Chapter Twenty-Six
Rick
She lifts her chin as she dries her eyes with a tissue she pulls from a box on her desk. “I wish you’d stop asking me that. Since the night you let me into your lighthouse, I’ve been where I’m supposed to be.”
I don’t have a good argument against that, and I push my hands into the pockets of my jacket and step toward her. She’s beautiful, the glow from her monitor catching the bruises under her eyes, the red skin of her nose where she keeps rubbing.
“I’m sorry, Devyn.” I don’t know what else I can say. Well, I have a shit-ton of things I need to tell her, but whether she’ll listen to them, believe them, forgive me...I’ll be a lucky son of a bitch if she does.
She shrugs, balls up the tissue in her hand. “It’s fine. Whatever. You could have been a little nicer about it, but I’ll get over it.”
My heart sinks. Maybe she’s already over it, but I plow ahead. “Why are you here, in Old Harbor? I talked with Newsom—he said he offered you your old job back.”
“I didn’t want it. After the blizzard, after the roads were cleared, I drove into town, and I met with Barney that morning. He gave me a job. I found a realtor who helped me find my apartment. Talia was going to go to the university, but that changed when she met Beau. I’d been planning this since the day we said goodbye. I told you you were worried about the wrong things. It seems you still are.”
“You knew you wanted this since the blizzard?”
She huffs a laugh, tears the tissue apart. “I fell in love with you, but I’ve made poor choices before. It’s fine, Rick. You didn’t have to come here to apologize or try to talk your way out of what an asshole you are, but I’m not going to leave because we didn’t work out. I like it here. Cedar Hill doesn’t have good memories for me either, you know.”
I take another step closer. “If I explain, will you listen?”
“That depends on what you have to say. If this is another talk so I understand we’re done, that’s not needed. You were clear at the lighthouse when you said you didn’t love me. I got it. I think you’re lying to yourself, but that’s not my fight. If you’ve got something else, then maybe. But it will have to be fast, and it will have to be good, and it will have to be honest, because I’m tired of listening to bullshit. I love you, I’ve always been clear about that, but it doesn’t give you permission to treat me the way you have been.”
I nod. “That’s fair—”
She opens her mouth to say more, but I speak over her.
“— and it’s more than I deserve, I know that. If we can go somewhere and talk, I’ll try to explain where I’m coming from, and if it’s not enough for you, then I’ll accept it. No questions asked.”
It’s difficult to say that to her, to say that I’ll let her go when it’s my fault she’ll want to. Before the accident, I’d always been self-assured to the point of arrogant, but getting injured and Renata leaving me smashed my confidence and self-esteem into dust.
“Answer this for me first,” she says, rolling her chair from behind her desk and standing.
“If I can.”
“Do you love me?”
My lips part, and I pause. There is so much I could say in answer to her question. So many promises, so many dreams I want to make come true for her.
She meets my eyes, her green irises glittering, tear tracks still shining on her cheeks.
The words tumble out. “More than anything.”
“For just a second there, I thought you were going to say no.” She tosses the tissue into a trash bin already full of them.
I’ve done so much damage, and I should know that sometimes damage can’t be fixed, can’t be repaired. Modern medicine probably saved my life, but even the most skilled doctors I had working on me couldn’t restore my body to the way it was before the accident. I’ll always live with pain.
Her jacket is hanging from the back of her desk chair, and I help her into it, my hands lingering on her shoulders. “Beau asked me when I knew, said I had the exact second seared into my brain. He wasn’t wrong.”
She looks up at me, lines of fatigue battling with the small hint of a smile on her mouth. “What did you say?”
“The morning I stepped into the kitchen, and you were sitting at my table with soup on the stove. I knew I wanted you, needed more of that. I barely knew you, but in that split second, you turned into my whole life. I was so scared because you didn’t belong to me, Devyn. So scared that what I am would run you off. So terrified because that feeling had come out of nowhere and I knew you didn’t feel the same.”
“How did you know? You were so busy telling yourself you deserved to be alone that you wouldn’t have seen it if I did. Youdidn’tsee it. The day I helped you with your back, when we were lying there, and I woke up tucked against you, I knew something was happening. You wouldn’t have believed me—you would have taken it as pity. I’ve never pitied you, Rick. I’ve pitied a lot of people in my life, but I’ve never pitied you.”
Rubbing my thumb over her sticky cheek, I say, “I wouldn’t have believed it. I didn’t believe it while you were determined to dig into the accident, and I didn’t believe it when I brought you to my penthouse after Stevie took her shots at you. I didn’t believe it in the morning you woke up in the hospital. I didn’t believe it because I didn’t feel I was good enough to accept it. I’m trying to change because I believe it now.”
Squeezing my hand, she says, “What made you change your mind?”