Jase’s dismal failure to communicate with Aisha was six days ago and he hadn’t laid eyes on her since—something that was definitely not a coincidence.
Without her bright light in his every day, he’d moved dully through his week on auto pilot. Today was no different. He studied the list of repairs Callum wanted done, then checked the weather app on his phone. Seven days plus with nary a raindrop predicted. Decks it was. He’d scrape each deck in sequence and pressure wash each one. The first would be fully dry by the time he finished, and he’d paint in the same order he’d prepped. It would be a few days of mind-numbing labor. Exactly what he needed. To turn off his brain and lose himself in the rhythm of work.
Colton really had quit as promised and was headed for Vancouver. Without him around, and with everyone else busy prepping for Callum’s mother’s art show that was opening on the weekend, Jase worked in complete isolation. And he welcomed that too.
Only the pups, growing by noticeable leaps and bounds every day, so fast he’d actually called the vet to make sure they didn’t have gigantism or something, elicited anything remotely like the happiness and peace he’d become acclimated to since coming to River’s Sigh B & B. Yet even his amusement at their silly antics was diminished by his desire to share them with Aisha and Mo, to enjoy the puppy craziness and cuteness with his girls. Something in his chest clenched so tight at the realization that that’s how he thought of them, as his, that he legit worried he might be having a heart attack. Aisha hated him now. Distrusted him. Thought he was—the very idea made him sick to his core—like Evan.
And he couldn’t blame her. It was his fault. He’d known right from the beginning that he should respond to her openness in kind—but, numbskull that he was, he couldn’t find the words. And then, Murphy’s Law, the words had come, but not his, and Aisha had drawn logical conclusions. It was fair.
He pulled his hoodie up and got down to work. He’d let the hectic pre-art show hype settle down and give Aisha breathing room. Then he’d go to see her and ask once more for her to hear him out. If she wouldn’t? Well, then he had some hard decisions to make. River’s Sigh was her home, not his, no matter how much he wished differently. If she wouldn’t hear him out, or couldn’t forgive him once she did, he wasn’t going to linger about and ruin the sanctity of her home, making her feel like she needed to hide away or move about in avoidance mode because he was there. Leaving would be his last gift to her.