TRACE HAD EXPECTED Delainey to give him an earful as soon as they climbed into the truck, but surprisingly she remained silent. He didn’t know whether to be grateful or worried. But as they drove the distance to his house, his truck eating up the miles in the dark, he didn’t care what the outcome—he wasn’t sorry. “You probably ought to just keep your stuff here,” he said gruffly. “Because you and I both know this is where you’re gonna be while you’re here in Alaska.”
“What about my crew? What am I supposed to say to them?” she asked absently, as if the question was simply a formality because she really didn’t care about the answer. “I thought you said you’re tired of people talking about you and your business. Openly sleeping with me will only make that worse.”
“When it comes to you, I don’t care. I don’t understand a lot of what is happening between you and me, and I’m not even going to pretend to try. All I know is that if you’re here, you’re sleeping with me.”
Delainey didn’t argue. The fact that she didn’t put up much of a fuss gave him pause. Frankly, he’d expected a bigger argument from his staunchly independent woman. “Are you feeling okay?” he had to ask. “Because you’re not acting like yourself.”
Her small smile confirmed that something was up. There was a wistful sadness clinging to her, and he had a feeling it had nothing to do with the little spat at the Rusty Anchor. His demeanor changed. He was no longer consumed with getting her to see things his way. He just wanted to be there for her. “What’s going on? Did Thad say something to upset you?”
“No. Well, yes.” She seemed to struggle with the words until they finally tumbled out and she was helpless to stop them. “I’ve come to the realization that I’m a terrible person,” she said.
“What? No, you’re not,” he quickly disagreed, not liking where she was going. “Who told you that?”
“No one needed to tell me. I came to the realization myself, and I can’t hide from that fact anymore. Thad says I need to get my priorities straight, and he’s right. I value all the wrong things. My father is dying in a hospital room, and I can’t bring myself to sit there next to him. I can’t hold his hand and pretend or forget what a terrible bastard he was when we were growing up. I want to be the bigger person and forgive, but I can’t. Thad can, but I can’t.”
“It doesn’t make you a terrible person. It makes you an honest person.”
She shook her head in denial. “No, Trace. Don’t you see? I have put so much value on all of the wrong things that I don’t remember what it feels like to value the things that are true. I have an emptiness inside of me that I’ve been trying to fill with all the wrong things. But here’s the worst part—even knowing this I know I can’t change. I’m driven to succeed because everyone expected me to fail. I have sacrificed so much for that ambition, and what has it yielded me? Not a lot,” she answered before he could try. She barked a short, miserable laugh. “Trace, I would’ve made a terrible wife. You probably would’ve ended up hating me if I’d stayed, and I definitely would’ve hated myself.”
“You don’t know that. You’re taking a guess from the past about a future that never happened.” He drew a deep breath. He needed to get her off this track because the journey wasn’t going to be a smooth ride if they kept traveling that way. “Let’s table the heavy stuff for the night. We have an early call in the morning.”
“You’re so sweet. I should’ve seen that a long time ago. I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. We both made choices that in hindsight might not have been the best. Let’s leave it at that.”
Delainey followed him into the house, seemingly complacent with his suggestion, but after she brushed her hair and readied for bed, she pulled away from him to roll onto her side.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, perplexed that she would insist on the distance between them.
“I need some space.”
“That’s the last thing you need,” he disagreed on a low growl. “You’re punishing yourself as some kind of needless penance.”
“Trace, you’ve always been good at everything,” she started. “You don’t know what it’s like to struggle to be good at something so that other people will recognize your skill. I’ve been struggling my whole life for someone to notice me, and sometimes I just feel like giving up. But I won’t. Even if I should.”
In spite of the fact that she wasn’t facing him, Trace wrapped his arm around her belly and pulled her close. He nuzzled the back of her neck and kissed her softly. He hated the raw pain he heard in her voice. She was fighting demons he couldn’t even imagine. “Tell me what you enjoy about your job. Help me to understand.”
“Do you really want to know?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
She paused to reflect and then said, “I like being in charge of so many people at once and watching something materialize out of nothing. I like being able to turn on the television and see something I created for the enjoyment of others. Vertical Blind was the last major production that I produced. I liked that it wasn’t a typical reality show but a drama about rock climbers. It was unique and different and exciting. I really thought it was going to shine. But it was expensive to shoot, and in the end the ratings didn’t support the expense. We were axed after only four episodes. It was humiliating. But even though the show didn’t make it, I was proud of the work. It was a good show.”
