Chapter Ten
Morgan
I stared at the door handle of Will’s truck and reached, only to drop my hand yet again. Sam had told me to take it easy while she was visiting Grayson’s grandparents for the weekend, but I wasn’t going to show up at Dr. Circe’s office next week having failed with the simple homework assignment of opening the damned door.
But what if I opened the door and had another anxiety attack? Even worse, what if Jackson saw it? How was I supposed to go out with the man if I wasn’t even healthy enough to open this door?
A set of tires crunched the gravel of my driveway, and a blue sedan stopped right in front of the truck. Christina climbed out.
Great, now I had a witness to my failure.
“Well, good morning, sunshine.” Christina held a cup of coffee as she glared me down in the odd combination of yoga pants over her wetsuit.
“Hardly,” I retorted. “I thought we were meeting at your shop? And what’s with the wetsuit?”
“I thought so, too, but then you stood me up.” She tilted her head. “I even grabbed you coffee. It’s nasty when it’s hot, so I bet it’s extra special tasty when chilled by an hour of waiting.”
I looked from the coffee to her and back again. “Wait, we’re supposed to meet at nine, right?” It couldn’t possibly be that late.
“Yep, and it’s now ten.” She shook her phone.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry, Christina. I lost track of time.” I’d been standing here for an hour and a half? I wasn’t sure if I was more upset by the time loss or my ultimate inability to open the door.
“It’s okay. We can make the eleven o’clock class.” She walked over to the construction dumpster and tossed the coffee over the metal edge. “Now get your wetsuit and let’s go.”
“For yoga?”
She grinned. “Do you trust me?”
“No.” I shook my head.
“Smart woman. What if I ask you really nicely and promise not to ask you to surf?” She batted her lashes at me.
I sighed. “Give me five?” I was supposed to be exercising my body and making new friends, and if that included putting on my wetsuit, then fine. At least I wouldn’t fail that section of my homework.
“Take ten,” she answered with a shrug.
I raced up my steps and didn’t stop until I reached my bedroom, where I went to war with the neoprene piece of hell known as my wetsuit. Good Lord, this thing exhausted every muscle I had just getting it on, but I did. Thank God I didn’t go with the full-body model or I wouldn’t have made it.
With already aching arms, I gathered my hair at the top of my head and looped it into a bun, then pulled on my yoga pants, grabbed my sunglasses, and headed back outside, where Christina patiently waited for me.
“Good girl. For your speed, I shall offer you a new cup of non-cold coffee on the way,” she said with a smirk.
We took her coupe twenty minutes north to Avon, stopping along the way for the promised caffeine hit.
“You going to pry?” I asked when I caught her glancing my way.
“Nope. I figure if you want to tell me why you were staring at a pickup truck like it was your mortal enemy, you will.” Her eyes cut my way. “Doesn’t mean I’m not dying of curiosity.”
I took a sip of the caramel macchiato as we sped along the narrow parts of the island.
“I’m struggling with a homework assignment my therapist gave me.” I glanced at her. “Does it weird you out that I’m in therapy?”
“Nope. You already told me you struggle with anxiety attacks. It weirds me out when people know they need help and still don’t seek it. Homework, huh? Dead guy problems?” she asked.
Somehow the blunt way she addressed it made me want to tell her.
“Yeah. I’m supposed to open the door to his truck once a day. Just open it, not get in or drive it or anything, and I can’t manage to do it.”
“Why not?” She pulled into a small parking lot on the inlet side of the island.
“Probably because the last time I opened it, Jackson had a front-row seat to an epic anxiety attack. I’m not too eager to undo all the progress I’ve made and risk that happening again.” I nearly high-fived myself for analyzing my own motives pretty successfully.
She parked, then turned toward me. “Which part? The attack? Or Jax seeing it? Also, it’s adorable that you call him Jackson.”
I laughed off the last comment. “Both, I guess. I knew better than to try it again, honestly. Sam only left for the weekend because her husband’s family asked her to come up for dinner, and I refused to go with her. She told me to give it a day and we’d try again when she gets back on Sunday, but I just stood there in front of that truck for an hour and a half after she left.”
“So basically, you had a free homework pass and tried anyway.”
