Page 16 of In the Pursuit of Haven
“It’s fine. I already told you it’s nothing serious.”
“Her nameisDivine!”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah? So what?” He tugged on his shirt, then stopped short when he saw I’d made dinner. “That’s nice.” He gave me a distracted look. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes, okay? We’ll eat it together.”
“You have to tell me what’s happening.” My heart was racing out of my chest. What if? What if everything between us had been a lie?
What if he’d always been fooling me that he loved me and now tricking me came so easily to him? My father had done that to us! And I never understood. Why would anyone bother doing that? Unless Haven was right and he was just using me. No, no, none of that made sense.
I faced him. I had to fight for our love, even if he was too reckless and thoughtless to do it himself. “You’ve been different these past few months, almost like a stranger. You’re hardly here, always leaving on a job, but… this doesn’t sound like work, Jessie! Just be honest with me.”
“It’s work!” He let out a ragged, frustrated breath. “Hey, it’s not like you’ve been here all that much either. Now that you have some time off, you expect me to still be waiting around here to entertain you?”
“Excuse me?” This was our anniversary. Had he seriously forgotten?
“What else am I supposed to do?” he asked. “Now that we’ve moved from Salem, I’ve got to work harder to make ends meet.”
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. “Youwantedto come with me.”
“Yeah, I did.” His eyes glistened with emotion and he shrugged. “And this is our life now, okay? That’s why I’ve got to go and straighten this all out. It’s a big mess.”
“Fine.” I tossed up my hands. “But tell me what this is all about. You at least owe me that.”
He tugged his keys from the side table where he’d thrown them. He pushed his hat low against his head. “No, I don’t.”
Was he being serious right now? We were supposed to confide everything to each other. “Why won’t you tell me?” My suspicions came back tenfold. “It’s not that hard.”
A dark storm took over his face, like I was tweaking his temper by even questioning him. “Yeah, Roxy, it is! Just give me some space.”
Finn whimpered.
Had he really just said that? Panic froze me in place. “If you leave… if you leave, I might not be here when you get back.”
He stilled. “Oh, c’mon.” He let out a sound of frustration and turned away. I saw his strong shoulders. Those were the last things I’d seen of my father too. He stormed for the door, taking my heart with him. “You’ll be here,” he said.
“No, Jessie! I won’t.”
He turned then and came back to me. His kiss against my lips made me go cold—no, absolutely frozen! That had never happened between us before. He thought that could make things better, but things had just turned a million times worse. “Give me twenty minutes,” he whispered.
He went for the door again. Finn let out a bark and shot out the door with him, refusing to be left behind one more time. One last time.
I let out a breath.
What did we have left? He couldn’t talk to me! I didn’t know what to think, only knew what I felt—raw pain, and it sizzled over my skin like hot grease frying me alive like bacon on a burning skillet.
“Let the fire of your betrayal consume you.”
That old pirate sure got that right! Every part of me shook as I watched that clock. He’d been gone from me long before he actually left. I should’ve seen this coming. He’d come from a rough background where his drunken father yelled and his family scattered. Jessie didn’t know the first thing about communication, and that’s why I’d tried to give him a break. Me! Me, who should’ve known better after what my mother had been through before she met her dentist! I always ran from relationships, but not with Jessie… and he was the one I should’ve been most wary of.
Haven had tried to warn me.
My sobs ran through me and I desperately tried to stop them. He couldn’t know I was crying. He couldn’t know how much he hurt me. My self-respect couldn’t take it. My heart couldn’t face what my self-respect was telling me to do.
He said twenty minutes. That didn’t give me long to pull myself together.
I was so miserable and defeated that I didn’t want to be here when he got back. And I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to fight for what we had more than I cared about teaching him a lesson. When Jessie got home—I’d make him talk. He’d talk or I’d toss our anniversary dinner out the window and run. I’d make him chase me and he’d…
What was taking him so long?
