Page 113 of Yours and Mine (Friends with Benefits)

I lowered my head to my knees, feeling my pulse rushing too quickly through my veins, then looked up at him again. He pulled another chair and sat across from me, about three feet away. Even from this distance, I could feel the energy buzzing between us.

“I’m back now, and if there’s even an ounce of a chance that you’ll have me in your life, then I’ll take it. I know it’s confusing right now, and I know you’re with Carter. But I want you to know that I will do everything in my power to prove to you how much I love you. I’m a stupid man who left the only woman he ever loved and who is ready to beg for her forgiveness for the rest of his life. And no matter how much I beg, I know that I don’t deserve it. I won’t ever deserve you and your love, but I won’t stop trying.”

He thought I was with Carter? I shook my head, trying to make sense of everything, but I didn’t correct him. There was too much going on at this moment. Nick was close enough to me now that I could smell him. The masculine scent I remembered was still intoxicating, even more so than the drink I was holding in my hand.

“It’s just… I’m confused. So much has happened.” I looked around the renovated barn and tears started falling down my cheeks. This was supposed to be our home, our forever after. We were supposed to get married and live here, and raise our children close to our family.

Mackenzie. Did he know about her? Would he be shocked? Would it change our relationship? I wasn’t ready to bring my daughter – our daughter – into this mess of a life I couldn’t even understand. I didn’t want to confuse her. She’d seen his pictures and photographs, but most of them were from our teenage years, and Nick was a man now.

I knew that it was wrong to keep Mackenzie away from her father. But I was so mad at him, first for leaving us, then for being dead when he wasn’t. How was I supposed to tell her that her dead father, whom she knew only as a headstone and a few photographs, was alive? I couldn’t. Not yet — at least, not until I was sure that he would be back in our lives permanently. What if this was just another month in town for him? What if he was going to leave tomorrow and was here to tell me his last goodbye because the navy had changed their mind again? I felt a lump form in my throat. I’d never forgive him if he did that.

“Will you be deployed again?”

“No. Agreeing to the last deployment meant that I could return home and work online as a consultant to the Navy. I’ll go away for a week every few months, but then I’ll be home. My plan was to come back, marry you, renovate this place, and have our happily ever after, Jo. Instead, I found you’d moved on.”

Moved on? How? He must have been thinking about Carter. Would he really remain in Hope Bay forever? Was this permanent? And if so, how could I live so close to him and have all these feelings bubbling inside of me all the time? Now that Nick was back, he’d fill every second of my spare time, as well as the busy time. How could I stop thinking about him? I never could and never would. The pearl drops of my tears fell to my lap and I wiped them with the back of my hand.

“I’m… It’s too much right now.”

“I understand, Jo. I won’t push you or hurt you ever again, but I also won’t stop fighting for you.”

“I need time to process this. Is this where you’re living now?”

“Yes. The barn is yours and mine.”

I felt my brows scrunch together. “Nick, you can’t be saying things like that to me. So much has happened. I…”

By now I was sobbing. It was so hard to hear this, to hear him, to see him. And then he touched me, wiping the tear away with his thumb. I jerked back and brought my hand to the searing imprint of his thumb on my skin as my memory flashed back in time to all the times he’d touched me, held me, and loved me.

“Don’t cry, Jo. Please.”

“I… I can’t help it.” I wiped my nose with my sleeve. “I don’t know what to think.”

“I’m almost done with the renovations. I should probably visit Mom before the end of the day and explain things. I’ve had some time to think about you and me and what a fool I’ve been. I’m afraid I made the biggest mistake of my life when I left. And I’m even more afraid that there’s no chance of fixing it. Tell me there’s no chance, Jo. Tell me and I’ll turn around and leave and you’ll never see me again. But if there’s a sliver of hope I can hold onto, then I will until the day I die.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I didn’t want him to leave, for our daughter’s sake, but I needed time to figure things out. If I’d thought that my life was complicated before, then right now it was in the middle of a full out nuclear war.

He smiled at my silence.

“The stone on my porch. That was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. I saw you with your daughter by the lake. You were teaching her how to skip stones. I just thought she could use that perfect one you gave to me.”

“You’ve seen us?”

“Yes, by accident. I went to Pebble Beach to clear my head, and you two were there. So I stayed hidden. I needed to figure out how to break the news of my mortality to you.”

“Her name is Mackenzie.”

“She’s beautiful, just like her mother. She’s got your nose, hair, and eyes. And freckles. She has your freckles as well.”

I smiled. While Nick may have seen me in her, I saw him. Her gestures, words, and abilities were all inherited from him.

“I thought I was going crazy when she brought the stone. I thought she’d found it back at the house.”

“I’m sorry, Jo. I’m so sorry.”

An uncomfortable silence buzzed between us, or maybe it was something else. I looked up, connecting our gazes. My tears were falling, but I couldn’t stop staring at the man I’d thought was gone.

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