“Stupid, right?” I laughed again, forcing the sound out.
“Brave. It tells me you’re serious about getting past whatever is holding you back.” She killed the ignition.
“And the fact that I just stood there staring?”
“That just makes you human. Now are you done beating the shit out of yourself? Because this is a really cool class.”
“Well, you kind of take the fun out of it.” This time when my lips lifted, the small smile was genuine.
We got out of the car and walked through the parking lot.
“I’m just glad you were lost in your own little world. I was kind of scared you’d stood me up because of Jax,” Christina said, adjusting her beach bag on her shoulder. “I was afraid you were having second thoughts or something and didn’t want to see me because we’re friends.”
“Jackson?” I nearly tripped over my flip-flops.
“You guys are going out tomorrow night, right?” She did a double take at my face and then sputtered. “Sorry, the guys at the station are pretty much a high school gossip club. Everyone knows everything.”
“We’re not dating or anything,” I assured her, just like I had myself about fourteen billion times since he asked me last weekend. “We’re just sightseeing.”
“It would be okay if you were. You know that, right?”
“Right. But we’re not.” I shook my head emphatically.
She raised her eyebrows but didn’t argue as we walked down the wooden steps to the beach where our class of about half a dozen women waited…with paddleboards?
“Christina?”
“Consider it the American Ninja Warrior of yoga.”
Our feet hit the sand, and I shook my head. “I’m more on the chair aerobics level.” I brought up my hands to show her my awesome synchronized finger push-ups.
“Push your comfort zone. Let’s go.”
No excuses, no option to back down. She firmly expected me to haul my uncoordinated butt up onto that paddleboard and do yoga. On the water.
“And what happens when I fall off? Because that’s definitely going to happen.” I picked up the unclaimed board next to where Christina claimed hers, grateful that I’d put on the wetsuit.
“You can swim, right?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Then you get wet.” She shrugged. “You can stay on shore the same way you could have stayed in bed this morning. It’s your choice. No one can decide to start living for you, Morgan.”
She dropped her yoga pants and kicked off her sandals.
I was living, right? I’d bought a house, was remodeling said house, and had managed to make friends with Jackson, Finley, and now Christina. Sure, maybe my outlook was still a little gray, but now my days had blocks of sunshine peering through the space that had only been dark before. Blocks of sunshine that had a lot to do with the guy I wasn’t going on a date with tomorrow night.
It was a sightseeing trip with a friend.
Uh-huh.
Kicking off my flip-flops, I wiggled my toes, feeling every nuance of the damp sand from its slight chill to the grit against my skin that I knew would wear away the rougher edges of my feet if I walked far enough. Not abrasive as much as it was refining, comforting as it molded to my arches.
I couldn’t manage to open the truck door.
I had weeks to go in this therapy that felt more like torture than healing.
Will was dead.
But I wasn’t.
Maybe it was time I started acting like it more than just the times Jackson dragged me out of the house.
It wasn’t just one big choice—it was a thousand tiny ones just like this. Just like saying yes to Jackson.
I dropped my reservations and my pants onshore, then headed into the water with the board tucked under my arm and the ankle leash firmly secured—thanks to Christina.
I managed to climb up onto my board in the hip-deep water with the rest of the class and thanked my lucky stars that we weren’t on the ocean side of the island.
Then I fell off.
More than once.
But I’ll be damned if I didn’t haul myself back up on that board every single time.
…
This is not a date.
This is not a date.
This. Is. Not. A. Date.
I mentally repeated the phrase as I headed to answer my front door. Just because I had on a sundress and little matching sweater didn’t make it a date. A date would have meant heels, and my toes were currently cocooned in pair of sensible but cute ballet flats. Maybe I’d shaved my legs, but that didn’t make it a date, either. Neither did my makeup or the fact that I’d taken the time to curl my hair.
Those small acts had been my own affirmations of life. They had nothing to do with the man who’d rung my doorbell a few seconds ago.
I exhaled slowly as I reached for the door handle, then took a fresh breath, pasted on a smile, and opened the door.
Oh shit. He had that whole beach-casual vibe going on, and he made it look good. Really damn good. His hair had that messy, ran-my-fingers-through-it style, and he’d rolled up the sleeves of his white button-down shirt over a pair of dark blue cargo shorts.
