“Hi,” Jax said.
“Hey, you. This is unexpected.” Her brows drew together. “Wait—this was Diary Day. Did it go badly?”
“No. We had a couple of grumpy people but most of them were understanding. It was all over by midafternoon. Now we have about a hundred diaries to lock away while the work’s done on the wall.”
Which sounded right but something was off. Jax wouldn’t meet her gaze and she was shifting her weight from foot to foot. A sure sign of trouble.
“There’s something,” she said. “Tell me.” Together they would tackle whatever the problem was.
“It’s nothing.” Her sister cleared her throat. “I’m fine. It’s just...” She drew in a breath. “Marcus asked me out. I wasn’t expecting it and I might have said yes.” Jax flinched as she spoke, then took a step back. “You have every right to yell at me. I deserve it.”
Ryleigh stared at her in confusion. “Why would I yell at you? I think it’s great you’re going on a date. It’s past time. Harris is already fake-engaged. The least you can do is go out with a guy.” And Marcus seemed nice enough. She’d only ever heard good things about him.
“But I was saving him for you. I was hoping the two of you would, you know, get serious.”
Ryleigh rolled her eyes. “I was never interested in Marcus, and he obviously wasn’t interested in me. Despite your very heavy-handed attempts to set us up. He has a thing for you. That’s good.”
Jax hung her head. “I’m a terrible sister.”
“You’re not.”
“You’re not mad?”
“I’m not. This is good. You need to move on romantically. You’ve been divorced awhile. I know you’re busy in your life, but you need more than what you have. Eventually you’re going to get lonely.”
“You’re single,” Jax pointed out. “Why aren’tyoulonely?”
“Dustin and I broke up like six weeks ago. I’m still dealing.” Only as she said the words she realized she wasn’t dealing all that much. She barely thought about him, certainly didn’t miss him. She missed the promise of what they’d had but not the man himself.
“I should have seen there was a problem,” she said, more to herself than Jax. “I should have known I wasn’t in love with him.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
Jax shook her head. “No. It was something else.”
“Why are you being weird?”
“I’m not. It’s just if you tell yourself you should have known you weren’t in love with him then you’re going to start talking about leaving again and I can’t take that.”
Ryleigh was torn between amusement and annoyance. “One has nothing to do with the other.”
“I’m just...” Jax sighed. “I don’t want to fight with you.”
The battle was lost as Ryleigh gave in to annoyance. “You have to let me be happy. My life isn’t about you.”
“I know and I want you to be happy every second of every day.”
The unspoken words hung in the air. “As long as it’s here,” Ryleigh said with a sigh, thinking she was done having this same conversation. “Jax, you have to stop.”
“I’m not doing anything but pointing out Port Palmas is your home. You have roots and your work.”
“I do.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, look at the time. Don’t you have to get home to be with your kids?”
“Not for another couple of hours.”
“Then the bookstore and Ramon. You lost so much work time this morning.”