“Sounds like something I would enjoy, if I watched television,” he said. “So you had one failed show. It doesn’t mean that you’re no good at what you do. It just means that luck wasn’t on your side.”
“Logically, I know that, but deep down it just reinforced that belief inside of me that I’m not good enough. That I’m a fraud pretending to be someone when in truth I’m really nobody.”
He wanted to shake her and make her see that she was somebody to him, but he didn’t because he knew her insecurities had nothing to do with him and never had.
“Forgive me for playing into the stereotypes, but I would think that a place like Hollywood would reinforce those insecurities no matter how confident a person started off.”
“You’re right. The town is filled with people looking to tear someone down just so they could stand on top of the fallen on their climb up. I guess I thought I would fit in better because I never really fit in here.”
Her admission was a shock to him. How could she have felt as if she didn’t belong in her own hometown? “What do you mean?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I always felt like an outsider here. I could go through the motions, but I didn’t feel as if I had anything in common with the people here. I don’t like fish and I don’t want anything to do with fish. The fact that my father is a fisherman makes me feel as if I’m betraying my roots in some way by admitting that. People who live and die by the sea cannot understand somebody who has no affinity for that lifestyle. I wanted to go somewhere warm, where I could wear my flip-flops year-round, and where when I put my feet in the ocean my toes don’t freeze off. I wanted everything that Alaska wasn’t.”
“So you found happiness.” He had a hard time saying the words because it hurt to know that there was no way she would ever find happiness with him in Alaska. “Don’t apologize for what brings you joy.”
“I love that it was eighty degrees on Thanksgiving, and I love that I have more summer clothing in my closet than I ever did in my entire life in Alaska. But I don’t like that I constantly look over my shoulder watching for the knife going into my back, and I hate that the men I meet are soft, posturing fools who have no idea what hard work truly is. Seriously, I stopped dating because if one more man touched me with those soft, manicured hands, I would throw up. Disgusting. I need a man with hands that are tough and roughed up from real work, not from tapping on a computer all day or texting.”
He shifted and tried not to growl as he said, “I get the point. Can we not talk about the men you’ve been dating? I know I can’t expect you to be celibate, but I’d like to pretend that you are. Otherwise, I will have to start sharing some of my dating experiences, too.”
“Point taken,” she murmured with a mild shudder.
“You were saying...” he prompted her, and she rediscovered her original point.
“I guess all I’m trying to say is, there is a lot about the city that I don’t like, but mostly what I hate is that you’re not there with me.”
Trace spooned her in stunned silence, his mind stuttering on her statement. Had she just admitted that she missed and needed him? She turned in his arms and he felt her gaze in the darkness. “If I asked you to go to Los Angeles with me, would you?” she asked, the vulnerability in her tone slicing at him.
He desperately wanted to give her anything she wanted, but he wouldn’t lie to her, not even to spare her feelings. “Los Angeles is no place for me. I would be lost in a place like that,” he said quietly. “My home is here and always has been. This is where I find my joy.”
And he realized it was true. Alaska, with its savage beauty, was stamped on his soul, and that would never change. “I would give you anything you ask, anything that was in my power to give, but I can’t give you that.”
“How do you know if you’ve never been there?” she asked, almost desperately. “Wouldn’t you be willing to give it a try for me?”
He felt like a jerk for denying her, but he could see the writing on the wall. “I need wide-open spaces, and the concrete jungle like Los Angeles would kill me. Or I’d end up killing someone else. We would end up tearing each other apart because I would be so desperate to leave and you would be desperate for me to stay.”
She didn’t deny his reasoning. Perhaps she knew he was right. But her grip tightened on him and she buried her face against his chest. “So basically we’re back to square one. I won’t stay. You won’t go.”
He held her close and closed his eyes. Yeah, back to square one. And square one sucked. “At least we have now. Let’s not waste a single moment.” She nodded and he felt something wet drop on his chest. Her tears burned his heart and he wished he could have been the one to give her everything she needed and wanted. God, he’d never truly stopped loving Delainey, and he realized he probably never would.