But it was his smile that seemed to stutter my heart.
“Wow. Morgan, you look incredible.”
Maybe it was the deep timbre of his voice or the way his gaze warmed my skin as he glanced over me in the same way I’d just done to him, but suddenly this felt very much like a date.
“Thank you,” I managed to reply. “You look great, too.” That was absolutely an understatement. The man looked edible.
“Thanks.” His smile widened. “You ready?”
“You betcha.” You betcha? Oh God, did I really just say that? Where the hell was the charm I’d been known for? The quick, flirting smile?
He didn’t seem to notice that I’d answered him like an eighty-five-year-old grandfather, and a couple of minutes later, we were strapped into his Land Cruiser, heading south.
“So what exactly are you planning to show me in the dark?” I asked, then mentally cursed myself again. “You know, where we can’t see anything?” Stop, you’re making it so much worse.
He tossed a grin my way, then peered up through the windshield. “It’s a clear night and a full moon. It’s a good night for climbing, wouldn’t you say, Kitty?”
I scoffed. “I’m not exactly dressed for mountaineering, Jackson.”
He slowed, pulling into the park. “Good, because we don’t exactly have any mountains around here.”
A turn later and my jaw dropped.
“But we do have lighthouses,” he said as he parked the car.
I stepped out into the parking lot, looking up, and up, and up at the black and white paint twisting its way up the enormous tower. This thing was colossal.
“It’s the tallest brick lighthouse in the United States,” Jackson noted as he shut his door, then came around to my side and shut mine since I’d been too busy gaping.
“And we’re going to climb it?” I swore to God, if that man busted out a climbing harness and rope, I was going to—
“We’re going to climb the stairs inside it.”
“And they let you do that at nine o’clock on a Saturday night?”
He laughed, sending a wave of flutters through my stomach. “Starting next month, they’ll do full-moon tours, but tonight, it’s just you and me. Come on.” He motioned toward the sidewalk that led to the lighthouse, and we walked down the moonlit path.
“Hey, Jax.” A tall, heavy man with a thick black beard and wearing a uniform stepped out of the doorway as we approached.
“John. Thanks for letting us in,” Jackson said as he shook the man’s hand.
“No problem. I owe you a hell of a lot more than a little late-night access. You going to introduce me to your girl?” He turned a kind smile on me.
“Oh, I’m not his girl.”
“She’s not my girl.”
We spoke at the same time, then let the awkwardness speak for itself.
“Right.” He glanced between us. “Okay, well, the stairwell lights are on, but the deck lights are off, so you two be careful.”
We assured him we would be and then walked into the lighthouse. I took in the spiral staircase and shook my head. “What exactly does John owe you for, anyway?”
Jackson’s jaw flexed before he answered. “I got his brother out of a tight spot once. Nothing big.”
The way he looked away told me otherwise.
“You have a thing for saving people, don’t you?” Like me.
“You have no idea,” he answered quietly, staring up the center of the staircase.
“Okay, tour guide,” I said as my foot hit the first metal step. “Time to start guiding.”
“I promise it’s worth it,” he swore as we started to climb. “It’s thirty-one steps between each landing for a total of two hundred fifty-seven steps,” he recited, beginning my evening history lesson.
I fell into the rhythm of my feet and the cadence of his voice as he told me all about why it had been constructed in the eighteen hundreds.
“The Graveyard of the Atlantic?” I questioned. “Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?” My breathing grew labored, and I noted with more than a little awe and annoyance that his didn’t. No sir, he was still breathing deep and even. How in the blazing hell? Did he spend an hour on the StairMaster every day?
“I’ll show you,” he promised. “This is the last stretch of stairs before the top.”
“You mean this eventually ends?” I teased with mock wonder.
He shook his head, but there was laughter in those blue eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Keep climbing, Kitty.”
“Don’t you ever do anything for fun that doesn’t burn a thousand calories?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come walk the beach, Morgan.” My voice lowered in an awful Jackson impression. “Come surfing, Morgan. Look, there’s yoga to learn, Morgan.”
His laugh echoed through the brick structure.
