Page 77 of Born in the Spring

“Because I never blamed you,” he says with no hesitation, and my heart swells, my lungs refilling themselves with warming breaths. “Regardless of what happened before Shepherd got on that board, I would never blame you.”

“Do you believe that for yourself too?” I ask now, almost pointed, with a small lift in the corner of my lips.

A corner of his lips lift too, his low laugh like a shock out of him. “Some days. It’s a process,” he admits, and I nod, also living inside that potentially permanent process.

Then all smiles fade away as Jasper brings us back around, his searching the most intense I’ve seen it. “But something did happen.” It’s an acknowledgment, a preparing statement, before I confirm with another nod.

He blows out a breath, then confirms something for me too. “Shepherd told me he was gonna ask you to marry him a couple weeks before. . .” He trails, his throat tight as he swallows the rest. “And Dad told me Shepherd told him the day of. . .” This trailing is more doubtful over anything his father could tellhim, and the quiet and strained way he says his next question puts a sting back in my lids. “Did he ask you?”

I pause at the fear in his features, mostly a flutter in his lashes, like he’s trying not to flinch before I even tell him. “Yes.”

I follow right after with, “I said no,” thankful I talked this out with Helena first, my tears still stinging but not yet reaching my face, my unsettled emotions more settled now than they were then.

Jasper’s, though, push him a few steps back into a lean against the bar, another blow of breath parting his lips, his eyes darkening with a pain I know is for his brother, with so many thoughts, and a hope that he waits for me to confirm too.

So I do, giving him the rest through more unshed tears.

“He’d known I was slipping away…and I fought so hard not to.” I attempt my accusing look at Jasper to be playful, and he takes it in stride, one right back over to me. “I was confused about Shepherd,” I go on in a whisper, then release a soft scoff. “I was confused about a lot of things. Butmarriageisn’t something you go into confused.”

Jasper takes another step closer, taking my wrist and pressing my palm against his chest as he then reaches for me with his words, a need so strong in his voice for me to speak of him, as he presses, “Why were you slipping away?”

“You,” I say, shaky, my heart matching his heart’s racing beats. “You were part of why I said no.”

He closes his eyes as the hand not cradling my wrist wraps around mine. “You talked to him too,” he says as a low realization, almost to himself. “And he didn’t understand.” His eyes open then, holding mine with a fervor that curls my nails into his shirt. “And I still would’ve risked him hating meforever to have you.”

The first tear rolls down my face, and Jasper catches the drop at my mouth. His thumb grazes along my bottom lip, his chest rising and falling faster beneath our twined fingers. A heat flows through me as I part my lips to feel more of his touch there—then I angle away, the motion sudden enough for him to drop his hand, then bring our other two down between us, which I pull out of too.

Can we go back from what we’ve already done?

He sighs, and when I blink up at him, he’s peering toward the door. Probably thinking I’m still not ready for Amie to see us touching and twined like that, and his guess wouldn’t be wrong. Because we’llhaveto go back once he sees he should have more than whatIcan give him.

Once the inevitable disappointment settles over us.

I just don’t feel like I can live through more of that night in this one.

Now I sigh, my mouth shaped around his name, when he leads us back that way.

“There’s more.” A second acknowledgment and preparing statement he doesn’t expect me to deny, and I’m thinkingmyguess was wrong. He knows I was moving away from themore.

Because whoamI kidding? My emotions can’t be settled with Jasper. He brings everything out of me. He takes me by surprise, even when I know better to be. He stops me in my tracks, meets me in my mental spirals.

And that’s why I step back with the flush of another one, that familiar furrow forming between his brows as I do—a staple with me. That disappointment, that’ll only get worse.

Like it did with his brother.

And every other man who expects me to live a life every woman should want. A life they want too.

The Cassidys, especially, arefamilypeople. This resort, their whole lives, are built on family. And they all deserve to have that. They deserve themore.

I should’ve stopped us before we started.

I should’ve gotten inside Tripp’s car.

Maybe I shouldn’t have come back.

Each plunge is a shallow breath, prolonging the ache in my chest until I can finally drag in enough air—when Jasper says my name and shoes sound on the floor behind me.

“I’m so sorry, honey,” Amie tells me as she walks up next to us, with a panic in her voice and a hand on my back. I feel myself withdrawing from this attention, both hers and Jasper’s, both on me for different reasons. My muscles clench under her hand, and now under her other one as it wraps around my arm, near my elbow. “Are you all right? Is she all right?”

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