CHAPTER 8
Ethan stood on Jess’s porch and took a deep breath as he lifted his hand. He hesitated before knocking on the door. It was late. But he was on call the next few days and he wasn’t sure when he’d get another chance to talk to her.
He’d thought about texting her, but since she still hadn’t responded to the last message he’d sent her checking on her doctor’s appointment, he figured showing up was a better way to go.
And after seeing her out on the boat with those guys today, he knew this couldn’t wait. He still wasn’t sure what leverage he could use to get her to agree to his proposal, but he’d decided he would let her set the terms. Something told him that Jess wouldn’t be able to pass up that kind of power.
The thudding of his heart was pounding in his head. He was probably more nervous today, standing on Jess’s front porch than he was yesterday in Chicago when he and his team broke down the door of a violent offender known to be heavily armed.
This girl had always done things to him. Even before the day that he’d found her unconscious in the hallway, she’d engendered protective instincts in him.
He flashed back to the first time he’d seen her.
It was a day that was seared into his memory because it was the day after his father’s funeral and the day he’d moved to Whisper Lake to live with Nana. He’d been walking by the shore and saw a girl, crying, sitting on the pier with a big silver tube beside her. Now he knew that it was her oxygen tank, but at the time he didn’t have any idea what it was.
He was immediately concerned, and he walked out to see if she was okay. He remembered the sound of the water splashing against the pilings and the birds chirping in the air. He could still feel the heat of the sun on his face and smell the fresh air that he hadn’t been used to growing up in the city.
With every step he took toward her he was struck by just how small she was. She was tiny. Frail. And the sight of her thin legs dangling precariously off the pier had every fiber in his being screaming for him to pick her up and carry her to the shore.
When he was a few feet away, she looked up.
“Are you okay?”
It took him by surprise because she’d been the one who was crying.
“Yeah, are you?” he’d asked a little bit more defensively than he probably should have. But he was a preteen boy that had just lost his dad and felt like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“No.” Her voice was steady and strong as she sat up straighter and although she was small and young, there was a maturity well beyond her years in her as she matter-of-factly stated, “I’m going to die.”
“What?”
“I heard my mom talking to my dad. They were downstairs and didn’t know I could hear. I’m going to die.”
Her answer had shocked him so much. He just stood and stared at her for a moment before he sat down beside her and let his own confession slip out. “My dad died. His funeral was yesterday.”
“And you’re sad,” she said.
“Yeah.” He looked over at her and asked, “Are you scared?”
“No.” She shook her head and looked back out over the water. “Not really for me.”
After a few moments, he heard her sniff, and he glanced over and saw that tears had filled her eyes again. “But…my parents…I don’t know what they’re going to…”
“It’s okay.” Ethan had been so wrapped up in his own tragedy that seeing this girl devastated, not for herself, but for her parents was eye-opening. And then he said what any boy would say to a girl with tears falling down her eyes. “Don’t cry.”
“I’m not.”She barked back at him as she sniffed and wiped her cheeks.
They sat beside one another, neither saying a word, for what, at the time, felt like a lifetime, before she turned to him and said, “I’m okay with dying but there is one thing I’m scared about.”
“What?”
“Not knowing what this feels like.”
“What what feels—”
She cut him off by pressing her lips to his. The feel of her lips against his was so shocking he almost didn’t notice the feeling of the oxygen tube beneath his nose. It wasn’t a long a kiss, and he hadn’t even really participated. He’d been so shocked he didn’t do anything.
When she pulled away, they stared at each other for several beats before a look of unimpressed indifference crossed her face. “That’s it? That wasn’t so great.”