“Why not, let’s see a movie, Morgan? Or my personal favorite, let’s order in and watch Netflix, Morgan?” We finally reached a landing with a door, and I turned toward him as he stepped up beside me, drawing my eyes upward again. “Hmmm?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“I will order in with you whenever you want.” His gaze dropped to my lips, and the temperature in the lighthouse rose. Or maybe that was just my own body. “I’ll even let you pick what we do next time.”
Next time. I swallowed, trying to find the levity we’d had just seconds ago. “I hope you’re up for a fun night of reading on the couch,” I teased.
“I’ll come read with you,” he offered in what had to be the sexiest voice imaginable. Hell, that was the sexiest line imaginable. “What book are you spending your nights with?”
“I just finished Mrs. Dalloway, and I’m on to Orlando now. I’m on a bit of a Virginia Woolf kick.”
“Go figure, you’re a classics kind of girl.” He grinned. “You almost had me fooled, thinking you were all about night hikes,” he joked.
I scoffed. “I’m not exactly an outdoor kind of girl, you know.” At least I hadn’t been.
“With all the shell hunting, beach walking, and yoga and surfing? You could have fooled me.”
“The old me preferred pedicures to four-wheeling, and the only things I hunted on the beach were boys and a tan. Oh, and the occasional Jet Ski trip.” My shoulders lifted in a shrug.
“The old you, huh?” He took a few steps to my right and reached for the door handle.
“Yep. She even came with a quick smile and sharp little tongue when the occasion called for it.” That was a whole other life—a whole other girl—but the girl I was tonight didn’t feel too bad, either.
“You still have those things. Trust me. And I happen to like whatever version of you this is just fine. In fact, I have yet to see any version of you I don’t like. They’re all just you.”
The sincerity in his eyes stripped away another layer of my defenses, but I didn’t feel raw or exposed. I felt…seen, which was oddly comforting in a way I really didn’t want to examine at the moment. “Thank you. So are you going to open that door, or was this hike just for fun?”
He stepped to the side and opened the door with a flourish. “After you.”
I stepped onto the deck, and my hair went wild, flying varying directions in the strong breeze that whipped at me from the ocean. I fisted the strands in one hand and the hem of my dress in the other as Jackson came through the door behind me and shut it. We stood on a circular deck just below the top of the lighthouse, where a light rotated in a steady rhythm at least ten feet above our heads.
His wide grin had me questioning his sanity. “You look just like you did when I first saw you.”
“Oh,” I said softly. He remembered the beach that well?
“Here.” He came close enough that I felt the heat of his skin as his arms reached around me, replacing my hands with his. “Now you can grab a hair tie if you want.”
“What makes you think I have a hair tie?” I arched a brow, refusing to give in to how damned handsome the man looked in the moonlight.
“Don’t all women keep a hair tie in their purse?” He nodded toward mine, which I’d slung diagonally over my shoulder.
“I’m not sure there’s anything that all women do,” I retorted, knowing full well that I had a tie in my bag. But common sense prevailed, and I surrendered my hair and hem to him, then reached for my handbag. My cheek brushed his bare forearm when I turned my head, and I muttered an apology as I quickly found the tie and restrained my hair in a quick bun.
Jackson won another point when he didn’t mention that I had, indeed, had a tie as he’d assumed. Instead, he took hold of my shoulders and turned me slowly so I faced the ocean. “Worth the hike?”
My breath caught, and I moved forward to lean against the cool, metal railing, hoping it was enough to keep my skirt from flying up over my underwear. These were definitely a step up from my Hello Kitties, and I wasn’t exactly ready to show them off.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, unsure if the wind made it too hard for Jackson to hear. The full moon played off the waves in the distance, streaking a path of white across the water that led straight to the beach, illuminating the coastline in a blend of light and shadows, softening the dramatic landscape.
“Hmmm?” Jackson questioned as he came up behind me, his head over my shoulder.
“I said it’s beautiful.” My mind drew a blank as I struggled to think about anything besides how close he was. How there were merely inches—if that—between us, torturous yet necessary. Those inches were all that kept the flutters in my stomach from turning into something far more potent and dangerous.
“Yeah. It sure is.”
I tilted my head slightly, and his lips brushed my ear. Air rushed into my lungs as that tiny, accidental caress sent shimmers of unexpected pleasure down my spine.
