she was in town, she’d text to make sure the coast was clear of mine before we’d get together.
I’d have to tell her she was out of luck and was going to have to find another partner to fill her night with because I’d be busy with my wife.
I glanced at the time the message had come in—right around the time I’d woken up and come in here to find Quinn standing right where I stood now. I snapped my gaze out the window to where she had retreated, the pieces clicking into place. Her total one-eighty, her sudden hostility…
Tell your friend you’re free tonight.
“Motherfucker.”
I didn’t have to be a genius to realize she’d seen the message from someone I hadn’t been with in more than a year—someone I’d never reached out to. Someone I’d delete without a second thought… She’d seen it and assumed the worst of me. Assumed I was ready to toss her aside and move on to the next woman. In typical Ford fashion.
She thought I was still that guy.
Not the one I had shown her every day for the past two months. Not the one who couldn’t keep his hands off her, who was clearly…obviously…head over fucking heels in love with her.
Instead, she saw me the same way the entire town did. Saw nothing more than the façade I projected, the one no one cared to see beyond.
Never mind that I hadn’t looked at another woman since Quinn and I had been married. Hell, I hadn’t even been remotely interested in one since she’d stepped foot back in Starlight Cove, well before she’d been mine.
That thought only further twisted the knife in my heart because I thought she’d seen me for me. I thought, after everything we’d been through, that she’d begun to see me as something more. As the man I actually was…
Hers.
Instead, she saw nothing more than the man everyone else in this town saw me as. Just a playboy. Good enough for one night, but not good enough for forever. That was what she’d said, wasn’t it? I wasn’t forever.Weweren’t forever.
And the irony was, she was the only one I wanted to give my forever to.
* * *
I didn’t think.I got dressed, grabbed my keys and my go bag—a duffel I kept stocked with essentials—and headed to my Jeep. I couldn’t be there anymore. Couldn’t walk around my home that she’d made hers and see pieces of her everywhere I looked—her hair bands on the table, her bras hanging in the bathroom, her lotion on the nightstand—and not hurt even more with every glimpse.
I needed to get away. Needed to go…somewhere. I wanted to escape to Peru or Budapest or fucking Antarctica, but that wasn’t in the cards right now.
So instead, I went to the one place I’d always gone when shit got rough. I didn’t usually like to dwell in those kinds of feelings for long—in my mind, life was too short to focus on the bad shit—but when things got too heavy, I needed to escape and be by myself for a while until the emotions could settle. Needed to process whatever happened and do so without the well-meaning intrusion of my siblings.
I drove to the forest preserve that bordered the resort’s property, traversing the familiar path to the farthest back corner. My favorite spot was an alcove off the beaten path, near the cliffs that overlooked the ocean. I hadn’t been back here in years. Hadn’t needed to.
It was quiet. Peaceful. And far enough away from any other campsites that it felt like I was the last person on earth. Which was exactly why I loved it so much. No one ventured out this way because there wasn’t a flat surface to be found to place a tent. Good thing I didn’t need one.
I parked a dozen yards from my destination—as far as my Jeep could get—grabbed my bag and the hammock I kept stashed in the back, and made my way over.
Going through the routine motions of setting up my site was soothing in a way I’d forgotten how much I loved. The repetitiveness of it…the rhythm… It allowed me to forget for a little while the entire reason I was out here in the first place.
But by the time I lay in the hammock, swinging back and forth to the sound of the waves crashing against the bluffs, it all came back with a vengeance.
Quinn’s eyes as she looked at me as if she didn’t know me. The cold tone of her voice as she tore down what we had to something she could swat away as easily as a fly. Something she could leave behind without a backward glance.
But what hurt the most was how she’d immediately jumped to conclusions and thought the worst of me. She saw me the same as everyone else did. Even after I’d shown her who I really was. After I’d stripped away every false piece of me and showed her my true self. After I loved her every one of these past fifty-four days.
And, still, she hadn’t seen me for me.
It had always been different with Quinn—all the way back in high school. She made me feel things I hadn’t been ready for. Fighting with her, egging her on just to have her fury unleashed on me…to have her undivided attention, was the same high I got playing sports or rock climbing or jumping off the cliffs into the ocean. It was an exhilaration that was damn hard to replicate.
But I’d tried.
After she’d left for college and I’d stuck around, I’d tried. I’d pursued women, chasing that thrill I’d always gotten with Quinn. And when the nameless women couldn’t fill that void, it was on to the next. A never-ending cycle where I was searching…always searching for something I couldn’t find.
