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He reached for her, his hands on her elbows.
“I—I can’t do this,” she croaked, wrenching away. She ran down the grassy slope next to the house and to the dock attached to the backyard. The wood creaked under her feet as she jogged, then she stopped at the edge and let out an ear-piercing scream. Tears finally fell down her cheeks. Tears for how much had changed and how much time she’d lost. Tears for having said those three words to Kevin when she wasn’t even sure if she was ready to say them. Tears for a life that felt equal parts beautiful and terrifying and frustrating.
She sat on the dock and looked out at the river that led into Haverport’s bay and out to the Atlantic. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, but at some point, she heard the boards creak as someone approached from behind. She sucked in a breath and whipped her head around, ready to unleash again.
But it wasn’t the golden boy approaching her.
Jess’s father held up his hands in mock surrender. He wore his usual “dressed up” getup for Dakota’s shower—cargo shorts, his T-shirt swapped out with a polo, and a pair of boat shoes on his feet.
She exhaled as she continued to stare. There was so much she needed to say, and yet, she was unable to form a concrete sentence.
He slid his hands into the pockets of his shorts, then cocked his head toward the boat floating in the water next to them. “Shall we go for a ride?”
Her eyes flicked up to the house. Dakota was standing there with her mother, Jasper rubbing her shoulder. Nosy guests were also watching them, probably wondering who the crazed blonde girl was screaming bloody murder down by the dock.
Jess got to her feet. “Sure.”
Everything about being on her father’s boat felt exactly the same. He untied the ropes as she stepped in and opened up the dock box, pulling out her life vest that was still waiting for her. Like she never left. She clicked it on and took a seat as he revved the engine, then steered the boat down the river and out to the bay.
Jess kept her eyes on the water as they rode in silence for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen. The sound of the waves and the rumble of the boat below her feet calmed her anxious heart. She unfurled her tightly wound hands in her lap and inhaled, the salty sea stinging her nose and watering her eyes.
When they finally reached a patch of relatively calm water, her father killed the ignition. He swung his chair toward her and gave her that crooked smile, the same one he used to give her those early mornings clamming on the beach or walking down Main Street before Haverfest or working the docks with him at Cap’s. It somehow all felt familiar yet so foreign to her, and for the briefest moment, she wondered if it was all a dream she would wake up from.
He cleared his throat. “You look good, Jessie.”
She crossed her arms. “I look exactly the same.”
He shook his head. “Nah, you look settled. Happy.”
“And apparently I have you to thank for that.”
“I—” He grimaced. “He told you, I’m guessing.”
“That wasn’t fair of you to make him keep it a secret.”
“You’re right, it wasn’t fair. But if he’d told you the truth, would you have said yes?”
She squeezed her hands into fists and looked away.
“There’s so many things I’ve wanted to say over the years,” he confessed. “So many ways I wish I could have fixed it.”
“Why didn’t you?” she muttered. “I—I thought—”
I thought you would come after me. She spent years hoping and dreaming they’d finally “come around,” when everything would go back to the way things were. But he never did. They never tried. She never tried.
“You know that stubborn pride you have, the same one that makes you so determined and so good at running your bakery?”
She looked his way and arched a brow.
“You get it honest, my love. Every time I thought about coming after you, I felt hurt all over again. I let it consume me and take me away from what I should have been doing.”
“And what should have you been doing?”
“Rescuing my little girl.”
Jess shook her head. “I don’t need rescuing.”
He chuckled. “You’re right, you don’t need anyone to do anything for you. You’ve had that independent streak since you were little. But I knew deep in my gut that Charlie was not the man for you, and I should have done something about it.”