“Do you see that?” He reached across my shoulder with a pointed finger.
“The waves?” I looked out to the ocean, following the path he’d given me.
“This is where the cold Labrador current meets the warm Gulf Stream. It makes the shoals shift in unpredictable ways that can cause ships to wreck.” His voice was soft in my ear, his lips close but not touching me.
“How many do you think have been wrecked over the years?” The waves seemed almost harmless in the distance.
“The experts around here estimate about two thousand.”
“The Graveyard of the Atlantic,” I remembered, watching the waves. So beautiful, yet so dangerous. “You think there are still shipwrecks happening out there?”
“Right now? I hope not. But yeah, they happen around here more than we’d like, that’s for sure.” He dropped his arm and moved so he stood beside me, both of our hands on the railing. His clenched the metal as he took what looked to be a steadying breath.
“It seems almost foolish, doesn’t it? To know how dangerous the water is and still choose to sail it? That seems like the definition of insanity to me. Once something shows you how deadly it can be, I choose to believe it and steer clear.” The wind swept over the backs of my thighs, and I immediately missed the heat of him while simultaneously cursing my decision to wear a dress.
Pain flickered across his features, and my stomach lurched. I’d touched a nerve somehow.
He caught me watching him and forced a sad smile. “Sorry, my mind drifted. My parents died in a boating accident when I was seventeen.”
“Oh God. Jackson, I’m so sorry.” My stomach halted its lurch and just plain plummeted as my hand covered his. “I didn’t mean…” I didn’t even have words to cover my utter insensitivity. Seventeen. He’d been so young.
“Don’t be. You didn’t know.” He looked back over the water as his fingers splayed on the railing. Mine fell into the gaps, and he tightened slightly, leaving our fingers laced. “Dad knew the waters really damn well, but the weather came in faster than forecasted and…” He exhaled slowly. “I lost them both off the coast of Maine. The thing about the ocean is she can lull you into thinking you’re her equal. You understand her tides, her waves, her currents, and you begin to feel like you’re partners, as though the love you feel for her is somehow returned.”
“Love, huh?” I questioned softly, wondering if that’s what had driven him to study oceanography. Where I had avoided everything that reminded me of my loss, he’d embraced and examined the very thing that killed his parents. Had that exorcised the demons of his grief? Or was I the only one who had those?
“Love,” he confirmed. “Being out there on the water is as life-affirming to some people as sex is to others. The ocean is in their soul. And you’re right, maybe it’s a little bit of insanity that brings people out on those waters in particular.” He nodded toward the divergence of the two currents in front of us. “But from what I’ve seen, the only emotions that overpower our own sense of self-preservation are obsession and love, and the ocean is both for a lot of people. They fuck up when they forget that she’s too deep, too stubborn, and too powerful to love you back. There’s never a partnership because she’s always in control.”
“I’m so sorry you lost them.” It was all I could think to say. It was the only thing I’d ever wanted to hear, so maybe it was the same for him.
His fingers tightened around mine in a reassuring squeeze. “Thanks. They would have really liked you, and they would have been utterly wrapped around Finley’s finger.”
I made a mental note to call Mama tomorrow and absorbed his words quietly as a comfortable silence fell over us. The ocean looked exactly as he described. Inky black under the night sky, breathtakingly beautiful, and wickedly powerful. His thumb moved, stroking the edge of my pinky in an absentminded pattern. It was soothing—comforting, even—and I had no desire to pull away or put distance between us.
Holy shit, I liked the way he touched me. I liked way more than that about him, if I was being honest with myself. Sure, I liked the way he looked, but there wasn’t much to not like. His profile was strong, his chin carved and nose straight—with a slight bump that made me wonder if he’d broken it once—and his lips somehow managed to look hard and deliciously soft at the same time. I’d seen enough of his body to know what was under that shirt, and the simple memory of him jogging toward me on the beach sent a flash of heat through my veins strong enough to kick up my pulse. He turned his head, looking down the beach, and I mentally sent up a prayer of thanks that he hadn’t caught me staring at him or turned those eyes on me.
I swung my face the opposite direction and found a thick strip of scarred land that ran between the lighthouse and our own homes. “What’s that from?” I pointed with my free hand so I wouldn’t have to let go of his.
