Page 37 of Sunny Skies Ahead
“Thank you for telling me,” Imogen murmured. “I don’t know what to say, but I’m here for you.”
“That means more than I can express.”
It did. I should have known Imogen would understand that it was sometimes more damaging to try and come up with something to say, instead of just sitting with the discomfort of it, of processing. I’d been sitting with this knowledge for years. I’d heard a lot of crap from people, everything toI’m so sorryorthat’s awful, as if I don’t know how awful it is, having lived that experience first hand.
“Sorry for dumping that on you,” I murmured. “Being sick makes me sentimental, apparently.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Imogen said, voice still soft as her fingers scratched my scalp gently. “I recall you once telling a shy girl at a wedding that you’d be there to hear her story whenever she was ready to tell it. I’m grateful that you trusted me with part of yours.”
Damn if my heart wasn’t putty in her freaking hands.
I felt it in that moment, the growing feeling I couldn’t keep denying.
I was falling for her. Not in the big, grand gesture, lovey-dovey way, but in the raw, real, heartfelt way.
In the way that you come to adore the small details of your relationship with someone, the small things you look forward to and appreciate about the person in front of you.
I was falling for Imogen Phillips, and as much as the rational part of my brain was telling me to pull back, that we’d both only get hurt in the long run, the more my heart and my body resisted.
“I’m gonna grab my laptop so I can start working,” Imogen said, brushing her fingers along my brow. I opened my eyes to meet hers, and I swear, butterflies took flight in my freaking stomach at her gentle gaze.
I knew I had a habit of staring at Imogen. I’d tried my hardest to make people see I wasn’t doing it in a creepy way, and half the time, I wasn’t even staring because of my growing infatuation.
Imogen’s energy was infectious. She was bright and sunny beneath that shy, inquisitive exterior. She brought a warmthto my life that I’d long since written off as nothing more than childhood nostalgia or distant memory. Imogen had been through one of the worst things that could happen to someone—surviving an abusive relationship—and she somehow came out on the other side, still radiating sunshine.
She took my damn breath away.
I said nothing as she eased my head from her lap so she could stand up, grabbing her laptop from her bag and returning to the couch.
“You can stay lying down.”
“It’s okay,” I said with a gentle shake of my head. “I’ve been curled up on the couch all morning. It would be good to be vertical for a while.”
It wasn’t technically a lie. I’d been curled up on the couch since in the morning. It was also a convenient excuse to put some distance between the two of us before I did something truly insane like confess my feelings for her.
“Suit yourself,” Imogen said, sitting down on the couch beside me. I sat up, leaning my head against the back of the couch. I stared at the ceiling of the farmhouse and listened to the gentle clacking of Imogen’s fingers on the keys.
“Anything interesting?”
“Not so far,” Imogen said. I looked at her laptop, awestruck, as I watched her deftly archive, delete, and organize the twenty emails sitting in our inbox.
“That will never not impress me.”
Imogen shot me a wry smile.
“It’s easy to make a system and stick to it. Don’t Marines love their organization?”
“The institution does. Individual service members? Not so much. The Marine Corps likes to develop the most convoluted systems that ‘make people’s lives easier’, but the exact opposite is true in practice.”
Imogen shrugged. “That makes sense, actually. You can have good intentions, but the impact isn’t always what you designed it to be.”
I bit the inside of my cheek as a question popped into my head. It was risky to ask Imogen anything about her past, but I needed to know.
“What did your ex-husband do? In the military, I mean. What was his job?”
Imogen stilled, and I inwardly cursed myself for opening my mouth.
“I don’t know the MOS number or anything like that. I just remember how much he’d go on and on about how important his job was, how Marines would die without him, yada yada. I think it was water related. Honestly, it’s a wonder I remember anything about him at this point. The only things I do remember are the things he used to remind me of all the damn time.”
