Page 72 of Love At The Shore
She shook her head, either unable or unwilling to hear him. Probably both. “You know what? I don’t want to argue with you about this.”
Of course not. She’d rather push him away.
Again.
“Fine,” he said quietly.
The last thing he wanted to do was argue. He just wanted things to go back to the way they’d been before. He wanted to bring Jenna flowers. He wanted to eat arugula and chocolate chips while her kids interrogated him again.
“You can go.” Jenna’s gaze flitted toward his half of the beach house. Then she added half-heartedly, “…if you want.”
He’d pushed her too far. He should have apologized, begged forgiveness and left it at that.
Lucas’s throat grew thick. It was suddenly impossible to swallow.
I should have been there for Nick. That’s what I should have done.
He searched Jenna’s gaze for a glimmer of hope, any sign whatsoever that she wanted him to stay. But all he saw there was pain—pain that he’d put there himself.
So he turned around and walked to the opposite side of the fence.
Back where he belonged.
Jenna stumbled toward the kitchen the next morning and yawned while she filled the coffee pot with water. Every bone in her body ached from tossing and turning the majority of the night.
She’d hated the way she’d left things with Lucas. No matter how angry she was, she couldn’t help the empty feeling that came over her every time she remembered the way he’d looked at her after she’d asked him to leave. His eyes had looked so haunted, so…desperate. If she hadn’t known better, she would’ve thought he’d fallen in love. Not just with her, but with Nick and Ally too.
He hadn’t, of course. He said so himself.
This is why I stay unattached.
Those words had hurt her more than she wanted to admit. Because no matter how very hard she’d tried to guard her heart—no matter how many walls she’d put up, both literally and figuratively—somewhere along the way, she’d fallen hard for Lucas McKinnon. She’d actually started to wonder what it might be like to be a family.
Otherwise, she would have never felt so hurt when he’d broken his promise to Nick.
Which meant on some level, this whole disaster was her fault. She’d let down her guard and look what had happened: a disaster of hurricane-like proportions.
Not anymore, she thought as she poured water into the coffee maker.
They only had two more days left at Tybee. She just had to get through the next couple of nights, and she’d never have to see Lucas’s handsome face or his precious dog ever again. She and the kids could go back to Savannah and resume their normal lives.
Their normal,safelives.
She pressed the start button on the coffee maker and took a deep, caffeinated inhale. “Mmm. Coffee.”
While her coffee brewed, she decided to pop into Nick and Ally’s room to wake them up. Maybe by the time she drank a cup—or three—of morning blend and got the pancakes going, they’d be dressed and ready to eat.
But when she pushed the door to their bedroom open, her heart leapt to her throat. Ally was sleeping soundly in her bed, but Nick’s bunk was empty.
Breathe, just breathe.
He was probably just in the bathroom or something…except she’d just passed the his-and-her double bathroom the kids shared and the door had been open, the room empty. Likewise, she’d had a good view of the deck from the kitchen and it had been empty as well. The entire house was so quiet she could hear seagulls squawking down at the beach.
“Ally!” She darted to Ally’s bunkbed and climbed the first few rungs of the ladder to shake her daughter awake. “Ally, honey. Where’s your brother?”
Ally burrowed further beneath the covers and answered without opening her eyes. “Don’t know.”
Jenna’s panic ratcheted up about ten notches. “He’s not in his bed.”
