Page 22 of Always Been You

Jess could feel both Ali and Brynn's attention turn toward her, and she hoped that Ethan's grandma didn't notice.

"Speaking of settling down, I hear congratulations are in order, dear." Daisy reached out and examined the ring on Ali's hand. "Kade did good."

Ali beamed. "Yes, he did."

She held Ali's hand between hers. "Patrick would’ve been so happy for you both."

A layer of sheen glossed Ali's eyes as she teared up. "I know."

"What about you two? Any young men that might be getting down on one knee?"

Brynn and Jess both looked at one another and then laughed.

"Nope. I've been there and done that." Brynn had been what she described as happily divorced for a decade. She'd been a teen mom before the MTV show made it popular and then divorced before she could legally drink.

"So has that one." Daisy motioned down toward the pier. Laura had arrived and was standing beside Ethan, her hand resting on his shoulder. "And you don't see her throwing in the towel."

Throughout the day, Jess had noticed that Laura took every opportunity to brush her hand against Ethan’s arm, his shoulder, his leg. It wasn't that she'd been spying on them, but she’d noticed that Laura didn't let five minutes pass without touching him. Though the fact that Jess had noticed that probably meant she technically had been spying on them.

"She's a braver woman than I am," Brynn said sincerely. "I think I'll concentrate on trying to raise a man, not marry one."

Daisy accepted that response before turning to Jess. "What about you? Any man, or woman, of your dreams?"

It was sad that Jess's love life was so inactive that a woman that had known her her entire life didn't even know what her sexual preference would be.

"Nope," she lied.

Her eyes drifted back down toward the pier as the conversation around her shifted to talk of the twins and Ryder starting high school this year. There was absolutely a man of Jess's dreams. She was just too stubborn or scared, or both, to do anything about it.

But maybe it was time to change that.

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.

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