He followed my gaze, still stroking that swirling pattern on my skin. “That’s the path from when they moved the lighthouse.”
“They what? No way. This lighthouse?” My jaw dropped. This thing was huge, and they moved it?
“This lighthouse,” he confirmed, a corner of his mouth lifting in clear amusement at my disbelief. “A little over twenty years ago, they moved it from there”—he gestured a little north, where the path ended at the beach—“to here. It was the only thing they could do to save it.”
“Save it? From what? Men who mislead unsuspecting women expecting a little sightseeing and get a StairMaster instead?” I raised my eyebrows, and he laughed. Flirting. Oh my stars, I was flirting, and it felt…great. My heart stuttered a beat in the best possible way, and I outright smiled, reveling in both the emotion and my ability to feel it.
Jackson’s eyes flared, darting between my lips and my eyes, before he shook his head slightly and blinked. “The ocean,” he replied in a voice that sounded like it had been scraped over sandpaper. “They had to save it from the ocean.”
“Because the shoreline changes so much.”
“Exactly.”
Those eyes. Even in the moonlight, when I couldn’t see every shade of blue that made them so irresistible, they turned my knees to Jell-O. Or maybe that was just Jackson in general, if I was still on that honest-with-myself kick.
I looked back to the path. “How far did they move it?”
“Man, I’m glad I studied for this date.” He laughed. “Twenty-nine hundred feet.”
I didn’t cringe at the word “date.” “How on earth do you move something this big?”
“Just like you take on any huge project—one tiny step at a time. It took them twenty-three days and a hell of a lot of engineering.”
“Did they take it apart and rebuild it?” I leaned over a little, taking in the distance to the ground and hoping it was the dizzying height that had my heart strumming faster. God, what was wrong with me? I’d been around Jackson plenty of times and never had such a schoolgirl reaction.
You’ve never been completely alone with him before. There had always been Finley, or Sam, or an entire barbecue’s worth of people around us.
“No, they left it intact.”
“Impossible.”
He laughed. “Why?”
“Look at this thing! It’s huge!” I gawked up at him.
“Don’t forget old. Almost a hundred and fifty years,” he added, turning his body toward mine. “Told you I studied.” Like we were a pair of magnets, I moved to face him, our hands falling from the railing but staying twined. With his free hand, he stroked the back of his fingers down my cheek slowly. “But she’s also too important, too unique, and too beautiful to stand by and do nothing while she drowns. While she might look delicate, she’s actually incredibly strong and capable of taking a storm or two.”
I stilled, knowing that he’d stopped talking about the lighthouse.
“Jackson,” I begged, but I wasn’t sure what for.
“Morgan.” His fingers slid to the back of my neck while his thumb repeated the stroke across my cheek.
God, that felt good. A rush of longing filled my entire body, stirring parts of me I was sure had long since died—the parts that remembered need, want, and desire. The parts that remembered how it felt to be the object of someone else’s desire, too. And those neglected pieces of me hungered as they roused, demanding to be acknowledged and appeased.
I fought to find a shred of my common sense amid the onslaught of pure, selfish craving that had me staring at his mouth.
“You don’t want this,” I told him softly, my Jackson-less hand clutching the railing as if it would keep me grounded.
“I don’t want what?” he questioned, lowering his head until our foreheads touched. “Because you can’t tell me that I don’t want you.”
Oh God. Joy, disbelief, yearning—emotions flew at me so fast I could barely process them, but one stood out the loudest. Fear. Was it fear for him or fear of him? Yes.
“You don’t. You can’t. I am a mess, and not just a little mess. I’m the kind that has a pile of wreckage for a heart, anxiety attacks I can’t control, and a therapist I see every week in the hopes that I can eventually talk to my best friend again or just open the door of a truck I never wanted.” My eyes squeezed shut. “Trust me, you don’t want this. You don’t want me.”
“Morgan—”
“No.” I retreated from his arms, and my skin ached at the loss of contact. Was I so desperate for human touch? Just Jackson’s. “I’m not being coy or playing games, which is ironic since I used to be really good at all that. I’m genuinely telling you to run for your life.”
