“He didn’t do it alone,” Jack said.
“Yeah, but what he did was worse.”
He stared at her in heavy disbelief. “You were my wife.”
“And he was your partner. Hey, I knew where I stood in the pecking order. The job came first with you. It always did.” She slid him a sly look. “You ever think maybe I screwed Frank as a way to be closer to you?”
“Bullshit.”
Renee grinned, not embarrassed at all at being called out. “Yeah, well, maybe not. It was worth a shot.” Her smile faded. She leaned forward, putting her hand on his knee. “Come home, Jack. Come back to a real job. Back to your real life.”
She was sincere. Looking down at her hand, he felt a flash of... Not regret. Not that. Remembered affection, maybe, the way he felt about his first bike or the car he’d sold when he joined the Marines, things he’d loved and outgrown.
Things he didn’t need anymore, not worth the space they required.
“I have a job,” he said. “I have a life. A home.”
Renee rolled her eyes. “Jack, you’re roughing it on aboat. Your uncles’ old fishing boat. This isn’t home. This was never meant to be anything more than temporary. You were never going to stay here.”
Was she right? Maybe when he first came to the island, but now?
“Renee... I’m done,” he said quietly. “I’ve moved on.”
He wasn’t sure when that had happened, or how, but... Yeah. Done with her, done with them, done holding on to his anger and the past.
You’re ready for a rebound relationship, Lauren said in his head, and maybe it had started out that way, but it was more than that now. She was more than that.
“Moved on to what?” Renee’s voice sharpened. “This job, that girl... They’re like this pizza. Okay if you’re starving, but you’ve had better. Sooner or later you’re going to want the real thing again.”
Real?Lauren was real, her open heart, her genuine smile, her lack of pretense. The shallow rise and fall of her belly as she slept, the warmth of her breath on his neck, her eyes reflecting back the moonlight in the darkened cabin.
“You’re going to want me,” Renee said. “Let me stay and I’ll prove it to you.”
He shook his head. “It’s time for you to go.”
“Seriously? After twelve years, you really going to tell me no? Where am I going to sleep tonight?”
“Wherever you stayed last night.”
“They’re full up. I don’t have another reservation.”
He stood. “You’ll think of something. You always do. Plenty of places along the highway.”
“Screw you, Jack. Just—” Renee broke off, searching his face. Her eyes glittered. With anger? Or tears? “You’ve changed.”
He nodded slowly. “I guess I have.”
He just hoped it wasn’t too late.
***
LAUREN WAS GOODat fixing things. But she didn’t know how to fix this situation with Jack. Her failure poked at her as she tossed in bed that night, replaying their fight over and over in her head. Like the princess on the pea in that fairy tale, every remembered word a prod.
Should she apologize?
She didn’t need to be right all the time. She didn’t care about keeping score. In a relationship, it shouldn’t matter who won or lost, only if you could find a solution that worked for both of you.
But if they were in a relationship, she should have the right to ask Jack questions. All her research, all her clinical practice, stressed the importance of healthy communication. She’d told him shelovedhim, for heaven’s sake. And he’d said... He’d said...
