Page 38 of The Seascape Between Us

“I probably would have, eventually. After all, everything changed for me that summer, and fast. I should have told you, but I didn’t and for purely selfish reasons.” I picked at a loose thread on the bedspread, pulling it tight and wrapping it around my finger until my fingertip turned purple before unwinding it again.

“Such as?” Grey prompted.

“When I met you, Ramona was already showing symptoms. We didn’t know what was wrong. She was too young, I thought, to have to worry about anything like Alzheimer’s, but there were enough odd occurrences for us both to worry that something was wrong. So she went to a doctor, they ran some tests and came back with early onset Alzheimer’s. The thing is, the decline can be rapid, and it was for Ramona, and I was watching her fade a little more every day.”

“I’m so sorry you went through that.” Grey shifted closer and took my hand, sandwiching it between both of his. “I wish I could have helped you through it.”

“You did,” I told him. “Every part of my life sucked that summer except when I was with you. I could let myself forget and feel like me when I was with you. There were no questions I didn’t have answers to like,what are you going to do?I could escape from all that with you as if we were existing in our own bubble away from all the things I didn’t want to think about—at least for a little while.”

Gripping my hand with one of his, he reached out with the other and brushed my hair back from my forehead. “I wish I could have been there for you.”

“You were. The time we spent together felt like the only thing keeping me together.” Until he’d gone, and everything we’d had just meant more loss. I ignored the ache in my chest. It had been a long time ago, and we’d both moved on—mostly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, as if reading my mind. His gaze, dark and intense, locked on mine. “I’m sorry I left the way I did. That I believed the worst so easily. That I didn’t talk to you first.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. It was a long time ago.” After all, what happened all those years ago was no more Grey’s fault than mine. “It is what it is. We can’t go back and change the past, so there’s no point dwelling on it.”

Grey’s hand tightened around mine. “You’re right, we can’t change the past,” he drawled, as if caught up in his own thoughts. “But now we know the truth. We’d could try again—a fresh start.”

My heart stuttered in my chest, and everything inside me turned cold. “You can’t be serious.”

“I know it’s been a long time, but in spite of what we both believed, we still wanted each other.”

Wanting Grey had never been a problem. Even since he’d come back into my life and we’d been at each other’s throats, I couldn’t stay away from him. But outside of mind-scrambling sex, he had to know this wouldn’t end with a happily ever after, and I knew I couldn’t go through letting myself love him, only to lose him all over again.

“We deserve to be happy, Daniel. My father’s lies stoleyearsfrom us. We could start again now and make up for lost time. What do ya say?”

I shook my head and tried to swallow past the lump thickening in my throat. “You know it’s not that easy. It’s been seventeen years. We’re not the same people.”

“Of course, we’re not,” he agreed, impatience turning his voice urgent, and he leaned closer to me. “So, we get to know eachother again. Despite what my father said, what I thought I saw, Ineverstopped thinking about you. Did you think about me?”

“I did,” I admitted. I’d loved him, and I had never really understood how everything had changed between us almost overnight. It all clicked into place now—how he’d gone from wanting to move to The Square with me to despising me overnight.

Yet as much as seeing the one bright spot in my life snuffed out before my own eyes, I’d still loved him. Even now, I knew that if I let myself, I could fall in love with him all over again. Just like I knew whatever Grey was feeling for me now—sentimental, nostalgia, or just plain old lust—it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. He was Greyson Mackenzie, a successful businessman with more money than I would ever see in my lifetime. I was the same as I’d always been.

“We can start again, start over,” Grey said. “We should be together.”

“What your father did, lying to you, it was wrong, but he wasn’t wrong about me.”

Grey dropped my hand and leaned back as if physically recoiling from my words. “How can you say that?”

“Lookat me. I’ve done nothing with my life. I’m exactly where you left me.”

“My father wasnotright about you. He even acknowledged it in his letter.”

I rolled my eyes. “Maybe he was feeling guilty.” Grey opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off. “Look, this co-workers-partners-with-benefits thing, I’m fine with that, but anything more isn’t realistic. I just don’t belong in your life that way.” No matter how badly I wanted to.

Chapter Fifteen

Grey

Rain poured in sheets from the bleak, gray sky, and of course, the roofers were nowhere to be seen. There was no way they could continue to work in the pouring rain. They’d tarped their work, and I was sure they’d be back as soon as the rain let up—they’d better, at least, for what I was paying them—but every day that the weather kept them from working was another day closer to our Grand Re-opening with nothing getting done.

I left my car in the Seascape’s nearly empty parking lot and ducked my head against the rain as I hurried to the entrance. Still dressed in yesterday’s rumpled suit—except for the jacket I’d wrapped around Daniel’s injured arm and had since tossed into the trash—I had nothing to protect myself from the elements and I was drenched by the time I stepped into the lobby.

“What have you done with Daniel?” June demanded the moment I stepped inside.

I pushed my dripping hair back from my face and met her angry glower. What was she evendoinghere? It was early, not quite nine, but her shift had ended hours ago.

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