Page 43 of The Scars We Heal

“No. Don’t worry. These four- and five-year-olds are surprisingly troublemakers. I feel like if I don’t have an eye on her for two seconds, she’s already disappeared and gotten into something.”

“Oh, the joys of children.”

“Do you want something to drink?” I offered. “I have wine or soda or water.”

“Is it irresponsible to have a glass of wine at one o’clock in the afternoon?”

I shook my head. “Trust me, there’s days where I feel like I need one even earlier. I won’t judge.”

“Definitely wine, then.”

After I poured us glasses, I managed to coax Whitley out of her room with Cheeto. The two of us ushered the kids out to the front lawn with the kitten and settled on the front porch with our wine.

A few moments of silence passed as we watched the kids play with Cheeto but then Bec blurted, “Okay, so I don’t mean to beat a dead horse here, but I just need to get a couple things straight.”

I took a long sip of my drink, mentally preparing myself for whatever conversation we were going to have. “All right.”

“Jake.”

I huffed out a breath, knowing that was exactly what she was going to bring up. “What about Jake?”

“I think I’m just confused. So, he was your younger brother’s college roommate, and that’s how you met, right?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“But you had a boyfriend, Adam. Your ex-husband.”

“Yep. Where is this going?” I asked.

She waved me off. “Hang on. I’m just trying to figure something out, yeah? You and Adam get a divorce, and you move back to Silver Creek. Jake, your brother’s best friend, who you more or less didn’t have much of a relationship with over the last ten, eleven years, offers to let you stay in his guest house. And then he writes you a list of things for you to reinvent yourself.”

“That is what happened,” I confirmed.

“And you don’t think this man is deeply in love with you despite all of that?”

A heavy sigh fell from my lips. “I mean, we saw each other every so often in the last nine years since I got married, but it wasn’t like we were friends. We barely knew each other.”

That wasn’t entirely the truth. Adam may have made me delete Jake’s number and cut off contact with most of the people of my past, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t keeping up with Jake’s life. I saw every time he’d win at a rodeo and when he made the NFR last year. With his proximity to Colter, it was impossible to completely ignore him.

I knew him, but I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the idea that he could be in love with me when he didn’t really know this version of me. Other than what he saw on the sidelines of my life.

“I don’t know, Cait.” Bec broke me out of my thoughts. “Maybe I just have the wrong friends, but I find it hard to believe that someone who shows up for you so consistently doesn’t have any kind of romantic feelings for you.”

The air between us was still for a moment; I was unable to figure out what to say.

“Let me ask you something,” she spoke again. “Do you have feelings for him?”

My eyes averted to the ground, lip pulled between my teeth.

“That’s what I thought,” Bec said, my silence enough of an answer for her. “What are you afraid of?”

A lot of things, I thought.

Rejection. Getting hurt again and it affecting not just me, but also Whitley. And in a way, I was scared of being seen so wholly. For the last ten years, I’d almost felt like a spectator in my own life. Being careful. Being what everyone expected me to be.

But in the last few weeks, and even the last few years, Jake had shown up for me in ways that not many other people in my life had. He’d seen through every mask I’d put on, every wall I’d tried to build to keep him at an arm’s length.

Maybe Bec had a point. I’d convinced myself it was impossible that the romantic feelings I’d felt—and pushed down—were reciprocated, but maybe they were. And maybe I owed it to myself to at least give it a shot.