“From you?” The skin between his eyebrows wrinkled, and I was struck with a ridiculous urge to smooth it with my fingers.
“Yes!”
His jaw ticked, and his eyes turned fierce, pinning me to the lighthouse deck with the force of his stare. “Morgan, you don’t get to tell me what I want any more than I get to dictate your feelings.”
I blinked, admitting the undeniable logic of his statement. “That’s fair.”
“If you don’t want to start something with me, then that’s your choice, and I’ll respect it, no matter how badly I want to convince you otherwise.”
“Thank you.” Crap, was that a twinge of disappointment that lowered my shoulders?
His head tilted back as his chest rose and fell with a deep breath, as if he was the one struggling for control—not me. When he met my gaze again, I held my breath.
What the hell did I really want? To press pause on this moment, call Sam and get her take on it, and then press play again so I know what I’m supposed to be feeling. Like that was going to happen.
“I know about the anxiety attacks. Remember, I was there for one,” he stated simply, like we were talking about what we’d had for lunch. “I’m glad you have a therapist because I’m well aware that you’re working through something that you’re not ready to let me in on, and that’s okay. You don’t exactly know everything about me, either, and chances are the more you know, the more you’ll think you’re the one who should run.” He didn’t move a muscle, but the way he looked at me felt like a caress all the same. “In fact, I know you’ll be the one running.”
“From you?” I scoffed. “You’re the most together person I know.” Even if he was still pining for his ex, but who was I to judge?
“Then you should meet more people.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Morgan, I like you, and I don’t just mean as my neighbor. I want you in a way that keeps me up at night, mentally calculating the steps between my door and yours. I want you so badly that I barely stop myself from taking those steps every single night. I have no problem owning my feelings about you. And while I’m not going to push you for something when you obviously don’t feel the same—”
My jaw dropped. “I never said I don’t want you—”
“I damn well think you deserve to know that you might preach you’re a mess, but I think you’re pretty fucking perfect, wreckage and all.”
Every protest died on my tongue at the tangible sincerity in his voice.
“Are you struggling?” he started again. “Yeah. That’s obvious. But, God, you’re a fighter, even if you don’t see it. You had the courage to pick up your whole life and move because you knew you needed a fresh start. You might not be able to open that truck door, but you didn’t just dump it in some storage lot and run. That shit is in your front yard where you choose to confront it every day. You push your boundaries, whether it’s on a surfboard or letting me drag you to a barbecue. You have loyal friends, which means you’re pretty damn loyal yourself, and when death came flying at you in the form of the weathervane that time forgot, your first instinct was to protect my daughter, which is enough to make me fall at your feet without the fact that you’re the most exquisite woman I’ve ever laid eyes on—which you are.” He lifted that eyebrow in challenge again.
My lips parted, and the butterflies in my stomach fluttered so fast the friction warmed me from the inside out, even as they threatened to turn to flame and catch my body on fire. He actually wanted me. He saw the mess and wanted me anyway, somehow finding beauty in everything I called wreckage. Damn it, I didn’t want it to be wreckage anymore. I wanted to be whole again. I wanted to have something to offer this man who took me hiking in the moonlight and pulled me away from my own shadows with his light.
My breath abandoned me as the realization hit—he made me want to live, not just survive and hope for the best. He’d reignited that spark within me from the moment I’d felt that flare of attraction on the beach and the care he’d taken when rescuing me from my own staircase. That spark grew every time he made me laugh, or smile, or roll my eyes. It thrived when I made plans with him, finally willing to look forward in my life. I might have been doing the work in therapy, but there was no denying that Sam was right—Jackson had become my reward for learning to live again.
“Don’t look at me like that.” He raked his hand over his hair. “You’re gorgeous, and that’s not even close to being the best part about you. Every time you let me in to that head of yours, I feel like the luckiest asshole on the planet, and there’s nothing I’ve found that would make me want you any less. God, everything about you pulls me in closer without even trying. Like I said—I can own that. And sure, the way I feel about you scares the shit out of me, but that’s what tells me it’s real. So yeah, I’ll respect your lack of feelings because I feel way too much, but please don’t tell me that I can’t want you, because I do. And I’m sure of this enough to wait until you’re in a place to see just how amazing you—”
I stopped his words with my lips.